Chance Encounters, page 7
“I hope your rooms are warm, Milady,” he said, inclining his head toward her.
“Yes, quite.” Then the Captain claimed her attention in the exchange of pleasantries that went with polite conversation. To her right, she also made the acquaintance of Mr. Harold, of the firm of Harold and Pfife, premier outfitters to the most affluent of the rising middle class. He was amusing, though always a salesman, even when he didn’t need to be. From time to time Lady Bethune threw a quick glance at the Chief Engineer, who had seemingly avoided conversation on his either side and sat calmly regarding her, listening in on her conversation. Under his gaze, she lost interest in her food and had a hard time concentrating on her own speech, more than once losing the thread of her argument.
Before the dessert course arrived, an underofficer came up to the Chief Engineer and whispered something in his ear. Immediately the Chief Engineer rose, and with an apologetic gesture to the guests, left the table and the room. Suddenly Lady Bethune felt somehow colder.
When the gentlemen headed off for after dinner cigars in the smoking room, the ladies gathered and discussed their male companions. Lady Chillon leaned over to her friend and confided, “This will be a thrilling voyage. I have set my eye on the Captain and he is already preening himself. Men are so transparent.”
“Bernice, you’re absolutely shameless.”
“Come now, Emily. We’re going to enjoy ourselves. Being married has its advantages; we can flirt without having to deliver the goods, so to speak.” And she twittered happily, titillated by her private thoughts. “Besides, I saw you making eyes at our good-looking Chief Engineer.”
“I did no such thing. You take that back.”
“I’ll not.” She poured herself a glass of wine from the crystal carafe. She took a sip and made a face. “Emily, your family imports wine, try this lot they serve us and tell me what you think.”
Emily took a small sip and let it play on her tongue before swallowing. “Not bad, but definitely not of the best pedigree. Wasn’t in the oak long enough to smooth it out. Leaves a slightly harsh aftertaste.” She pushed the carafe away.
“Thought something wasn’t quite right with it. It’s rather disappointing to be served second best when we pay first rate prices.”
Emily told Bernice about the problem with the heat and how the Chief Engineer had rescued the situation.
“Oh, now I understand.” Bernice used a peculiar inflection that insinuated much. “Well, speaking of the devil, here he comes now...” Emily looked up to see the Chief Engineer approach. He took his seat and concentrated on finishing his interrupted dessert.
“Oh, Mr. Engineer, it seems I have some trouble with my heating too,” Bernice trilled in her most arch voice. Emily kicked her under the table, hard enough that her friend winced.
“I’ll send the mechanic over right away to fix it,” the engineer replied, looking from one to the other.
“The others went to smoke,” Emily said, trying to deflect the conversation.
“I don’t smoke,” he said, smiling broadly as if apologizing.
“A filthy habit,” Bernice said. Emily looked at her bemused: Bernice liked an odd cigarillo herself.
“Are you ladies traveling together?”
“Goodness no,” Bernice exclaimed. “I’m only going to Rhodes. Emily’s going on to Egypt.”
“Egypt, how interesting.” He turned his searchlight gaze on Emily.
“I’m joining my husband on a business trip.” Inexplicably she felt flustered again. “Trade negotiations. Delicate work.”
His glass of wine paused halfway, as he considered. “Work, really?” There was something faintly patronizing in the inflection, betraying the skepticism of a working man when his betters talk about work. “And what do you do?”
“I?” She thought hard. “I facilitate. I speak four languages; I know the flow of commerce and the customs of every client.”
“And no doubt also play the piano.” Again there was a hint of sarcasm. But it was a close hit. She prided herself on her playing. More than once she had been able to defuse tensions in a hard deal by providing a classical interlude. “I’m sorry. I fear I sound rude. Don’t mean to be. Now, will you ladies please excuse me, I have work to do.” He rose and left.
“Well, does he ever have a bee in his bonnet,” was the only comment Bernice made. But when the Captain came back she asked him, “Who’s your Chief Engineer?”
“Chance? An excellent chap. We’re lucky to have him.” The Captain motioned with his hand to show the large extent of his luck.
“Chance? An odd name,” Lady Bethune said.
“Chance Percival Fraser-Reid, but he insists that we call him Chance. Even the subordinates. He really is first rate. Believe it or not, he taught himself engineering. He designed the gearbox for our side paddles, and we’re the fastest thing on water for our size.” From there the conversation drifted into onboard gossip about other passengers and Lady Bethune quickly lost interest.
Afterwards, as the two friends walked arm-in-arm up the companionway to their suites, Bernice inquired mischievously, “Are you sure you’re not really interested? I wouldn’t mind taking a chance...” and she twittered. She was older by four years, but of a much more adventuresome nature than her younger companion.
“Very funny,” Emily said. But she was puzzled by her own reaction to the man; there was something so trustworthy about him... something around his eyes... She was not in the habit of trusting anyone, ever since she was kidnapped when she was fifteen years old.
Chapter 7
It was a shipboard custom for passengers to take a constitutional around the deck if the weather permitted... even in October. Deck D was reserved for the sole use of first class, and here they could walk without fear of encountering the lower classes. By some unwritten convention, this foot traffic was counterclockwise, which only became fully noticeable when a young Oxford student went the other way, against the grain, his nose deep in a book.
Each day as they reached farther south, the conditions improved as the blustery north Atlantic gave way to the more temperate climate of the lower latitudes. They were passing the last of France, unseen over the horizon, but the Captain assured them it was there and invited the young ladies into the chartroom where he had the navigator pinpoint the position precisely. The young man blushed his way through a technical explanation of degrees of longitude and latitude and Greenwich Mean Time. The ladies listened with politeness, watching his eyes and mouth move through the exercise, but withdrew themselves on some pretext when he launched into an explanation of tidal tables.
The ladies returned to their promenade and after several more turns around deck D, they eased themselves into lounge chairs to enjoy the warm glow of the sun. They were served tea of a surprisingly good quality mix.
“Ah dear, it’s so invigorating,” Lady Chillon exclaimed, taking large breaths. “I don’t know about you, but this time of year London is so dreadful. Smells like the inside of a stove, with all the fires burning in the houses, everyone trying to keep warm. And the fog holds the smell and soot that’s in the air. I find myself suffering often from headaches and have to hold a perfumed handkerchief to my nose if I go outside into the open.”
“The government is considering bylaws to limit the general use of coal, especially the soft variety. On bad days even the factories are ordered to shut down their furnaces to ease the pollution.”
“I know all too well, my dear. My husband lectures me constantly. First of all it’s the soft coal that’s the trouble, not the harder stuff. And factories are less of a problem than people think; with their tall chimneys they discharge the gaseous effluvium into the higher layers. There, it seems I have listened to him after all.”
“Admirably, it seems.”
The two ladies attracted the attention of Mr. Lambton, who let himself down beside them and puffed on his cigar with remarkable intensity, the pollution making the ladies homesick for London. In short order the ladies extricated themselves from his monologue and left that worthy gentleman talking to himself in the comfort of his self-generated cloud.
After two more turns, they went to the day salon, where they played cards until supper. Again they joined the Captain’s table and once again Emily found herself across from the Chief Engineer. Observing him, she quickly noted the seeming concentration with which the officer put away his food. He didn’t let conversation interrupt his feeding; he lifted his table implements with measured precision. In spite of the apparent speed of dispatch, Lady Bethune had the impression that he was holding himself in check, slowing the whole ritual, to oblige the polite company.
“Doesn’t he take time to taste anything? To savor the subtlety of flavors?” she thought to herself. “Apparently not.”
“What my dear?” Bernice queried.
“Oh, did I say that aloud?”
The conversation turned political as a gentleman from the Foreign Office earnestly extolled the virtue and necessity to bring English civilization and culture to the rest of the world. It generated a spirited discussion about the white man’s burden and the moral obligation of more advanced societies to export themselves for the benefit of all mankind.
“It behooves us, I tell you,” the Foreign Office trumpeted his convictions. No one seemed predisposed to oppose him. The man was assigned to Khartoum, not really the epicenter of the British Empire. Obviously he would have been happier with the crown jewel of the realm, the British possessions in India.
Lady Bethune deftly turned the conversation to traveling and the many interesting customs of indigenous peoples. A doctor-type on the far end felt himself compelled to caution the company.
“As I understand, Lady Bethune, that you are intending to travel in Egypt; may I warn you to beware of the water. Any liquid needs to be strictly and thoroughly boiled to kill the many parasites with which the land is infested.”
This raised a general concern about infectious diseases endemic to warmer climates. It quickly became a listing of the deadliest varieties of illnesses to plague mankind. Cholera, yellow fever, and someone even mentioned the black plague.
“Tuberculosis is among the worst,” the First Officer maintained loudly. “Once it takes hold, there is only a slow and painful decline. The wretched afflicted coughs up his lungs.”
“You’ve not seen leprosy my friend; there’s no more horrible disease in creation.”
“I’ve seen parasites, living in and out of the human body. Squirming just beneath the skin in a living mass. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever observed.”
“Then you’ve not seen maggots eating the dead flesh of gangrene,” the First Officer threw into the mix. The ladies became uneasy at this turn of table talk.
“You want to know the worst disease of men?” The Chief Engineer spoke for the first time. His tone carried such intensity that all turned to him. He twirled the stem of his wineglass between his fingers as he returned their looks moodily. “It’s not as you suppose, anything medical, it’s poverty. Poverty, that robs the poor of food, leaves them hungry and weak, victim of any disease that comes along. A healthy body that’s well supplied can fight off diseases, but not an emaciated wreck.”
“You talk as if you’ve known hunger.” Lady Bethune commented with sympathy.
“Enough to know how hunger robs us of dreams and aspirations. Enough to know how hunger feeds ignorance and callousness. Yet it’s we better people who tolerate it, live beside it.”
There was silence around the table and more than one thought that this little speech smacked of the dangerous proletarian doctrines just emerging into public consciousness.
“Sadly, it’s true that we often overlook the need around us,” Lady Bethune said. Rising and going to the grand piano, she sat and launched into the haunting strains of a Beethoven sonata. Spellbound, the whole room listened to her play. As her fingers stroked the ivory keys, her face started to glow with an inner ecstasy. The whole room froze as people stopped eating and the servants became as statues, enraptured by the music.
Lady Bethune played, sunken totally into herself, unaware of anything around her. The last note faded into total silence, the room still enchanted by the haunted longing in the piece. Bernice shattered the silence with enthusiastic clapping that then swept the room.
Afterwards people came and congratulated her for her wonderful playing. In the afterglow, she barely noticed, until the Chief Engineer took and kissed her hand, whispering, “Now I understand how piano playing can be work.”
Now why did he say that? Emily wondered, as if he were continuing a conversation from long ago. And what did he mean? Music was an expression, an art form, not work. Among the highest aspirations of mankind. A universal language. She tried to penetrate the cryptic remark. How could music be work?
Chapter 8
The Orion stopped off in Lisbon for three days. Passengers and crew alighted to visit the city. The sailors made a beeline for the bars and pleasure houses that lined the back alleys of the harbor. The higher society sought more worthwhile pursuits, frequenting galleries, the library, or taking a coach tour of the city to the palaces and churches the city was famous for.
In the company of the Second Officer, the Ladies Bethune and Chillon spent an agreeable afternoon shopping in bazaars that had many oriental products that recalled Portugal’s Moorish past. On the way back they came across the Chief Engineer staring moodily into the canal that connected the harbor with a private anchorage for the rich.
“Mr. Fraser-Reid.” Lady Bethune startled the man obviously lost in thought at the sight of barges being towed by horses on shore.
“Chance, M’am.” The Chief Engineer turned, greeting her with a hand to his cap. In his immaculate white uniform against the backdrop of a busy harbor, he looked every inch as if he belonged. He gestured toward the canal. “I used to live... by the water.”
“Where were you born?” Lady Bethune asked politely, twirling the parasol in her fingers, the item not at all out of place in October in the warmth of the southern sun.
“Look, your friend is about to get into trouble.” He pointed to Lady Chillon who was squalling in terror as an organ grinder’s monkey climbed up her clothes onto her shoulder to chatter in her ear. She shook with revulsion at the mere breath of the little beast. The grinder gathered in his pet, and was apologizing profusely in rapid Portuguese.
“Oh he speaks such florid literary Portuguese.” Emily clapped her hands with enjoyment.
“Then you speak the language?”
“Not fluently. But it is a romance language that shares many words with Spanish, French and Italian. I’m more articulate in those.”
“Perhaps you can help me. Captain gave me the assignment of buying more coal for the ship, but I can’t find a supplier who speaks English. Of course the rascal could be pretending, to get a better price out of me.” He led her to a small office on the waterfront and engaged the man behind the desk. At the sight of a lady, he jumped to his feet and offered an obsequious flow of his language. She replied in kind; that made him even more demonstrative of his gallantry.
In short order the deal was made at preferential rates in honor of the lady, the vendor insisted.
“Could you make sure it’s for the hard coal, not the smelly kind?” Chance reduced his vocabulary, thinking she might not know the more technical terms. The vendor pulled a sample from his desk. The Chief Engineer nodded happily: the exact quality required.
Chance walked her back to the ship. “Thank you very much, Milady. You’ve been an immense help.” Before parting in the lounge, he thanked her again. “You know you’ve proven to me that learning and using another language is work.” He saluted her, touching his cap. She gazed after him in wonderment at another of his odd comments.
That evening the Chief Engineer was not at the table. There was no explanation for his absence and Lady Bethune was reluctant to ask. She felt oddly dissatisfied and kept glancing at his empty table setting. Her friend noticed, but said nothing.
By general request, Lady Bethune again played the piano to a rapt audience. At one point in the third movement, she saw the Chief Engineer looking at her, a glass in hand: she missed a note and stumbled over her next phrasing before recovering. She flushed with embarrassment. Bernice noticed, her instincts instantly aroused, like vibrations coming down a strand of spider web. And later on said so.
They were seated in a corner nook, just the two of them drinking tea laced with absinthe that was the most recent rage to sweep London’s artistic community, a practice that found a bridge to higher society. Bernice called the concoction a truth serum, for its high alcohol content eased normal inhibitions. They were at their second cup, sipping the anise flavored mixture.
“It seems, my Dear, that the good looking Chief Engineer has gotten under your skin.”
“How can you say that? You know I’m married and I don’t hold with dalliances.” But she blushed even as she said it.
“All the same, I’ve never seen you so affected.” Bernice regarded her friend narrowly. “Oh, come now, Emily. We both know that yours was a marriage of convenience.”
“I admit it may’ve been, but I’ve grown into it. I have my obligations and responsibilities. My husband treats me kindly and with respect.”
“Yes, he’s unfailingly polite, I will give you that, but I’m sorry my Dear to have to say this, a bit of a cold fish.”
“He’s reserved and shy about feelings. That’s because he grew up without a mother or a nurturing influence in his life.”
“Yes, emotionally mute. Oh don’t mind me, my George isn’t any better. Raised by his nanny, hardly saw his parents.” She poured them fresh cups. The two friends sat there quietly introspecting as they took small sips of the green tea, conscious that they were on a cruise, away from anything else that usually prevented them from talking of such private matters.
