The Girl on the Boat Read online

  CHAPTER III

  SAM PAVES THE WAY

  For some moments Sam remained where he was, staring after the girl asshe flitted down the passage. He felt dizzy. Mental acrobatics alwayshave an unsettling effect, and a young man may be excused for feeling alittle dizzy when he is called upon suddenly and without any warning tore-adjust all his preconceived views on any subject. Listening toEustace Hignett's story of his blighted romance, Sam had formed anunflattering opinion of this Wilhelmina Bennett who had broken off herengagement simply because on the day of the marriage his cousin had beenshort of the necessary wedding garment. He had, indeed, thought a littlesmugly how different his goddess of the red hair was from the object ofEustace Hignett's affections. And now they had proved to be one and thesame. It was disturbing. It was like suddenly finding the vampire of afive-reel feature film turn into the heroine.

  Some men, on making the discovery of this girl's identity, might havefelt that Providence had intervened to save them from a disastrousentanglement. This point of view never occurred to Samuel Marlowe. Theway he looked at it was that he had been all wrong about WilhelminaBennett. Eustace, he felt, had been to blame throughout. If this girlhad maltreated Eustace's finer feelings, then her reason for doing somust have been excellent and praiseworthy.

  After all ... poor old Eustace ... quite a good fellow, no doubt in manyways ... but, coming down to brass tacks, what was there about Eustacethat gave him any claim to monopolise the affections of a wonderfulgirl? Where, in a word, did Eustace Hignett get off? He made atremendous 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 engagedto him? Eustace Hignett, no doubt, looked upon the poor girl as utterlyheartless. Marlowe regarded her behaviour as thoroughly sensible. Shehad made a mistake, and, realising this at the eleventh hour, she hadhad the force of character to correct it. He was sorry for poor oldEustace, but he really could not permit the suggestion that WilhelminaBennett--her friends called her Billie--had not behaved in a perfectlysplendid way throughout. It was women like Wilhelmina Bennett--Billie toher intimates--who made the world worth living in.

  Her friends called her Billie. He did not blame them. It was adelightful name and suited her to perfection. He practised it a fewtimes. "Billie ... Billie ... Billie...." It certainly ran pleasantlyoff the tongue. "Billie Bennett." Very musical. "Billie Marlowe." Stillbetter. "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 washardly rolling at all--he would enjoy a further chat about his ruinedlife. Besides, he had another reason for seeking Eustace's society. As aman who had been actually engaged to marry this supreme girl, EustaceHignett had an attraction for Sam akin to that of some great publicmonument. He had become a sort of shrine. He had taken on a glamour. Samentered the state-room almost reverentially, with something of theemotions of a boy going into his first dime museum.

  The exhibit was lying on his back, staring at the roof of the berth. Bylying absolutely still and forcing himself to think of purely inlandscenes and objects, he had contrived to reduce the green in hiscomplexion to a mere tinge. But it would be paltering with the truth tosay that he felt debonair. He received Sam with a wan austerity.

  "Sit down!" he said. "Don't stand there swaying like that. I can't bearit."

  "Why, we aren't out of the harbour yet. Surely you aren't going to besea-sick already."

  "I can issue no positive guarantee. Perhaps if I can keep my mind offit.... I have had good results for the last ten minutes by thinkingsteadily of the Sahara. There," said Eustace Hignett with enthusiasm,"is a place for you! That is something like a spot. Miles and miles ofsand 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 onother topics. Why not, for instance, tell me some more about yourunfortunate affair with that girl--Billie Bennett I think you said hername was."

  "Wilhelmina Bennett. Where on earth did you get the idea that her namewas Billie?"

  "I had a notion that girls called Wilhelmina were sometimes Billie totheir friends."

  "I never called her anything but Wilhelmina. But I really cannot talkabout 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 verygood of you to be so sympathetic and interested."

  "My dear fellow ... anything that I can do ... where did you meet herfirst, for instance?"

  "At a dinner...." Eustace Hignett broke off abruptly. He had a goodmemory and he had just recollected the fish they had served at thatdinner--a flabby and exhausted looking fish half sunk beneath thesurface 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 inlove would have nice hair."

  "Well, you are perfectly right, as it happens. Her hair was remarkablybeautiful. It was red...."

  "Like autumn leaves with the sun on them!" said Marlowe ecstatically.

  Hignett started.

  "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 toconstruct this girl in my imagination, to visualise her? I don't pretendto doubt your special knowledge, but after all green eyes generally dogo with red hair and there are all shades of green. There is the brightgreen of meadow grass, the dull green of the uncut emerald, the faintyellowish green of your face at the present moment...."

  "Don't talk about the colour of my face! Now you've gone and reminded mejust when I was beginning to forget."

  "Awfully sorry. Stupid of me. Get your mind off it again--quick. Whatwere we saying? Oh, yes, this girl. I always think it helps one to forma mental picture of people if one knows something about theirtastes--what sort of things they are interested in, their favouritetopics of conversation, and so on. This Miss Bennett now, what did shelike talking about?"

  "Oh, all sorts of things."

  "Yes, but what?"

  "Well, for one thing she was very fond of poetry. It was that whichfirst drew us together."

  "Poetry!" Sam's heart sank a little. He had read a certain amount ofpoetry at school, and once he had won a prize of three shillings andsixpence for the last line of a Limerick in a competition in a weeklypaper; but he was self-critic enough to know that poetry was not hislong suit. Still there was a library on board the ship, and no doubt itwould be possible to borrow the works of some standard bard and bonethem up from time to time. "Any special poet?"

  "Well, she seemed to like my stuff. You never read my sonnet-sequence onSpring, did you?"

  "No. What other poets did she like besides you?"

  "Tennyson principally," said Eustace Hignett with a reminiscent quiverin his voice. "The hours we have spent together reading the Idylls ofthe King!"

  "The which of what?" inquired Sam, taking a pencil from his pocket andshooting out a cuff.

  "'The Idylls of the King.' My good man, I know you have a soul whichwould be considered inadequate by a common earthworm but you havesurely heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'"

  "Oh, _those_! Why, my dear old chap! Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'Well, I should say! Have I heard of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King?'Well, r
eally? I suppose you haven't a copy with you on board by anychance?"

  "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 itagain."

  Sam prospected among the shirts, collars, and trousers in the bag andpresently came upon a morocco-bound volume. He laid it beside him on thelounge.

  "Little by little, bit by bit," he said, "I am beginning to form a sortof picture of this girl, this--what was her name again? Bennett--thisMiss Bennett. You have a wonderful knack of description. You make herseem so real and vivid. Tell me some more about her. She wasn't keen ongolf, by any chance, I suppose?"

  "I believe she did play. The subject came up once and she seemed ratherenthusiastic. 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 to WilhelminaBennett about either, I should imagine."

  "No, there's that, of course. I was thinking of girls in general. Somegirls bar golf, and then it's rather difficult to know how to start theconversation. But, tell me, were there any topics which got on thisMiss Bennett's nerves, if you know what I mean? It seems to me that atone time or another you may have said something that offended her. Imean, it seems curious that she should have broken off the engagement ifyou had never disagreed or quarrelled about anything."

  "Well, of course, there was always the matter of that dog of hers. Shehad a dog, you know, a snappy brute of a Pekinese. If there was ever anyshadow of disagreement between us, it had to do with that dog. I maderather a point of it that I would not have it about the home after wewere 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 daybefore we--Wilhelmina and I, I mean--were to have been married. It issome satisfaction to me in my broken state to remember that I got homeon the little beast with considerable juiciness and lifted him cleanover the Chesterfield."

  Sam shook his head reprovingly.

  "You shouldn't have done that," he said. He extended his cuff and addedthe words "Vitally Important" to what he had just written. "It wasprobably that which decided her."

  "Well, I hate dogs," said Eustace Hignett querulously. "I rememberWilhelmina once getting quite annoyed with me because I refused to stepin and separate a couple of the brutes, absolute strangers to me, whowere fighting in the street. I reminded her that we were all fightersnowadays, that life itself was in a sense a fight; but she wouldn't bereasonable about it. She said that Sir Galahad would have done it like ashot. I thought not. We have no evidence whatsoever that Sir Galahad wasever called upon to do anything half as dangerous. And, anyway, he worearmour. Give me a suit of mail, reaching well down over the ankles, andI will willingly intervene in a hundred dog fights. But in thin flanneltrousers, no!"

  Sam rose. His heart was light. He had never, of course, supposed thatthe girl was anything but perfect; but it was nice to find his highopinion of her corroborated by one who had no reason to exhibit her in afavourable light. He understood her point of view and sympathised withit. An idealist, how could she trust herself to Eustace Hignett? Howcould she be content with a craven who, instead of scouring the world inthe quest for deeds of derring-do, had fallen down so lamentably on hisfirst assignment? There was a specious attractiveness about poor oldEustace which might conceivably win a girl's heart for a time; he wrotepoetry, talked well, and had a nice singing voice; but, as a partner forlife ... well, he simply wouldn't do. That was all there was to it. Hesimply didn't add up right. The man a girl like Wilhelmina Bennettrequired 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 deckto join the ante-luncheon promenade. He saw Billie almost at once. Shehad put on one of those nice sacky sport-coats which so enhance femininecharms, and was striding along the deck with the breeze playing in hervivid hair like the female equivalent of a Viking. Beside her walkedyoung Mr. Bream Mortimer.

  Sam had been feeling a good deal of a fellow already, but at the sightof 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, droppedin the yeast of male complacency, induces fermentation.

  "Oh, there you are, Mr. Marlowe!"

  "Oh, _there_ you are," said Bream Mortimer with a slightly differentinflection.

  "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 mystate-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 putit 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 needsin order to be a delivery wagon is a horse and a driver. Bream Mortimerwas experiencing such a moment.

  "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'smight 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. Hedoes appreciate it so!"

  Bream disappeared. It is not always easy to interpret emotion from aglance at a man's back; but Bream's back looked like that of a man towhom the thought has occurred that, given a couple of fiddles and apiano, he would have made a good hired orchestra.

  "How is your dear little dog, by the way?" inquired Sam solicitously, ashe fell into step by her side.

  "Much better now, thanks. I've made friends with a girl on board--didyou ever hear her name--Jane Hubbard--she's a rather well-known big-gamehunter, and she fixed up some sort of a mixture for Pinky which did hima world of good. I don't know what was in it except Worcester Sauce, butshe said she always gave it to her mules in Africa when they had thebotts ... it's very nice of you to speak so affectionately of poor Pinkywhen he bit you."

  "Animal spirits!" said Sam tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits. I like tosee 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'mrather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of."She looked down. "Have you been reading? What is the book?"

  "The book? Oh, this. 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 donot like to think what an ocean voyage would be if I had not my Tennysonwith 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 otherscall it a day when they've written something that runs to a couple ofverses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was justas good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with hischip-shots."

  "That sounds as though you play golf."

  "When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on thelinks. Do you play?"

  "I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. Youseem to like all the things I like. We really ought to be greatfriends."

  He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch buglesounded.

  "Oh dear!" she cried. "I must rush. But we shall see one another againup here afterwa
rds?"

  "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."