It was then that I looked at the unopened paper I held before me. The front page at which my eyes had been staring was covered with the advertisements of half a dozen stores. These stores had simultaneously decided to advertise marvelous values in ladies’ underwear, and in consequence, upon the first page there were no fewer than fourteen damsels disporting themselves without their frocks on, while the majority of them had gone at least one stage further.
“Very nice, too,” I said, scanning the ladies a little closer. “If you really want to know, your cynical ascription to me of a prurient desire to inspect ladies’ underclothing is entirely at fault. I didn’t know it was advertised here until you called my attention to it. As a punishment, I shall give these ladies all the attention their situation warrants.”
Constance sniffed.
“Any excuse,” she said.
“Why,” went on Constance, “I think a man would rather see a girl’s underclothes than her legs.”
“I don’t see anything wrong about that,” I said—and I don’t really. But girls always seem to think it a crime. “I expect the reason is,” I continued, “the reason is that legs usually aren’t half as beautiful as the clothes they put them in.”
Constance sniffed again, and I made the amende honorable.
“In fact,” I said, “I only know two that are worthy of their setting.”
“Who’s the other one?” demanded Constance.
“I didn’t say two women, I said two legs.”
That earned me a smile.
“And my underclothes are rather nice,” said Constance, with babyish gratification.
I continued to gaze meditatively at the ladies on the front page—I had already read the other pages, so that there was no inducement to turn over. Underclothes. Constance. Desert islands. These women in chemises all looked very elegant and care-free. It set one wondering as to whether they could ever be ruffled. Of a certainty even Constance’s sleek shingled head is never so neat when she reaches that stage of undressing or dressing. Perhaps if they knew that a man was looking at them they might be more disturbed. That one airily admiring herself in the handglass would probably squeal. And that other, in the Opera Top Combinations with her fingers gracefully resting on her necklace (why the devil should a girl in combination be wearing a necklace?) would dive for cover. The more severe and mature women in the bottom left-hand corner, who are in some one-or-other’s reducing corsets, would probably shatter an intruder with a glance. But under what conceivable circumstances could a man find himself intruding on the privacy of fourteen ladies in their underclothing? It was a knotty point, and one over which I allowed my mind to stray subconsciously. Dreaming of this sort is a habit of mine. I find that the germs of plots come my way on these occasions. Yet at the same time other matters were passing through my mind. Constance. New wooing. Desert islands.
“I must say,” said Constance, “you are entertaining me to perfection.”
That woke me up. I found that I had the plot in my mind. That is the way these things happen. So I told Constance a story.
The dinner dressing bell had rung five minutes before on board the steamer. Now there was frightful panic. The stewards were rushing up and down, beating on the stateroom doors and calling forth the passengers within in desperate haste. Constance and I had not begun to dress yet, and so we were fully clothed when we reached the boat deck. Few of the other passengers (mainly women) were. The deck was stifling hot; there was a smell of smoke; forward the crew were struggling desperately hard to fight the flames that could be dimly made out in the light of the fierce setting sun.
An English quartermaster fought his way through the mob by our boats, and began to cut loose the cover. Other men struggled with the davits.
(“I’ve never been on a ship on fire,” I said apologetically to Constance, “so you must forgive me if I’m not up in the technicalities.”)
As I was helping with the boat, the quartermaster muttered to me behind his hand:
“There’s oil on board. Barr’ls and barr’ls of it. The old boat will go up like a firework when the fire reaches it. Cap’n’s drunk. Get away with the women while there’s time.”
No sooner said than done. As the cover was stripped off the boat was filled up with women, half of them hysterical. Constance was the last woman to climb in.
“One more,” said the quartermaster. He caught my eye. “Hop in,” he said, “they’d better have a man with ’em.”
I tumbled in, and even as I did so the boat swung out and went away with a run. We cast off the falls, and there we were, adrift on the Indian Ocean—Constance, fourteen other women, and myself.
(“But don’t any of the crew go on board the boats?” asked Constance.
“Don’t be hypercritical,” I said. “I haven’t had time to get the details right yet. I’ll swot up some good reason for that when I get a chance. Just let me tell my story.”)
Adrift on the Indian Ocean—and no sooner had we parted company from the ship than the sun sank with tropical rapidity into the sea, and we were left with only the stars, reflected in black and oily water.
It was a cold, uncomfortable night that we passed. It was pitch dark, the women were frightened, we could not even sort ourselves out. But Constance cuddled up comfortably to me in the stern sheets, and we managed to get through till the dawn.
When daylight came there was immediate need to discover whether the steamer or any other boats from it were in sight. There was nothing visible at all on the wide circle of the horizon. Anxiously though we peered round we could see nothing to raise any hope in our bosoms at all.
“The more need to take stock of our own resources,” said I, naturally assuming the command.
(“Don’t grin like that,” I said to Constance. “Of course I would take command over fifteen women.”)
So we called a census and examined stores. Fifteen women and one man; the man fully clothed and one woman also—Constance. The other in light attire. Three who looked the eldest wore Reducing Corsets, and were the quietest of the lot—I suppose that they were incapable of being other than quiet seeing how reduced they were. Three others were in combinations—Opera Top, Low Neck, and High Neck. Opera Top wore, in addition, a rather nice jade necklace. Low Neck still clasped the hand-mirror which she had held while we were scrambling round the boat; the fact that she had retained it all this time was pretty definite proof of her fright and hysteria. The others—
(“Half a minute,” said I, reaching for the paper again.)
—wore Chemise, Chemise Length Vests, Envelope Chemise, and Chemise and Knickers, all save one, who wore a Bath Robe and, from the manner in which she clutched it about her, nothing else.
And they were a hopeless lot. They were long and thin, not to say weedy, with hardly a trace of figure (save for the Reducing Corsets, and they hadn’t very much, thanks to the corsets) and they sat about the boat in elegant and hopeless attitudes incapable of doing anything.
“The first thing I do,” said I, “is to see what stores we have.”
For half a moment the women brightened up at the mention of the word “stores,” but when they saw what I was referring to they promptly lost interest again, continuing to flop round in elegant attitudes while I crawled round the boat going over the supplies. “We’ve got three days’ food and water,” I announced at length. “It’ll be share and share alike on strict rations until we reach land or are picked up.”
“I’m so hungry already,” wailed the eldest Reducing Corset.
She was just the sort of woman who would be hungry; probably she had been banting lately or something.
“All right,” I said, “we can have a bit of a meal now, if you like.”
I began to share out minute rations of biscuit.
“Here, half a minute,” I said, “we aren’t going to give rations to people who will only waste them as soon as they get them.”
Among most of the women, at the sight of food, there were displayed evident symptoms o
f such a possibility. There is a good big ground swell in the Indian Ocean, and it is excessively noticeable in a small boat. We were shooting up and down very uncomfortably. In less time than it takes to tell, now that we were able to appreciate our position, nearly every one of those weedy women were hanging desperately over the side of the boat. And the weeping, and the wailing, and the helplessness!
These women all had voices as weedy and languid and generally useless as themselves. They wailed and they wept and they lamented their fates in voices like the cooing of pigeons. But even while they hung over the side Bath Robe still kept her garment clutched about her, and the Chemise Vests kept pulling the lower extremities of their garments down when their writhings threatened to send them higher than was discreet. They were very, very decent, were those women.
For the sake of something to do, and in an endeavor to change the nature of our motion, I stepped the mast and hoisted the lug sail. Constance, of course, thanks to our holidays together, knows something about boat sailing, and she helped me with sheet and tiller, while the others looked on with cow-like inanity. Had I told you before that all of them had cow-like eyes and inane expressions? Well, they had.
I hadn’t the least idea what course to steer, and there was only the sun to steer by, so I got the wind comfortably over the quarter and soon we were progressing smoothly enough, and we were able to take more interest in things. Time went by, and still we shared out our rations of biscuit and water. They were small rations, and we were distinctly hungry, yes, and thirsty.
(“All right, pig,” said Constance, “you needn’t hint like that. I’ll put the kettle on; the tea’s all laid ready on the tray.”)
We were making a strict Socialist state of ourselves, and one day, after the women had been whispering to themselves a good deal, Opera Top turned to me.
“Don’t you think, dear Mr. Trevor,” she cooed, “seeing that it is share and share alike, it would be better for every one concerned if we were to share your—er—wardrobe between us?”
“My what?” I yelled.
“Your wardrobe. Some of us are hardly sufficiently clad, and so uncomfortable in consequence.” And she gave a little wriggle and clapped her hands about the upper portion of her where the Opera Top came to an untimely end.
One of the Chemise Vests butted in here.
“I don’t think, dear Opera Top,” she fluted sweetly, “that you have quite as much to complain about as some others of us.”
Very delicately she adjusted the edge of her vest. At the same time I have never seen such lust in the eyes of any one as in hers as she gazed at my trousers.
“Well, I’m damned,” said I.
There was quite a flutter in the dovecote at this awful word. Opera Top covered her face with her hands for a second, but she soon returned to the charge.
“I’m sure you will appreciate, dear Mr. Trevor,” she said, “that it is not mere selfishness that actuates us, although the nights are cold. It is a delicate matter, but surely you can understand how uncomfortable we all feel at being so lightly clad in the presence of a gentleman.”
“Oh, give her your trousers if she wants them so much,” said Constance. “Anything for peace, dear.”
“But—but—” I said, “it is a delicate matter, but surely these ladies would be just as uncomfortable if I were to be without my trousers.”
Envelope Chemise chipped in here.
“Perhaps,” said she, “perhaps your wife, dear Mrs. Trevor, would have no objection to—er—sewing a button and button-hole on the tails of your—er—shirt. It is a very convenient arrangement, I’m sure.” She uttered these last words in a rush, blushing scarlet.
Constance shrieked with hysterical laughter.
(“I’m sure I never shriek,” said Constance.
“You did on this occasion,” said I.)
That called upon her the severest attention of the eldest Miss Reducing Corset.
“I think you, too, should make some small sacrifice, dear Mrs. Trevor,” she said. “After all, Mr. Trevor is your husband, and I understand that—that it doesn’t matter so much with husbands.”
It was Constance this time who said she was damned. But the eldest Miss Reducing Corset’s suggestion met with evident approval from the others. They cooed and they fluted and they fluttered their long white hands and they raised such a to-do (always a perfectly lady-like to-do, of course) that in the end our hearts melted.
Opera Top gratefully buried the upper half of her in my coat, and the senior Chemise Vest drew on my trousers with a sigh of relief. The eldest Miss Reducing Corset appropriated (with freezing politeness, and beating all other candidates by a neck) Constance’s frock. Bath robe wailed when she saw the plunder distributed in this fashion with no share for her.
“Isn’t there anything for me?” she pleaded.
“Of course not,” said Opera Top, almost snappishly, “you’re the best off of all of us, you and one or two others.”
This last she said with a glance at the Chemises and Knickers—and she still gazed avariciously at Constance’s diaphanous but adequate cami-knickers.
“But,” wailed Bath Robe, “I simply daren’t move.”
The eldest Miss Reducing Corset regarded her with distinct approval.
“My dear child,” she said, “you don’t need to move. Haven’t we got dear Mr. Trevor here to look after us?”
That was the sort of women they were.
Well, to cut a long story short—
(“Just as well,” said Constance, but of course I ignored her.)
—to cut a long story short, just when our rations were beginning to run low we reached the islands. There were two of them, about a mile apart, just mere coral atolls, but grateful with cocoanut palms and very pleasant to look upon.
The smaller one we left on our lee, and bore up for the larger. We circled round the ring of the reef, looking for a break. There was only a small one.
“We’ll have to risk it,” I said, and we made a dart for the tiny entrance. As a matter of fact, I don’t really think a skilled sailor could have managed it, and I was hampered by all the women lying useless in the boat. However it was, we failed to get through. A swell fell away from under us unexpectedly, and the bottom was torn out of the boat by the jagged coral. It was not too serious for the reef held up firm and allowed us to land without difficulty. So there we were cast away on a coral island and our only means of leaving the place damaged beyond repair.
We carried what few stores we had ashore—as I said, we carried our stores ashore—
(“All right,” said Constance, “I expect the kettle’s boiling. You can make the tea and bring in the tray.”)
—we carried our stores ashore and tried to make the best of things. It wasn’t a bad little place, that island. There were plenty of cocoanuts, and fish which we caught on a hook made out of a safety pin of Constance’s, and at the bottom of the lagoon there were oysters! They were delicious—although of course you had to dive for them. Pretty deep, too. There were one or two bread-fruit trees, too. I hadn’t ever seen bread-fruit trees before I reached the atoll, but somehow I knew it was bread-fruit, and I guessed how to cook it. Jolly good stuff, too.
(“Go easy with the bread and butter,” said Constance, “You’re not on the atoll now.”)
So we didn’t fare too badly. The trouble was that not one of those women would do anything toward anything. They didn’t mind fishing, in a lady-like sort of way, but they simply would not take the fish off their hook when they caught one. They would shriek for me to do it for them. It was a horrible nuisance if I were on the other side of the atoll and had to run half a mile just to unhook their fish and re-bait their line. I think that why they liked fishing was because it gave them opportunities to take up a graceful attitude and maintain it indefinitely. Their sole purpose in life was to take up attitudes. As for climbing the palms after green cocoanuts, or diving after oysters, they nearly fainted at the bare suggestion. The consequence
was that Constance and I spent all our time rushing round collecting food for sixteen persons and then cooking it. It grew wearisome, decidedly wearisome.
(“You can put your feet up on the chair if you like,” said Constance.)
At the end of a month or two Constance and I grew fed up with the whole business. I maintained to her that there was a slight improvement in the women, and that they showed signs of eventually becoming bearable to live with, but she couldn’t see it. As a matter of fact they got on my nerves pretty badly. Table manners are admirable enough in their way, but there is a limit to it. To see the delicate grace with which, when they were eating oysters, they would remove the pearls from their mouths if one got in unnoticed (those oysters were full of pearls, of course) grew exasperating in the end. I would have given a week of my life to see one of them spit the things out over her shoulder. And they simply had to have spoons and forks, of course. I spent hours chipping out wooden ones for them with a bit of sharp coral. And their clothes (what there was of them) wore out, too, and there was no end of a fuss about that. They made themselves new ones out of bark and things, and in consequence did nothing but chatter about fashions all day and half the night. There used to be fearful ructions (and lady-like ructions are the worst possible kind) if Opera Top turned up one morning in a bark gown copied from the model of the one High Neck had made the day before. The way they would be gushingly rude to one another would have been funny to any one not having to live with them. Constance’s clothes and my shirt wore in no time, naturally, and we never had a moment to make ourselves new ones. We didn’t need them in that climate, but there was trouble over that, too. They used to talk to each other in audible asides about the indelicacy of it, and they averted their eyes from us. Yet for all that at mealtimes they always managed to get the fattest oysters and the least burned chunks of bread-fruit. Not by unmannerly grabbing, of course, but by sheer polite woman’s tact.
In the end came the inevitable row. Constance took my part against the women, and they stayed calm and polite until Constance lost her temper. I have never met any one with their capacity for being rude while maintaining all the appearance of being exquisitely ladylike.
Love Lies Dreaming Page 5