Full Tide

by Celine Conway

  “Jeremy isn’t in a position to marry,” she said flatly, “and I don’t want to talk about him. He’s not important enough.”

  She would have much preferred to talk about Mark and perhaps get him to mention his sister. Was it too much to hope that sometime soon he would feel inclined to speak of his private life?

  “Isn’t, he?” His eyes were narrow again. “Then why don't you tell him so? Has it occurred to you that your obstinate participation in that young man’s affairs is earning you the enmity of Astra Carmichael?”

  Swiftly perceptive, she said, “She’s never had to work so hard for success with a man, and that must be aggravating when he happens to be young and ordinary and very much impressed. But it’s possible that being ordinary myself I have more knowledge than she of his feelings, because mine, if I were in his shoes, would be similar.”

  “Soul mates, in fact,” he said with sarcasm.

  The conversation, like most of those she had had with Mark, promised to get out of hand, and all because of Jeremy and Astra. She sighed, and drank her tea. She wished he would slip a cigarette between her lips and light it for her as he had once before, when she had been too strung up to savor the joy of it.

  But he sat back in the chair, his ankles crossed and his cup and saucer balanced in his hand, and appeared to be intent upon a vision above and beyond her. Then he said something which hurt her into temporary speechlessness.

  “I'm looking forward to the end of this trip.” When she made no comment he went on, “I have a commission to do in Cape Town and Durban for the shipping company, and if all goes well something big will emerge.”

  After, a minutes she was able to say, “So this is a momentous voyage for you as well as for ... the rest of us. I wish you luck.”

  She couldn’t see him clearly, but thought his expression had become quizzical. “Aren’t you curious?” he asked.

  “Dare one be, with you? I can’t imagine you telling a woman your business. A man who can do without, a wife would hardly confide in an acquaintance...”

  “How very shrewd,” he said with the suggestion of a taunt, “but you’re too modest. I should think you’d be very nice to be matey with—particularly for an unmarried man. You wouldn’t deny me all the social amenities, would you, simply because I sail the seas instead of settling in a cottage with a little woman?”

  Carefully steadying her voice she replied, “Why can’t you be as other men. who sail the seas? They often manage both and do it creditably.”

  “Men differ, Lisa,” he said, kindly and patronizing. “If I had to worry about the wife I’d left behind me I couldn’t be a good sailor.”

  “No? I thought you believed in sophistication at all costs—and a wife having a career apart from her home. It seems that even you can change your mind.”

  “I haven’t changed my mind,” he said evenly, “only my perspective. Generally, I talk from the other chap’s viewpoint, but this is my own.”

  “Do you mean,” she said casually, above the quick beat of her heart, “that your reason for remaining a bachelor is that you couldn’t face leaving your wife?”

  “That’s a sentimental way of putting it, but it has the small chill ring of truth. If I ever marry I shall leave the sea.”

  She looked down at the locked fingers in her lap. “For you that would be the end of the world, wouldn’t it? I’m sure you could never love a woman as you love the sea.”

  “I don’t know,” he said ruminatively, tantalizingly. “There may come a time when I’ll have to choose between soft arms and lips and the cold comfort of the ocean. I’d be only half a man if I unhesitatingly chose the sea.”

  “And you’re not that,” she answered a little shakily.

  She could not meet his eyes; she was afraid of discovery. Mark put his cup back on the tray and came to take hers. He remained standing, staring through the closed port hole at the speeding wastes of the dark tropic sea. Lisa had forgotten they were on the Wentworth heading south. She had forgotten everything save that she and Mark were alone in a bitter-sweetness of intimacy which held not a fraction of promise.

  But now she heard the tiny night noises, the muted creaking and the spray. And if she leaned slightly forward, she, too, could glimpse a sky that was bland and full of stars. “To see a star with my love; A star to dream on, with hands entwined and blended hearts.” It was all very sweet and charming, and totally inapposite. He mocked at poetry, mocked at romance.

  Whether he admitted it or not, Mark had changed his outlook on marriage within the last few days. She recalled with absolute certainty his stating that he would not know what to do with a wife. Apparently he could now contemplate the contingency with a certain amount of equanimity.

  She was suddenly very tired. The chair into which she had nestled was warm and embracing, and it was lovely to rest her head to one side of its curbed back so that her cheek lay against its soft leather. Like this she could have slept for hours.

  Mark’s head turned and he looked down at her. “You frighten me a bit—some of the things you do—but you’re a good little scout, Lisa. A misguided one, perhaps, but fundamentally as sound as the ship’s bell.”

  “How nice of you,” she said with pleasure. “Did the stars tell you that?”

  “No, the stars aren’t to be trusted. Come along, child. It’s just on two and I have to be up again at five-thirty.” She struggled out of the chair, trod gingerly on a foot which seemed excruciatingly full of glass splinters. His arm went lightly across her back and his hand covered the fine bone of her shoulder. She stood backing the small lamp, flexing her foot in the slipper and unwilling to make the tiniest movement which might disturb his hold. “Pins and needles?” he queried.

  She nodded and gave a breathy laugh. “What Nancy calls a big boot, Mark,” she paused, reframing in her mind the sentence, “May I put in a short spell of duty in Hospital Row tomorrow ... not in the boy’s cabin, but the others? It would help Nurse Bridge.”

  “It isn’t necessary,” he said decisively. “We have the staff to cope with emergencies, and this isn’t an emergency by any means. The doc knows his job but he’s no organizer.” A change of tone. “What’s the matter—are you getting bored with the voyage?”

  “Of course not. Unlike you, I wish it would go on for ever.”

  “Do you?” enigmatically. “It’s all a matter of how you look at life, whether you’re content with things as they are or regard the present as worth living but only a preliminary to better things. Think it over, little one, and don’t cheat in your answers.” His hand persuaded her towards the door. “What a small thing you are in slippers,” he ended lightly.

  His finger went to the switch and Lisa stiffened, blinking. In an instant the bright light dispelled intimacy. Mark’s hand was in his pocket, as if it had never touched her, and his expression was aloof and only faintly smiling. She saw the moon with blinding clarity; the chairs in which they had sat near the lesser light, the tidy desk, the bottles in the dispensary which lay beyond a half-open door and a label which had fluttered to the floor and curled with the heat into a white cylinder.

  A nerve twitched in her throat and a thickness came, like the thickness of tears, but her mouth smiled. “Thank you for the safety-first injection and the tea,” she said politely. “Goodnight.”

  “It’s morning,” he reminded her as he opened the door. “Sleep well and lie in late. So long.”

  She slipped out into the corridor and hurried round to her own cabin. The electric night-light glowed minutely just above the dressing-chest and the mirror was misted so that it gave back a white, ethereal blur when she gazed into it. She hung her dressing gown over the back of a chair, kicked off the slippers and slid into her bunk. Presently, when her sight became adjusted to the darkness, she noticed an envelope weighted to the dressing-chest by a jar of cream. She reached for it, extracted the half-sheet of note-paper and leant close to the light. Painstakingly she read the few words erratically scrawled the
re.

  “May I see you in my cabin at nine tomorrow morning?” The signature was Astra Carmichael’s.

  She dropped the note and crossed her arms under her head on the pillow. Surely Astra wasn’t going to admit defeat and ask Lisa’s aid in getting Jeremy to toe the line? No, a woman of Astra’s accomplishments, and conceit would never do that. She probably had some notion of being belatedly kind as a reward for the sea-sickness tablet.

  In any case, just now Lisa had not the mental stamina to speculate about the actress. She was too beautifully drowsy, too delightfully conscious that the stolen half-hour with Mark, however acid-sweet, had started cautious little wings fluttering at her heart.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was a fine, heady morning. The wind had changed, dispersing the mist and drying the decks, and whipping little waves across the surface of the swimming pool. They were past the steamy tropic belt, and riding through exhilarating sub-tropic breezes which, perhaps a hundred miles to the east, were tossing palm fronds and blowing sand into the iron-roofed bungalows of Portuguese West Africa.

  Lisa felt lethargic but vaguely happy. She ate a piece of toast and drank some coffee, brought by the stewardess, and when Nancy returned she helped her to set out the edges of a jig-saw puzzle. Purposely, she waited till twenty minutes to ten before going along to Astra’s stateroom.

  Her knock was answered lazily, and she let herself into the cabin. Astra, in a leaf-green sharkskin negligee about the collar of which her hair hung girlishly, looked rather like a ballerina presenting Autumn; for in the merciless morning light her hair had a burnt sienna hue with rust at the curling tips.

  Her face was ageless; she could have been twenty-five or thirty-five. Her green eyes, though, were deep and knowledgeable as they rested upon Lisa.

  “Hello, there,” she said carelessly. “How very bright and young you look. Do sit down.”

  Lisa yielded a dutiful smile and obediently sat at one end of the grey silk divan. She accepted a cigarette and a light from the pearl-studded lighter, and relaxed a little in this room which was more like a large, luxurious boudoir than a cabin.

  “You rather distrust me, don’t you?” said Astra, leaning back in the armchair and crossing slim ankles on a stool. “Perhaps I should tell you at once that I’ve no personal designs upon Jeremy Carne, good-looking though he is. You may find it hard to believe, but he’s not in the least in love with me, either.”

  “I know,” said Lisa equably, beginning to enjoy herself. “Jeremy isn’t a complete idiot and he’s not altogether without sensibility.”

  Astra looked at her sharply. “I didn’t invite you in for a talk about that young man. He presents no difficulties.” She flicked ash onto the rose and grey rug. “You may have heard that I’ve been asked to give a play-reading?”

  “Yes. Mark mentioned it.” His name slipped out as effortlessly as it pronounced itself in her thoughts, but the moment it was said she would have given anything to retract it. In any case, it was Jeremy who had told her about the play-reading, not Mark. Hurriedly, to gloss the moment, she added, “I’ve only heard that kind of entertainment on the radio, so I’m looking forward to seeing the real thing. Which one are you doing?”

  Astra’s thickish but beautifully shaped brows had risen and her tangerine-tinted mouth quirked. “You and Mark have become friendly, haven’t you?” she said curiously. “Forgive my commenting, but to me it’s such an odd friendship—Mark, and a little thing like you. Normally, he’s so careful.”

  The flush of incipient enjoyment faded completely from Lisa’s cheeks. “What do you mean?”

  A shrug. “Nothing in the least insulting, I assure you. I’ve known Mark for a long time, and I think I ought to warn you not to mistake his kindness for anything deeper. He’s good to you and the child because you have no man to look after you, but for his own amusement he prefers older women. Unfortunately,” again she shook cigarette ash to the floor with maddening casualness, “I’ve been so busy on my first production for Johannesburg that I haven’t been able to see as much of him as I would like. However, when my contract in South Africa is finished I shall be free for a time.”

  Upon this statement Lisa could make no observation. Somewhat woodenly, she watched Astra’s extravagant gilt mules as the toes gently waved them, and in a second or two she pressed out the half-smoked cigarette and dusted her fingers.

  “About this play-reading,” said Astra tentatively. “You have an attractive voice and are pleasant to look at. Would you care to join in?”

  Lisa shook her head, rather blindly. “Thanks, but I haven’t that kind of nerve.”

  “Oh, but I’d say you have, and it’s wonderful practice.”

  “Who knows, it might lead to something bigger.”

  “How could it—on the Wentworth?”

  The candid grey eyes, a little misted with the effort to appear undisturbed, met veiled green ones. Both drama and tension were in this room; to Lisa the atmosphere was almost palpable, yet she couldn’t quite pin down what had made it so.

  Astra drew a long, careless breath. “You’re an honest, unblinking sort of person, so I’ll try to be the same. You see, Lisa, throughout my stay in South Africa I shall need an assistant and secretary. My secretary in England is having a well-earned holiday, and I intended to get through the trip without one. But the fees for these colonial tours are massive, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t have all the help I can get.”

  She paused, as if allowing this preliminary announcement plenty of time to submerge.

  Lisa, said, “I expect they’ll provide you with an assistant in Johannesburg.”

  “Possibly, but I hate having to get used to people.” Then, bluntly, “I’m offering you the post. I’d pay you well, and I guarantee you’d find plenty in it to interest you. It’s not an ordinary secretarial position. There wouldn’t be much mail to handle, and you’d have the chance of doing walk-on parts in the plays, if you liked. In addition I’ll find you a good post if you wish to return to England when I go; I believe you’ve nothing to go back to.”

  Lisa had no time to voice a dazed comment before Astra went on, “I never ask for an immediate decision. For some reason people like you and Jeremy need a prodigious amount of persuading that acting is a craft which can be learned, but he will have told you he’s doing magnificently—so well, in fact, that I’m going to risk putting on one of my own plays first.”

  Apparently, not only did she require no immediate decision from Lisa, but the subject, as far as she was concerned, was temporarily closed. She got up and thumbed the steward’s bell, gave herself an impersonal glance in the long mirror and came back to rest in her former place. Of the steward she requested iced coffee for Lisa and tonic water for herself.

  “Jeremy has the morning free,” she said, “but he won’t be looking for you because I told him I had this in mind. I’m afraid, Lisa,” she said softly, “that you under-estimated our mutual friend. He’s undoubtedly keen on the stage and quite sure he could never follow engineering as a profession. You know,” she continued confidentially, “it often happens that we don’t realize our talents till an event comes along to test us. I admit that my first and only love has been the theatre, but ... well, look at Mark. When war broke out he had just been called to the Bar, but by the time the war ended he was commanding a frigate, and had discovered that the sea was in his blood.”

  So her first intuition about him had been correct, mused Lisa. He was a lawyer. What a combination: lawyer-sea captain. No wonder there was no getting past his defences.

  “Did you know him before he went to sea?” she asked.

  “No. We met during one of his leaves at a house party, and afterwards whenever he was in London he would come to the theatre, and we’d have supper together and dance. Each of us had something which the other needed. We still have it, but it has mellowed with understanding. I’ve liked a good many men,” she said abstractedly, “but he’s the only one I’d marry.”

&
nbsp; Lisa was grateful to the steward for coming in at that moment. She tried the iced coffee through straws and wondered how soon she could escape from Astra. Her brain was whirling and in Miss Carmichael’s company there was little chance of its becoming steady and able to think dispassionately.

  The actress oozed power. She was so confident, so obviously accustomed to manoeuvring any situation, on or off the stage, that Lisa could feel herself being managed as if she were already a small-part player. Much of what Astra said passed over her, but the even, famous voice became soothing as it went on to a monologue about the theatre and (:its cultural associations. Listening required no effort.

  It was nearly noon when Lisa was at last able to withdraw from the state room, but she did have the last word.

  “Thanks for a pleasant morning, Miss Carmichael,” she said. “I’ll think over your offer of a job, but I can tell you right now that I’d be no good at play-reading. I’ll love watching, though.”

  After that she marched back to her cabin like a scarred warrior from the battle front.

  Having finished the jig-saw puzzle—it was one she had done before and therefore simple—Nancy took the most circuitous route to the promenade deck. She like cl climbing through the narrow after-doorway and finding herself in a small portion of completely deserted ship, and it always made her dizzy with a delicious fright to stare, quite alone, a long way down into the black boiling sea at the ship’s side. She came to the companion-way and saw, some way up the sun deck, a circle of seated, gossiping women. Near them, but not so near that she had to join in every discussion, sat Mrs. Basson, with the usual book open upon her lap and the usual far-away expression as she gazed oral the ocean.

  Mrs. Basson was different, thought Nancy, and unlike most grown-ups she was never affronted by personal questions. Nancy had even asked her why she wore jewellery all the time, and Mrs. Basson had laughed a little and said that her husband had bought it and loved her to wear it, and somehow, she would feel lonely without it. Nancy could appreciate that; she had often put a book under her pillow for the same reason.