Chance Encounters, page 9
“Are you religious then?” a lady farther down the table asked: she obviously was and wore a large cross as a badge.
“Not so you’d notice, but you won’t find me arguing against God or nature.”
“And I’m surprised that for a modern man you hold such antiquated views,” the industrialist said, probably thinking of his four steam-driven factories back home earning him money while he was away. The Chief Engineer took no trouble to answer.
Leeds wasn’t going to be deflected easily and declared emphatically, “The British Empire is unquestionably the largest empire that ever existed. We have used scientific progress to put us in the forefront of nations. We control the seas, and our knowledge and institutions will civilize the whole world. Our language will become the universal language.”
“Come, come, Sir. Remember 1848? The whole world is changing and doing so through revolutions. Look no further than the struggles in France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Hungary...”
“My point exactly. We, the British, have unprecedented political and social stability. We have far-flung colonies that owe us allegiance. We are the guiding spirit that will change this world.”
“Affluence for a minority, acquired through greed and exploitation of the working classes at home, and by the toil of poor savages in colonies,” a cleric who hadn’t spoken before suddenly threw in. “And we will eventually pay for it. Look how they seek to carve up Africa.”
“And sure we should; we have interests in India, South Africa,” and turning toward Emily, the industrialist added, “and to a certain extent, Egypt. We will lift these countries out their poverty.”
“If the French don’t get there first,” the First Officer interjected.
“The French? How so the French?”
“There’s that French fool, de Lesseps, trying to sell his idea of a canal through the isthmus of Suez. If that happens, the French will own the gates to the Orient. And look how they annexed Algeria, and are looking to Morocco and Tunisia to fall next under their influence. I tell you I don’t trust Napoleon III, he’s president of the French Republic now, but wants to be Emperor like his uncle.” At the mere mention of Bonaparte, a silence engulfed the company: the Emperor had been dead for thirty years but still cast an intimidating shadow over British destiny. In fact, British achievement and ascent derived in large measure from having defeated the arch enemy.
“The real land of opportunity is in the west. America is the future.” The cleric tried to find a new strand of conversation.
Tired of such pointless arguments, Lady Chillon and Lady Bethune retired to the ship’s small library, where they indulged themselves with books of poetry.
Lady Chillon cracked open a literary periodical and read a few lines, before looking up. “Listen to this:
Let blame fall where it may,
let fortunes fail at play,
into grasping greedy hands
while progress violates nature’s laws,
reveals modernity’s flaws,
and machines once servants,
now rule eternal...”
“What of it?” Lady Bethune elevated her sculpted brows.
“Does that not sound like the Chief Engineer?”
“Maybe he wrote it...”
“No. It’s by a minor unknown. And judging by the work, he’ll never amount to anything.”
“You think that’s bad? Listen to this:
Love, in love, longs for its own self
as light looks at darkness,
so does one disappointed,
feelings not returned,
promises never spoken...”
She slapped the book closed. “Who writes such drivel?”
“The real question is, who publishes it?”
“I guess the times are looking for a new path to follow, it’s just not been found yet.” Lady Bethune put the book back, and looked for a more promising title.
“I get so bored with politics and arguments about world hegemony. Why must men waste their breath on such useless topics? As if they could do something about it and change the world by the volumes of words they speak. It’s so tiresome.”
“I think they find our gossip tedious. Who with whom and why. I get tired of it myself sometimes, but being polite, I listen.”
They sipped their tea with absinthe, and by degrees made less and less sense of each others’ words.
Chapter 11
At breakfast Lady Bethune had a headache. She promised herself not to drink so much. Ten minutes later Lady Chillon joined her, her eyes hollow, without the usual sparkle.
“It’s that wormwood drink,” she complained.
A shadow fell over the two friends and looking up, they beheld the Chief Engineer.
“Eat up ladies. Fill your stomachs. Bad weather’s coming and we’ll have waves to stir us up. But it’s better on a full stomach than on an empty.”
“And it’s your arthritis that tells you this?” Lady Chillon asked sourly.
“No, Milady. One of our crew has an astounding weather sense, he certifies it, and he’s never been wrong. Bedsides the barometer on the bridge has gone wild.”
But eating was the last thing the ladies wanted to do. Still, mindful of the warning, Lady Bethune forced down several pieces of toast with peach jam.
By eleven, the winds picked up and the temperature dropped sharply. On the bridge, the First Officer looked aghast at the alarming drop of the barometer. The sails were shortened and the furnace stoked to give extra power to the side paddles to hold the ship on course. Wave after wave crashed over the prow, sending cold spray even to the upper decks. The ship started to dance erratically as the sea rose up against it. The deck pitched forward, then corkscrewed down to the right. By noon, most of the passengers were sick, by 2:00 o’clock, half the crew and the storm was picking up even more power. The wind howled in the rigging and shredded two of the foreshortened sails. Deckhands were desperately trying to batten down every hatch and ventilation shaft. Stewards ran from cabin to cabin, making sure every porthole was closed. Still the storm raged on; sea spray whipped across the deck, cutting like a razor. Two sailors were very nearly washed overboard. By mid-afternoon the Captain sent the First Officer to check the lifeboats and clear them for launch if the unthinkable were to happen, and the ship was swamped.
Lady Bethune lay in her bunk, desperately holding on. Her stomach was in an uproar, tossed by an inner storm: waves of nausea washed through her; her guts spasmed and bile bit her throat. It felt like her insides were being torn apart. The whole cabin pitched violently up and down then tilted dangerously to one side then the other. It seemed that after each rocking motion, the ship couldn’t possibly recover, but would flounder. There was a heart stopping pause before the world righted itself, to fall off the other side. The wardrobe opened, pitching all her clothes onto the floor. The drawers came loose and joined all her possessions on the carpet, tossed from side to side. Lady Bethune was past caring; she would have preferred to die than to endure the torment any longer.
She was hardly aware when the Chief Engineer struggled across the heaving cabin and wrestled a lifejacket onto her. He tried to say something reassuring, but his voice was lost in the groaning of the tortured vessel. A violent pitch tossed her from the bunk. She was too exhausted to resist and joined the restless mix of items rolling about. Chance, moving awkwardly on all fours like a crab, crawled over to her, dragged her back to the bed and tied her with a sheet to the bunk. Then he was gone, to attend to the needs of the ship.
No longer ladylike, tied, Lady Bethune lost all sense of self; she became a piece of driftwood, tossed helplessly from side to side by the power of the waves. She tried to pray but she couldn’t hold the words together. This is hell, she thought, the persecution would last forever. The storm, however, did let up; it would ease for a while then return with a vengeance and give rise to fresh despair.
Thankfully, Lady Bethune couldn’t remember the next hours. She lost all coherence of thought, and an inner chaos masked the outer tumult. When she came to herself again, the seas were calmer and the world had settled down to manageable. Her stomach was still burning and she felt dizzy with exhaustion. She extricated herself from her covers and struggled to the bathroom. She turned the tap, but no water issued forth. Obviously other parts of the ship had also taken a beating. She picked her way back to the berth and collapsed into it. The porthole again glowed with light as the skies cleared outside. At some point the steward poked his head around the door and asked, “Are you all right, Milady?”
“Yes,” she groaned and sat up. The steward moved on. The cabin wavered before her and her stomach lurched. She hung on until her view steadied. She stumbled to the bathroom and to her relief, the tap worked. Urgently she washed out her mouth. Feeling better, she returned to the main cabin and was immediately confronted by the mess of all her possessions flung about the room. She picked up a drawer and inserted it back in place, but two were badly broken. She then sorted through the piles, casting a few damaged items aside.
Lady Bethune was halfway through when Bernice stumbled through the door, her face ashen, her hair disheveled, still wearing a life vest. Seeing her so rumpled looking, Emily reached for her own hair and tried to order it.
“Oh my...” was all Bernice could say.
“Are you all right?” Emily asked, feeling a little ashamed about only now thinking of her friend.
“No. Of course I’m not all right. I’m sick. I thought I’d die. My suite is a mess and my possessions are ruined.”
“We’re alive.”
At the dinner table, people looked sick and some were missing. Quite a few had bruises, and all looked at least a little rumpled. Lady Chillon remained in her cabin still trying to settle herself, but Lady Bethune forced herself back into a semblance of normalcy.
Late, the Chief Engineer turned up, reasonably neat and seemingly unaffected.
“Everything fixed?” the Captain queried.
“Everything essential.” He ate as usual, the food disappearing from his plate without his taking the trouble to taste it. In spite of feeling unwell, Lady Bethune observed silently that food didn’t seem important to the Chief Engineer. Not that there was much served. The kitchen had also suffered through the storm and no doubt had its share of damage; the simplified meal reflected it.
Throughout the meal Chance threw searching looks at Emily but said nothing. She picked at her food, her stomach still rebellious. In the aftermath of the storm, she felt very far from London and wondered if it had been wise to undertake this journey. She and her husband had been drifting apart for years, and this was supposed to realign their relationship. At least, from her side.
The worst was that the bath didn’t work. Lady Bethune felt increasingly dirty as the days wore on. The steward could give no explanation for the lack; the fact remained that again no water was coming from the taps. Lady Bethune had to make do with a pitcherful, brought by a crew member, to do all the washing up.
Later, it became known that three of the main water tanks had been punctured during the storm and that even drinking water had to be carefully rationed. The Captain had to redirect the ship to the nearest large port instead of their next scheduled destination, Malta. The navigator wanted to try for Sicily, but the water shortage was so acute that the Captain opted for Tunis, closer by.
Chapter 12
Two days later the Orion dropped anchor in the calm waters of the Lake of Tunis. The city encompassed the lake like a jewel in its setting. There was the usual cluster of buildings and houses, interrupted by swatches of green and lofty palms. Rooftops gleamed under a bright sun.
Nearby was the armed escort vessel that had guided them through the narrow channel that connected the lake to the Mediterranean. Now a boat was approaching with an inspection team of the ruling Hussein Bey. There was a great concern that some decades ago, the French had occupied neighboring Algeria and had shown some intent of annexing Tunisia as well to their African possessions. For years now each ship passing through had to be inspected, to ferret out possible French spies among the passengers and crew.
Most people were cleared, but Lady Chillon was suspected of having French connections and ordered to remain on board, forbidden entry into the city. A few other passengers were also so constrained. Vainly did they protest that they were English, that their French names went back to Norman roots: the Tunisian official didn’t relent.
“I took this cruise to see the world, not to sit on board,” Lady Chillon complained to Emily. “Anyway, my ancestry is Swiss not French.”
Lady Bethune joined some others who were allowed to visit ashore, wanting to be on solid ground again, to have stone and mortar instead of the groaning, creaking entity of the Orion, never quiet or still. Besides, she hoped to find a bathhouse to clean up in, and to take care of her private laundry. Her skin crawled from not being properly washed for days because of the onboard water shortage.
She was a little nauseous going down the sea ladder, and stepping aboard the unsteady row boat; she nearly lost her balance but the First Officer steadied her in time.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, seating herself on one of the benches. The pastor’s wife sat down beside her.
“Isn’t this exciting? I’ve never been to Africa. I’ve never been anywhere. My husband and I are going to the Holy Land to visit the shrines.”
“I’m going to Egypt.”
“Then you’ll see the pyramids the Children of Israel built. Walk where Moses walked...” The woman couldn’t see beyond her narrow interest.
The group landed on the main quay. “Ladies, please remember to keep your hair covered by a shawl, and much of your face,” the First Officer instructed. “It’s considered highly indecent to do otherwise.”
“Indecent?”
“Akin to walking naked in public,” the Officer chortled, then fearing he’d said something inappropriate, he quickly added, “Please keep together. You’d not want to get lost in a strange city.”
“Or be abducted for a sheik’s harem,” the pastor’s wife exhaled, her imagination fired by lurid tales from the Daily Mirror.
“Is the Chief Engineer not with us?” Lady Bethune asked the First Officer.
“He has duties to attend to on board. Storm damage to fix.”
A tight knit group explored the bazaar, buying a few things, trying to make sense of the local currency. Lady Bethune bought a finely worked Moroccan leather bag and a pair of slippers for Bernice. From a street vendor they sampled some tea, finding it too strong and too sweet for English tastes. They nibbled at an offering of skewered meats from a roadside barbecue. Strange tastes intrigued the tongue, deliciously native.
The group gawked at the locals and the locals gawked right back. Under the rule of the aging Bey, Tunis wasn’t an open city and it had been years since foreigners were allowed onshore, on these rare occasions restricted to a small quarter adjoining the main docks. That way unhealthy influences could be contained. Tunis had also suffered through several devastating plagues of recent years, all imported by strange ships. Permission for the Orion to make landfall was due only to the emergency caused by the storm damage, a fact that the harbormaster emphasized repeatedly to Captain Harris.
The group was allowed to walk around the main mosque but not inside it. Next they visited a rose garden and inhaled the heady fragrance of a huge variety of flowers. Some bought essence of rose oil.
All throughout their meandering, a number of officious minders kept a close watch over them. Sometimes they denied the visitors access to a location for unknown reasons. They herded the group through a maze of streets and alleyways, always returning them to the waterfront.
Nervously the First Officer ushered the sightseers back to the hostel on the waterfront that served western style food. The place was named Oasis and housed the only foreigners in the city. When Lady Bethune found out the place had baths, she immediately rented a room and reserved herself a bath. She had to do it in Italian, as no one spoke English. The First Officer was vehemently against her plan, but she refused to budge: at all costs, she would have her bath.
Reluctantly the First Officer escorted the rest of the passengers quay side to board the rowboats taking them back to the Orion. He hated leaving Lady Bethune behind, but the lady refused to change her mind. As soon as the rest left, Emily went to the room assigned to her, slipped into a robe and had herself taken to the baths. She was conveyed to a private room with a generous basin full of steaming water. With a sigh of relief she slipped into the hot water, surrendering to its warm embrace. The heat soon relaxed her; all her cares slipped like liquid through her fingers. For the moment it didn’t matter that she was chasing across the world to fix her marriage, that with the children out of the home, she had no meaningful purpose to her life; for now, the soothing water was enough. A woman silently entered and poured an aromatic oil onto her hair. Emily luxuriated in the warm glow, just floating in the perfumed liquid.
She soaked a good hour, not caring about anything else. Getting out of the water, she felt reborn. Wrapping herself in the eastern style clothes she had bought, she returned to her room where she found her clothes cleaned and freshened. She dressed herself, enjoying being clean. For a while she sat at the window and watched the lake. Offshore, the Orion looked strangely unreal. Yet she knew its routines, could picture her tablemates were collecting in the dining room, no doubt discussing her desertion. She smiled, and wondered what the Chief Engineer thought of her now. She felt a tinge of guilt; as a married woman she shouldn’t be having these thoughts.
Looking out, she let the view of the busy harbor distract her from more serious concerns. She was on holiday after all. She watched barges unloading cargo, a line of half naked men struggling up the steps, loaded down with sacks. She saw her first camel, the strange beast plodding along under an ungainly load. A herd of goats filled the street, bleating, and passed, like the tide washing up on shore. A covered wagon creaked by, children played in the busy flow. There were few women to be seen, hidden by their bulky garments.
