King of the Sea

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

"Well, you don't seem to act on it. The point is, it would be a pretty dull world if that was the beginning and end of it. So Providence has also arranged for them to have beautiful faces and the most glorious bodies I mean, don't you agree that the female body, unadorned, is the best argument you know for the existence of a wise and loving Creator? And He's Iso given them stubbornness, b****y-mindedness, passions, incomprehensible emotions, and bags of what we can only lump together under the name of mystery. I agree with you there, all down the line they are an absolute b****y mystery." "I know." Lawrence scratched two

vertical and two horizontal lines in the gravel. He put a cross in the central square thus formed. "I tell myself all that. But it doesn't help. I keep remembering that glimpse of ... something else."

Neil put a nought in a corner. "And where's the difficulty? She won't go near it again?" "That sort of thing. I mean, I've tried every way I

can to really get to know her. But there's always this ."He mimed a wall in front of him and added a cross next to his brother's nought. "And now she's started tippling on the sly."

"Can't blame her." Neil put his nought to stop the third cross in the row. "All she wants is a jolly good shag. You've got all the right equipment - and you won't oblige!"

Lawrence put a cross in the corner where the two noughts could otherwise have intersected. "I found an empty port bottle. She said one of the neighbours left it when she wanted to borrow vinegar. The thing is, I think I've ruined her life now."

"That's going it a bit strong, don't you think?" Neil put his nought at the diagonal corner. "Ruined her life? Why not buy her a 'genuine' reference from the Archbishop of Canterbury and let her go back where she belongs in service somewhere? Driving the young masters mad with flashes of tit and bum."

Lawrence looked up sharply. "Really?" he said. Neil grinned. "Don't tell me she never had that effect on you! Why else d'you think I ran away to sea?"

"Be serious!" He returned to the puzzle of the noughts and crosses. "Well, I've had my daydreams about her in my time. Not to mention the wetter variety. Hell, she'd

find me willing enough!" Lawrence wiped out their scratchings with his boot. "No one can win now," he said, staring across the green to the Dowtys'. "Are we going to wait for our dear little sister or what?"

Catherine thanked her Aunt Daphne for the loan of the album. Yes, she had found it extremely interesting. Indeed, they were funny fashions in those days. And it was amazing how you could recognize people when they were only nine or ten even though they were now in their ... well, much older.

Daphne laughed merrily. "Much, much older," she agreed. "One day I'll tell you what it was like living in the Ark."

Catherine accepted the invitation to stay to tea as if it were the last thing she had anticipated. "Did your brothers not want to come and see their

ancient aunt?" Daphne asked as she handed Brian the cup to pass to her. So she had been watching from her window.

"I think they intend calling round after Evensong." Catherine made a note to tell the boys to do so now. "Actually..." She put a note of intrigue into her voice and then glanced uncertainly at her Uncle Brian.

"Oh, he knows," Aunt Daphne assured her, though the wave of her hand implied it didn't really matter one way or the other. "Do tell!"

"I think Larry is telling Neil all about her at this very moment." Daphne did a refined little buttock jig on the sofa.

"Oh, I should so love to be a little chirping cricket in the grass at times! What d'you think they're saying? Men are so incomprehensible." "I don't know. But Neil is so... I mean, he's such a

... well, you know. He's Neil. He's bound to dish out the most disastrous advice." She bit her lip and then remembered not to. It was so schoolgirlish. All very well in front of her brothers, but not with real grown ups like Aunt Daphne and Uncle Brian. "I've been wondering if I shouldn't call on her myself?"

Aunt Daphne made a movement that could only be described as "shrinking from the touch of her own clothing." She stared dubiously at the girl. "D'you think that's wise, dear? You know our motto. Never become involved!"

Catherine relished the seed cake a while. "You haven't seen her. I saw her sitting on a bench at the station the other day. She didn't see me, but oh, she looked the picture of misery. Couldn't you write her a character? Then she could escape."

"Perhaps she doesn't wish to escape, dear. Or perhaps she'll find her own method. I don't think your mother and I would remain friends if I were to do that. Apart from which, it would be a lie."

"Well, let her work here for a week or two. Then it wouldn't be a lie. And she's jolly good with the housework, you know."

Aunt Daphne smiled sweetly and said that people must be allowed to go to perdition in their own way. Uncle Brian stared at his courtesy niece in amaze ment. "So macchiavellian," he murmured. "And so young! What hope is there for the world?"

Daphne laughed. "The world, my dear, is a man's world - as we all know. Which is another saying that we women must tend it, care for it, mend it, iron it, and generally sponge it clean way of without in any way interfering with the uses to which men choose to put it." She turned to Catherine for support. "Would you call that macchiavellian, dear? I wouldn't." "Who gives it away to the rag and bone man when

it's worn out?" he asked. She turned back to him with a smile of triumph. "Who says there is a rag and bone man - in this particular case? Perhaps we have to go on using it for ever and ever!"

The badinage had become too refined for Catherine to follow, or wish to follow. "I just lie awake in bed sometimes worrying about her. She was always so cheerful around the house. I hate to think of her like that first losing her place because Mama chose to misinterpret something she said to me, then having to live in misery because Lawrence is such a fool about her."

Daphne, realizing that the discussion could get rather too near the knuckle, started riffling idly through the pages of the album, which was still on the couch at her side. "Margate Pier," she murmured. "Remember Margate Pier?" He nodded and smiled.

"The Panorama in Leicester Square! I'd forgotten. And the Sunday School treat on Hampstead Heath... d'you remember Madge what-was-her-name who ate gallons of winkles and was sick!" "Hood. Madge Hood."

"That's right fancy you remembering little Madge Hood! She had that vast baby, which you said should be entered in the prize pumpkin contest."

"One of us said it, anyway," he agreed. Catherine followed the banter with her eyes, wondering what they were trying to avoid. Then it struck her that her aunt had suddenly gone silent.

"What's wrong?" she asked nervously. "Have I jam on it or something? I was most careful." Daphne slowly raised her eyes until they stared got

levelly into hers. "On the contrary," she replied with a knowing little smile. "You've improved it and without saying a word! Look, darling, the famous Hiawatha dinner, with you trying to hide your black eye." She turned again to the girl. "It always annoyed me that this photo didn't line up with the others. And you've done it for me! Clever girl!" Her gaze remained quite level as she repeated the words. "Clever girl!""

H ILDA LAY IN BED pretending to sleep, though she doubted it would come easily that night - if, indeed, it came at all. So much was going on that confused her, things of which she was only dimly aware. Lawrence was up to something, she was sure of it - skulking off twice like that on the very day his brother was due home after months at sea. Saying he just wanted to look in the shop windows! Something smutty, no doubt. It always was when men got that sly look in their eyes.

There was probably one of those houses somewhere in the district. She must find out and put a stop to it. Who could tell her? Reverend Calthrop, perhaps. No, it would embarrass him dreadfully. Daphne. Yes, she could ask Daphne to ask Brian to find out.

Or leave well alone?

If men were subject to those disgusting urges and everyone seemed to agree they were, especially young men - perhaps it was just as well. Lightning conductors, her mother had always called them. "If men couldn't resort to such places, decent women like you and me couldn't even go out in broad daylight, let alone at night." That's what Mother always said. (She must remember to send her that jam. And she'd promised a couple of jars to Daphne, too.)

She stretched her feet into the cooler corners of the bed, making all her muscles tense and then letting them go suddenly, to increase the feeling of relaxation even if the reality of it eluded her. She wondered why she was still consciously pretending to be asleep, exaggerating the depth and regularity of her breathing and making those little lip-smacking noises as she settled into a new position. She even wondered why she had pretended to fall asleep before Francis came back from his dressing room. He had shown no inclination for that sort of thing since ... well, since his return after the Great Storm.

An involuntary sigh escaped her. "Hilda?" Frank whispered. "Is something the matter? Can't you sleep?" She drew a deep breath and said, "Only shallowly.

Fits and starts." After a pause she added, "You?" "I keep thinking of improvements - things I must remember to tell the architects." He turned on his back and stretched himself vigorously enough to make the whole bed shake.

Some imp of mischief impelled her to tickle him but she plucked her hands back just in time and lay upon them very firmly. The shock of what she had almost done left her heart racing. She was so flustered, indeed, that she missed his next words, so that he had

to repeat them. "I said there is one other thing... something else on my mind."

"What, dear?" She hoped it would prove to be Lawrence; she wanted to talk to him about the boy but she didn't want to be the one to start it off.

"I think I ought to get my hand in steamship, you know. Any steamship. The new leviathan will be launched next March, followed by a couple of months fitting out in Belfast Lough. Then trials in June. So the earliest we can start in service will be... thirteen months from now. So I'm going to ask for command of a steamship in the American trade. Not regular, you understand, but if I can make a crossing once every couple of months five or six between now and ..." with a

"But Shaw and Eggar haven't got anything even half the size of ... oh, what can we call it? I'm not going to call it the Hilda of Troy - and I wish you'd speak to Lawrence about that."

"They can charter a big one for me. Why not call it

the New Leviathan?" "I did. Daphne said it sounds like some dreadful

socialist newspaper."

He chuckled. "So it does."

She turned on her side to face him, letting her eyes roam with possessive satisfaction over his craggy profile. "You've changed, Francis. You'd never have laughed at one of Daphne's little jokes before certainly not if it was about one of your precious ships."

"Anno Domini," he said mildly. Then, half turning to her, he added in a slightly teasing tone, "The famous hush of life - for which you've been praying ever since we married."

"I have not!" she protested. Her heart was suddenly pounding in her throat.

"It's all right, Hilda. Truly, it's all right." He De

y

reached across the gap between them and gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. He was going to pull his hand away but she reached up and clamped it there. "What's all right? I wish I knew what you're talking about." "You know very well what I'm talking about.

'Can't you ever think of anything else?' That's what I'm talking about. 'It should be perfectly possible for you to express your love and respect for me without doing that!' That's what I'm talking about." "I never said such things."

He made no reply. "I mean, I never said them in that way," she added. "Not in that tone."

He squeezed her shoulder again. "It no longer matters, my dear. That's what I was trying to tell you. You had the correct view of the matter all along <-as in so many other departments of our marriage. You were right."

Again he started to remove his hand and again she clamped it tight; she almost wished he'd start to caress her as he used to. "Surely ..." She faltered. "What?"

"Well... I mean, there's surely something in between? You don't have to rush from one extreme to the other?"

"Extreme?" "Tskoh! Now it's you who knows perfectly well what I'm talking about. I mean going from the extreme of mauling me about every single night to the extreme of never so much as touching me."

She felt his grip tighten on her shoulder; his anger was strangely thrilling. Then, to her disappointment, he relaxed and, with a light laugh, edged himself to her side. There, propping himself on both elbows