by Unknown
“What colour is her hair?” demanded Eustace Hignett in a hollow voice. “Her hair! What colour is it?”
“Her hair? Now, let me see. You ask me what colour is her hair. Well, you might call it auburn … or russet … or you might call it Titian….”
“Never mind what you might call it. Is it red?”
“Red? Why, yes. That is a very good description of it. Now that you put it to me like that, it is red.”
“Has she a trick of grabbing at you suddenly, when she gets excited, like a kitten with a ball of wool?”
“Yes. Yes, she has.”
Eustace Hignett uttered a sharp cry.
“Sam,” he said, “can you bear a shock?”
“I’ll have a dash at it.”
“Brace up!”
“The girl you are engaged to is the same girl who promised to marry me.”
“Well, well!” said Sam.
There was a silence.
“Awfully sorry, of course, and all that,” said Sam.
“Don’t apologise to me!” said Eustace. “My poor old chap, my only feeling towards you is one of the purest and profoundest pity.” He reached out and pressed Sam’s hand. “I regard you as a toad beneath the harrow!”
“Well, I suppose that’s one way of offering congratulations and cheery good wishes.”
“And on top of that,” went on Eustace, deeply moved. “You have got to sing at the ship’s concert.”
“Why shouldn’t I sing at the ship’s concert?”
“My dear old man, you have many worthy qualities, but you must know that you can’t sing. You can’t sing for nuts! I don’t want to discourage you, but, long ago as it is, you can’t have forgotten what an ass you made of yourself at that house-supper at school. Seeing you up against it like this, I regret that I threw a lump of butter at you on that occasion, though at the time it seemed the only course to pursue.”
Sam started.
“Was it you who threw that bit of butter?”
“It was.”
“I wish I’d known! You silly chump, you ruined my collar.”
“Ah, well, it’s seven years ago. You would have had to send it to the wash anyhow by this time. But don’t let us brood on the past. Let us put our heads together and think how we can get you out of this terrible situation.”
“I don’t want to get out of it. I confidently expect to be the hit of the evening.”
“The hit of the evening! You! Singing!”
“I’m not going to sing. I’m going to do that imitation of Frank Tinney which I did at the Trinity Smoker. You haven’t forgotten that? You were at the piano taking the part of the conductor of the orchestra. What a riot I was—we were! I say, Eustace, old man, I suppose you don’t feel well enough to come up now and take your old part? You could do it without a rehearsal. You remember how it went … ‘Hullo, Ernest!’ ‘Hullo, Frank!’ Why not come along?”
“The only piano I will ever sit at will be one firmly fixed on a floor that does not heave and wobble under me.”
“Nonsense! The boat’s as steady as a rock now. The sea’s like a millpond.”
“Nevertheless, thanking you for your suggestion, no!”
“Oh, well, then I shall have to get on as best I can with that fellow Mortimer. We’ve been rehearsing all the afternoon and he seems to have the hang of the thing. But he won’t be really right. He has no pep, no vim. Still, if you won’t … well, I think I’ll be getting along to his stateroom. I told him I would look in for a last rehearsal.”
The door closed behind Sam, and Eustace Hignett, lying on his back, gave himself up to melancholy meditation. He was deeply disturbed by his cousin’s sad story. He knew what it meant being engaged to Wilhelmina Bennett. It was like being taken aloft in a balloon and dropped with a thud on the rocks.
His reflections were broken by the abrupt opening of the door. Marlowe rushed in. Eustace peered anxiously out of his berth. There was too much cork on his cousin’s face to allow of any real registering of emotion, but he could tell from his manner that all was not well.
“What’s the matter?”
Sam sank on the lounge.
“The bounder has quit!”
“The bounder? What bounder?”
“There is only one! Bream Mortimer, curse him! There may be others whom thoughtless critics rank as bounders, but he is the only man really deserving of the title. He refuses to appear! He has walked out on the act! He has left me flat! I went into his stateroom just now, as arranged, and the man was lying on his bunk, groaning.”
“I thought you said the sea was like a millpond.”
“It wasn’t that! He’s perfectly fit. But it seems that the silly ass took it into his head to propose to Billie just before dinner— apparently he’s loved her for years in a silent, self-effacing way—and of course she told him that she was engaged to me, and the thing upset him to such an extent that he says the idea of sitting down at a piano and helping me give an imitation of Frank Tinney revolts him. He says he intends to spend the evening in bed, reading Schopenhauer. I hope it chokes him.”
“But this is splendid! This lets you out.”
“What do you mean? Lets me out?”
“Why, now you won’t be able to appear. Oh, you will be thankful for this in years to come.”
“Won’t I appear! Won’t I dashed well appear! Do you think I’m going to disappoint that dear girl when she is relying on me? I would rather die!”
“But you can’t appear without a pianist.”
“I’ve got a pianist.”
“You have?”
“Yes. A little undersized shrimp of a fellow with a green face and ears like water-wings.”
“I don’t think I know him.”
“Yes, you do. He’s you!”
“Me!”
“Yes, you. You are going to sit at the piano to-night.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s impossible. I gave you my views on the subject just now.”
“You’ve altered them.”
“I haven’t.”
“Well, you soon will, and I’ll tell you why. If you don’t get up out of that damned berth you’ve been roosting in all your life, I’m going to ring for J. B. Midgeley and I’m going to tell him to bring me a bit of dinner in here and I’m going to eat it before your eyes.”
“But you’ve had dinner.”
“Well, I’ll have another. I feel just ready for a nice fat pork chop….”
“Stop. Stop!”
“A nice fat pork chop with potatoes and lots of cabbage,” repeated Sam, firmly. “And I shall eat it here on this very lounge. Now, how do we go?”
“You wouldn’t do that!” said Eustace piteously.
“I would and will.”
“But I shouldn’t be any good at the piano. I’ve forgotten how the thing used to go.”
“You haven’t done anything of the kind. I come in and say, ‘Hullo, Ernest!’ and you say ‘Hullo, Frank!’ and then you help me tell the story about the Pullman car. A child could do your part of it.”
“Perhaps there is some child on board….”
“No! I want you. I shall feel safe with you. We’ve done it together before.”
“But honestly, I really don’t think … it isn’t as if….”
Sam rose and extended a finger towards the bell.
“Stop! Stop!” cried Eustace Hignett. “I’ll do it!”
Sam withdrew his finger.
“Good!” he said. “We’ve just got time for a rehearsal while you’re dressing. ‘Hullo, Ernest!’”
“Hullo, Frank,” said Eustace Hignett, brokenly, as he searched for his unfamiliar trousers.
CHAPTER SIX
Ship’s concerts are given in aid of the seamen’s orphans and widows, and, after one has been present at a few of them, one seems to feel that any right-thinking orphan or widow would rather jog along and take a chance of starvation than be the innocent cause of such things. They open with a long spe
ech from the master of the ceremonies—so long, as a rule, that it is only the thought of what is going to happen afterwards that enables the audience to bear it with fortitude. This done, the amateur talent is unleashed, and the grim work begins.
It was not till after the all too brief intermission for rest and recuperation that the newly formed team of Marlowe and Hignett was scheduled to appear. Previous to this there had been dark deeds done in the quiet saloon. The lecturer on deep-sea fish had fulfilled his threat and spoken at great length on a subject which, treated by a master of oratory, would have palled on the audience after ten or fifteen minutes; and at the end of fifteen minutes this speaker had only just got past the haddocks and was feeling his way tentatively through the shrimps. ‘The Rosary’ had been sung and there was an uneasy doubt as to whether it was not going to be sung again after the interval—the latest rumour being that the second of the rival lady singers had proved adamant to all appeals and intended to fight the thing out on the lines she had originally chosen if they put her in irons.
A young man recited ‘Gunga Din’ and, wilfully misinterpreting the gratitude of the audience that it was over for a desire for more, had followed it with ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy.’ His sister—these things run in families—had sung ‘My Little Gray Home in the West’—rather sombrely, for she had wanted to sing the ‘Rosary,’ and, with the same obtuseness which characterised her brother, had come back and rendered two plantation songs. The audience was now examining its programmes in the interval of silence in order to ascertain the duration of the sentence still remaining unexpired.
It was shocked to read the following:
7. A Little Imitation……S. Marlowe
All over the saloon you could see fair women and brave men wilting in their seats. Imitation…! The word, as Keats would have said, was like a knell! Many of these people were old travellers, and their minds went back wincingly, as one recalls forgotten wounds, to occasions when performers at ships’ concerts had imitated whole strings of Dickens’ characters or, with the assistance of a few hats and a little false hair, had endeavored to portray Napoleon, Bismarck, Shakespeare and others of the famous dead. In this printed line on the programme there was nothing to indicate the nature or scope of the imitation which this S. Marlowe proposed to inflict upon them. They could only sit and wait and hope that it would be short.
There was a sinking of hearts as Eustace Hignett moved down the room and took his place at the piano. A pianist! This argued more singing. The more pessimistic began to fear that the imitation was going to be one of those imitations of well-known opera artistes which, though rare, do occasionally add to the horrors of ships’ concerts. They stared at Hignett apprehensively. There seemed to them something ominous in the man’s very aspect. His face was very pale and set, the face of one approaching a task at which his humanity shudders. They could not know that the pallor of Eustace Hignett was due entirely to the slight tremor which, even on the calmest nights, the engines of an ocean liner produce in the flooring of a dining saloon and to that faint, yet well-defined, smell of cooked meats which clings to a room where a great many people have recently been eating a great many meals. A few beads of cold perspiration were clinging to Eustace Hignett’s brow. He looked straight before him with unseeing eyes. He was thinking hard of the Sahara.
So tense was Eustace’s concentration that he did not see Billie Bennett, seated in the front row. Billie had watched him enter with a little thrill of embarrassment. She wished that she had been content with one of the seats at the back. But her friend Jane Hubbard, who accompanied her, had insisted on the front row.
In order to avoid recognition for as long as possible, Billie now put up her fan and turned to Jane. She was surprised to see that her friend was staring eagerly before her with a fixity almost equal to that of Eustace.
“What is the matter, Jane?”
Jane Hubbard was a tall, handsome girl with large brown eyes. About her, as Bream Mortimer had said, there was something dynamic. The daughter of an eminent explorer and big-game hunter, she had frequently accompanied her father on his expeditions. An out-doors girl.
“Who is that man at the piano?” she whispered. “Do you know him?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Billie. “His name is Hignett. Why?”
“I met him on the Subway not long ago. Poor little fellow, how miserable he looks!”
At this moment their conversation was interrupted. Eustace Hignett, pulling himself together with a painful effort, raised his hands and struck a crashing chord: and, as he did so, there appeared through the door at the far end of the saloon a figure at the sight of which the entire audience started convulsively with a feeling that a worse thing had befallen them than even they had looked for.
The figure was richly clad in some scarlet material. Its face was a grisly black and below the nose appeared what seemed a horrible gash. It advanced towards them, smoking a cigar.
“Hullo, Ernest,” it said.
And then it seemed to pause expectantly, as though desiring some reply. Dead silence reigned in the saloon.
“Hullo, Ernest!”
Those nearest the piano—and nobody more quickly than Jane Hubbard—now observed that the white face of the man on the stool had grown whiter still. His eyes gazed out glassily from under his damp brow. He looked like a man who was seeing some ghastly sight. The audience sympathised with him. They felt like that, too.
In all human plans there is ever some slight hitch, some little miscalculation which just makes all the difference. A moment’s thought should have told Eustace Hignett that a half-smoked cigar was one of the essential properties to any imitation of the eminent Mr. Tinney: but he had completely overlooked the fact. The cigar came as an absolute surprise to him and it could not have affected him more powerfully if it had been a voice from the tomb. He stared at it pallidly, like Macbeth at the ghost of Banquo. It was a strong, lively young cigar, and its curling smoke played lightly about his nostrils. His jaw fell. His eyes protruded. He looked for a long moment like one of those deep-sea fishes concerning which the recent lecturer had spoken so searchingly. Then with the cry of a stricken animal, he bounded from his seat and fled for the deck.
There was a rustle of millinery at Billie’s side as Jane Hubbard rose and followed him. Jane was deeply stirred. Even as he sat, looking so pale and piteous, at the piano, her big heart had gone out to him, and now, in his moment of anguish, he seemed to bring to the surface everything that was best and most compassionate in her nature. Thrusting aside a steward who happened to be between her and the door, she raced in pursuit.
Sam Marlowe had watched his cousin’s dash for the open with a consternation so complete that his sense seemed to have left him. A general, deserted by his men on some stricken field, might have felt something akin to his emotion. Of all the learned professions, the imitation of Mr. Frank Tinney is the one which can least easily be carried through single-handed. The man at the piano, the leader of the orchestra, is essential. He is the life-blood of the entertainment. Without him, nothing can be done.
For an instant Sam stood there, gaping blankly. Then the open door of the saloon seemed to beckon an invitation. He made for it, reached it, passed through it. That concluded his efforts in aid of the Seamen’s Orphans and Widows.
The spell which had lain on the audience broke. This imitation seemed to them to possess in an extraordinary measure the one quality which renders amateur imitations tolerable, that of brevity. They had seen many amateur imitations, but never one as short as this. The saloon echoed with their applause.
It brought no balm to Samuel Marlowe. He did not hear it. He had fled for refuge to his stateroom and was lying in the lower berth, chewing the pillow, a soul in torment.
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was a tap at the door. Sam sat up dizzily. He had lost all count of time.
“Who’s that?”
“I have a note for you, sir.”
It was the level voice of
J. B. Midgeley, the steward. The stewards of the White Star Line, besides being the civillest and most obliging body of men in the world, all have soft and pleasant voices. A White Star steward, waking you up at six-thirty, to tell you that your bath is ready, when you wanted to sleep on till twelve, is the nearest human approach to the nightingale.
“A what?”
“A note, sir.”
Sam jumped up and switched on the light. He went to the door and took the note from J. B. Midgeley, who, his mission accomplished, retired in an orderly manner down the passage. Sam looked at the letter with a thrill. He had never seen the hand-writing before, but, with the eye of love, he recognized it. It was just the sort of hand he would have expected Billie to write, round and smooth and flowing, the writing of a warm-hearted girl. He tore open the envelope.
“Please come up to the top deck. I want to speak to you.”
Sam could not disguise it from himself that he was a little disappointed. I don’t know if you see anything wrong with the letter, but the way Sam looked at it was that, for a first love-letter, it might have been longer and perhaps a shade warmer. And, without running any risk of writer’s cramp, she might have signed it.
However, these were small matters. No doubt she had been in a hurry and all that sort of thing. The important point was that he was going to see her. When a man’s afraid, sings the bard, a beautiful maid is a cheering sight to see; and the same truth holds good when a man has made an exhibition of himself at a ship’s concert. A woman’s gentle sympathy, that was what Samuel Marlowe wanted more than anything else at the moment. That, he felt, was what the doctor ordered. He scrubbed the burnt cork off his face with all possible speed and changed his clothes and made his way to the upper deck. It was like Billie, he felt, to have chosen this spot for their meeting. It would be deserted and it was hallowed for them both by sacred associations.
She was standing at the rail, looking out over the water. The moon was quite full. Out on the horizon to the south its light shone on the sea, making it look like the silver beach of some distant fairy island. The girl appeared to be wrapped in thought, and it was not till the sharp crack of Sam’s head against an overhanging stanchion announced his approach that she turned.