The Song and the Sea

by Isobel Chace

  She dozed happily, listening to the dustmen as they retreated farther down the street, banging the bins with energy as they went. It had been odd how her father had listened so respectfully when Nick had been talking. Surely it should have been the other way round, as he was the older man and presumably the senior? But then Nicholas D’Abernon was well worth listening to, she reflected. His mind was never still, fashioning out further ingenious ways of stowing bulky equipment away, his hands drawing quick little plans to illustrate his point, while her father nodded his agreement in a slower and more ponderous way.

  During the evening she had become interested in the problem. It was rather like having a too-small kitchen and trying to get all the latest gadgets into it. It was a problem that pleased her and she had come up with several suggestions, and had been flattered when the two men had listened to her carefully and had commented favourably on her ideas.

  She had never, in her whole life, spent an evening like it. The muted sounds of Paris night-life outside; the students’ jazz records; the lovers’ quarrels; the slamming doors of the cars of more fashionable Paris who had come to the Latin Quarter for the evening. “The Latin Quarter”, a title conferred on the area by Rabelais because it was the language spoken by the early students there. Some of the seventeen thousand students at the Sorbonne, perhaps? For the first time she had felt a part of the city and not a stranger looking in. The shouted goodnights, the violent gestures and the passionate embraces had found a response in her blood. It had been a strangely satisfying experience.

  A pebble hit her window, fairly and squarely. She glanced at her watch again. It was already nearly seven o’clock. Another pebble followed and she pulled her dressing-gown around her shoulders and went to look out.

  Nicholas D’Abernon stood in the middle of the street below, his cap on the back of his head, grinning up at her. An early taxi rounded the corner and the driver swore at him. Charlotte found herself smiling back at him.

  “What do you want?” she called down to him.

  “What else but your own sweet company?” he called back. “Come down and I’ll crown you Queen of the May!”

  She could feel herself blushing and was glad that he was too far away to see. What would her father think if she disappeared so early in the day with Nicholas? Reluctantly she shook her head.

  “Hurry up,” he warned her, “Or I shall come up and get you!”

  A fascinated street sweeper stared from one of them to the other.

  “Elle est timide, monsieur?” he remarked with interest. “Mais pourquoi?”

  “Well?” Nicholas demanded.

  Her heart beat a little faster. It was such a lovely day, with the morning sun chasing the last vestiges of the night mists from the streets.

  “I’ll come down,” she said.

  She dressed rapidly, her clothes only just cold to her body. Winter would very soon be gone. It seemed strange to be beginning another summer when she had only just seen the last of the hottest one she could ever remember in New Zealand. Here it was still at the promising stage, with the first flowers pioneering and the trees only now trembling into leaf.

  She ran her comb through her hair, glad that it was cut so short that she need do nothing more to it. True, it wasn’t fashionable when everyone was piling their hair up on top of their heads to fill the beehive crowns of the latest hats, but it suited her, fitting her face and giving her a gamine look that matched the set of her eyes.

  The lift shuddered downwards and came to a sudden stop at the ground-floor level. Charlotte stepped out and closed the doors behind her.

  “Why didn’t you want to come?” Nicholas asked her.

  She didn’t look at him, but she could imagine his easy stance, with his hands in his pockets and a faint smile on his lean face.

  “It’s so early,” She explained. “We only went to bed such a short time ago.”

  “And you need your beauty sleep?” he suggested.

  “No, I was awake,” she admitted.

  “But you were shy?” he finished for her.

  “Yes,” she agreed uncertainly. “I think I was, a little.”

  “But you had no need to be,” he assured her. “I only wanted to show off to you. To show you what a good aim I have, and to show you my boat. You seemed interested last night—”

  “I’m interested now!” she asserted.

  The smile at the back of his eyes let her know that he had been sure that that was what she had been going to say all along. He was monstrously attractive, she thought, and he knew it. He wore his charm as easily as the city man carries his umbrella. It would be just as dangerous to rely on it, she told herself, he flirts as easily as he breathes, but it’s an ornament, too beautifully rolled up to be used in the storms of any true friendship.

  She didn’t object, though, when he caught her firmly by the hand and walked her out of the building into the awakening street beyond, his arm warm against hers and his step shortened to match her own, less lengthy stride.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “First to have breakfast. Looking over the Seine to the Ile de la Cite. Does that suit you?”

  She nodded her head; she was happy to be going anywhere.

  The paper boys cycled past, their bicycles looking more a part of them than they did With their British counterparts, and there were a few people going home after Mass; French, Syrian, Melchite, for in this part of Paris Catholics of the Eastern Rites of the Papal See have gathered, refugees of countless battles and European convulsions, preferring their Greek or Semitic tongues to the Latin of the native churches. A few old women washing their front door steps greeted them, smilingly taking them for lovers, and others, determined to be first at the market, jostled them almost off the pavement in their hurry.

  It took them only a few moments to reach the Seine, the Cite looking like a ship in the river, tethered to the banks by its bridges. Already the artists were hanging up their paintings and the booksellers bringing out their books in the hopes that the passers-by would stop to browse and then to buy.

  Nicholas steered her rapidly past them all until they came to the cafe of his choice, the tables and chairs spilling out on to the pavement, where they could sit and watch the movement of the boats going up and down the river.

  “Café espresso ou cafe filter?” the garcon asked them indifferently. He had only just shrugged on his white coat, and it had been a very late night the night before.

  “Café filter,” Charlotte decided. She liked the top-heavy filters perched on the top of the cup and the fresh taste of the coffee when it finally reached the bottom. “And croissants,” she added, seeing the horseshoe-shaped rolls heaped up high on the counter.

  “And croissants,” Nicholas agreed. He sat back, rocking his chair on to only two legs, and surveyed the scene with satisfaction. “Paris makes one very lazy,” he observed. “It’s so easy to sit and do nothing.”

  “Isn’t it everywhere?” Charlotte asked.

  He shook his head decisively. “No, Paris, and a pretty girl are essentials to doing nothing.”

  She coloured a little. Did he really think she was pretty? She had unusual looks—but pretty?

  Their coffee arrived with a plateful of hot rolls and she took one, watching the steam curl up into the early morning air. Her mother had always insisted that hot bread was indigestible, but she didn’t care if it was. She stole a glance across at Nicholas, but he was busy dunking his roll into his coffee. He looked every inch a Frenchman, as he sat there taking the last ounce of enjoyment out of what he was doing. She felt an instant’s fleeting envy. It must be nice to enjoy little things as much as he seemed to be able to. To be able to laugh and joke without the recurring shadow of guilt that she ought to be practising, or in some way preparing herself for her future.

  Then suddenly his eyes met hers. Grey eyes, she noticed, with that disconcerting hint of shrewdness that made her feel slightly uncomfortable.

  “Can you do a
nything else besides sing?” he asked her.

  She was caught completely off balance. What else should she be able to do?

  “I—I don’t know,” she said in a startled voice.

  “No typing? Shorthand? Nothing like that?”

  She shook her head, a little put out that he should ask.

  “Oh well,” he said indifferently, “it shouldn’t take you long to learn.”

  “To learn?” she repeated.

  His smile was brilliant and just a little cajoling.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he begged her. “I was only asking!”

  But why? she asked herself. It couldn’t be that he didn’t believe she would ever make the grade in opera, for the simple reason that he had never heard her sing. And she didn’t think he “only asked” anything. He had had his reasons, she was sure, only she wished she knew what they were before they went any further, because nothing, nothing would make her give up her career.

  She drank her coffee nervously and a little carelessly, so that she spilled some in the saucer. Would she ever understand people like Nicholas? Or even her father? She wondered if her mother had felt as out of her depth with them, as she did struggling to make some sense out of the peculiar way they lived their lives? Was that why she had gone back to New Zealand, to live alone, but to live in a more comprehensible manner?

  “Had enough?” Nicholas asked her.

  She nodded. She didn’t feel like eating anything more. The croissant she had just finished sat like a lump in her throat. Perhaps her mother had been right all along and they were indigestible.

  Nicholas paid the check with a handful of old-style notes; thick with the grease of many palms. Any self-respecting country would have called them in long since, Charlotte thought with distaste, and then berated herself for carping. She would take this one day just as it came, and nobody would spoil her pleasure in it.

  They strolled down to the Quai d’Austerlitz, the sun in their faces and a light breeze just rippling the water beside them. Nick’s footsteps began to grow expectant and then he came to a stop.

  “There’s the tender,” he said. “Down there. Think you can climb down into it?”

  Charlotte peered down where he was pointing and saw a little boat tied up to the embankment. Painted white, with a fitted outboard motor, it looked very smart.

  “You mean that you pull it behind the Sea Fever?” she asked disapprovingly. She would have hated it to have come to any harm.

  Nick’s mouth twitched.

  “Not exactly,” he explained. “We have two of them and we pull them on board when we’re at sea.”

  Charlotte made a hasty revision of her estimate of the Sea Fever’s size. If she could carry two lifeboats—for she supposed that tenders were the equivalent of lifeboats—she must be very much bigger than she, Charlotte, had suspected. But a sailing yacht—

  Nick caught her hands hard in his and lowered her over the concreted side of the river into the boat. She felt it sway beneath her and for an instant thought she was going to fall, but she soon recovered her balance and sat down hastily on the seat in the middle.

  “You’d better go farther forward,” Nick told her. “I shall have to sit at the hack to steer and she goes better if the weight is even.”

  Obligingly she scrambled forward. The seat was smaller and she could feel the gunwale hard against her hips as she sat down. She seemed very near the water. Then Nick dropped into the back with one easy movement on the edge of the boat by the engine, rocking the boat slightly as he did so.

  He pulled hard at the concealed string and the engine flared into life. It would, of course, Charlotte thought. She couldn’t imagine any engine of his giving him the sort of trouble that she connected with pieces of string! Motor mowers, all were the same in her experience. The string knotted, or broke, or worse, stuck completely, refusing to budge in any direction!

  “Okay, cast off!” he demanded.

  She looked wildly over her shoulder for the painter and was amused to see that quite a little group of Parisians had come to see how they were doing. With an economy of movement that she felt had not disgraced her, she untied the painter and folded it neatly away.

  Nick grinned at her, slipped the motor into gear and they made a slow circle of the river, moving gently downstream to where the Sea Fever lay, resplendent in her new paint and polish.

  It was several minutes before Charlotte realised that the boat she was admiring was indeed the Sea Fever. She was completely overshadowed by her grubbier neighbour, but her lines sang of wind and speed, the salt water parting at her touch and who knew what adventures ahead.

  Charlotte’s eyes shone with excitement. She would have loved to have spent some little time aboard her. The magnificent freedom of sailing in one’s own ship wherever one wanted to go. Looking out the charts, bought specially from the Admiralty, making a rhumb line, or a great line course, if those were the right terms, and then sailing her straight out to sea with the whole world for one’s oyster.

  “Like her?” Nick asked.

  “Oh yes!” she breathed. “She’s much bigger than I expected, but she’s so compact!”

  His eyes were sympathetic and kindly.

  “Yes, she’s nice,” he agreed.

  He came in beside her, slipping round beneath the bows and coming gently to rest by the small gangway that led up to the decks.

  “Pity we can’t pipe you aboard,” he smiled. “But you’re very welcome just the same.”

  She looked up at the boat above her, the clean white shape towering over her, making her wonder how large an ocean-going liner would look from this angle. A girl’s head looked out of one of the portholes and lit up with pleasure.

  “Nick!” she called out, drawing out the name into Neek, a cry of pleasure. Nicholas responded with a careless wave of the hand.

  “That’s Monique,” he said to Charlotte. “Our resident geologist.”

  Charlotte was impressed. She had thought geology was a strictly male pursuit, not a subject for anyone as glamorous as the girl on board. She put one foot on the gangway and felt it creak beneath her weight. Perhaps the river wouldn’t look so far away if she didn’t look down. She forced herself upwards, and almost before she knew it, a strong masculine arm had hold of her and she was on board the Sea Fever.

  “And is it crazy you are?” an Irish voice demanded of her. “Are ye not knowing that it’s better to open your eyes if you want to see what you’re at?”

  She opened her eyes wide and met the salty grin of an elderly gnome of a man.

  “You’ll be Seamus’s girl,” he muttered to himself, nodding his head wisely. “As if he’s talked of anythin’ else weeks past! Aye, you’ve the look of him right enough.”

  Charlotte looked enquiringly over her shoulder to Nick, who had joined her on the deck. His face was solemn, but his eyes were smiling.

  “The bos’n, who should have been piping you aboard. Liam Flaherty. He’s a friend of your father’s, and descended from the old Kings of Ireland.”

  “Oh no, you can’t be,” Charlotte objected without thought. “Their descendants all have the O in front of their names.”

  Liam Flaherty eyed her long and hard, while Charlotte held her breath, hoping that she had not offended him.

  “God save us all!” he said at last. “And isn’t she the child of her father? You’re rightly welcome, Charlotte Hastings.”

  He clasped her hand in his and glowered at Nick.

  “You wouldn’t be understanding the ways of the Irish,” he told him sourly. “You be off to that French one, and hasn’t she been waiting on ye for this last half hour?”

  Nicholas shrugged and disappeared down below. Charlotte smiled in triumph. It seemed that the Irish at least were one too many for Nicholas D’Abernon. It almost made one proud to be Irish!

  CHAPTER THREE

  Liam Flaherty had been born on the west coast of Ireland, in Connemara, where his family had wrested a living out of
the stony ground for generations, and where he himself had dug for peat as a child and had spoken in that odd mixture of English and the Erse that comes so easily to the Irish tongue, making music of their speech. The Atlantic had been on his doorstep, often as dark a grey in colour as the stones of Galway on a wet day, but always inviting and always fascinating to the boy who had watched it in all its moods. As soon as he had been old enough, he had left his heather-bound farm and had joined what he still referred to as the English Navy. He had all the wit and the piety of his race and his stories were filled with a mixture of fact and fiction, the mermaid being as vivid to him as the torpedo.

  “Himself has an understanding of the sea,” he informed Charlotte loftily. “He’s not a man to scorn the tales a man brings home from his travels—not like the woman of stone down there!” Charlotte looked down her nose and pretended that she hadn’t heard. Was “himself” Nick or her father? She wouldn’t think about Monique at all. The girl whose face was synonymous with her make-up had always bewildered her, and, judging by the one glimpse she had so far had of the French girl, Monique fell right into this type.

  “She’s clever enough,” Liam admitted grudgingly. “She can tell you by the Latin name whether a rock is hard of soft. Now could you do that?”

  Charlotte shook her head.

  “You could not?” he asked. “Well, neither could I,” he admitted, “but I could run my thumbnail along it and tell you in English!”

  Charlotte grinned, carefully hiding her amusement with her hand.

  “Perhaps there’s more to it than that,” she suggested diplomatically.