"Bennett!"
"Wilhelmina Bennett. My friends," she said softly as she turned away, "call me Billie!"
For some moments Sam remained where he was staring after the girl as she flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics always have an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling a little dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning to readjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening to Eustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed an unflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off her engagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had been short of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a little smugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the object of Eustace Hignett's affections. And how they had proved to be one and the same. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the vampire of a five-reel feature film turn into the heroine.
Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's identity, might have felt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrous entanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. The way he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about Wilhelmina Bennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girl had maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing so must have been excellent and praiseworthy.
After all … poor old Eustace … quite a good fellow, no doubt in many ways … but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustace that gave him any license to monopolise the affections of a wonderful girl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made a tremendous grievance of the fact that she had broken off the engagement, but what right had he to go about the place expecting her to be engaged to him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor girl as utterly heartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly sensible. She had made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she had had the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor old Eustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that Wilhelmina Bennett—her friends called her Billie—had not behaved in a perfectly splendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina Bennett—Billie to her intimates—who made the world worth living in.
Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was a delightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a few times. "Billie … Billie … Billie…." It certainly ran pleasantly off the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Still better. "We noticed among those present the charming and popular Mrs. 'Billie' Marlowe."
A consuming desire came over him to talk about the girl to someone. Obviously indicated as the party of the second part was Eustace Hignett. If Eustace was still capable of speech—and after all the boat was hardly rolling at all—he would enjoy a further chat about his ruined life. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's society. As a man who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, Eustace Hignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some great public monument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Sam entered the state-room almost reverentially with something of the emotions of a boy going into his first dime museum.
The exhibit was lying on his back staring at the roof of the berth. By lying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inland scenes and objects he had contrived to reduce the green in his complexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth to say that he feltdebonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity.
"Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bear it."
"Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to be sea-sick already."
"I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind off it … I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinking steadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm, "is a place for you! That is something like a spot! Miles and miles of sand and not a drop of water anywhere!"
Sam sat down on the lounge.
"You're quite right. The great thing is to concentrate your mind on other topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about your unfortunate affair with that girl—Billie Bennett I think you said her name was."
"Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her name was Billie?"
"I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie to their friends."
"I never call her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talk about it. The recollection tortures me."
"That's just what you want. It's the counter-irritation principle.Persevere and you'll soon forget that you're on board ship at all."
"There's something in that," admitted Eustace reflectively. "It's very good of you to be so sympathetic and interested."
"My dear fellow … anything that I can do … where did you meet her first, for instance?"
"At a dinner…." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a good memory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at that dinner—a flabby and exhausted looking fish, half sunk beneath the surface of a thick white sauce.
"And what struck you most forcibly about her at first? Her lovely hair,I suppose?"
"How did you know she had lovely hair?"
"My dear chap, I naturally assumed that any girl with whom you fell in love would have nice hair."
"Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkably beautiful. It was red…."
"Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically.
"What an extraordinary thing! That is an absolutely exact description.Her eyes were a deep blue…."
"Or, rather, green."
"Blue."
"Green. There is a shade of green that looks blue."
"What the devil do you know about the colour of her eyes?" demandedEustace heatedly. "Am I telling you about her, or are you telling me?"
"My dear old man, don't get excited. Don't you see I am trying to construct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't pretend to doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes generally do go with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the bright green of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faint yellowish green of your face at the present moment…."
"Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded me just when I was beginning to forget."
"Awfully sorry! Stupid of me! Get your mind off it again—quick! What were you saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to form a mental picture of people if one knows something about their tastes—what sort of things they are interested in, their favourite topics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did she like talking about?"
"Oh, all sorts of things."
"Yes, but what?"
"Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that which first drew us together."
"Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount of poetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings and sixpence for the last line of a limerick in a competition in a weekly paper, but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not his long suit. Still there was a library on board ship and no doubt it would be possible to borrow the works of some standard poet and bone them up from time to time.
"Any special poet?"
"Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence on Spring, did you?"
"No. What other poets did she like besides you?"
"Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiver in his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls of the King!"
"The which of what?" enquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket and shooting out a cuff.
"The Idylls of the King. My good man, I know you have a soul which would be considered inadequate by a common earthworm, but you have surely heard of Tennyson's Idylls of the King?"
"Oh,those! Why, my dear old chap; Tennyson's Idylls of theKing! Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's Idylls of theKing? Well, really! I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board byany chance?"
"There is a copy in my kit-bag. The very one we used to read together. Take it and keep it or throw it overboard. I don't want to see it again."
Sam prospected among the shirts, collars and trousers in the bag and presently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on the lounge.
"Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sort of picture of this girl, this—what was her name again? Bennett—this Miss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make her seem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen on golf, by any chance, I suppose?"
"I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed rather enthusiastic. Why?"
"Well, I'd much sooner talk to a girl about golf than poetry."
"You are hardly likely to be in a position to have to talk toWilhelmina Bennett about either, I should imagine."
"No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Some girls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start conversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on Miss Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that at one time or another you may have said something that offended her. I mean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement if you had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything."
"Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. She had a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekingese. If there was ever any shadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I made rather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after we were married."
"I see!" said Sam. He shot his cuff once more and wrote on it:"Dog-conciliate."
"Yes, of course, that must have wounded her."
"Not half so much as he wounded me! He pinned me by the ankle the day before we—Wilhelmina and I, I mean—were to have been married. It is some satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got home on the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him clean over the Chesterfield."
Sam shook his head reprovingly.
"You shouldn't have done that!" he said. He extended his cuff and added the words "Vitally important" to what he had just written. "It was probably that which decided her."
"Well, I hate dogs," said Eustace Hignett querulously. "I remember Wilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to step in and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, who were fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fighters now-a-days, that life itself was in a sense a fight: but she wouldn't be reasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like a shot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad was ever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he wore armour. Give me a suit of mail reaching well down over the ankles, and I will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in thin flannel trousers no!"
Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed that the girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his high opinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in a favourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised with it. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? How could she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world in the quest for deeds of daring do, had fallen down so lamentably on his first assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor old Eustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he wrote poetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but, as a partner for life … well, he simply wouldn't do. That was all there was to it. He simply didn't add up right. The man a girl like Wilhelmina Bennett required for a husband was somebody entirely different … somebody, felt Samuel Marlowe, much more like Samuel Marlowe.
Swelled almost to bursting-point with these reflections, he went on deck to join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. She had put on one of these nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance feminine charms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze playing in her vivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking. Beside her walked young Mr. Bream Mortimer.
Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. What magic there is in a girl's smile! It is the raisin which, dropped in the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation.
"Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!"
"Oh,thereyou are," said Bream Mortimer, with a slightly different inflection.
"I thought I'd like a breath of fresh air before lunch," said Sam.
"Oh, Bream!" said the girl.
"Hello?"
"Do be a darling and take this great heavy coat of mine down to my state-room will you? I had no idea it was so warm."
"I'll carry it," said Bream.
"Nonsense. I wouldn't dream of burdening you with it. Trot along and put it on the berth. It doesn't matter about folding it up."
"All right," said Bream moodily.
He trotted along. There are moments when a man feels that all he needs in order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver.
"He had better chirrup to the dog while he's there, don't you think?" suggested Sam. He felt that a resolute man with legs as long as Bream's might well deposit a cloak on a berth and be back under the half-minute.
"Oh, yes! Bream!"
"Hello?"
"While you're down there just chirrup a little more to poor Pinky. He does appreciate it so!"
Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from a glance at a man's back; but Bream's back looked like that of a man to whom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and a piano, he would have made a good hired orchestra.
"How is your dear little dog, by the way?" enquired Sam solicitously, as he fell into step by her side.
"Much better now, thanks. I've made friends with a girl on board—did you ever hear her name—Jane Hubbard—she's a rather well-known big-game hunter and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did him a world of good. I don't know what was in it except Worcester Sauce, but she said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had the botts … it's very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor Pinky when he bit you."
"Animal spirits!" said Sam tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits! I like to see them. But, of course, I love all dogs."
"Oh, do you? So do I!"
"I only wish they didn't fight so much. I'm always stopping dog fights."
"I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog fight. I'm afraid I'm rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of." She looked down. "Have you been reading? What is the book?"
"It's a volume of Tennyson."
"Are you fond of Tennyson?"
"I worship him," said Sam reverently. "Those—" he glanced at his cuff—"those Idylls of the King! I do not like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennyson with me."
"We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!"
"We will! There is something about Tennyson…."
"Yes, isn't there! I've felt that myself so often!"
"Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while others call it a day when they've written something that runs to a couple of verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was just as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with his chip-shots."
"That sounds as though you played golf."
"When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the links. Do you play?"
"I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common.We really ought to be great friends."
He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle sounded.
"Oh, dear!" she cried. "I must rush. But we shall see one another again up here afterwards?"
"We will," said Sam.
"We'll sit and read Tennyson."
"Fine! Er—you and I and Mortimer?"
"Oh, no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky."
"Does he—does he know he is?"
"Not yet," said Billie. "I'm going to tell him at lunch."
It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is done in the movies they won't be satisfied with a bald statement like that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:—
and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other cheek and take a firmer grip of their companions' hands and the man at the piano will play "Everybody wants a key to my cellar" or something equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the plain frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is my story and I mean to stick to it.
Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the stateroom from his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and exuberant.
It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, but what of that?
Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe's grandfather had convinced himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe's grandmother-to-be was love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he came to the "Thee—only thee!" bit, he felt a mild sense of encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to mention his name in the course of conversation. Furtherpour-parlershaving passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began "Madam! you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary friendship…." he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing off.
How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir W. S. Gilbert's Alphonso.
"Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks,He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six:'Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!'And Emily said: 'Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!'"
Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a bright young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that Wilhelmina Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of time to be his bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the dock, and all the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, soup-drinking, tea-drinking, and shuffle-board-playing which they had done together had merely solidified his original impression. He loved this girl with all the force of a fiery nature—the fiery nature of the Marlowes was a byword in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square—and something seemed to whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not see where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself. So, wind and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to Wilhelmina Bennett this very day.
He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face.
"I am the Bandolero!" sang Sam blithely through the soap, "I am, I am the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!"
The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly.
"Oh, God!" said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head.
Sam regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been happening to Eustace during the last few days, and it was quite a pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive.
"Feeling bad again, old man?"
"I was feeling all right," replied Hignett churlishly, "until you began the farmyard imitations. What sort of a day is it?"
"Glorious! The sea…."
"Don't talk about the sea!"
"Sorry! The sun is shining brighter than it has ever shone in the history of the race. Why don't you get up?"
"Nothing will induce me to get up."
"Well, go a regular buster and have an egg for breakfast."
Eustace Hignett shuddered.
"Do you think I am an ostrich?" He eyed Sam sourly. "You seem devilish pleased with yourself this morning!"
Sam dried the razor carefully and put it away. He hesitated. Then the desire to confide in somebody got the better of him.
"The fact is," he said apologetically, "I'm in love!"
"In love!" Eustace Hignett sat up and bumped his head sharply against the berth above him. "Has this been going on long?"
"Ever since the voyage started."
"I think you might have told me," said Eustace reproachfully. "I told you my troubles. Why did you not let me know that this awful thing had come upon you?"
"Well, as a matter of fact, old man, during these last few days I had a notion that your mind was, so to speak, occupied elsewhere."
"Who is she?"
"Oh, a girl I met on board."
"Don't do it!" said Eustace Hignett solemnly. "As a friend I entreat you not to do it! Take my advice, as a man who knows women, and don't do it!"
"Don't do what?"
"Propose to her. I can tell by the glitter in your eye that you are intending to propose to this girl—probably this morning. Don't do it. Women are the devil, whether they marry you or jilt you. Do you realise that women wear black evening dresses that have to be hooked up in a hurry when you are late for the theatre, and that, out of sheer wanton malignity, the hooks and eyes on those dresses are also made black? Do you realise…?"
"Oh, I've thought it all out."
"And take the matter of children. How would you like to become the father—and a mere glance around you will show you that the chances are enormously in favour of such a thing happening—of a boy with spectacles and protruding front teeth who asks questions all the time? Out of six small boys whom I saw when I came on board, four wore spectacles and had teeth like rabbits. The other two were equally revolting in different styles. How would you like to become the father…?"
"There is no need to be indelicate," said Sam stiffly. "A man must take these chances."
"Give her the miss in baulk," pleaded Hignett. "Stay down here for the rest of the voyage. You can easily dodge her when you get to Southampton. And, if she sends messages, say you're ill and can't be disturbed."
Sam gazed at him, revolted. More than ever he began to understand how it was that a girl with ideals had broken off her engagement with this man. He finished dressing, and, after a satisfying breakfast, went on deck.
* * * * *
It was, as he had said, a glorious morning. The sample which he had had through the porthole had not prepared him for the magic of it. The ship swam in a vast bowl of the purest blue on an azure carpet flecked with silver. It was a morning which impelled a man to great deeds, a morning which shouted to him to chuck his chest out and be romantic. The sight of Billie Bennett, trim and gleaming in a pale green sweater and a white skirt had the effect of causing Marlowe to alter the programme which he had sketched out. Proposing to this girl was not a thing to be put off till after lunch. It was a thing to be done now and at once. The finest efforts of the finest cooks in the world could not put him in better form than he felt at present.
"Good morning, Miss Bennett."
"Good morning, Mr. Marlowe."
"Isn't it a perfect day?"
"Wonderful!"
"It makes all the difference on board ship if the weather is fine."
"Yes, doesn't it?"
"Shall we walk round?" said Billie.
Sam glanced about him. It was the time of day when the promenade deck was always full. Passengers in cocoons of rugs lay on chairs, waiting in a dull trance till the steward should arrive with the eleven o'clock soup. Others, more energetic, strode up and down. From the point of view of a man who wished to reveal his most sacred feelings to a beautiful girl, the place was practically Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street.
"It's so crowded," he said. "Let's go on to the upper deck."
"All right. You can read to me. Go and fetch your Tennyson."
Sam felt that fortune was playing into his hands. His four-days' acquaintance with the bard had been sufficient to show him that the man was there forty ways when it came to writing about love. You could open his collected works almost anywhere and shut your eyes and dab down your finger on some red-hot passage. A proposal of marriage is a thing which it is rather difficult to bring neatly into the ordinary run of conversation. It wants leading up to. But, if you once start reading poetry, especially Tennyson's, almost anything is apt to give you your cue. He bounded light-heartedly into the state-room, waking Eustace Hignett from an uneasy dose.
"Now what?" said Eustace.
"Where's that copy of Tennyson you gave me? I left it—ah, here it is.Well, see you later!"
"Wait! What are you going to do?"
"Oh, that girl I told you about," said Sam making for the door. "She wants me to read Tennyson to her on the upper deck."
"Tennyson?"
"Yes."
"On the upper deck?"
"That's the spot."
"This is the end," said Eustace Hignett, turning his face to the wall.
Sam raced up the companion-way as far as it went; then, going out on deck, climbed a flight of steps and found himself in the only part of the ship which was ever even comparatively private. The main herd of passengers preferred the promenade deck, two layers below.
He threaded his way through a maze of boats, ropes, and curious-shaped steel structures which the architect of the ship seemed to have tacked on at the last moment in a spirit of sheer exuberance. Above him towered one of the funnels, before him a long, slender mast. He hurried on, and presently came upon Billie sitting on a garden seat, backed by the white roof of the smoke-room; beside this was a small deck which seemed to have lost its way and strayed up here all by itself. It was the deck on which one could occasionally see the patients playing an odd game with long sticks and bits of wood—not shuffleboard but something even lower in the mental scale. This morning, however, the devotees of this pastime were apparently under proper restraint, for the deck was empty.
"This is jolly," he said, sitting down beside the girl and drawing a deep breath of satisfaction.
"Yes, I love this deck. It's so peaceful."
"It's the only part of the ship where you can be reasonably sure of not meeting stout men in flannels and nautical caps. An ocean voyage always makes me wish that I had a private yacht."
"It would be nice."
"A private yacht," repeated Sam sliding a trifle closer. "We would sail about, visiting desert islands which lay like jewels in the heart of tropic seas."
"We?"
"Most certainly we. It wouldn't be any fun if you were not there."
"That's very complimentary."
"Well, it wouldn't. I'm not fond of girls as a rule…."
"Oh, aren't you?"
"No!" said Sam decidedly. It was a point which he wished to make clear at the outset. "Not at all fond. My friends have often remarked upon it. A palmist once told me that I had one of those rare spiritual natures which cannot be satisfied with substitutes but must seek and seek till they find their soul-mate. When other men all round me were frittering away their emotions in idle flirtations which did not touch their deeper natures, I was … I was … well, I wasn't, if you see what I mean."
"Oh, you wasn't … weren't—?"
"No. Some day I knew I should meet the only girl I could possibly love, and then I would pour out upon her the stored-up devotion of a lifetime, lay an unblemished heart at her feet, fold her in my arms and say 'At last!'"
"How jolly for her. Like having a circus all to oneself."
"Well, yes," said Sam after a momentary pause.
"When I was a child I always thought that that would be the most wonderful thing in the world."
"The most wonderful thing in the world is love, a pure and consuming love, a love which…."
"Oh, hello!" said a voice.
All through this scene, right from the very beginning of it, Sam had not been able to rid himself of a feeling that there was something missing. The time and the place and the girl—they were all present and correct; nevertheless there was something missing, some familiar object which seemed to leave a gap. He now perceived that what had caused the feeling was the complete absence of Bream Mortimer. He was absent no longer. He was standing in front of them with one leg, his head lowered as if he were waiting for someone to scratch it. Sam's primary impulse was to offer him a nut.
"Oh, hello, Bream!" said Billie.
"Hullo!" said Sam.
"Hullo!" said Bream Mortimer. "Here you are!"
There was a pause.
"I thought you might be here," said Bream.
"Yes, here we are," said Billie.
"Yes, we're here," said Sam.
There was another pause.
"Mind if I join you?" said Bream.
"N-no," said Billie.
"N-no," said Sam.
"No," said Billie again. "No … that is to say … oh no, not at all."
There was a third pause.
"On second thoughts," said Bream, "I believe I'll take a stroll on the promenade deck, if you don't mind."
They said they did not mind. Bream Mortimer, having bumped his head twice against overhanging steel ropes, melted away.
"Who is that fellow?" demanded Sam wrathfully.
"He's the son of father's best friend."
Sam started. Somehow this girl had always been so individual to him that he had never thought of her having a father.
"We have known each other all our lives," continued Billie. "Father thinks a tremendous lot of Bream. I suppose it was because Bream was sailing by her that father insisted on my coming over on this boat. I'm in disgrace, you know. I was cabled for and had to sail at a few days' notice. I…."
"Oh, hello!"
"Why, Bream!" said Billie, looking at him as he stood on the old spot in the same familiar attitude with rather less affection than the son of her father's best friend might have expected. "I thought you said you were going down to the Promenade Deck."
"I did go down to the promenade deck. And I'd hardly got there when a fellow who's getting up the ship's concert to-morrow night nobbled me to do a couple of songs. He wanted to know if I knew anyone else who would help. I came up to ask you," he said to Sam, "if you would do something."
"No," said Sam. "I won't."
"He's got a man who's going to lecture on deep-sea fish and a couple of women who both want to sing 'The Rosary' but he's still an act or two short. Sure you won't rally round?"
"Quite sure."
"Oh, all right." Bream Mortimer hovered wistfully above them. "It's a great morning, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Sam.
"Oh, Bream!" said Billie.
"Hello?"
"Do be a pet and go and talk to Jane Hubbard. I'm sure she must be feeling lonely. I left her all by herself down on the next deck."
A look of alarm spread itself over Bream's face.
"Jane Hubbard! Oh, say, have a heart!"
"She's a very nice girl."
"She's so darned dynamic. She looks at you as if you were a giraffe or something and she would like to take a pot at you with a rifle."
"Nonsense! Run along. Get her to tell you some of her big-game hunting experiences. They are most interesting."
Bream drifted sadly away.
"I don't blame Miss Hubbard," said Sam.
"What do you mean?"
"Looking at him as if she wanted to pot at him with a rifle. I should like to do it myself. What were you saying when he came up?"
"Oh, don't let's talk about me. Read me some Tennyson."
Sam opened the book very willingly. Infernal Bream Mortimer had absolutely shot to pieces the spell which had begun to fall on them at the beginning of their conversation. Only by reading poetry, it seemed to him, could it be recovered. And when he saw the passage at which the volume had opened he realised that his luck was in. Good old Tennyson! He was all right. He had the stuff. You could send him to hit in a pinch every time with the comfortable knowledge that he would not strike out.
He cleared his throat.
"'Oh let the solid groundNot fail beneath my feetBefore my life has foundWhat some have found so sweet;Then let come what come may,What matter if I go mad,I shall have had my day.
Let the sweet heavens endure,Not close and darken above meBefore I am quite quite sureThat there is one to love me….'"
This was absolutely topping. It was like diving off a spring-board. He could see the girl sitting with a soft smile on her face, her eyes, big and dreamy, gazing out over the sunlit sea. He laid down the book and took her hand.
"There is something," he began in a low voice, "which I have been trying to say ever since we met, something which I think you must have read in my eyes."
Her head was bent. She did not withdraw her hand.
"Until this voyage began," he went on, "I did not know what life meant. And then I saw you! It was like the gate of heaven opening. You're the dearest girl I ever met, and you can bet I'll never forget…." He stopped. "I'm not trying to make it rhyme," he said apologetically. "Billie, don't think me silly … I mean … if you had the merest notion, dearest … I don't know what's the matter with me … Billie, darling, you are the only girl in the world! I have been looking for you for years and years and I have found you at last, my soul-mate. Surely this does not come as a surprise to you? That is, I mean, you must have seen that I've been keen … There's that damned Walt Mason stuff again!" His eyes fell on the volume beside him and he uttered an exclamation of enlightenment. "It's those poems!" he cried. "I've been boning them up to such an extent that they've got me doing it too. What I'm trying to say is, Will you marry me?"
She was drooping towards him. Her face was very sweet and tender, her eyes misty. He slid an arm about her waist. She raised her lips to his.
* * * * *
Suddenly she drew herself away, a cloud on her face.
"Darling," she said, "I've a confession to make."
"A confession? You? Nonsense!"
"I can't get rid of a horrible thought. I was wondering if this will last."
"Our love? Don't be afraid that it will fade … I mean … why, it's so vast, it's bound to last … that is to say, of course, it will."
She traced a pattern on the deck with her shoe.
"I'm afraid of myself. You see, once before—and it was not so very long ago,—I thought I had met my ideal, but…."
Sam laughed heartily.
"Are you worrying about that absurd business of poor old EustaceHignett?"
She started violently.
"You know!"
"Of course! He told me himself."
"Do you know him? Where did you meet him?"
"I've known him all my life. He's my cousin. As a matter of fact, we are sharing a stateroom on board now."
"Eustace is on board! Oh, this is awful! What shall I do when I meet him?"
"Oh, pass it off with a light laugh and a genial quip. Just say: 'Oh, here you are!' or something. You know the sort of thing."
"It will be terrible."
"Not a bit of it. Why should you feel embarrassed? He must have realised by now that you acted in the only possible way. It was absurd his ever expecting you to marry him. I mean to say, just look at it dispassionately … Eustace … poor old Eustace … andyou! The Princess and the Swineherd!"
"Does Mr. Hignett keep pigs?" she asked, surprised.
"I mean that poor old Eustace is so far below you, darling, that, with the most charitable intentions, one can only look on his asking you to marry him in the light of a record exhibition of pure nerve. A dear, good fellow, of course, but hopeless where the sterner realities of life are concerned. A man who can't even stop a dog-fight! In a world which is practically one seething mass of fighting dogs, how could you trust yourself to such a one? Nobody is fonder of Eustace Hignett than I am, but … well, I mean to say!"
"I see what you mean. He really wasn't my ideal."
"Not by a mile."
She mused, her chin in her hand.
"Of course, he was quite a dear in a lot of ways."
"Oh, a splendid chap," said Sam tolerantly.
"Have you ever heard him sing? I think what first attracted me to him was his beautiful voice. He really sings extraordinarily well."
A slight but definite spasm of jealousy afflicted Sam. He had no objection to praising poor old Eustace within decent limits, but the conversation seemed to him to be confining itself too exclusively to one subject.
"Yes?" he said. "Oh yes, I've heard him sing. Not lately. He does drawing-room ballads and all that sort of thing still, I suppose?"
"Have you ever heard him sing 'My love is like a glowing tulip that in an old-world garden grows'?"
"I have not had that advantage," replied Sam stiffly. "But anyone can sing a drawing-room ballad. Now something funny, something that will make people laugh, something that really needs putting across … that's a different thing altogether."
"Do you sing that sort of thing?"
"People have been good enough to say…."
"Then," said Billie decidedly, "you must certainly do something at the ship's concert to-morrow! The idea of your trying to hide your light under a bushel! I will tell Bream to count on you. He is an excellent accompanist. He can accompany you."
"Yes, but … well, I don't know," said Sam doubtfully. He could not help remembering that the last time he had sung in public had been at a house-supper at school, seven years before, and that on that occasion somebody whom it was a lasting grief to him that he had been unable to identify had thrown a pat of butter at him.
"Of course you must sing," said Billie. "I'll tell Bream when I go down to lunch. What will you sing?"
"Well—er—"
"Well, I'm sure it will be wonderful whatever it is. You are so wonderful in every way. You remind me of one of the heroes of old!"
Sam's discomposure vanished. In the first place, this was much more the sort of conversation which he felt the situation indicated. In the second place he had remembered that there was no need for him to sing at all. He could do that imitation of Frank Tinney which had been such a hit at the Trinity smoker. He was on safe ground there. He knew he was good. He clasped the girl to him and kissed her sixteen times.
Suddenly, as he released her, the cloud came back into her face.
"My angel," he asked solicitously, "what's the matter?"
"I was thinking of father," she said.
The glowing splendour of the morning took on a touch of chill for Sam.
"Father!" he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I see what you mean! He will think that we have been a little precipitate, eh? He will require a little time in order to learn to love me, you think?"
"He is sure to be pretty angry at first," agreed Billie. "You see I know he has always hoped that I would marry Bream."
"Bream! Bream Mortimer! What a silly thing to hope!"
"Well, you see, I told you that Mr. Mortimer was father's best friend. They are both over in England now, and are trying to get a house in the country for the summer which we can all share. I rather think the idea is to bring me and Bream closer together."
"How the deuce could that fellow be brought any closer to you? He's like a burr as it is."
"Well, that was the idea, I'm sure. Of course, I could never look atBream now."
"I hate looking at him myself," said Sam feelingly.
A group of afflicted persons, bent upon playing with long sticks and bits of wood, now invaded the upper deck. Their weak-minded cries filled the air. Sam and the girl rose.
"Touching on your father once more," he said as they made their way below, "is he a very formidable sort of man?"
"He can be a dear. But he's rather quick-tempered. You must be very ingratiating."
"I will practise it in front of the glass every morning for the rest of the voyage," said Sam.
He went down to the stateroom in a mixed mood of elation and apprehension. He was engaged to the most wonderful girl in the world, but over the horizon loomed the menacing figure of Father. He wished he could induce Billie to allow him to waive the formality of thawing Father. Eustace Hignett had apparently been able to do so. But that experience had presumably engendered a certain caution in her. The Hignett fiasco had spoiled her for runaway marriages. Well, if it had to be done, it must be done, and that was all there was to it.
"Good God!" cried Eustace Hignett.
He stared at the figure which loomed above him in the fading light which came through the porthole of the stateroom. The hour was seven-thirty and he had just woken from a troubled doze, full of strange nightmares, and for the moment he thought that he must still be dreaming, for the figure before him could have walked straight into any nightmare and no questions asked. Then suddenly he became aware that it was his cousin, Samuel Marlowe. As in the historic case of father in the pigstye, he could tell him by his hat. But why was he looking like that? Was it simply some trick of the uncertain light, or was his face really black and had his mouth suddenly grown to six times its normal size and become a vivid crimson?
Sam turned. He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab with a piece of burnt cork and made it blacker.
"Hullo! You awake?" he said and switched on the light.
Eustace Hignett shied like a startled horse. His friend's profile, seen dimly, had been disconcerting enough. Full face, he was a revolting object. Nothing that Eustace Hignett had encountered in his recent dreams—and they had included such unusual fauna as elephants in top hats and running shorts—had affected him so profoundly. Sam's appearance smote him like a blow. It seemed to take him straight into a different and dreadful world.
"What … what … what…?" he gurgled.
Sam squinted at himself in the glass and added a touch of black to his nose.
"How do I look?"
Eustace Hignett began to fear that his cousin's reason must have become unseated. He could not conceive of any really sane man, looking like that, being anxious to be told how he looked.
"Are my lips red enough? It's for the ship's concert, you know. It starts in half an hour, though I believe I'm not on till the second part. Speaking as a friend, would you put a touch more black round the ears, or are they all right?"
Curiosity replaced apprehension in Hignett's mind.
"What on earth are you doing performing at the ship's concert?"
"Oh, they roped me in. It got about somehow that I was a valuable man and they wouldn't take no." Sam deepened the colour of his ears. "As a matter of fact," he said casually, "my fiancee made rather a point of my doing something."
A sharp yell from the lower berth proclaimed the fact that the significance of the remark had not been lost on Eustace.
"Your fiancee?"
"The girl I'm engaged to. Didn't I tell you about that? Yes, I'm engaged."
Eustace sighed heavily.
"I feared the worst. Tell me, who is she?"
"Didn't I tell you her name?"
"No."
"Curious! I must have forgotten." He hummed an airy strain as he blackened the tip of his nose. "It's rather a curious coincidence, really. Her name is Bennett."
"She may be a relation."
"That's true. Of course, girls do have relations."
"What is her first name?"
"That is another rather remarkable thing. It's Wilhelmina."
"Wilhelmina!"
"Of course, there must be hundreds of girls in the world calledWilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence."
"What colour is her hair?" demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice."Her hair! What colour is it?"
"Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, you might call it auburn … or russet … or you might call it Titian…."
"Never mind what you might call it. Is it red?"
"Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put it to me like that, itisred."
"Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, like a kitten with a ball of wool?"
"Yes. Yes, she has."
Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry.
"Sam," he said, "can you bear a shock?"
"I'll have a dash at it."
"Brace up!"
"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marryme."
"Well, well!" said Sam.
There was a silence.
"Awfully sorry, of course, and all that," said Sam.
"Don't apologise to me!" said Eustace. "My poor old chap, my only feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity." He reached out and pressed Sam's hand. "I regard you as a toad beneath the harrow!"
"Well, I suppose that's one way of offering congratulations and cheery good wishes."
"And on top of that," went on Eustace, deeply moved. "You have got to sing at the ship's concert."
"Why shouldn't I sing at the ship's concert?"
"My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that you can't sing. You can't sing for nuts! I don't want to discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can't have forgotten what an ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue."
Sam started.
"Was it you who threw that bit of butter?"
"It was."
"I wish I'd known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar."
"Ah, well, it's seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the wash anyhow by this time. But don't let us brood on the past. Let us put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible situation."
"I don't want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of the evening."
"The hit of the evening! You! Singing!"
"I'm not going to sing. I'm going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney which I did at the Trinity Smoker. You haven't forgotten that? You were at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a riot I was—we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don't feel well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it without a rehearsal. You remember how it went … 'Hullo, Ernest!' 'Hullo, Frank!' Why not come along?"
"The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor that does not heave and wobble under me."
"Nonsense! The boat's as steady as a rock now. The sea's like a mill-pond."
"Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!"
"Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow Mortimer. We've been rehearsing all the afternoon and he seems to have the hang of the thing. But he won't be really right. He has no pep, no vim. Still, if you won't … well, I think I'll be getting along to his stateroom. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal."
The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin's sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud on the rocks.
His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Marlowe rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too much cork on his cousin's face to allow of any real registering of emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well.
"What's the matter?"
Sam sank on the lounge.
"The bounder has quit!"
"The bounder? What bounder?"
"There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the act! He has left me flat! I went into his stateroom just now, as arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning."
"I thought you said the sea was like a millpond."
"It wasn't that! He's perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass took it into his head to propose to Billie just before dinner—apparently he's loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing way—and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer. I hope it chokes him."
"But this is splendid! This lets you out."
"What do you mean? Lets me out?"
"Why, now you won't be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for this in years to come."
"Won't I appear! Won't I dashed well appear! Do you think I'm going to disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather die!"
"But you can't appear without a pianist."
"I've got a pianist."
"You have?"
"Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears like water-wings."
"I don't think I know him."
"Yes, you do. He's you!"
"Me!"
"Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it's impossible. I gave you my views on the subject just now."
"You've altered them."
"I haven't."
"Well, you soon will, and I'll tell you why. If you don't get up out of that damned berth you've been roosting in all your life, I'm going to ring for J. B. Midgeley and I'm going to tell him to bring me a bit of dinner in here and I'm going to eat it before your eyes."
"But you've had dinner."
"Well, I'll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork chop…."
"Stop. Stop!"
"A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage," repeated Sam, firmly. "And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now, how do we go?"
"You wouldn't do that!" said Eustace piteously.
"I would and will."
"But I shouldn't be any good at the piano. I've forgotten how the thing used to go."
"You haven't done anything of the kind. I come in and say, 'Hullo, Ernest!' and you say 'Hullo, Frank!' and then you help me tell the story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it."
"Perhaps there is some child on board…."
"No! I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We've done it together before."
"But honestly, I really don't think … it isn't as if…."
Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell.
"Stop! Stop!" cried Eustace Hignett. "I'll do it!"
Sam withdrew his finger.
"Good!" he said. "We've just got time for a rehearsal while you're dressing. 'Hullo, Ernest!'"
"Hullo, Frank," said Eustace Hignett, brokenly, as he searched for his unfamiliar trousers.