Dangerous Sea

by David Roberts

  He turned and grasped her by the hand. Further along the promenade deck, an elderly man looked at them with regret, taking them for lovers. ‘Please, Verity . . . I don’t want a conventional wife with good teeth, pearls round her neck and an ability to produce four children and run a household. I’m not advertising for a cook/housekeeper, you know.’

  She laughed, without meaning to. ‘That’s one job I couldn’t do!’

  Edward went on remorselessly, determined now to have his say, come what may. ‘It’s wrong of you to think I can’t deal with someone . . . different. You’ve taught me not to try and dominate. I don’t expect you . . . I don’t want you to share my views on politics or life in general. You keep me alive by showing me how differently we can look at things.’

  ‘I know . . . I’m not accusing you of being boring.’

  ‘Well, that’s what it sounded like,’ he said, beginning to sulk. He let go her hand but she took his back.

  ‘Edward, please. Don’t let’s quarrel. I do love you and if you wanted me . . .’

  He looked up. ‘Of course I want you.’

  ‘Well then . . . oh dear! This isn’t how it is in books.’

  ‘What books?’

  ‘Romantic novels . . . Ethel M. Dell.’

  ‘You’ve never read a romance in your life. That’s one of the things I love about you. You’re a realist.’

  ‘Well, you ought to be a realist,’ she countered. ‘What would the Duke say if you told him you were marrying me? He’d have apoplexy.’

  ‘You do him an injustice,’ he said, coldly.

  ‘Sex but not marriage, then. Take it or leave it. You say yourself there’s a war coming. Who knows what the world will be like when it’s over. I can’t tie myself down until the last battle has been won.’

  ‘There never is a last battle,’ he said, despairingly. ‘But thank you for saying what you did . . . about loving me. It means –’

  ‘Not butting in, am I?’ Sam Forrest, breezy, good-natured, unsuspecting of the nature of the scene he had interrupted, patted Edward on the back. ‘What about a game of deck quoits?’

  ‘Not for me, but I am sure Miss Browne would like you to entertain her,’ he replied brusquely, striding off as if he had somewhere to go.

  ‘Ouch!’ Sam said. ‘He bites.’

  By midday, the sun was struggling to break through the clouds and occasionally succeeding, lightening everyone’s spirits. The sea, too, looked more at ease with itself and the ship, though still bucking, as Sam put it, ‘like a steer on its way to the stockyard’, permitted deck games and allowed unskilful players to blame the elements for their inadequacies.

  Edward ceased his pacing and sighed. In the distance, he could see Verity and Sam playing an energetic game of shuttlecock. He sat down heavily on a long chair and tried to turn his mind to what Fern had told him after they had left Lord Benyon’s cabin the previous day. He had seen someone who wasn’t what they pretended to be. Edward had already made the same identification but they agreed to do nothing for the moment – or at least until Edward had spoken to Major Ferguson by telephone.

  His gloom deepened. It was all turning into the most awful mess. He had dished his chances with Verity. His proposal had been awkward, ill timed, absurd. He punched a fist into the palm of his other hand. The worst thing was he couldn’t run away and bury his head in some convenient sand. The ship, which had seemed so large, had narrowed to the width of a cell. What was it Dr Johnson had said? Being on a ship is being in gaol with the chance of being drowned? Something like that and, as so often, he had been right. Edward snorted and then pulled himself together. He hated wallowing in self-pity. It was unmanly and he was suddenly ashamed of himself. Was Verity not right to say she was unsuited to marriage? Could he really imagine her changing nappies? For that matter, wasn’t he too old for children? Verity and he growing old together like Darby and Joan! He had to smile. He was maudlin and he hated that. He was not old he told himself firmly.

  The sight of passengers, wrapped in rugs against the chill, reading or dozing in the long chairs which lined the sun deck, proclaimed that the worst of the bad weather was over. Stewards ran about serving drinks and even a little food which proved that stomachs were coming to terms with this endlessly moving world. Edward was surprised to see Senator Day and his wife and even more surprised when the Senator waved to him. Had he been forgiven for writhing around on the floor outside his cabin with Sam Forrest? Good manners prevented him from pretending not to see them. Reluctantly, he went over and perched on a stool at the lady’s feet.

  ‘I am glad to see you up, Mrs Day,’ he said courteously. ‘I gather, like so many of us, you were badly affected by the storm.’

  ‘Yes indeed, I was afflicted . . . about to give out, as we say down south but George . . .’ she indicated the Senator, ‘was quite unaffected. He is a most remarkable man, Lord Edward. You know, he never takes any exercise. I’ve told him time and time again to take exercise. I dread he may have a heart attack. He’s not as strong as he looks and his position in society . . . his responsibilities . . . the worries. I want him to learn to swim or play golf but he won’t.’

  Day held up a hand in pretend protest. ‘Marlene, hush your mouth. Lord Edward doesn’t want to hear about me.’ He was clearly pleased to have his wife speak of him with such warmth to this English aristocrat.

  There was nothing forced about Mrs Day’s words and Edward wondered if, after all, she did love her husband and was not the put-upon wretch they had all taken pleasure in pitying at the Captain’s table on their first night. He certainly had not expected her to be so voluble. It must be relief at surviving the storm, he supposed.

  ‘My wife tells me I behaved badly at dinner the other night . . . “ain’t fit to roll with a pig”, as she put it.’ The Senator sounded a little less confident than usual. ‘Do you think I insulted the Captain and, if so, should I apologize?’

  ‘It’s not for me to say,’ Edward replied, ‘but I suppose, confined as we are for these few days, we ought to tolerate each other’s foibles.’

  ‘That’s just what I was telling him,’ Mrs Day said. ‘I told him, you wouldn’t find English lords being . . . plumb uncouth . . . there’s no other word for it. Sometimes he ain’t got a grain of sense.’ She smiled and put a hand on her husband’s.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know . . .’ Edward began, wondering if this English lord had not just been ‘uncouth’ to Verity and Sam Forrest.

  ‘The trouble is,’ the Senator said confidentially, ‘I just have a prejudice against sitting down with coloured folk . . . can’t abide them. Now, I guess that may make me old-fashioned but there it is. It’s the way I’ve been brought up. But he ain’t got no call accusin’ me,’ he added, beginning to work himself up again.

  ‘Mr Fairley is a remarkable man, Senator, and I would be proud to sit with him at any table.’

  ‘Would you now?’ Day said, in what might have been genuine amazement. ‘I’d never have credited it. And what sticks in my gullet, I have to say, is him being married to a white girl. I recall the words of our great President, John Quincy Adams. “Black and white blood cannot intermingle in marriage without gross outrage upon the law of nature.” ’

  ‘But that was a hundred years ago! Surely –’

  ‘I believe the President had just attended a performance of the play Othello by William Shakespeare,’ the Senator continued remorselessly. ‘If my memory serves me right, he went on to say, “Who in real life would have Desdemona for his sister, daughter or wife?” ’

  ‘I am sorry,’ Edward said, suddenly disgusted with Day and with himself for listening, ‘I cannot hear any more of this. I would be proud to call Mr Fairley my friend and I find your remarks repellent. Good day to you.’

  He tipped his hat to Mrs Day and went off, wondering if he were a prig but deciding he had no obligation to stay and listen to more of the man’s repulsive views on miscegenation. He shook his head. It surely promised ill for the United Stat
es if the Senator represented any significant body of opinion. He was well aware that in Britain, too, there was prejudice against foreigners and anyone with a different coloured skin or shape of eye. Words like ‘dago’ and ‘wop’ were used unthinkingly about Spanish and Italians but were they not almost affectionate? Or at least humorous, like calling a Welshman ‘Taffy’ or a Scot ‘Jock’? He must ask Verity about it.

  Then he remembered that he was not keen on hearing her views on anything at the moment and was hit by a soggy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It came to him that, after so many months, he had at last nerved himself to propose marriage to the woman he loved and he had been rejected. Damn and blast! He would put her right out of his mind and he would never ask her to marry him again even if she came to him on bended knee. He smiled at the very idea of Verity on bended knee and felt momentarily more cheerful.

  Frank and Perry Roosevelt were so engrossed in a fierce game of deck tennis that Edward did not like to disturb them, so he stopped beside the slim girl with whom Frank was obviously smitten. As he looked at her, it struck him that there was something ethereal about her and it crossed his mind that she might be ill. When he raised his hat and asked permission to sit beside her, she looked at him with vivid blue eyes – or not blue exactly, he decided, but aquamarine. They watched the game in companionable silence for two or three minutes. Then she said, ‘You are Frank’s uncle, Lord Edward Corinth?’

  ‘I have that honour,’ he agreed, smiling. ‘He’s a fine boy and I’m proud of him but – I’m sure he will have told you – he can get carried away.’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s told us all about running away from school and going to fight in Spain.’

  Edward hadn’t quite meant that.

  ‘It’s so romantic.’ She sighed. ‘He’s very handsome, isn’t he?’

  Edward shot her a glance. Was she teasing him? He couldn’t tell. A line from Othello came into his head. ‘And often did beguile her of her tears, when I did speak of some distressful stroke, that my youth suffered.’ Had this girl been beguiled by Frank’s tales of derring-do?

  Philly looked into the middle distance, holding her hat against the wind. It was straw, with a blue band round it and, against her white dress, seemed to emphasize her fragility. He thought what a graceful pose it was – a woman with her hand arched above her head, securing a wayward hat – and wished he were a painter.

  ‘And your twin . . . he is your twin, is he not?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘He and Frank have become great friends.’

  ‘Shipboard intimacy – nothing more, I think. I like your nephew a lot, Lord Edward, but experience has taught me that these friendships, particularly if they have to be sustained by letter over an ocean, seldom survive.’

  ‘Well, I hope this proves an exception. It is very important for England to have as many friends as possible in the United States, with war looming . . .’

  ‘Particularly if their name is Roosevelt?’

  ‘Particularly so,’ Edward agreed. On an impulse, he added, ‘Had you met Senator Day . . . before this trip, I mean?’

  ‘We met him in London, at a reception at the embassy,’ she said vaguely.

  ‘Oh, did you? He’s no friend to Britain, I understand?’

  ‘I didn’t know that. Mr and Mrs Fairley were there too. I remember because they had “words”. Isn’t that what you English say?’

  ‘That’s what we say.’ He smiled. ‘Frank probably told you about the Senator calling Mr Fairley a . . . well, something I’m not going to repeat, at the Captain’s table. It was quite embarrassing.’

  ‘Yes, he told us. But didn’t I just see you conversing with Senator and Mrs Day? I thought they must be friends of yours.’ She sounded rather accusing.

  ‘I was merely being polite but when he started . . . you know . . . to air his opinions, I left them. I don’t think you would call us friends.’

  The girl looked at him, perhaps quizzically. He could not read her expression. She stood up. ‘Please forgive me, Lord Edward, but I must go see my mother. She is still in her cabin. It is taking her a long time to find her “sea legs”.’

  ‘Of course,’ Edward said also rising. ‘Perhaps you and your mother and your brother, of course, would care to join us for dinner in the Verandah Grill this evening?’

  She hesitated. ‘That is very kind of you but doesn’t the Captain demand your presence?’

  ‘Oh no. He has a lot of passengers to keep happy so he extends the compliment of an invitation to his table to as many as possible during the crossing. I’ve heard the food in the Verandah Grill is better than in the restaurant,’ he added as an inducement.

  ‘I am sure, if my mother is well enough, we would be delighted to accept your invitation,’ the girl said formally and made a little bow which Edward felt held a hint of mockery. She was enchanting, he had to agree with his nephew, and her presence made it easier to forget his snubbing by Verity.

  The two boys stopped playing, Perry claiming victory. Despite the wind, both were sweating and Perry suggested they should try out the Turkish bath. Not waiting to be formally introduced to Edward, he said, ‘What about you, sir? Will you come?’

  Edward was about to refuse but then thought, Why not? It was ridiculous not to make use of the ship’s facilities and it might help him slough off his depression.

  ‘If it wouldn’t be a bore, I would like to. By the way, I don’t think we have been properly introduced. I’m Edward Corinth, but I expect you had worked that out. I have just asked your sister if you and your mother would dine with us tonight.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. That’s very kind of you.’ Playfully, he banged Frank on the shoulder. ‘Frank speaks very well of you, sir, which is more than I would of my uncle.’

  Edward was pleased but tried not to show it. ‘Elderly relatives usually put a damper on the pleasures of their younger kinsfolk, eh Frank? But please don’t keep calling me “sir”. That does make me feel my age.’

  ‘What shall I call you?’

  ‘How about Edward?’ he found himself saying. It was usually many months before he invited this sort of intimacy and he saw Frank glance at him in surprise. There was something charming about these two young Americans which made them hard to resist. Was it just good manners or some natural gift – a grace with which you are either born or not?

  ‘For goodness sake, Uncle, you sound like some Edwardian roué. Though to be honest, I’m not sure what a roué has to do to become one.’

  Abashed, Edward retreated but Frank took him by the arm, which he squeezed companionably. ‘Of course we’d like you to come with us and try out the hammam. Who knows, we may need a chaperon.’

  Edward looked at the two boys doubtfully but their invitation seemed genuine so together they trooped down to the swimming-bath on C Deck.

  Edward lay prostrate upon the stainless-steel massage slab, like a body in the morgue, considering the strangeness of it all. Here he was, in the middle of the Atlantic, being pummelled by a masseur with hands like pistons, but always aware of the sway of the great ship slicing through the water. His muscles were relaxed and he felt all the strains of the past few days falling away. When he got back to London, he told himself, he must use the gym regularly. He had, not so many years ago, been fit enough to run a mile not much over the four minute mark. Now, he thought ruefully, he was sinking into middle age and its attendant physical deterioration.

  He opened one eye and saw, on two adjoining slabs, his nephew and the young American, both semi-comatose in the hands of their masseurs. He could not help noticing that, while Frank had the strength and animal physicality of a young man reaching his natural peak, Perry Roosevelt had the airy grace of the athlete. Not as heavily muscled as Frank, he was wiry and, Edward thought, might make up in speed what he lacked in endurance.

  Apart from the slap of flesh on flesh and the occasional shout from someone in the swimming-pool, there was silence. Without thinking about it, he said, ‘You boys ough
t to race each other. The Purser was telling me that, on the Queen Mary’s maiden voyage, Lord Burghley ran just over four hundred yards round the promenade deck, in full evening dress, in under sixty seconds. Of course, he’s an Olympic runner but it would be interesting to see if you could get near his time.’

  Frank, his eyes still closed, said, ‘Sounds like hard work to me.’

  ‘But think how you would impress Philly,’ Perry urged him. ‘I’m game if you are.’

  ‘I’m much more likely to make a fool of myself than impress anyone.’

  ‘You’re not yellow, are you?’ Perry goaded. ‘Think of the interest: England versus America. I can see myself attracting a lot of money.’

  ‘Betting? Here, I say!’ Edward said in alarm. ‘I don’t think that’s on.’

  ‘I tell you what, Uncle, I’ll do it if you will.’

  ‘Race you? I’d say not. I would look the most awful idiot. They’d think I was trying to prove something.’

  ‘Why not? Why not prove you’re not an antique quite yet?’

  At that moment they heard a strange noise which made the masseurs stop and listen. There it was again – a stifled scream.

  ‘Is there anyone else down here?’ Edward demanded of his masseur.

  ‘Only Miss Barclay, sir, in the steam room.’

  With one accord, Edward and the two boys rose from their slabs and, followed by the masseurs, went through the door into the tepidarium. There was no one there so they continued through into the steam room. Through the steam, which swirled about them like a miasma, they could just make out the figure of a woman. As Edward approached, he recognized the bottle-blonde hair. Jane Barclay, dressed in nothing but a swimsuit, lay on her back on a wooden bench. Her head was twisted, as if she had lost consciousness seeking air. The room temperature was almost unbearable and the steam scalding. There was a strip of white linen on the floor beside the bench.

  ‘Turn off the steam! Quick, man,’ Edward shouted at his masseur as he stared unbelieving at the body laid out in front of him.