Dance on a Sinking Ship

by Kilian, Michael;

  “Nancy!”

  “Yes, yes. Quite, quite. An actual gentleman, and a newspaper reporter at that.”

  “A reporter?”

  “Some sort of newspaperman, at any rate. An American.”

  Emerald felt like screaming. “There’s a newspaperman aboard and you talked to him? Do you realize the trouble you could cause?”

  “Worry not, Mother dear. Your wretched little secret is perfectly safe. I actually did tell him the Prince of Wales was aboard at one point and he didn’t believe me for a moment. He didn’t say anything more about it. He thinks Charles Lindbergh is aboard. Can you imagine that?”

  “Nancy, are you sober?”

  “Why, so I am. How thoughtless of me, Mother dear. You must be scads of vodkas ahead of me by now. I’ll call you back when I’m squiffy.”

  Lady Cunard hung up. As she knew she would end up doing, she phoned Chips Channon. He agreed at once to come over, and appeared a few minutes later at her door, wearing furry slippers, pajamas, and a dressing gown.

  “I ordered gin and orange juice,” Emerald said.

  “Insufficient,” said Chips, moaning as he dropped into one of Lady Cunard’s armchairs. “Order a pitcher of stingers.”

  “You seem already stung, Sir Henry.”

  Channon had not been knighted, nor done anything to warrant it, but there was talk his name would appear on the king’s next honors list if the list would be that of a King Edward VIII rather than a King George V. He had told a few close friends like Emerald that his ultimate goal was an earldom.

  “Never stung enough. Not until stung to death.”

  “You came close last night, darling, but then so did everyone. How ever are we to survive this voyage? Not only are we being taken away from all that we hold dear, we’re being taken back to America.”

  “Stick with the prince,” said Chips, “and we shall never be far from all that we hold dear.

  “Including your little son, perhaps,” said Emerald.

  Channon’s wife, Honor, had given birth to their son, Paul, just three weeks before, yet here was Chips at sea with the Prince of Wales.

  He looked sad, and angry. She’d been very unfair. He adored that little baby. But he also adored the idea of becoming Sir Henry. It was the American in him, just like her.

  “I’d point out, Emerald, that I’ve seen much more of little Paul in the last three weeks than you have of your daughter Nancy in the last decade.”

  She glared at him, remaining silent.

  “Sorry, darling,” he said. “I forget your travail du jour. I say, do you know who that couple was sitting with the American actress? The Count and Countess von Bourke und Kresse. With the kaiser gone, you can’t get much higher than that.”

  “What do you mean? Dickie’s brother is the Prince of Hesse. And there’s their cousin the Duke of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha.”

  “Hesse is not Prussia, dear one. Anyway, she’s quite high in the Nazi party. An intimate of Goering’s, I’m told. I don’t think he’s very political. A hero in the war and still quite a military fellow, guarding the Polish marches with his brave regiment. I should like to meet him. Men like him are all that keep the Bolshies at bay.”

  “Let us arrange a little dinner here in my stateroom,” she said, wanting to make up to Chips for her thoughtless remark about his baby son. “I can’t stand much more of the captain’s table. When God invented the Dutch, he invented boredom.”

  “Topping idea, Emerald. I wonder if we could invite His Highness? He’d love to meet some new Germans. If only we could be sure of their discretion.”

  “I’m sure we can, Chips. The nobility, at least, are true to each other. And anyway, I’ve already told Joe von Ribbentrop about this crossing.”

  Chasey Chatham Parker, following the custom of young women at her high level of Philadelphia society, had been very circumspect about her drinking and had arisen feeling rested and refreshed. Her eager and unfortunate husband, a year younger than she, had instead been foolish enough to swill along with the English aristocrats at the captain’s table glass for superfluous glass, eventually falling unconscious beneath the table. He had thoroughly disgusted her, especially when he vomited over one of the stewards who tried to help him to his feet, but now she felt forgiving.

  She peered down at him closely. His face, so flushed the night before, was now ghostly pale. She stroked his cheek, though somewhat tentatively, fearing he might wake.

  His mother would be displeased were she to find out about this episode, and she would hold Chasey responsible. She disapproved of Chasey, though the Philadelphia Chathams were far the social superiors of the Baltimore Parkers, the Parker’s money notwithstanding. Chasey was pretty, well bred, popular, and accomplished—and thus posed a threat. Chris Parker was an only child. Since their marriage, he had been in thrall not to his divorced and lonely rich mother but to his strong and independent wife.

  Chasey left their bed and went to the bathroom of their stateroom, immediately turning on the shower. As the little chamber filled with steam, she took a quick look at herself in the mirror. Dark haired, with brown eyes and flawless rosy skin, she was an exceedingly attractive girl and exceedingly well aware of it. She had a slender and athletic body, the product of ancestry and a passion for tennis, and a quick mind well trained by four very successful years at Smith College.

  When not puking, her husband Chris was very attractive himself, but more in a feminine than masculine way. She sometimes thought he had longer eyelashes than she did. But he had shown himself man enough on this their honeymoon. He was an ardent and caring lover. This had somewhat surprised her.

  As the steam erased her face from the mirror, she thought of the reasons she had married him. The match had pleased her mother, bringing a badly needed fortune into the family, if not a particularly distinguished bloodline. Chasey’s mother’s family had been in America since the seventeenth century. They made a very attractive couple. And Chris could be fun at times, at least when he wasn’t drinking. He was very witty, in a boyish Harvard way. She quite liked him.

  Chasey understood, of course, that she would ultimately be unhappy. He was much too young and would never catch up. He would still be a boy by the time she was beginning to worry about getting older. But for now she was pleased with her marriage. If nothing else, it was a comfortable place to rest before moving onto the next major part of her life.

  With hot water striking hard against her back, she wondered what lay before them on this voyage. They had intended to spend it entirely by themselves, but, thanks to the nice Dutch captain’s invitation, had been caught up in a traveling party of English nobility and thus had been rendered members of the ship’s elite. Chris had been thrilled. Chasey had been flattered and amused, but also a little frightened. Chris, like his mother, was almost absurdly an anglophile. Chasey felt much more an American, at least her parents’ kind of American.

  One of the Englishmen, a very bright, middle-aged, and slightly plump member of Parliament, had intimated an interest in going to bed with her. She had been startled. She had little idea of how to deal with so worldly and sophisticated a man. But she had not retreated. It was an unthinkable idea, but not necessarily an unpleasant one.

  Or was it? There was something about these people she found very threatening, especially to her so-very-vulnerable husband.

  Chasey tilted back her head and let the hot water stream over her well-boned face. They had a secret, these people, and she was not sure she wanted to know what it was.

  Fruity Metcalfe and Lord Brownlow had descended to the promenade deck and were making a perambulation of it, in need of both exercise and privacy. They had each passed a largely sleepless night, but the sight of the open ocean in daylight and the stimulating breaths of fresh sea air revived Metcalfe. Brownlow looked bored, or at least unhappy. Fruity supposed he might be worrying about his ailing wife.

  “Well then,” said Fruity. “We’ve done it. We have him aboard and we’ve passed
a peaceful night.”

  “Such boastful talk makes me quite nervous. We’ve five nights remaining, perhaps more with the poor headway they’re making.”

  Fruity glanced over the rail at the small, sidling waves. “’Tis a bit slow, isn’t it? No matter. The longer he’s on this ship the more we stay out of trouble.”

  “As you keep saying. I do wish I’d had a chance for a longer call to Kitty at Le Havre. She doesn’t understand this at all. She was quite upset.”

  “She understands the rigors of being in the service of His Royal Highness.”

  Brownlow frowned. His wife’s illness was possibly more serious than Metcalfe had thought.

  They had reached the bulkhead aft that separated the smaller second-class portion of the promenade deck from that belonging to first. The doors that led through it were locked. Turning into a sheltered walkway, they crossed to the starboard side of the ship and started forward toward the bow.

  “I think I should send a wireless message to MI-5,” Brownlow said.

  “To inquire after Kitty?”

  “No. To ask if they have any more information about all these murky assassination plots.”

  “I shouldn’t do that, Perry. Those fellows are rather selective about their discretion. Word might get back to the king. It’s well enough known that, wherever you are, the prince is likely nearby.”

  “Oh, very well. But I’d like to visit the signals office sometime. I’d be most interested in seeing what sort of wireless messages have been sent and received thus far.”

  “Not just yet, Perry. Let’s poke about belowdecks. See what some of the other passengers are like.”

  “Did Inspector Runcie have anything to report from his sentry duty last night?”

  “Only Edwina Mountbatten, going for a late-night stroll on deck—in the nude.”

  “My word.”

  “Nothing to be concerned about. She didn’t notice him. No attempt to lure him from his post.”

  “Come now, Fruity.”

  “I’ve just now sent Runcie back to his cabin. He has to sleep sometime.”

  Wallis heard the prince’s valet enter their suite and proceed to Edward’s bedroom door. His knock was followed by some loud cursing from His Royal Highness, but she heard nothing after that. The valet had entered his bedchamber and was doubtless busily engaged in whatever ministrations the prince required. Sometimes she was jealous of these private attentions; sometimes she was just as relieved to be spared having to perform them. But they made her curious.

  As she expected, there was a small blue envelope protruding from beneath her own bedchamber door. He had awakened her once during the night to borrow a headache powder, but had somehow found occasion after that to write her one of his “sweet” thoughts.

  She pulled on her dressing gown and, walking barefoot to the door, retrieved the note, taking it to a chair by one of the portholes. She looked at the royal crest on the back, for a moment thinking of what her own initials would look like there. Then she tore open the envelope, with some impatience.

  My darling girl,

  A boy could not make drowsel, despite the powders and the lull of the sea. I feel so eanum to be these few steps from you while you sleep, but a girl must have her slumber, to be all the more perfect for a boy.

  A boy loves a girl so much—every hour of every day. WE shall triumph.

  E.

  Wallis crumpled the note, the stiff, elegant stationery hurting her hand as she did so. They were half a day or more closer to America. She had sent a wire to her Aunt Bessie in Baltimore saying she would telephone from New York—but she did not disclose the name of the ship or invite her aunt to join her. Though that dear, generous woman was the only human being Wallis had much love for in the world, there was simply too much risk in their meeting. There were too, too many reporters in New York, and Wallis remained terrified about what might happen if the story of her romance ever became public. Especially in the British press. She had been popular enough in London society before Edward, and her status as his ostensible favorite had propelled her to the very center of the haut monde—the geographical locus of which was probably Emerald Cunard’s drawing room.

  But to step even an inch farther was the most dangerous thing she could imagine herself doing. Already she could sense a hostility and wariness growing even among the prince’s friends. As for Margot Asquith and King George’s court, they likely viewed her as they might some Hindu untouchable.

  No matter. She would have her day.

  Wallis stood, clenching and reclenching her fists in nervous habit. There was nothing she could do for the moment. Her fate was entirely in Edward’s hands, which was to say, in Fruity Metcalfe’s. She had great faith in the fellow, but no idea how he planned to get them off the ship in secret once they got to New York. She feared Fruity had no idea either. Her dread was that he meant to keep them aboard until they returned to Europe, all closed up in their quarters.

  She and Edward had been given the largest suite aboard, but even its huge sitting room seemed small and oppressive and her bedchamber a virtual cell. Wallis had tried to look upon this strange voyage as escape and release and this new ship as a long needed sanctuary. But it had become a prison.

  Her breathing was becoming rapid—a recurring and feared symptom. She hurried to the porthole, fumbled with the catches, and finally flung the glass cover open, inhaling deeply of the sea air and finding relief in the sense and view of the limitless blue-gray water that stretched to a hazy horizon.

  If only she could fly out over those lapping waves, break free of this ship and all its frightful people. But she was trapped. She must go and stay where he bade her, forever and ever and ever.

  Spencer sat yawning, looking blearily through the papers that had been pushed beneath his cabin door. One was a printed sheet headlined “Today’s Forecast” and containing nine squares. Eight were line drawings of clouds, the sun, and whatnot, with captions reading “Stormy, Hazy, Windy, Rainy, Sun Breaking through, Cloudy, Showers, and Sunny.” The ninth was a blank square captioned “Expected temperature.” The square marked “Hazy” was circled. The blank square bore the figure “70 F.” He was amazed. It was October on the North Atlantic, and the weather was that of the Cote d’Azur in spring. They might just as well have been sailing toward Suez.

  Another paper was entitled “Ocean News” and listed a dozen items that had been picked up by the ship’s wireless during the night. The beautiful black entertainer Josephine Baker had performed before the President of France at a charity gala at the Paris Opera. The Italians had bombed Adowa in Abyssinia, destroying among other things a Red Cross hospital and killing an estimated one-thousand seven-hundred people, including nurses, women patients, and children. Mussolini had turned down another offer from the League of Nations for a peaceful settlement. Berlin authorities again threatened to deport American newsmen for stories unfavorable to the Reich. Roosevelt had signed the Farm Mortgage Moratorium Act, allowing farmers to live on and work foreclosed property if they paid a rent stipulated by the courts. The acreage lost to the “Dust Bowl” had decreased slightly from the year before. The American Federation of Labor had announced plans to set up a Committee for Industrial Organization to exploit provisions of the Wagner Act that allowed them to organize by industry instead of by company. A musical by George Gershwin titled Porgy and Bess had opened on Broadway to ecstatic reviews.

  Spencer reread the item about the bombing of Adowa, imagining the smoke and flame, the clouds of dust and flying masonry, the screams and the crying. He had once bombed marshalling yards in eastern France near Nancy. His ordnance had for once exploded, among boxcars carrying munitions, and the resultant pyrotechnics had been startling and deadly. He had tried never to think of it, but surely he had killed civilians—railroad workers, people living near the yards. Doubtless they had died just as awfully as those at Adowa.

  He should be in Abyssinia, telling the good, complacent people of Chicago about these thi
ngs, making them see them and hear them, making them understand what was coming. Instead, he was on a luxury ship, chasing a phantom.

  He unfolded the next paper, a schedule of the dining-room and restaurant serving times and of the day’s events. There were exercise classes in the gymnasium, trap shooting and golf practice (for the first class) on the sports deck, squash and deck tennis for first class only, and games of backgammon, mah-jongg, bezique, and bridge in the lounges. The afternoon movie was The Secret Six, starring Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable. It was the voyage’s captain’s dinner that night, black tie for both first class and second, though the captain would confine himself to first class and First Officer van Groot would be host in second.

  That evening and night, as every evening and night, there would be dancing in both first- and second-class lounges. The orchestra in first class was American and that in second class was Dutch.

  On the bottom of the sheaf was what Spencer had been waiting for—a small beige booklet containing the passenger list as amended to include those who had booked late. With defiant absurdity, he turned first to “L,” but could find no “LINDBERGH, Mr. C.”—only a “LINDBLOOM, Mrs. T.”

  He began leafing through the pages, scanning each quickly. Some familiar surnames flashed by: ABBOT, Miss S. He had known a Stephanie Abbot, but she had moved to San Francisco and was married. CHANNON, the Hon. Mr. H., M.P. He recalled an odd fellow of that name from his preparatory school in Chicago, but this was obviously an Englishman, KUNGSHOLM, Mr. D, but his friend Dag Kungsholm, a reporter for Morgenbladdid, had been killed by a Bedouin raiding party in Morocco. Mecklen, Quint, Rothenberg, Tuttle, Winterling. Familiar names, but not of anyone he thought he knew.

  His lamentable amour of the night before had not lied. There was a Lady E. Cunard aboard, but no reference to a Nancy. Then he found her after all. She was listed as Fairbairn, Mrs. N. She had used the name of the ex-husband she had told him about. He wondered why—to disguise Henry Crowder as a spouse? To disguise herself as a respectable person again? To make some peculiar gesture against whatever demons were plaguing her?