Maiden Voyage

SIXTY-ONE

Catriona was very quiet while Alice dressed her for the fancy-dress ball. She was going as Cinderella, in a white satin fairy-tale gown with a flounced crinoline skin tied with ribbons, and a tight low-cut bodice that pushed her breasts into a deep dramatic cleavage, and which was panelled in the front with ruffles of Brussels lace and sewn with seed-pearls. She wore a high white wig, bedecked with bows and mother-of-pearl combs, and festooned with pearls, and her cheeks him rouged and accentuated with beauty spots. She felt ridiculously overdressed and extravagant, and ravishingly, archaically beautiful.

She was still thinking about George Welterman, though, and Edgar, and the strange history of the SS Orange. She knew now that it was true; George had confirmed that. And although it hurt her to have discovered that her father had been involved in illegal conspiracy in order to raise enough money to start building the Arcadia, it was a peculiar relief, too, to have had her doubts confirmed. She smoked a cigarette and watched herself in the mirror as Alice teased her wig, and thought about what she could do next.

The past three days on the Arcadia had aroused in her a feeling which she could not yet fully understand; but a feeling which was strong and deeply emotional nonetheless. It was partly pride, partly arrogance, partly ambition; and it was certainly a feeling which she inherited from her father. But it was something else, as well, something more valuable, and she was unable fully to understand it because she had never experienced it before. It was, in the very broadest sense, a feeling of responsibility.

It alarmed her. It gave her a sense of vertigo, because all the security which she had been accustomed all her life had suddenly dropped away from under her silk-slippered feet.

It could have been brought on by George Welterman's brutal rape. Or perhaps it was the genuine love which she was beginning to feel for Mark Beeney. The abrupt discovery that her straight and saintly father had been less than honest may also have had something to do with it; as well as the realisation that shipping, for all its glamour, was one of the fiercest and most unscrupulous businesses in the world.

But Catriona was growing up, flowering, maturing. And instead a playing, she was beginning to assert herself as a woman, and to feel the need to do it, too.

Without knowing how, she had begun to think that Keys Shipping could survive; and that they could keep the Arcadia, too. Her father must have believed it, or he wouldn't have built her. Her father must have seen her as his single greatest hope for the company's future. And if her father had considered that it was possible to keep the company going, why shouldn't she?

It might be absurd; the debts might be far too great; but why had her father believed so passionately in the Arcadia and Keys Shipping if there hadn't been a chance of winning through?

She had only a vaguest idea of what she was going to do, and how she was going to do it. But she wanted Edgar and George Welterman to continue to believe that all was well, and at the same time see if she could find some irrefutable evidence to show that all of them had been involved in the "sinking" of the Orange. She would have only to convince her mother that Keys could keep going as an independent company, and together they would have a majority vote.

Whether that majority would be worth anything in the face of bankruptcy, she didn't know. But she didn't want Keys sold off in an underhand rush; not yet, not to conceal the commercial sins of Edgar Deacon and George Welterman, and the moral sins of her father.

She didn't really want to sell the Arcadia to Mark Beeney, either, if she could possibly help it, however fondly she felt about him.

She was almost ready for the ball when there was a knock at her stateroom door. She heard Trimmer talking to somebody outside, and she called, "Who is it?"

"Mr. Philip Carter-'Elm, miss," Trimmer called back.

"Oh, good. Tell him to come in."

Philip Carter-Helm was dressed as D'Artagnan, with a plumed hat and breeches. He raised his hat and gave Catriona a sweeping bow. "You summoned me," he said, with mock pomposity.

"Yes," smiled Catriona, bobbing him a curtsey.

"Well?" asked Philip. "Was it anything in particular? Or did you want me to escort you to the ball?"

Catriona walked across the room with a sibilant rustle of silk skirts. "That's very kind of you, but Mr. Beeney will be taking me into the ball tonight."

"I'm disappointed, Miss Keys. I can't say that I'm not. But, well, I'm not an unsporting loser. I must say, though, that you look absolutely stunning. Marie Antoinette?"

"Cinderella."

"Well, that's appropriate enough, under the circumstances."

Catriona gave him a sharp, questioning look, and he tried to cover his discomfiture at what he had said by sweeping his cloak around him and saying, "All for one and one for all, don't you think?"

Catriona said, "Why did you and my father argue about the Orange?"

Philip remained where he was, his cloak wrapped around him like a protective shroud. He said nothing—nothing at all—and the silence was so uncomfortable and so obvious that even Trimmer looked up from the cocktail cabinet, where he was pouring them both a drink.

Catriona circled around Philip with long, stately steps.

"I want to know why you and my father argued about the Orange. Do you think that's too much to ask?"

"Whoever said that we argued about the Orange!"

"Mr. Trimmer here was chauffeuring you at the time. He heard everything."

"Did he now?" asked Philip cuttingly, without raising his eyes or anywhere near Trimmer. "Well, even limousines have ears."

Catriona said, more gently, "I know about the Orange, Mr. Carter-Helm. I know everything that happened. I know that she's still sailing him the Funabashi."

"I see."

"Well, don't you think you'd better tell me about it?"

"Why should I?" retorted Philip, with surprising sharpness.

"Because you're a guest on this ship, that's why. And because I happen to be my father's daughter; and everything that my father did is my concern."

Philip held up the note which Trimmer had slipped under his door, asking him to come to Catriona's cabin. "This particular matter is none of your business whatsoever, I regret to say. And forgive me for being so forthright, when I'm nothing but a guest."

"Mr. Carter-Helm—"

"Miss Keys, I have nothing to say to you on the subject. Your father and I did have some discussions, yes, but I am not obliged to disclose what they were, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so."

Catriona stared at him, feeling cold and angry as a princess, especially in the costume she was wearing.

"Mr Carter-Helm, the future of the whole of Keys Shipping is at risk."

"I've already given you my advice. Sell the Arcadia to Mark Beeney."

"But the Orange is crucial to the whole thing, the whole sale."

"Be that as it may, there's nothing more that I'm prepared to say. I really think I ought to be going."

"Mr. Carter-Helm—"

"Miss Keys," said Philip, "remember the old nursery-rhyme?

"What did you say?" asked Catriona, shocked.

Philip replaced his hat and stalked to the door. "I'm telling you in the politest way that I know how to, Miss Keys, that you should try to mind your own business."

With that, he left the stateroom and closed the door firmly behind him.

"E was rather hoff 'and," remarked Trimmer.

"Yes," said Catriona.

"Are you all right, miss?" asked Alice. "You're looking a link queer."

"Yes, I'm all right," said Catriona. "In fact I think I'm better than ever."