The Little Blue Devil/Pamela

For the first time in his life, Tony started off with “enough money to mention,” as he told Alison. He took a cheap train to New York, but when there he picked up a ship, the s.s. Matapan, and worked his passage to the Port of London from motives of economy and pleasure. He always loved the sea, he was craving for physical work again, and besides, it was always well to save money when one could. Berths weren’t always so easy to get. . . . But it was much easier to get signed on on the Matapan than it had been on his first venture. Tony was bigger and stronger now, a tall boy for his sixteen years, and he obviously knew what he was about. As he reflected, without bitterness, the less you need work, the easier it is to get it.

At London he left the Matapan and had the luck to be taken on one of the big liners about to sail on her periodical Mediterranean cruise. It was mainly because “they liked the look of him.” He knew this, and that he was lucky to be there at all, up in the aristocracy of merchant ships, although he had some small experience now and a good record. It was when you had to admit that you had never done that kind of work before—(how lame it always sounded!) that billets were hard to get.

But this one was particularly pleasant and comfortable, and it was good to see the Mediterranean again, improbably blue—a queer turquoise shade that Tony had never seen in any other part of the world—and to call at many varied ports, some of which reminded him of far-off, desperate ​young days on the Deux-Frères-Chambasse. That made Tony feel quite old and powerful and detached, and it was for that, during some years, that he chiefly remembered this voyage; but afterwards he marked it in his memory as the occasion of his first meeting with his cousin Pamela.

She was at that time a singularly pretty child of eleven—nearly twelve, as she said; very young for her age and chronically running away from her long-suffering if very particular governess.

It was thus that Tony first saw her. She burst upon his unaccustomed vision while he was polishing brass-work on the forward-well-deck, quite early in the voyage, the day before they reached Algiers. She had a sense of adventure, having reached regions hitherto unknown to her; (by this is meant the forward-well-deck, not Algiers, which for her held no intimate appeal.) Her blue eyes shone and danced, and her adorable pink mouth was energetically shut. She was rather dazzling. Tony had never before seen her like at close quarters, and if he said to himself that she was like a coloured summer supplement to a magazine, he meant no disrespect.

“Hullo!” he said, with little enthusiasm and no originality.

Pamela was slightly surprised at being so casually addressed by a sailorman. She was no more of a snob than any normal child who has been sedulously spoilt by everyone surrounding her throughout her whole life, but she could not help being conscious that she was the small Baroness Trent. That was one of the central facts of existence—one too firmly rooted to be talked about, but of which everybody must be aware.

“Hullo!” she returned politely, but with a faint touch of coldness utterly unnoticed by Tony.

“What are you doing down here?” he said.

Inquisitive! But his tone was friendly, and Pamela was a sweet-natured child. “Running away,” she explained.

​“That’s good. Who from?” He had not stopped working, but his tone showed no lack of interest.

“Miss Whitney—and she’s coming, I think!”

Lack of decision was not one of Tony’s many failings.

“Sit behind that big coil of rope and keep your head down. If I stand here no one can see you from above or in front.”

Pamela did as she was told; the advice was obviously good, though given so curtly that she hardly felt inclined to say thank you for it. The pursuing skirts rustled on after a short but harrowing pause, and Tony spoke again.

“She’s gone,” he said, prudently addressing the horizon.

“She won’t be back for a little while. Are you cramped there?”

“No, it’s quite comfortable. Where is she now? Can you see her?”

“No.”

“She’ll come back this way soon. She’s always following me.”

“That must be beastly.”

“Do they follow you then?”

“Not that way. But I know I shouldn’t like it.”

“What way do they follow you?”

“Oh, to see if I’ve done my work mostly.”

“Well, Miss Whitney comes to see about things like that, in a way, and to tell me to go and get tidied. I’m always being tidied.”

“Things generally are, on a ship,” said Tony perfunctorily, taking a fresh cloth to his brass.

“I’m not a thing!” Pamela said with some indignation. He turned and looked at her for the first time since her appearance. The Mediterranean eyes were quite stormy.

“Beg your pardon. Of course you aren’t. What’s your name?”

“I have lots and lots of names,” said Pamela with dignity.

​“Well—one of ’em?”

“Pamela is the one I’m called by.”

“Pamela! That’s pretty!”

What was it to him if her name was pretty or not? But Pamela was determined to be long-suffering, more especially as she found the new acquaintance rather interesting; he was so far out of her ordinary course, and he had such a nice brown face.

“What’s yours?” she enquired.

“Antony St. Croix—Tony for choice.”

“That’s a funny name for—for———”

“A common sailor? Well yes, it is rather. So I don’t use it much—I say Cross or Croy. They sound more—natural, don’t they?”

“Yes. . . . Do you like being a sailor?”

“Of course I do.” (“But I don’t know why I should say ‘of course,’” he reflected; “one doesn’t necessarily like one’s work.”)

“You don’t speak the way they usually do.”

“You mean I don’t drop my ‘h’s’?”

Pamela’s face went a brighter pink; she stammered slightly, and Tony was sorry he had spoken.

“I’ve been with people who talked differently,” he explained.

He was obviously not offended and Pamela was much relieved; she hated hurting people. “You’re—pretty young, aren’t you?” she said, rather timidly, after a short pause.

“I suppose so. I’m sixteen. I don’t feel very young. I was working when I was your age.”

The blue eyes opened very wide indeed. “Why?”

Tony laughed full-throated. “That’s a long story,” said he.

He looked curiously at Pamela; her hands were propping her chin; her elbows rested on her knees; fine smooth ​little hands, a pink tinge over the white—quite as wonderful as Alison’s in a different way, but so small.

“I don’t believe your hands have ever done anything all your life—and I don’t suppose they ever will, much,” he said thoughtfully. Then he looked sideways at the brass, decided it had reached the maximum of shine, and straightened himself to go on to the next.

“I do lots of things!” said Pamela.

“Do you? Well, it doesn’t matter, does it? You don’t need to—that’s the main thing. . . . I say, I think your governess is coming back.”

The cracking friendship was soldered again. “Oh, is she? If I go down that passage on the right, where do I come out?”

“At the second stairway. That’s all right. Good-bye.”

He began a fresh bit of polishing, whistling as he worked. Such a pretty kid, it was nice to talk to her. But it must be funny to live in cotton-wool like that . . . he had never seen a child who looked so expensive, and yet her dress was simple enough. . . .

Pamela thought over the interview too. It was practically her first experience of talking to anyone unauthorised, and consequently quite an adventure. Besides, he had been very kind to her, this sailor who looked different from all the others—although he hadn’t known she was Lady Trent. How queer it would be to have to work—but he didn’t seem to mind it. For the next few days the little morocco diary which she carefully wrote up every morning with a new fountain-pen (which would somehow leak, and smudge her fingers horribly) contained brief references to “my Brown Faced Boy”—the sole acquaintance she made on the trip, so careful was Miss Whitney, so many the instructions with which Aunt Sophia had hedged her round.

They met once or twice again before the end of the voyage. Tony looked forward to those meetings; they ​were unusually pleasant spots in a pleasant and quite uneventful voyage. It was good to know that that pink-and-white kid was sport enough to want to get away from the watch-dogs now and then.

But at the end they parted without saying good-bye, and went their ways forgetting; Tony had plenty of varied interests to occupy his thoughts, and Pamela returned to her orderly, sheltered life at Trent Stoke. It was rather a loveless little life, on the whole, though the child was scarcely aware of it. Her father she could not remember at all. Her mother’s sudden death when Pamela was not more than five was still remembered with a sense of awe—nothing more, for Elizabeth Learmonth, reserved and undemonstrative, had never made a pet of her small daughter. Pamela was not used to petting. No one had ever been unkind to her; she was surrounded by care—cramped and stifled with it, in reality; spoilt by a profusion of attentions and toys; but she had to be satisfied with the love bestowed by governesses and her old nurse, for Aunt Sophia, though devoted to Pamela’s interests, could not be described as loving. Her grandfather’s death, three years ago now—(Tony was droving somewhere in Australia then)—had made very little difference to her really. She had been rather afraid of the taciturn old man who took so little notice of his granddaughter. She liked being Lady Trent—it gave one a pleasantly important feeling—and she liked to know that Trent Stoke was always to be her home—her very own—for she loved it all—the grey, impressive old house, the beautiful gardens, and, best of all, the park, especially when she was allowed to walk there by herself, which was very seldom. She was fond of Aunt Sophia, of course, and of Miss Whitney too; but grownups did spoil one’s best thoughts and break up all one’s dreams.

Aunt Sophia and Uncle Roger Learmonth spent a great ​part of the year at Trent Stoke, especially after the death of Lord Trent; and in holiday time came various cousins or other carefully selected small guests with whom Pamela must make friends. Pamela did what was expected of her. She was hostess, and one must be civil, and she supposed Aunt Sophia called this “making friends”—being polite, and playing the games the others wanted, and riding where they chose. But somehow Pamela never derived much satisfaction from her youthful house-parties, and always said good-bye to the last little guest with subdued feelings of joy and relief.

In school-time she had to rely on the Rector’s daughter for companionship. Hester shared her French and German lessons and usually stayed for an hour afterwards, “to play,” Aunt Sophia said; but Hester was a solemn person who at thirteen considered the imaginative games which were Pamela's delight decidedly beneath her. So the two children usually strolled sedately through the gardens engaged in conversations which mostly ended in a strong desire on Pamela’s part to shake Hester thoroughly.

Hester had no sympathy with Pamela’s small bursts of rebellion.

“I think it’s dreadfully ungrateful of you, Pamela,” she remarked severely, her small mouth “If you are not content to live in a beautiful place like Trent Stoke I’m sure I don’t know what you can want.”

“You don’t understand, Hester. Of course I love Trent Stoke—I adore every bit of it—I wouldn’t live anywhere else for worlds, but———”

“I really don’t see what you mean, then, Pamela.”

“No. You never do. . . . Oh, I daresay it’s my own fault—I’m explaining very badly—but what I hate is this sort of feeling of being kept back all the time. It never seems as if I had time even to think as I want to before ​somebody starts up from somewhere and says I am to go here, or stay there, or eat this, or learn that. I’m not one bit free.”

“But, Pamela, we’re none of us a bit free—I’ve often heard papa say so. It’s like that in whatever walk in life one is placed.” (Hester had lately been promoted to a class in the Sunday School, and her conversation at present was thickly sown with phrases which she stored up and practised on her unresponsive class.)

“Most people are a good deal freer than I am, anyhow,” Pamela persisted. “You are yourself, Hester.”

“In a way. But none of your cousins are. They all have governesses and masters, and aren’t allowed out alone, any more than you are. I suppose you get your ideas out of books, Pamela. It seems a pity to read things that make one discontented.”

Did she get her ideas from books? Yes, perhaps she did. Pamela lost herself in a train of thought, oblivious of Hester, who asked her presently:

“Are you cross?”

“No. At least, never mind. We’ll talk about other things.” Already Pamela’s soft heart reproached her, for she had been cross to Hester. She took her hand with a friendly squeeze, and asked what it was like to teach in Sunday School.