29 Three Men and a Maid Read online

  “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 ground Not fail beneath my feet Before my life has found What 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 me Before I am quite quite sure That 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 Eustace Hignett?”

  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 … and you! 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 at Bream 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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “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.

  Eus
tace 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 called Wilhelmina Bennett, but still it is a coincidence.”