‘Very well,’ I said again.
After all, perhaps it was better to have this fellow with me, but I had a premonition that I was getting into deep waters. Just when I thought I had attained peace!
I stopped my visitor as he was turning to depart.
‘It might be just as well if I knew my new secretary’s name,’ I observed sarcastically.
He considered for a minute.
‘Harry Rayburn seems quite a suitable name,’ he observed.
It was a curious way of putting it.
‘Very well,’ I said for the third time.
(Anne’s Narrative Resumed)
It is most undignified for a heroine to be sea-sick. In books the more it rolls and tosses, the better she likes it. When everybody else is ill, she alone staggers along the deck, braving the elements and positively rejoicing in the storm. I regret to say that at the first roll the Kilmorden gave, I turned pale and hastened below. A sympathetic stewardess received me. She suggested dry toast and ginger ale.
I remained groaning in my cabin for three days. Forgotten was my quest. I had no longer any interest in solving mysteries. I was a totally different Anne to the one who had rushed back to the South Kensington square so jubilantly from the shipping office.
I smile now as I remember my abrupt entry into the drawing-room. Mrs Flemming was alone there. She turned her head as I entered.
‘Is that you, Anne, my dear? There is something I want to talk over with you.’
‘Yes?’ I said, curbing my impatience.
‘Miss Emery is leaving me.’ Miss Emery was the governess. ‘As you have not yet succeeded in finding anything, I wondered if you would care—it would be so nice if you remained with us altogether?’
I was touched. She didn’t want me, I knew. It was sheer Christian charity that prompted the offer. I felt remorseful for my secret criticism of her. Getting up, I ran impulsively across the room and flung my arms round her neck.
‘You’re a dear,’ I said. ‘A dear, a dear, a dear! And thank you ever so much. But it’s all right, I’m off to South Africa on Saturday.’
My abrupt onslaught had startled the good lady. She was not used to sudden demonstrations of affection. My words startled her still more.
‘To South Africa? My dear Anne. We would have to look into anything of that kind very carefully.’
That was the last thing I wanted. I explained that I had already taken my passage, and that upon arrival I proposed to take up the duties of a parlourmaid. It was the only thing I could think of on the spur of the moment. There was, I said, a great demand for parlourmaids in South Africa. I assured her that I was equal to taking care of myself, and in the end, with a sigh of relief at getting me off her hands, she accepted the project without further query. At parting, she slipped an envelope into my hand. Inside it I found five new crisp five-pound notes and the words: ‘I hope you will not be offended and will accept this with my love.’ She was a very good, kind woman. I could not have continued to live in the same house with her, but I did recognize her intrinsic worth.
So here I was, with twenty-five pounds in my pocket, facing the world and pursuing my adventure.
It was on the fourth day that the stewardess finally urged me up on deck. Under the impression that I should die quicker below, I had steadfastly refused to leave my bunk. She now tempted me with the advent of Madeira. Hope rose in my breast. I could leave the boat and go ashore and be a parlourmaid there. Anything for dry land.
Muffled in coats and rugs, and weak as a kitten on my legs, I was hauled up and deposited, an inert mass, on a deck-chair. I lay there with my eyes closed, hating life. The purser, a fair-haired young man, with a round boyish face, came and sat down beside me.
‘Hullo! Feeling rather sorry for yourself, eh?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, hating him.
‘Ah, you won’t know yourself in another day or two. We’ve had a rather nasty dusting in the Bay, but there’s smooth weather ahead. I’ll be taking you on at quoits tomorrow.’
I did not reply.
‘Think you’ll never recover, eh? But I’ve seen people much worse than you, and two days later they were the life and soul of the ship. You’ll be the same.’
I did not feel sufficiently pugnacious to tell him outright that he was a liar. I endeavoured to convey it by a glance. He chatted pleasantly for a few minutes more, then he mercifully departed. People passed and repassed, brisk couples ‘exercising’, curveting children, laughing young people. A few other pallid sufferers lay, like myself, in deck-chairs.
The air was pleasant, crisp, not too cold, and the sun was shining brightly. Insensibly, I felt a little cheered. I began to watch the people. One woman in particular attracted me. She was about thirty, of medium height and very fair with a round dimpled face and very blue eyes. Her clothes, though perfectly plain, had that indefinable air of ‘cut’ about them which spoke of Paris. Also, in a pleasant but self-possessed way, she seemed to own the ship!
Deck stewards ran to and fro obeying her commands. She had a special deck-chair, and an apparently inexhaustible supply of cushions. She changed her mind three times as to where she would like it placed. Throughout everything she remained attractive and charming. She appeared to be one of those rare people in the world who know what they want, see that they get it, and manage to do so without being offensive. I decided that if ever I recovered—but of course I shouldn’t—it would amuse me to talk to her.
We reached Madeira about midday. I was still too inert to move, but I enjoyed the picturesque-looking merchants who came on board and spread their merchandise about the decks. There were flowers too. I buried my nose in an enormous bunch of sweet wet violets and felt distinctly better. In fact, I thought I might just possibly last out the end of the voyage. When my stewardess spoke of the attractions of a little chicken broth, I only protested feebly. When it came I enjoyed it.
My attractive woman had been ashore. She came back escorted by a tall, soldierly-looking man with dark hair and a bronzed face whom I had noticed striding up and down the deck earlier in the day. I put him down at once as one of the strong, silent men of Rhodesia. He was about forty, with a touch of greying hair at either temple, and was easily the best-looking man on board.
When the stewardess brought me up an extra rug, I asked her if she knew who my attractive woman was.
‘That’s a well-known society lady, the Hon. Mrs Clarence Blair. You must have read about her in the papers.’
I nodded, looking at her with renewed interest. Mrs Blair was very well known indeed as one of the smartest women of the day. I observed, with some amusement, that she was the centre of a good deal of attention. Several people essayed to scrape acquaintance with the pleasant informality
