Maiden Voyage

TWENTY-FOUR

At three minutes after seven on the morning of Wednesday, June 18th, the officer on the bridge was Ralph Peel. He was looking particularly sleek and pleased with himself this morning, although there was a slight puffiness around his eyes which attested to a night of champagne, more champagne, and several hours of strenuous copulation with Alison Cabot White, the Cape Cod heiress, who was gripped with what was now an even more deeply-rooted penchant for hairy men. God, she had tugged at Ralph Peel's hairy back until he had bellowed out loud, and woken up her mother! But it hadn't been the first time he had been obliged to nip smartly into a clothes closet in a first-class stateroom, and it probably wouldn't be the last. He had enjoyed himself thoroughly, and to prove it he kept whistling "Scotland The Brave" over and over until the helmsman was heartily sick of it.

Rudyard Philips was still in his quarters, not at all sure whether he was actually under arrest or not. He had called Mr. Deacon four times on the ship's internal telephone, but Edgar had taken his phone off the hook, and Rudyard's calls had been rewarded with nothing more than the monotonous beeping of the busy signal. Rudyard paced up and down the maroon carpet—seven feet one way, six feet the other. Then he sat down on the end of his mahogany bunk and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke up to the cream-painted ceiling. He felt fretful and anxious, and yet he wasn't certain whether he had any cause to feel fretful and anxious or not. Sir Peregrine had told him he was under arrest, but there was nobody at his door to ensure that he stayed in his cabin. Louise Narron had seemed gravely disappointed with his lovemaking, but he had managed it, hadn't he? He had proved to her that she aroused him. So why had there been so much uncertainty about whether they were going to continue their affair or not?

In exasperation, he called Percy Fearson's number. The telephone rang for almost two minutes before it was picked up, and Mr. Fearson's strong north-eastern accent said, "Yes? What do you want?

"Mr Fearson? It's Rudyard Philips. I hope I haven't woken you up."

"You can hope all you like, lad. You have. Well, what is it?"

"I seem to be under arrest, Mr Fearson."

"Under arrest? Did I hear you quite right? What are you talking about?"

Rudyard rubbed his left eye with a nicotine-stained finger, and it stung. "It's Sir Peregrine, sir. He's accusing me of running down a small boat, and drowning one of the occupants. He says I'm under arrest, confined to my billet, sir."

"Running down a small boat? I don't know what the devil you're on about, lad. What small boat? We haven't run down any small boats, have we?"

"Sir Peregrine may not have told you, sir, but we have. A fishing vessel called the Drogheda, a couple of miles out of Dublin Bay."

"That's ridiculous. We would have known. We would have felt it."

"Not necessarily, sir. The Arcadia is an extremely large ship. Very few people on the Titanic knew that they'd struck an iceberg until she started to founder. We could cut through an average-sized fishing vessel like an axe through Derby cheese."

Mr Fearson said thoughtfully, "I see. When did we first find out about this?"

"Early this morning, Mr. Fearson. They sent us a wireless message from Dublin. That's when Sir Peregrine ordered me to go back to my billet, and to consider myself under arrest."

"It was your fault, then, this accident, was it?"

"Not at all, sir, although that's what Sir Peregrine's claiming."

"Why should he claim such a thing when it isn't true?"

Rudyard said, "I don't know, sir. I don't want to appear disloyal. "I was actually on the bridge at the time it was supposed to have happened, but we were steaming full ahead, on Sir Peregrine's specific orders, when in my own opinion we should have been going ahead far more slowly. The Dublin harbourmaster had already warned us to look out for small sightseeing boats. But Sir Peregrine told me not to worry, and to build up full speed as soon as possible."

"You realise what you're saying," said Mr Fearson seriously.

"Yes, Mr Fearson, I do. And that's why I've woken you up."

"Well, lad, I think I'm glad that you did."

"What shall I do, sir?"

"Stay where you are for the time being. If Sir Peregrine's ordered you to be confined to your cabin, then that's where you'd best stay put. But believe me, I'm going around to talk to Mr. Deacon now, and then we'll most likely have a talk with Sir Peregrine."

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't thank me till we've found out what's happened, and who's to blame. I can tell you that Mr. Deacon, for one, is going to explode. There's a lot hangs on this voyage, lad, and if the slightest whit goes wrong... well, there's going to be hell to pay. Hell."

Rudyard took a deep breath. "I'll await your call, sir."

"Like as not you will," said Mr Fearson, matter-of-factly, and put the telephone down.

At three minutes past seven, Catriona was sitting at her dressing-table, her chin in her hands, staring at her tear-blotched eyes in the mirror. A little way behind her, Alice was laying out her cream crepe-de-chine dress for the morning, along with her shoes, stockings, and silk slip (she never quite knew if she ought to put out panties, it depended so much on Catriona's mood). In the sitting-room, Trimmer was laying out the breakfast that Catriona had asked for: grilled grapefruit, toast, black coffee, and a glass of chilled apricot juice. He was humming "Gimme A Little Kiss'.

"They're always the same, these shipboard romances," said Alice, as she collected up Catriona's discarded evening gown. "They always end hi tears."

"This isn't a shipboard romance," said Catriona.

"It's a romance, and it's on board a ship, so what else can it be?"

"It's a clash of personalities, that's what it is. And apart from that, it's a complete and utter swizz."

"He told you he loved you," Alice reminded her. Alice adored a good shipboard romance, especially between the wealthier and more illustrious passengers. It was something she could tell her mother about, when she got back to Runcorn. Her mother would sit with her feet in her sheepskin footwarmer, cupping her hands around her mug of Bovril, and listen with doddering relish to Alice's stories about the glittering improprieties of the famous.

"Of course he told me he loved me," Catriona retorted. "The silly thing is, he actually does. Or at least, I think he does."

"Well, then," said Alice.

Catrion took a Craven-A out of the cigarette box on the dressing-table. "It's no use saving "well, then"," she retorted. "He loves me, yes, but the trouble is that he loves the Arcadia even more. He's a shipowner. He adores ships, the bigger and the more glamorous the better. How can a mere girl measure up to a fashionable ocean liner?"

"You mustn't upset yourself, Miss Keys," said Alice, with the syrupy sympathy of the personal servant.

"I'm not upsetting myself. It's everybody else who's upsetting me."

Trimmer knocked at her bedroom door, his face lifted as rigidly as a Zeppelin-spotter towards the north-east comer of the stateroom, so that he wouldn't be guilty of glimpsing Catriona in her crimson satin deshabille. "Your breakfast his ready, Miss Keys. Hit's hall laid bout. Hand a copy of the ship's newspaper, halso."

In common with most large Atlantic liners, the Arcadia was to produce her own daily newspaper, offering tidbits of gossip about her celebrity passengers, glowing ankles about the competence of her crew, and a crossword to white away those tiresome twenty-minute gaps between meals. Crosswords were a hot passion in 1924—so hot that a Chicago housewife had complained to the Press that she was "a crossword widow", and that a New York man had been arrested for refusing to leave a restaurant after four hours of struggling to complete a crossword there. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad provided dictionaries in each car for crossword-puzzle addicts; and if you were really obsessed, you could buy a tiny dictionary to strap to your wrist. The Arcadia's crossword wasn't noticeably sophisticated. It offered clues like "Kind words don't butter them" and "Propels ship and fastens wood."

Catriona sat down to her breakfast feeling unhappy beyond description. Her toast tasted like face flannels, and she could hardly bring herself to choke down even a mouthful of coffee. Her apricot juice, which had been laboriously squeezed by one of the Arcadia's chefs from eight fresh apricots, she didn't even touch.

Perhaps she had misjudged Mark altogether. After all, if he had really wanted the Arcadia more than he had wanted her, why he had even bothered to tell her that he loved her? Perhaps she was being more suspicious of herself than she was of him. Perhaps she was being as stubborn and as unforgiving as her father had been. Whatever anyone had said to her father, he had always needed concrete proof before he was prepared to believe it. He had never taken anything on trust, not even Catriona's assurances that she was happy and normal and well, and that her wildness didn't involve anything more than a few late-night dinner-dances, a few too many gin-and-bitters, a giggly striptease on a pleasure-boat that had been beating its way up the Thames, and regular but faithful fornication in Nigel's bed. Catriona's father had always been prepared to think the worst of her, and maybe that was why she was now prepared to think the worst of Mark Beeney. And yet: Mark had made an offer for the Arcadia, four million pounds in cash, and there was no question that to gain Catriona's support and friendship would be his quickest route to settle the deal, right under Edgar Deacon's disapproving nose.

Trimmer, who was flapping at a few toast crumbs with his napkin, said, "Hanything helse, Miss Keys?"

"No thank you, Trimmer. This will be fine."

"Residue, Miss Keys?"

"I beg your pardon?" „

"I beg your pardon, Miss Keys. "Residue" was the word which one of my hofficers used to use to describe an "angover. I was wondering hif you might be suffering the same problem. Hor similar, you understand."

"Well," said Catriona, "sort of."

"Hin that case, miss, might I make so bold as to hoffer you my patent remedy for "angovers? Trimmer's Terror, my hofficers used to call hit, but bit halways produces the most hinstant heffects."

Catriona couldn't help smiling. "Hall right," she said. "Let's have a taste of Trimmer's Terror."

Trimmer marched himself punctiliously to the cocktail cabinet, where he made a great exhibition of opening doors, taking out spoons, and arranging glasses. He poured into a tall Lalique glass a measure of Russian pepper-flavoured vodka, then stirred in a beaten raw egg, a liberal squeeze of lemon juice, and finally, for good measure, a quick dose of Tabasco sauce.

"Does it really work?" asked Catriona cautiously as Trimmer presented it to her on a circular silver tray.

"They used to drink it in the Royal Flying Corps, Miss Keys, whenever they was called hupon to fly hover the henemy trenches hafter an "eavy night on the Chateau Lafite."

Catriona took the glass, and sniffed it. "No wonder there were so many casualties," she said.

"Right down the "atch, miss," Trimmer urged her.

Catriona hesitated for a moment, and then swallowed her glassful of Trimmer's Terror in three gagging gulps. It was like drinking blazing frog spawn, if such a thing were conceivable. She lay back on the sofa and gasped for breath, her eyes springing with tears, and her stomach gurgling and burning. For a whole minute the world seemed to be splintered and spotted with pain and pepper.

"I hope you haven't done her a mischief, you and your patent remedies," said Alice, bustling into the sitting-room with clean towels over her arm.

Catriona sat up. "I think," she said, swallowing and reswallowing, "I think that I'm going to be all right. I think."

"What did I tell you," said Trimmer, with self-satisfaction. "Nothing like it hafter an "eavy night."

Catriona was just about to creep into her bed for two or three hours" sleep, and Alice was already unscrewing the thick green frosted-glass jars of night cream, when there was a knock at the stateroom door. Trimmer answered it, and from the bedroom, Catriona could hear the clipped consonants and rounded vowels of a young and well-bred Englishman.

"Who is it, Trimmer?" she called.

"Begging your pardon, Miss Keys, hit's a gentleman. "Ere's "is card. "E wonders hif " might be allowed a minute's conversation."

"Well..." frowned Catriona. She read the card, crisply engraved with copperplate script. Mr Philip Carter-Helm, 3 Pont Street, London НSW1.

"I don't know him, do I?" she asked. Tell him I'll see him later."

"E says "Noel's a friend hof Mr Beeney's, miss; hand that " halso "appened to be han hacquaintance hof your respected late father."

"Oh," said Catriona. She hesitated for a moment, and glanced across at Alice, seeking approval. Alice, who didn't like to be committed to giving her approval for anything, in case she was blamed afterwards, was industriously plumping up cushions. A friend of Mark Beeney's? thought Catriona. Perhaps Mark was trying to say that he was sorry, in which case Catriona would quite properly be able to forgive him.

Alice said, "You must do as you wish, miss. Far be it from me."

"All right, then, Trimmer," said Catriona. "Why don't you show him in? But only for a moment, please. I'm hideously tired."

Trimmer opened the door and Philip Carter-Helm stepped in, a little reticently, holding his hat hi front of him like a small steering-wheel. "Miss Keys," he said. "You must think me terribly ill-mannered."

"Well, this is hardly the time, if you know what I mean."

"I appreciate that," Philip Carter-Helm agreed. Catriona turned away, with what she hoped was an imperious look of disregard; but she had to admit to herself that Philip Carter-Helm was really rather attractive, if you fancied wholesome-looking chaps like Tom Merry, from the Magnet. There was also something inexplicably familiar about him, although she couldn't even begin to think what it was. She had certainly never met him before; not even at the Arts Ball.

Philip said, "I can only claim-a very recent friendship with Mark Beeney, I'm afraid. But he did ask me if I could sort of have a chat with you."

"Was he too retiring to come and do his own chatting?" asked Catriona.

"Well, no, but he's afraid that he's been rather misunderstood."

"I see," said Catriona. Cold as Cleopatra. Modern and aggressive as Isadora Duncan.

"He wants you to know that his feelings towards you are completely separate from his desire to buy the Arcadia."

"All right," replied Catriona, airily. "I'm quite prepared to believe him; although it really won't make any difference at all, since the Arcadia happens not to be for sale. Not to Mark Beeney, anyway."

Philip said, "Oh," and looked around the stateroom as if he had mislaid something. Alice said, "Whenever sir happens to be ready," but at the same instant Philip blurted out, "Do you think that's a terribly good idea?"

"Do I think what's a terribly good idea?"

"Not to consider Mark Beeney as a possible buyer for the Arcadia."

"What does it have to do with you?" Catriona demanded. "I don't want to sell her at all, as a matter of fact. It all depends on how successful this voyage turns out to be. That, and a few financial matters, but I can't see that any of them are any affair of yours."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak out of turn. But in the shipping business, the state of Keys" affairs are pretty much common knowledge. Besides, I did know your father."

"Thousands of people knew my father."

"Of course. But I always liked to think that there was a special little spark of recognition between us. Like minds, don't you know."

"So you're in ships, too?" Catriona asked him, not frantically interested if he was or not. As a matter of fact he was getting to be rather a bore; and she felt tired, and vexed.

"Marine insurance, tedious stuff like that," said Philip.

"Well, in that case, you couldn't have been much of a like mind; not with the father I knew. He could never abide anything tedious. Any more than I can. It's hereditary, I suppose."

"I'm sorry if I'm boring you. But-Mark did ask me to come and explain how he felt. And I do feel myself that you could do very much worse than sell the Arcadia to American TransAtlantic. For one thing, they'll certainly look after her."

"Did Mark send you to explain why he behaved like a copper-bottomed cad, or did he send you to persuade me to sell him the Arcadia?" Catriona inquired. "That was exactly what I was trying to tell him: that he doesn't know the difference between business and pleasure. If you ask me, I think he keeps his heart pressed flat in his bank book."

"Please," said Philip. He looked for somewhere to put his hat; he couldn't find one; and so hung on to it. "I'm really not making a very good job of this. What I feel about the Arcadia is entirely my own opinion. I really feel that if your father had been given the choice—either of selling off the whole shipping line or simply of selling off its biggest asset and its biggest liability, the Arcadia—well, I believe that he would have gritted his teeth and sold the Arcadia. Better to keep the business in the family. You'll never get half as much as the shipping line's really worth, not if you sell it outright. Think of the goodwill Keys have built up, over the years; think of the shipping contracts."

"For your information," Catriona retorted, "our managing director has looked into the figures more than thoroughly, and he happens to believe that if we have to sell, an outright sale would be best. And whatever you feel about what my father would or wouldn't have done, I happen to know that he cared about the people who worked for him more than anything else, and I also happen to know that he wouldn't have sold the Arcadia to Mark Beeney because if he had, the rest of the shipping line would have collapsed and half of Liverpool would have been joining the dole queue."

Philip Carter-Helm was about to say something sharp in reply, but he stopped himself, and bowed his head, and said, "I'm sorry. This is very impertinent of me, and tiresome, too. You're right, of course, in a way. It would be very difficult to keep Keys going, just on the proceeds from selling the Arcadia. Even four million doesn't go frightfully far these days, not in the shipping business. You'd have to struggle very hard to keep your head above water; and that wouldn't really be your sort of style, would it?"

"Is Mark expecting a reply of some sort?" asked Catriona.

"Well, I don't know. If you see fit to send him one."

Catriona was beginning to feel very tired again, and nauseous. The Arcadia kept rolling and plunging; not violently, but with unsettling persistence.

"I don't know," said Catriona. "Perhaps he doesn't deserve a reply. On the other hand, perhaps he does."

"I think he'll be pleased just to know that you're not angry with him," suggested Philip.

"Angry? No, I'm not angry. Peeved, perhaps. I don't know. Not even that. I suppose he meant well. Why don't you just tell him that every thing's jake, and leave it at that."

"Everything's jake?"

"That's the message."

Philip Carter-Helm stood where he was. Catriona said, "That's all, goodbye," but Philip blushed and swallowed and looked embarrassed.

"I was supposed to give you a kiss."

"A kiss?"

"From Mark, that is."

"What kind of lover sends kisses by proxy?"

"A shy one, I suppose."

"There's nothing shy about Mark Beeney," said Catriona.

"Not normally. But, from what I gather, he's not normally repentant, either."

Repentant. Hmm. Catriona rather liked the sound of that. She could almost picture Mark in a monk's habit, lashing his own back and groaning with remorseful agony.

"All right," she said. "If you think he's truly repentant."

Philip cleared his throat behind his fist, and then stepped forward, and kissed Catriona quickly on the cheek. It was a brief, brotherly kiss.

Catriona looked up at him. There was something about his eyes which she found curiously disturbing, as if there were somebody she knew looking out from behind an unfamiliar mask.

"You don't—?" she began, but the question wouldn't form itself in her mind.

"Thank you for putting up with me," said Philip. "Perhaps you'll give me the pleasure of a dance sometime during the voyage. Then I can make up for being so boorish."

"Don't mench," said Catriona, being deliberately flapperish.

After Philip Carter-Helm had left, Edgar came into the sitting room and dosed the door. He looked a little grey, but his bow tie was still immaculate, and his patent shoes gleamed like two wet sharks.

"Who was that?" he wanted to know.

"A friend of Mark Beeney's. Nobody special. Yawns incarnate, if you must know."

Edgar took out a cigarette, and offered one to Catriona. She shook her head, but then she changed her mind and took one. Edgar lit it for her with a steady, white-cuffed hand.

"You know that I don't particularly approve of the way in which you've been encouraging Mark Beeney. I thought I'd made it abundantly clear before the voyage started that he has nothing to offer us; only difficulties. He's a personable young man, of course. But he's only interested in American TransAtlantic, and his own amusement. Not in you; nor in the future of Keys Shipping."

"Well, well. You don't approve," said Catriona.

"I don't really think you know what you're letting yourself in for. Nor the company."

"Don't I?"

Edgar said to Trimmer, "Pour me a pink gin, will you?" Then, to Catriona, "Just because I confided in you when you first came back from London, just because I made it clear that Keys was in financial difficulty, that doesn't actually mean that I expect you to involve yourself actively in the running of the company. I'm the managing director, and that happens to be my job."

"You're worried that I might sell the Arcadia behind your back, just because I happen to like Mark Beeney?"

"Well, of course not; and in any case, you couldn't. You have only a quarter of the common stock, and that is not enough to be a deciding factor in itself. Besides—"

Catriona raised an eyebrow. She wished very much at that moment that Edgar would go away and stop nagging her. Why did everybody want to talk business all the darn time? She decided to give him as long as it took them both to smoke their cigarettes; and then to ask him to go. She liked Mark; she liked dancing; and quite frankly all this shipping talk sent her scatty.

"Besides what?" she asked.

"You're going to be a sensible girl, that's all," said Edgar. He tried a smile. It didn't quite fit, so he tried another. "You've seen what grave responsibilities we have. You know what IMM are offering us. I personally feel mortified that we have to think of selling to anyone, but I know where my duties lie, and I believe that you do, too. I believe in—what shall we call it?—the natural sagacity of the younger generation'.

"Oh, bunk," said Catriona. "You don't think that I'm going to want to sell the Arcadia to Mark Beeney just because we've been dancing all evening?"

"You're a modern girl," said Edgar, tightly, and a little cryptically.

Catriona smoked for a while, long exaggerated puffs; then abruptly crushed her cigarette out. This was all a pose. She was tired, and hungover, and all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed, close her eyes, and sleep until it was evening again.

"You don't really think we'll have to sell Keys, do you?" she asked. "Have you talked to Mr Whatsit of the Irish Bank? Surely he's impressed."

"He's not unimpressed," Edgar agreed, with caution. "On the other hand, he's like all our investors. All of our creditors, rather. He'd prefer to wait and see."

"Do you think we're going to take the Blue Riband?"

"God willing. Sir Peregrine tells me the engines are running like honey. And all due to that new injection valve your father developed. A very great man, your father, in all respects."

Catriona said, "Do you really think that there's any chance of keeping Keys in the family?"

"To be honest, Miss Keys, I don't know. I fear that too many creditors will press us too soon. Success has its drawbacks as well as its advantages, don't y'know. If they begin to think that we're back in the money, then we're going to be inundated with bills from hotels and meat wholesalers and vintners and fuel suppliers; and we won't be able to meet even half of them."

"How much has George Welterman offered us?"

"For the whole fleet? Eighteen million pounds."

"That doesn't seem like very much. The Arcadia alone is worth four."

"I doubt if we'll get a better offer, or any other offer at all. The Keys fleet is prestigious, certainly, but most of its vessels are already out-of-date."

"Oh, I don't know," said Catriona hotly. "The whole thing makes my head go round."

Edgar looked at her carefully. She couldn't quite understand his look. It was clear and correct on the surface, and yet because of its meticulousness, it was also mysterious. Perhaps she hadn't known enough Anglo-Indians to be able to penetrate the mental regime of the Raj; in which life had been a never-ending seating arrangement.

"I'll let you get your feet up," said Edgar. (That was Raj-talk, too: officers and their lady wives put their feet up; enlisted men got their heads down.) "And, really, if I were you, I wouldn't concern yourself too much with friend Beeney."

"I won't stop being nice to him, if that's what you mean."

"I'm not asking you to. I'm simply saying that it would be of some assistance if you could be equally nice to George Welterman. Well, maybe not equally. But nearly equally. He's a very sensitive individual."

"So he told us. He had a very sad love affair with Myrtle Greensleeves."

"Oh, yes, that," said Edgar, with unexpected impatience. "But, in any case, I'd appreciate it if you would do your best to make him feel welcome, even if you can't make him feel loved."

"Miss Keys," said Alice. "Time for your night creams now."

"All right, Alice," Catriona told her. "And thank you, Mr Deacon. I'm sure that I'm much the wiser. And I won't interfere in business. Not too much, anyway."

"I'm glad we've reached an understanding," said Edgar, and then slowly drained his glass of pink gin to the bottom. He opened his mouth just a line wider so that the cocktail onions could roll in.

The telephone rang. Trimmer picked it up, and said, "Miss Keys" cabin?" Then, "Mr Deacon, sir, it's for you. Mr Fearson."

Still munching onions, Edgar took the telephone and said, "Percy? What's going on?"

Catriona had already gone through to her bedroom and closed the door as Percy Fearson explained about the Drogheda, and Rudyard Philips" arrest. That was why she didn't see him snap his fingers peremptorily at Trimmer for another pink gin, and sit down on the end of the sofa with his face as grey as the North Atlantic in winter.