The Girl on the Boat
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Pelham Grenville Wodehouse >> The Girl on the Boat
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"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.
Sec. 4
Billie Bennett stood in front of the mirror in her state-room dreamily
brushing the glorious red hair that fell in a tumbled mass about her
shoulders. On the lounge beside her, swathed in a business-like grey
kimono, Jane Hubbard watched her, smoking a cigarette.
Jane Hubbard was a splendid specimen of bronzed, strapping womanhood.
Her whole appearance spoke of the open air and the great wide spaces and
all that sort of thing. She was a thoroughly wholesome, manly girl,
about the same age as Billie, with a strong chin and an eye that had
looked leopards squarely in the face and caused them to withdraw abashed
into the undergrowth, or where-ever it is that leopards withdraw when
abashed. One could not picture Jane Hubbard flirting lightly at garden
parties, but one could picture her very readily arguing with a mutinous
native bearer, or with a firm touch putting sweetness and light into the
soul of a refractory mule. Boadicea in her girlhood must have been
rather like Jane Hubbard.
She smoked contentedly. She had rolled her cigarette herself with one
hand, a feat beyond the powers of all but the very greatest. She was
pleasantly tired after walking eighty-five times round the promenade
deck. Soon she would go to bed and fall asleep the moment her head
touched the pillow. But meanwhile she lingered here, for she felt that
Billie had something to confide in her.
"Jane," said Billie, "have you ever been in love?"
Jane Hubbard knocked the ash off her cigarette.
"Not since I was eleven," she said in her deep musical voice. "He was my
music-master. He was forty-seven and completely bald, but there was an
appealing weakness in him which won my heart. He was afraid of cats, I
remember."
Billie gathered her hair into a molten bundle and let it run through her
fingers.
"Oh, Jane!" she exclaimed. "Surely you don't like weak men. I like a man
who is strong and brave and wonderful."
"I can't stand brave men," said Jane, "it makes them so independent. I
could only love a man who would depend on me in everything. Sometimes,
when I have been roughing it out in the jungle," she went on rather
wistfully, "I have had my dreams of some gentle clinging man who would
put his hand in mine and tell me all his poor little troubles and let me
pet and comfort him and bring the smiles back to his face. I'm beginning
to want to settle down. After all there are other things for a woman to
do in this life besides travelling and big-game hunting. I should like
to go into Parliament. And, if I did that, I should practically have to
marry. I mean, I should have to have a man to look after the social end
of life and arrange parties and receptions and so on, and sit
ornamentally at the head of my table. I can't imagine anything jollier
than marriage under conditions like that. When I came back a bit done up
after a long sitting at the House, he would mix me a whisky-and-soda and
read poetry to me or prattle about all the things he had been doing
during the day.... Why, it would be ideal!"
Jane Hubbard gave a little sigh. Her fine eyes gazed dreamily at a smoke
ring which she had sent floating towards the ceiling.
"Jane," said Billie. "I believe you're thinking of somebody definite.
Who is he?"
The big-game huntress blushed. The embarrassment which she exhibited
made her look manlier than ever.
"I don't know his name."
"But there is really someone?"
"Yes."
"How splendid! Tell me about him."
Jane Hubbard clasped her strong hands and looked down at the floor.
"I met him on the Subway a couple of days before I left New York. You
know how crowded the Subway is at the rush hour. I had a seat, of
course, but this poor little fellow--_so_ good-looking, my dear! he
reminded me of the pictures of Lord Byron--was hanging from a strap and
being jerked about till I thought his poor little arms would be wrenched
out of their sockets. And he looked so unhappy, as though he had some
secret sorrow. I offered him my seat, but he wouldn't take it. A couple
of stations later, however, the man next to me got out and he sat down
and we got into conversation. There wasn't time to talk much. I told him
I had been down-town fetching an elephant-gun which I had left to be
mended. He was so prettily interested when I showed him the mechanism.
We got along famously. But--oh, well, it was just another case of ships
that pass in the night--I'm afraid I've been boring you."
"Oh, Jane! You haven't! You see ... you see, I'm in love myself."
"I had an idea you were," said her friend looking at her critically.
"You've been refusing your oats the last few days, and that's a sure
sign. Is he that fellow that's always around with you and who looks like
a parrot?"
"Bream Mortimer? Good gracious, no!" cried Billie indignantly. "As if I
should fall in love with Bream!"
"When I was out in British East Africa," said Miss Hubbard, "I had a
bird that was the living image of Bream Mortimer. I taught him to
whistle 'Annie Laurie' and to ask for his supper in three native
dialects. Eventually he died of the pip, poor fellow. Well, if it isn't
Bream Mortimer, who is it?"
"His name is Marlowe. He's tall and handsome and very strong-looking. He
reminds me of a Greek god."
"Ugh!" said Miss Hubbard.
"Jane, we're engaged."
"No!" said the huntress, interested. "When can I meet him?"
"I'll introduce you to-morrow I'm so happy."
"That's fine!"
"And yet, somehow," said Billie, plaiting her hair, "do you ever have
presentiments? I can't get rid of an awful feeling that something's
going to happen to spoil everything."
"What could spoil everything?"
"Well, I think him so wonderful, you know. Suppose he were to do
anything to blur the image I have formed of him."
"Oh, he won't. You said he was one of those strong men, didn't you? They
always run true to form. They never do anything except be strong."
Billie looked meditatively at her reflection in the glass.
"You know I thought I was in love once before, Jane."
"Yes?"
"We were going to be married and I had actually gone to the church. And
I waited and waited and he didn't come; and what do you think had
happened?"
"What?"
"His mother had stolen his trousers."
Jane Hubbard laughed heartily.
"It's nothing to laugh at," said Billie seriously "It was a tragedy. I
had always thought him romantic, and when this happened the scales
seemed to fall from my eyes. I saw that I had made a mistake."
"And you broke off the engagement?"
"Of course!"
"I think you were hard on him. A man can't help his mother stealing his
trousers."
"No. But when he finds they're gone, he can 'phone to the tailor for
some more or borrow the janitor's or do _something_. But he simply
stayed where he was and didn't do a thing. Just because he was too much
afraid of his mother to tell her straight out that he meant to be
married that day."
"Now that," said Miss Hubbard, "is just the sort of trait in a man which
would appeal to me. I like a nervous, shrinking man."
"I don't. Besides, it made him seem so ridiculous, and--I don't know why
it is--I can't forgive a man for looking ridiculous. Thank goodness, my
darling Sam couldn't look ridiculous, even if he tried. He's wonderful,
Jane. He reminds me of a knight of the Round Table. You ought to see his
eyes flash."
Miss Hubbard got up and stretched herself with a yawn.
"Well, I'll be on the promenade deck after breakfast to-morrow. If you
can arrange to have him flash his eyes then--say between nine-thirty and
ten--I shall be delighted to watch them."
CHAPTER V
PERSECUTION OF EUSTACE
"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 state-room. 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 a 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 yelp 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."
"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 I 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, it _is_ red."
"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!"
"I'm ready."
"The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry
_me_."
"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
state-room. 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. Sam
rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too
much burnt 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 down 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 state-room just now, as
arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning."
"I thought you said the sea was like a mill-pond."
"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.
CHAPTER VI
SCENE AT A SHIP'S CONCERT
Ships' concerts are given in aid of the Seamen's Orphans and Widows,
and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel that
any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a
chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They
open with a long speech from the master of the ceremonies--so long, as a
rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards
that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the
amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins.
It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and
recuperation that the newly-formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was
scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in
the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his threat
and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a master of
oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or fifteen minutes;
and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only just got past
the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through the shrimps.
"The Rosary" had been sung and there was an uneasy doubt as to whether
it was not going to be sung again after the interval--the latest rumour
being that the second of the rival lady singers had proved adamant to
all appeals and intended to fight the thing out on the lines she had
originally chosen if they put her in irons.
A young man had recited "Gunga Din" and, wilfully misinterpreting the
gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had
followed it with "Fuzzy-Wuzzy." His sister--these things run in
families--had sung "My Little Gray Home in the West"--rather sombrely,
for she had wanted to sing "The Rosary," and, with the same obtuseness
which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered plantation
songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of
silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still
remaining unexpired.
It was shocked to read the following:--
7. A Little Imitation......S. Marlowe.
All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in
their seats. Imitation...! The word, as Keats would have said, was like
a knell! Many of these people were old travellers and their minds went
back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when
performers at ships' concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens'
characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false
hair, had endeavoured to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare, and
other of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there
was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this
S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait
and hope that it would be short.
There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and
took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The
more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of
those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do
occasionally add to the horrors of ships' concerts. They stared at
Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to be something ominous in the
man's very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one
approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know
that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor
which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner produce
in the flooring of a dining saloon, and to that faint, yet well-defined,
smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a great many people
have recently been eating a great many meals. A few beads of cold
perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett's brow. He looked straight
before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of the Sahara.
So tense was Eustace's concentration that he did not see Billie
Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a
little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content
with one of the seats at the back. But Jane Hubbard had insisted on the
front row. She always had a front-row seat at witch dances in Africa,
and the thing had become a habit.
In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up
her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was
staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of
Eustace. Under her breath she muttered an exclamation of surprise in one
of the lesser-known dialects of Northern Nigeria.
"Billie!" she whispered sharply.
"What _is_ the matter, Jane?"
"Who is that man at the piano? Do you know him?"
"As a matter of fact, I do," said Billie. "His name is Hignett. Why?"
"It's the man I met on the Subway!" She breathed a sigh. "Poor little
fellow, how miserable he looks!"
At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett,
pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and
struck a crashing chord, and, as he did so, there appeared through the
door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the
entire audience started convulsively with the feeling that a worse thing
had befallen them than even they had looked for.
The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a
grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It
advanced towards them, smoking a cigar.
"Hullo, Ernest," it said.
And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply.
Dead silence reigned in the saloon.
"Hullo, Ernest!"
Those nearest the piano--and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard--now
observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter
still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked
like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised
with him. They felt like that, too.
In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little
miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment's thought
should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the
essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney; but he
had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute
surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it
had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth
at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its
curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes
protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea fishes
concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then
with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for
the deck.
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