by Isobel Chace
“Here,” he said. “Call them out, will you? It will be so much quicker.”
Obediently she took the list and glanced down it.
“Do you really use all these?” she asked in surprise.
He grinned.
“Basic equipment. D’you think you’ll like playing under the sea with these?”
She could barely repress a shudder as she thought of the sharks and the other things that would be “playing” in the water.
“Six submarine cameras,” she began to read out hastily. “Fins, unspecified number; three masks; knives; film changing bags; lighting gauges; harpoon barbs; caustic soda. That’s the lot.
you’ve ticked all the rest.”
“Thank God,” he said simply: “Tomorrow we’ll take on the food supplies and then there’ll be nothing to keep us.”
“Why Paris at all?” she asked. “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to do it all in London?”
He shook his head.
“The French have the very latest equipment,” he explained. “They’re mad about this sort of thing. Most of the post-war inventions have been theirs.” He began to put the equipment into three separate piles, making sure that each had everything they needed. “There’s yours,” he said at last. “Put it somewhere safe, we can’t afford to start losing things at this stage—”
“Mine!” She gasped. “Oh, I don’t think—”
His mouth tightened ominously.
“Monique won’t touch the sea with a bargepole,” he said wryly. “I’m not going to have both of you in a blue funk about it. After the first time you’ll love it.”
Black Nick? Had he really got a frightful temper? She opened her mouth to say: “No, I won’t,” but thought better of it. If there was one kind of argument that bored her it was the Yes, you will, No, I won’t variety.
“We’ll see,” she compromised, secretly vowing that nothing would get her over the side of the ship.
He grinned suddenly.
“I think you’re going to be quite an acquisition,” he smiled. “Diplomatic, aren’t you?”
She smiled back.
“I try to be,” she said.
She picked up the pile of equipment that was to be hers and carried it along to her cabin. It was amazing how neat and compact it was and how it all fitted neatly together. She pushed the door open with her foot and stood transfixed in the doorway. Never in her life had she seen such a mess. Films, papers, typewriter ribbons, all in a glorious tangle, were spread over her bunk and the floor was littered with letters that had obviously been thrown into the cabin in a hurry.
“Oh no!” she breathed. They couldn’t have such chaos on a boat. Shipshape was the last word that came to mind. With energy she threw the diving equipment in on the top and went back to the saloon.
Nick had gone, but her father was there, waiting for the kettle in the galley to boil so that they could all have tea.
“Where’s Nick?” she asked in ominous tones. Seamus looked up, and admiration came into his eyes. She looked very handsome when she was angry; her eyes fierce and sparkling and a certain indignant movement of the neck that he had seen before in her mother.
“He’s out on deck. Can I help?”
She met his eyes squarely.
“Who’s the boss between you two?” she asked more gently. “Do you have the final say, or does Mr. Nicholas D’Abernon?”
“Nick does. He’s been good to me, Charlotte, so don’t ride him too hard.”
“Me ride him!” she exploded. “I suppose he’s all honey and light! Have you seen my cabin?”
Seamus ran his hand along his chin thoughtfully.
“He did say there were a few letters that wanted answering. Did he put them there, I wonder?”
“He did! And he can come and take them out again!”
“Now hold your horses. You’re the secretary of the expedition. Where else would he be putting them?”
Charlotte’s eyes widened.
“You mean he expects me to answer them all?”
Seamus tried to hide his amusement.
“I think perhaps he does,” he said at last.
Without another word, Charlotte went back to her cabin and surveyed the mass of paper on the floor. Very well, she thought, if that was her job she would do just that. She would answer the lot, and woe betide Nick if he objected to the way she did it. He must know that she knew less than nothing about the expedition, that the whole thing was a complete mystery to her, and he must take the responsibility when she made mistakes, as she was sure to do.
Carefully, she went down on to her knees and began to stack the letters into one pile. It was going to take her a considerable time to work her way through them, she thought.
Sitting on the floor, with her back against the door, she began to open the envelopes. The letters made fascinating reading. Mostly they demanded photographs of Nick, preferably under water. Some wanted a picture of the Sea Fever, preferring the boat to the man. And a few, a very few, wanted information.
Was Nick really so famous? Charlotte nursed her astonishment as she fitted a ribbon into the typewriter, a messy and uncongenial task, made worse by the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing. The letters came from all over the world, mostly, it was true, from people who were interested in marine photography. But was it possible that Nick was as good as all that? She couldn’t remember ever having seen anything, of his, or even having heard his name mentioned before she had arrived in Paris.
She found a pile of photographs that Nick had obviously had specially done and set about despatching them. She was a quick worker, and once she had some kind of order in the proceedings it was easy to tap out some suitable sentiments, address an envelope and put them, together with a photograph, in a pile to await Nick’s signature.
She heard Monique come along the corridor and go into her cabin when she had nearly finished and thought that she would go and surprise her. Her back was aching with the strain of holding the typewriter on her knees and she would have been very glad of a cup of tea.
At last she was able to push the machine under her bunk, and with the pile of letters under her arm, she went across the narrow corridor and knocked on Monique’s door.
“What do you want?” the French girl asked. To Charlotte’s dismay she sounded as though she had been crying.
“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.
The door opened slowly and Monique’s face came round it.
“It is nothing,” she said. “I think today we are both too easily upset, hein? She pursed up her lips. “Men!” she exclaimed.
She tossed back her hair and opened the door wider.
“Come and have a cup of tea,” Charlotte suggested.
Monique nodded.
“Wait just one moment while I tidy. Come in.”
But there was scarcely room in the cabin for two of them and so Charlotte waited in the passageway. She was frankly curious to know what had passed between Nick and Monique, but she was too well-mannered to enquire. If Monique wanted to tell her, she would in her own good time.
The French girl brushed her fair hair up into its usual cloud and freely applied a bright orange lipstick to her lips, with a careless abandon as to whether it went on straight or not.
“How English we are,” she remarked, “to go and drink tea.”
“Very,” Charlotte agreed solemnly. “New Zealanders hold the record, though,” she added. “We drink more tea and read more books, per person, than any other nation in the world.”
Monique made a pretence of looking impressed. They both knew that the tears were still there inside her, but she was grateful to Charlotte for pretending. She smiled brightly at her.
“You lead the way,” she said, “before you drop those letters. Did Nick make you do them?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Not exactly,” she said. “But something had to happen to them if I was to get into my cabin at all.”
Seamus
had left the kettle full of hot water and so they had tea in a very short time, drinking it while it was still scalding hot so that Monique should have an excuse for the tears that kept coming to her eyes.
Charlotte’s anger against Nick steadily increased. What had he been doing that he should make Monique so unhappy? Next time he made one of those charming extravagant gestures, she would tell him exactly what he could do with it!
He came in when they were on their second cups. His eyes immediately spotted the neat pile of letters.
“Are those for me to sign?” he asked. Charlotte nodded with frozen dignity.
“Jolly good,” he said easily. He found a pen and scratched away, neatly putting the letters into their envelopes as he worked. “You’ve made a pretty good job of them,” he complimented her. “I thought you said you couldn’t type.”
“I can’t,” Charlotte said indifferently. She watched his agile back disappear up the companionway with distaste. How dare he take everything so much for granted? She turned back to Monique, who was no longer pretending to hide her tears, and was appalled to see her defences down in such a way. Up on deck she could hear Seamus shouting at someone. “Do you love him so much?” she asked the French girl gently.
Monique nodded with abandon.
“Oui.” she admitted with despair, “je l’aime bien.”
And that was one more black mark to chalk up against Black Nick.
CHAPTER SIX
The throbbing of the engines could be felt throughout the whole boat. Charlotte could feel the vibration through the soles of her feet as she stood on the deck and watched France slip by them. The seine had twisted and turned its way through Normandy and now at last they were out in the Seine Bay with Le Havre somewhere on the starboard side. Beyond lay the English Channel, the Chanel Islands and the treacherous Bay of Biscay.
Liam was at the wheel, but it was Nick who was giving the orders. Nick was the only one among them who held his Master’s Certificate, and he rapped out his orders in a truly nautical manner with only a faint smile to show how glad he was to feel the sea rocking under his feet again.
Charlotte watched him as he stood on the bridge, his feet apart to give him perfect balance, the wind just ruffling his hair. Not for the first time she wondered at his ability to transfer all his attention to the thing that he was doing at any particular moment. Someone had once told her that it was a sign of greatness, but she refused to believe in Nick’s greatness. He was a little boy playing at adventure.
At another time it might have amused her to see how seriously he took the task of getting the Sea Fever out of French waters. He had gathered all the ship’s papers into a neat strongbox, including her passport which she had not really wanted to leave her own hands. Secretly her passport gave her a great deal of pleasure. The photograph in it wasn’t exactly flattering, but she had seen far worse. No, it was the wording that had pleased her, and the fact that the French customs officials had looked at her with interest when they had seen that she was a New Zealander. Nick had been amused, and she probably would have laughed with him, if she hadn’t been feeling quite so angry with him.
He was giving instructions to hoist the sails now. The engines spluttered into silence and the tall red sheets of canvas slowly spread themselves against the wind. Charlotte could hear the men singing as they hauled on the ropes:
“With a heave-oh, ha-ul, And a last farewell, and a long farewell, And good morning ladies all!”
It was a pleasant sound, their gruff masculine voices ringing out against the wind.
Seamus came and joined her, putting an easy hand on her shoulder.
“You’re not sorry you came now, are you?” he asked.
“No-o. It’s just that I feel a little guilty. Mother made so much of my voice. Practice every day and so on.”
“You have a very fine voice,” he agreed. “Nick says you might be really great one day, when you get started.”
“And what does he know about it?”
Her father shrugged.
“Some, I guess. Nick isn’t one to say anything unless he knows what he’s talking about. He sounded kind of depressed about it.”
“But why?” Charlotte asked. “Why? Don’t either of you want me to sing? I mean really sing, not just entertain a few friends in the drawing-room.”
Seamus looked a little sheepish.
“I’m a little bit jealous of anything that takes you away from me,” he said. “When you were a baby, you were all the world to me, and I wanted it to be that way still, just for a little while, until I got used to having a daughter again.”
Charlotte was silent.
“What happened, Dad?” she asked. “Didn’t you and Mother get on?”
“Don’t ask me,” he said. “You go on believing whatever it was she told you. She was always good with words and defining things. She probably told you better than I could.”
“But she never mentioned you,” Charlotte told him. “I didn’t even know you were alive until the solicitor told me.”
She saw how much she had hurt him and wished that she had held her tongue.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she whispered. “I thought you knew.”
He shook his head.
“No, I didn’t know,” he said simply. “Still, she made a pretty good job of bringing you up, and perhaps it was better that way.”
Better for whom? Charlotte wondered. For the little girl who had been herself? For her father? Or for her mother, who had always, for some reason preferred to be known as a widow?
“One day I’ll tell you,” Seamus promised her. “I’ll have to get it sorted out in my own mind first. I don’t think as quickly as she did. She was always way out in front with me lagging yards behind!”
The pathetic attempt at humor caught at Charlotte’s heart. Seamus Hastings was too good a man to have been pushed to one side. For the first time Charlotte began to wonder what she had missed by not having him always there all through her childhood. He didn’t seem like a father to her now. She called him “Dad”, but she thought of him as a stranger.
“I don’t think you’re slow,” she said carefully. “We can’t all be as quick as Nick! And you probably make fewer mistakes.”
Her father looked at her thoughtfully.
“Nick been rubbing you up the wrong way?” he asked.
She glanced across at Nicholas, standing with his head well back watching a seagull fly overhead.
“I think he’s a flirt,” she said. “He’ll say or do anything to get any girl’s attention and then he leaves her high and dry. And I don’t intend that he should do that to me!”
“Someone been telling you stories?” Seamus asked.
“I didn’t need telling! Can’t you see that he has more charm in his little finger than most men have all told? Well-practised charm!” she added wryly.
Seamus laughed.
“I suppose a girl might see him that way,” he admitted. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
Charlotte smiled. The idea had obviously come as a shock to her father. He was looking at Nick with a half-smile still on his face, his eyes crinkling in the way that they had in common.
I should have thought a girl would have wanted a man to be charming,” he observed thoughtfully.
“Well, so I do!” she exclaimed. “But I prefer the unconscious variety!”
Maddeningly, her father chuckled, and for the life of her she couldn’t see why. It made him sound so superior and—masculine!
“Nick won’t mind a few prickles,” he told her. “But he’s too good a captain to have his crew at odds with one another. Sooner or later he’ll shake you down to his way of thinking.”
“Like Monique, I suppose?” she asked bitterly.
Seamus nodded soberly.
“Like Monique,” he agreed.
The gallery seemed hot and stuffy after the breeze on deck. Charlotte took out the largest saucepan she could find and opened a couple of tins of curried baked beans. All
the sultanas had gone to the bottom and she had to chivvy them out with the wooden spoon, before she could throw away the tins. It gave her satisfaction to see how the gas-rings moved with the motion of the boat so that they were always upright. She yawned happily, tired with the sun, wind and sea and watching the clear trail they left behind them, straight through the grey-green waves of the English Channel.
The sun had set with that splendor that one only sees at sea, from golden into a red ball of fire, the Channel reflecting its glory in a thousand little mirrors of water. The sea-birds had come out on an evening flight to look at it too. Gulls, terns and petrels, Nick had unerringly identified them all for her, explaining their habits and how she could tell them apart. Monique had listened for a while, but she had soon grown bored and had drifted off by herself, her high heels tapping ludicrously on the decks.
Charlotte sighed. Monique had been her cheerful, slightly pugnacious self ever since that one outbreak, but she didn’t look really happy and it was obvious that she didn’t really like the sea either.
The beans began to boil. Charlotte cut up a loaf of bread into neat slices and buttered them with a generous hand, then she put her head into the saloon.
“Everybody ready to eat?” she asked.
Nick got to his feet and cleared the table. He set it quickly, with the fast, economical movements that were so much a part of him, and then he came into the galley and carried out two of the bowls for her.
“I’ll get a bottle of wine,” he said. “I know one girl who won’t say no.”
Charlotte made a face at him.
“I like it,” she declared.
“I know you do,” he said.
There was such a wealth of warmth and bonhomie in his teasing that some of her displeasure with him melted within her.
“I haven’t a very experienced palate,” she told him confidentially. “So I shall expect only the best!”
The glint in his eyes answered hers.
“Is that a challenge?” he drawled. “Unfortunately our cellar on board is strictly limited, but we have quite a nice Beaujolais. Will that do?”