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Chapter 2

Chapter 2

She heard the breath rushing in and out of his nostrils. "Sometimes it's not nearly so easy as that," he said at last. "Suppose that instead of telling you flatly all about it... suppose Lawrence had merely given you to understand that he knew that you knew. Wouldn't that have done just as well?"

"I suppose so," she replied dubiously. His smile broadened still further. "Good!" he exclaimed. "I think that's one of the big differences between being a child and being grown up. The difference between the secrets of childhood and those of the grown-up world."

Her smile became equally broad at that, for at last she saw what he was really talking about. "Yes, of course it would have done," she said - as if the truth had been staring her in the face all along. "And now," he added, rubbing his hands cheerily, "the trick will be to persuade Miss Emmeline Harding to marry young Lawrence after all."

She frowned.

"Because I'm afraid your mother has recognized her and taken it into her head to have her dismissed once again."

HILDA FOUND Michael coming out of Walter Grandison's stateroom bearing a tray of dirty crockery and half-eaten seed cake. "I want you, miss!" she snapped. "And I'm sure you know why."

Mrs Glover was on the scene at once; her ears had a special sensitivity to that particular tone of voice from anywhere in the first-class area. "Is anything the matter, Mrs Morgan?" she asked anxiously.

"I fear so, Mrs Glover," Hilda said primly. "But I shall be able to tell you more before we sail." She hooked a finger at Michael and strode off toward her own stateroom.

Michael looked hopelessly at the tray, at the head stewardess, and at the departing back of her old enemy. "Well? Give it me!" Mrs Glover said furiously, as if Michael must have arranged this bit of awkwardness on purpose. "And if you give the Captain's wife any lip ." An upraised finger completed the threat.

Michael held her head high as she strode off down the corridor - though it was more a gesture of self encouragement than an expression of her true feelings at that moment.

"Well, Harding," Hilda said coldly when Michael was still no more than half-way through the door. "Here's a pretty pickle! I trust you have some explanation? For I'm sure I can't think of one. Shut the door!"

"Explanation for what, Mrs Morgan?" she replied, wondering why she was not feeling more nervous at this encounter. Two years ago she would have been quaking with terror, unable to stammer out the slightest defence. Never mind "would have been," she thought, two years ago she was in that condition. But not now. She was still apprehensive, of course, but quite in command of herself. She took a deep breath and gave a cold little smile.

"You know very well what for, you impudent... and how dare you smile like that!

"Have I given cause for criticism in my work, Mrs Morgan?" Michael asked. "Has any passenger com plained? I'm told my last report from Mrs Glover was highly complimentary."

"I have complained," Hilda cried.

"But I'm not the stewardess for this stateroom, madam."

Hilda levelled a trembling finger at her. The girl's calm was most unnerving. "Now see here, miss none of your clever ways with me. I know you of old."

"I beg your pardon, Mrs Morgan, but I believe you never knew me at all." Michael startled even herself at this effrontery, but, now she was committed to it, she made not the smallest gesture of withdrawal. Instead she stood calmly and waited for the explosion. It didn't come. Hilda opened and closed her mouth like a fish in stale water. Little gurgling noises of fury escaped her throat. She continued to point her trembling finger at the stewardess but was too apoplectic to speak a word.

Michael went to the bathroom and drew her a glass of drinking water. "Sit down and take a sip of this, madam," she said on her return. "Shall I send for the doctor."

"How dare you!" Hilda found her voice at last and dashed the glass from Michael's grasp with one swipe of her hand. "How dare you patronize me!"

Michael bent to retrieve the tumbler, which was miraculously intact. "What is it you wish to know, madam. Perhaps if you asked me a direct question?"

"Indeed, I'll tell you what I wish to know. I wish to know how you secured this position after I had dismissed you without a character for making lewd remarks to my daughter. Who was so misguided as to employ you after that? That's what I wish to know."

"Whoever it was, madam, it obviously satisfied the Shaw & Eggar Line. I'm sure they scrutinize such items most carefully."

"You mean you won't tell me."

"I mean it's a matter between me and the Line, madam. It's not something I'd tell any other passenger, either."

The door opened at that moment and Mrs Glover came in. "Excuse my interruption, Mrs Morgan, but I happened to be passing and I heard you ask this stewardess..." "I'm not sure I require your help, Mrs Glover,"

Hilda said icily.

"Oh, but I can tell you, madam. It was a Miss Dowty of Highbury. I know it because it was I who scrutinized every character sent in."

"Miss Dowty?" Hilda barked. "There's no such person - not in Highbury. And it certainly wasn't Mrs Dowty. That I'd swear. You say you scrutinized them all?"

Mrs Glover smiled. "Not one from Miss Dowty, of course. The name is so well known in shipping circles. A Miss Kathleen Dowty it was, if memory serves me correctly."

In the corner of her eye Hilda saw the Harding creature suppress a smirk. She remembered Kathleen walking arm in arm with her, too. Summoning all her reserves she said, "Ah yes, of course. Miss Kathleen Dowty. I had forgotten her. She keeps very much to herself. Very well." She even managed a tight-lipped little smile at Michael. "That is satisfactorily cleared up, Harding. But I still have one or two bones to pick with you." She turned and stared at the head stewardess. "Thank you Mrs Glover. That will be all. I shall require no further information. Nor do I expect you to invigilate our conversation. I am quite capable of dealing with this matter myself."

Mrs Glover pressed her lips into a thin line and gathered her shawl about her in an ominous manner that boded no good for Michael when this interview was over. "So! It was Kathleen," Hilda said when the door was closed once more. "Well that young lady is going to regret the day she was born! I never heard such a thing in all my life." "If you harm her in the slightest ... the smallest ... if

." Michael subsided into incoherence. She began to breathe as if she'd run half a mile flat out.

"You'll do what?" Hilda sneered. "You're in no position to make threats, my girl. You should be down on your knees begging me for a second chance. Not that I'd give it you. I shall see to it that you never work again - not within a mile of decent, respectable folk. And don't think I haven't the power to carry out this threat."

Suddenly Michael's control snapped. "Oh, it's threats is it, my lady!" she sneered in as fine a manner as her former mistress. "Well let me tell you mine."

"How dare you!" Hilda repeated. But now some terrible intensity in the other's manner held her transfixed. All the more impressive was the fact that the girl spoke in the softest murmur.

"I dare because you pushed me to it," Michael told her. "I shan't say what it is, but there's that I know about Captain Morgan which, if repeated to the right party, would send him directly to prison."

Hilda gasped at this intolerable insult. She was about to scream for Mrs Glover when she caught sight of Michael's beady eye and upraised finger, it strangled the cry in her throat.

"Now you listen," Michael almost whispered. "It wouldn't only send the Captain to prison. Larry would have to leave the Baltic. Neil would have to change his name if he wanted to stay at sea."

"How dare you refer to them in such familiar terms!" At the back of her mind Hilda wondered why she was whispering, too. It lent such credence to the girl's preposterous theatricals.

"Lis-sen!" she went on remorselessly. "And no one will marry Kathy. And you'll have to sell up in Highbury and go and live in France or somewhere."

"Pshaw! This is absurd. It's sheer bluff." "Maybe it is," Michael agreed with a grim smile. "But there's only one way you'll ever find out.