"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 12
XII
Mrs. Trevelyan has a bad quarter of an hour
ON a somewhat murky afternoon about a week later, the Boston bride and groom, Lord Ashurst, and Mrs. Trevelyan were playing their customary afternoon game of bridge in the Pavonia’s smoking-room, in dignified unobtrusiveness, for ten cents a point. Luck had deserted Lily and she already owed Ashurst some fifty pounds and the Boston bride one hundred and fifty. But she always endeavored to “even up” if possible and, now that there were only two days left of the voyage, was making a last frantic effort to get back what she had lost by “doubling” and “doubling again” and “playing it alone.” Now as she lost again to the Boston lady she rang the bell impatiently for the steward and said sharply:
“Boy, bring me a whisky and soda! What will you have,—you others?”
The bride, who was winning, shook her head.
“I ’m on the wagon,” she smiled. “Still, you may bring me a sherry and bitters.”
“B. and S.” grunted Ashurst.
“Gin ricky,” added the Bostonian.
“’K you” (he pronounced it exactly like the letter “Q”), said the steward as he bustled off.
The bride offered Lily a cigarette and lit one herself, and the blue smoke slowly drifted upwards until it caught the draft from the ventilator and shot in a thin, straight line out of the nearest port.
“Captain says we ’ll dock day after tomorrow,” remarked Ashurst.
“Are you going to declare anything?” asked the bride of Lily.
”I had n’t thought,—are you?” returned Mrs. Trevelyan.
”Well, really I haven’t anything in particular, replied the other. ”A few dresses and some lace. I suppose I shall declare a dress or two. The lace I can slip into my camera. You can always take the inspector’s name and address and send him something. Of course there isn’t any need to declare anything,—but I usually do just for form’s sake.”
At this juncture the boy returned with the drinks and the subject was abruptly dropped only to be resumed upon his departure. Lily handed him a crown and brushed aside the change.
“Q” he chortled, and disappeared.
“Beastly nuisance!—that Customs business,” drawled Ashurst. “The beggars bore the life out of a fellow! And those damn ’declarations.’ Even if one wanted to put anything down one couldn’t remember it! I usually write’ one pipe—2 and 6,’ and let it go at that.”
“It would n’t do me much good to declare a pipe, Ashurst,” remarked Lily lazily. “What do you suppose the women do who really have a lot of things—jewelry, for instance? Nobody ever pays on anything, so far as I can see. But suppose the inspectors really looked?”
“Why, as you say, nobody ever pays on jewelry,” said the bride. “It ’s so easy to hide. How on earth could they ever find a lot of loose diamonds or pearls? I had a friend that did an awfully clever thing once—was n’t it, Lawrence? She had a pair of pearl earrings,—oh great big ones,—and her husband had some shirt studs, worth over fifteen thousand dollars all together. She could n’t think what to do at first, and then she had a brilliant idea—she’s awfully cleaver. They took his revolver and emptied out the shells and put the pearls in the cartridges instead of powder and placed the bullets on top of them just as they were in the begining. Was n’t that neat?”
“Diabohcal!” assented Lily.
“I knew a chap that invented something better than that,” put in Ashurst. “You know there are n’t any inspectors around after everybody has left the ship. Well, this fellow was bringing in a pearl necklace for his wife—cost nearly $20,000. He did n’t declare anything and walked right through the inspectors. A couple of days later he went down to the office of the Company and got a card to go over and look at the ship, which was lying at the dock with only a few of the crew on board. The chap at the gangway let him up and he found a steward who unlocked his state-room for him. Then he got the necklace, which he ’d hidden there, and brought it ashore,—no questions asked.”
“Where ’d he hide it?” inquired Lily.
“Why,” said Ashurst, “you know those ventilators for the forced draught? Well, he just tied a string to it and lowered it in. No one would think of looking for anything there, would they?”
“I think he took a good many chances!” remarked the bride decidedly. “What ’s the matter with getting one of the officers or a stewardess to bring anything you happen to have ashore for you? Nobody ever searches them. My brother gets all his cigars that way. Why, either the assistant purser—or the second steward—is always glad to earn an extra tip. So is any one of them. In that way you don’t take any risk at all.”
“By George! there you go!” laughed Ashurst. “It ’s always the women who corrupt the men!”
”Well, if the Government is bound to have such ridiculous and unjust laws, it must expect people to break them!” exclaimed Lily hotly. “Why shouldn’t I bring in dresses or anything else that I have bought and paid for? I call It stealing—simply stealing—for them to make me pay over a lot of money for my own things! You can’t get anything fit to wear in America, anyhow!”
“That ’s right,” said the Boston man judicially.
“I should say not!” assented Ashurst. “By the way, where do you get your clothes, old chap?”
“Poole’s,—ever since I wore kilt-skirts!” answered the Boston man as if insulted by the question. “Where d’ you get yours, may I ask?”
“Feller in Hanover Square,” answered the other. “Peddler ’s his name. Rippia’ good cloth. Try him sometime!”
“Thanks,” said the Bostonian, scribbling down the name on the back of a card. “Well, are we going to play any more?”
“Oh, let ’s cut it out!” said Lily. “I ’m so bored with everything—present company excepted, of course—on this ship, I could scream. What ’s the news?”
“Nothing,” answered the Boston man gloomily. “We have n’t had a storm and nobody has even had the relief of being seasick—I mean,—that is to say,—the monotony has not even been interrupted to that extent.”
“Hear! Hear!” exclaimed Ashurst. “I don’t want my monotony interrupted that way. Speaking or being seasick, there ’s an old woman at my table that was jolly well scared she was going to give up the first day. She asked our steward what to do. He said—Ha! Ha!—what d’ you suppose?—’So long as you don’t float your food, Madam, you ’ll be all right!’ He meant, you know, she should n’t drink too much. He ’s a card, that fellow!”
“Ashurst, you’re disgusting!” drawled Lily. “I ’m not interested in seasick stories. It ’s almost enough to make one ill just to hear you talk. I think I ’ll go out and stroll ’round a bit.”
“Shall I come with you?” asked Ashurst plaintively.
“No, thanks!” she retorted. “I want to invite my soul! See you all later.”
She got up and crossed the deck to her stateroom, where Fantine had drawn the easy chair close to the door, and rather disgustedly she threw herself into it, directing the maid to order some tea from the steward. The whole day had been a failure from start to finish, and it was now five o’clock and almost over. Ever since her ridiculous break with the Captain—a break due to her foolish readiness to believe that Micky had deceived her—she had felt utterly out of patience with herself.
Not that she was particularly to blame. How was she to know there and been an embezzlement at the Bank of Edinburgh, In addition to the Roakby affair, one following close on the heels of the other, and that Scotland yard had sent out descriptions of both fugitives And poor little Micky! What an injustice she had done him! The boy was a trump— as she had always thought! He had mentioned nothing to her about the Bank of Edinburgh. But why should he? He probably did n’t know that her husband was connected with it, and it was the most natural thing in the world for her to have assumed that if the Captain was looking for anybody he must be looking for Cosmo. But her ridiculous lie! And her bungled, half-hearted and altogether unconvincing excuse to Ponsonby that she was trying to mix him up just for fun! Just for fun! She would n’t try any such fun again,—at any rate not with him! He had done with her. That was clear enough, and he had not come down into the saloon to a single meal since she had so foolishly tried to make him think that Chilvers was Cosmo Graeme. What a wild stroke that had been! The worst ever! And now more than likely Ponsonby had a sneaking suspicion that Cosmo was a crook too—traveling as he was under an assumed name. How lame had been her attempted explanation to the effect that he was in fact a student of practical sociology! She felt hot with disgust at the thought of it. The whole thing had been too absurd! There she had been striving and lying to divert attention from Cosmo when all the time the Captain had been looking for an entirely different person,—a miserable, consumptive drudge of a clerk, whom she afterwards had been compelled to identify as Chilvers in order to prevent the Captain from arresting Cosmo. What a mixed-up performance it had turned out to be! And yet, after all, what a natural mistake it had been on her part.
Now the whole ship was talking of the extraordinary coincidence by which she had stumbled upon the very man who had robbed her husband’s bank! It had made a terrific sensation, particularly when the officers had taken him and locked him up, half fainting, in his state-room. And now there was a guard pacing up and down, in front of his door! And Cosmo was still free to come and go as he chose,—but for how long? Only until the pilot should come aboard with his bundle of papers and the Captain should read all about it, and begin to wonder why on earth he had n’t heard of it before. Then he ’ll know he had Cosmo Graeme on board for she had told him so,—fool that she was! And Cosmo would either have to jump overboard or be thrown into irons! And she was to blame for it! No one else.
Everything was going wrong. There was her necklace—what was she going to do with that? She must decide shortly or she would certainly have to pay the duty on it. Thirty thousand dollars! She couldn’t pay any such sum,—it would be too ridiculous. Yet after what Fantine had told her about the stringency with which the regulations were being enforced she had no wish to try to smuggle it in herself. Yet somehow it must be done! Thirty thousand dollars duty? It would be a fortune for some people! And then the conversation in the smoking-room came back to her and she wondered if she could n’t get somebody on the ship to take the necklace in for her,—Micky perhaps. If he did n’t want to do it at first she ’d persuade him. Why, he could fetch it to her several days after they landed and nobody would be any the wiser. And she ’d have one on Trevelyan! He even might be willing to shell out for a new motor on the strength of her little coup.
The sun was setting into a bank of gray and crimson cloud that lay along the horizon like a sash of watered silk. People were beginning to take their ante-prandial walk around the ship. Hoydenish girls tramped lankily up and down in front of her, hanging on to one another's arms, giggling and shrieking with laughter. The doctor, a neat person, who rather fancied himself in his blue uniform, was strolling up and down with two overgrown misses of fifteen, who thought him the most fascinating man they had ever met. Out forward the immigrants were gyrating in circumscribed circles to the accompaniment of an accordion playing “Waltz me around again Willie! ’round and ’round and ’round!” The bow rose and fell slowly on the long surge How happy they were! And they were going to a life of drudgery,—in sweat-shops, kitchens, or Minnesota farms! Lily shuddered! Thirty thousand dollars!
“Fantine!” she called sharply.
“Oui, Madame,” answered the maid, obediently appearing out of the recesses of the stateroom.
“I wish you to put my necklace in a cardboard box, if you can find one, and do it up carefully in a piece of paper.”
“Oui, Madame,” replied Fantine. “I can use the box for Madame’s ruching.”
“Yes, that will do,” said Lily. “Mind you tie it up neatly, in the smallest possible parcel.”
When Fantine was gone Lily lay back and with half-shut eyes watched the horizon turn from rose to purple, and from purple to slate. Strands of mackerel cloud barred the western sky drawn together in a focus at the point where the sun had sunk, and there was—dampness in the air that seemed to presage a change in the weather. Well, anyhow, they had had a perfect trip so far. One day of rain would n’t matter so much. Already she had seen shore birds flying about the ship, and one or two lines of smoke on the distant circle told her that they were converging upon the course of other western bound steamers. Soon the red eye of Fire Island light-ship would begin to blink, soon the Statue of Liberty would raise its burning torch and the tall buildings on the end of Manhattan would poke their heads above the sea. And then dust, motor gas, the confusion and clatter of New York—and—Trevelyan! She gave a shrug of disgust. It sickened her to have lost a thousand dollars to Ashurst and that trim snip from Boston,—that conceited child who thought existence beyond the purlieus of Beacon Street and the North Shore quite impossible. And Cosmo? What of him? Would they come down the harbor with a squad of officers and put the “bracelets” on him in view of the whole crowd of gossiping passengers? Would the papers print full page stories about Roakby and Parsley Croft, with photographs of Cosmo led off between detectives with shackles on his wrists? She couldn’t stand it! Maybe Micky could devise some way of hiding him on the ship. She d heard of such things.—Micky! Always Micky!
“Voila,” said Fantine softly. “Here is the necklace, Madame.”
Lily took the package done up daintily in tissue paper and tied with a piece of pink ribbon, and placed it in her lap. She had not worn it since the evening before she had received Trevelyan’s marconigram. Her husband had not sent her another radio and she had not replied to his, but either was hardly to be expected. Their relations did not call for much; theirs was an offensive and defensive alliance simply,—to Lily rather more offensive than anything else.
“Oh, I might as well take a chance!” she muttered. “If Micky won’t do it for me perhaps I can cook up some other way of getting it in!”
She sighed, feeling unconsciously the fall of the barometer. What a muddle she ’d made of life! Here she was getting to middle age, with not a soul who really cared for her in the entire world. Why had n’t she married some decent young fellow out of the hundreds she might have had during her first seasons in London, instead of losing her head and running amuck the way she had done? God only knew what she had expected then. Nothing had seemed too high for her to attain. There were dukes she might have had if she had only played her hand more carefully, more conservatively. That hand which had been full of trumps! But she had over-played, and now at the end of the game what had she won? Nothing! Nothing that gave her the slightest satisfaction—except that which she still derived from the remnants of her beauty. She bit her lips fiercely; she was still young! She would not grow old! She would play the game until the candles grew dim and then—she shrugged her shoulders and closed her eyes. The light faded out of the west and the wind rose, while a gull squeaked harshly with a sound like the chalking of a billiard cue, and shot aslant the wind a few feet from the rail before her like a bird of evil omen. The two old maids staggering by to get up an appetite for the evening meal cast sidelong glances at her as she lay with her head thrown back in the light cast by the electric bracket inside her window.
“That’s her,” whispered one. “I don’t see anything in her at all.”
“Nor I!” echoed the other raspingly. “She looks like an old woman!”
They passed and a spat of rain struck Lily in the face. Wearily she arose from her steamer chair and entered her drawing-room. There were dark circles under her eyes.
“Fantine!” she cried, with clenched hands, “get my best evening dress out of the wardrobe.—Yes, the Paquin one, with the foulard skirt and the chiffon trimming.”