"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 7
Chapter VII
In which Mrs. Herbert Trevelyan commits an indiscretion and discovers something while so doing.
THE bugle for inspection at ten o’clock awoke Mrs. Hubert Trevelyan out of a deep sleep during the last two hours of which her French maid had sat motionless by the window, ready to spring forward at the first suggestion that her mistress had regained consciousness The de luxe suite occupied by this distinguished lady was situated on the upper promenade and could be entered directly from outside, so that what it gained in convenience it lost in quiet. Inconsiderate passengers tramped up and down outside late at night and early in the morning, talking loudly—children romped under the windows and threw balls of celluloid and of rubber through the open doorway—and—be it confessed—gentlemen—and others—on pretense of being en route to the smoking-room had been suspected of peek-ing through the slats in the shutters as they went by.
It is hardly to be thought that this last indiscretion would have bothered Lily Trevelyan in the least,—it is more probable that she would have accepted it simply as a tribute to her charms. There are such women and they filled the ranks of the Chateaureux, the Montpasans, the Pompadours (I considerately avoid all English names) since the dawn of history. There is something quite charming in the combination of coquetry and natural innocence which does not object to the display of a soft tapering arm bursting from the spring foliage of a flurry of Parisian lingerie or of a well-rounded neck and bust arising out of a setting of the same tantalizing material. Sometimes indeed Mrs. Trevelyan unconsciously forgot to pull down her blinds and sometimes she complained to her maid of lack of air. But why criticize thus unkindly one of the most beautiful of women? Or why speak slightingly of one who still wielded in a marked degree the most dangerous weapon in human destiny?
Sunlight, reflected from the waves, played in little globules of catoptric radiance on the white painted wall above her head—myriads of will-o’-the-wisp “Peter Pans” were there dancing and dodging, mingling and leaping, darting elusively hither and yon— like the pleasures of life which she had sought and was still seeking to grasp m her firm white hand. And she lay there lazily gazing upward at them and felt that life was good and that she had nothing to regret but much to give her pride, and only wished that the bubbles of joy were not evanescent (as she knew perfectly well they were) and did not burst even as you quaffed the wine of life. She lay there like an Egyptian queen or an Indian princess and, if we are to believe history, rather less cruel and more decent than either, and wondered whether she would turn over for another little doze or tell Fantine to bring her breakfast. She was in that state of complete comfort where the fact that, if she pursued the latter course, she would have to elect between marmalade and honey, made her quite ready to remain as she was, in a state of somewhat unstable mental equilibrium. She knew however that the unchanging laws of her nature would shortly drag her out into the sunlight and into the focus of men’s eyes, and so she stretched her legs and snuggled down into her bevy of pink and blue silk pillows (yes, madam, some ladies do carry them on board ship) and good-naturedly set herself against fate, much as a happily and facetiously obstinate puppy will allow itself to be dragged around by its tail.
The nerves of the older women would have been set on edge by the noises around her,—but not Lily Trevelyan’s. She had no nerves. Sailors ran up and down directly over her head. Below her she could feel the deep-down distant throb of the engine and the vibration of the screw. The seething of the waves along the side rose and fell on her ears with the movement of the ship and the wooden partitions squeaked and wheezed, with the slow but regular upheaval and subsidence, like the crack of a monstrous shoe. But these sounds did not disturb her.
Children began to throw ring toss forward, and to squeal and quarrel; down on the main deck the four male passengers who had monopolized the port (the best) shuffleboard area since the first day of the voyage were shovel-ing the disks into place and starting to play with boisterous enthusiasm.
“S-s- sh- sh- sh- sh- sh- click - cluck!” went the disks. "S-s- sh- sh- sh- sh- clock - click - click!”
Two old maids began walking up and down in the sun outside and paused in front of the window.
“You 've noticed her, of course,” remarked the first in a rather asthmatic but distinctly superior manner. “She ’s the one that wears the daycollytay gown and the big string of pearls every night.”
“Noticed her! I should say I had!” answered the other in the cracked, nasal tones that Lily had learned to know so well as a child in Lowell. “Bad taste, I call it. I don't know what it is about such women attracts men so!”
“Well, I ’m glad I don’t know!” sniffed the other. “They say she acted scandalous over there and that she was the Prince’s—”
The woman lowered her voice and the pair moved off along the deck out of earshot. Lily smiled comfortably among her pillows. Poor flat-chested, withered things! No, they would never know what attracts the men so,—or at any rate they would never admit that they knew it. She could afford to be magnanimous. Indeed she was fully aware that either of her critics, had she dropped a handkerchief or a book upon the deck, would have breathlessly scrambled around on their bony old knees to return it to her with gracious smiles.
“Fantine!” she murmured drowsily.
“Oui, madame!”
“Ring for the stewardess! And order breakfast—honey, I think, this morning.”
“Oui, madame.”
The maid laid down the ruffle upon which she was sewing and rang the bell. She was a swarthy, wiry creature,—crisp, capable and discreet. Some day she would return to Paris and marry again, and educate her child, which just now was in an institution where she had placed it before taking service. There are many of these "widow-maids" in New York and London. But nobody knew about the child and nobody cared, and nobody would have guessed that each night she prayed to the Virgin with passionate tenderness for its safe keeping and, with the tears in her black eyes, covered with kisses a tiny pair of shoes surreptitiously drawn from the bottom of her sewing bag. No, the world of men and of most women would have classified her as a rather smart-looking, rather hard-looking, rather wicked-looking and distinctly good-looking French girl, who knew a thing or two and probably more than she ought, who had her price, perhaps, but realized when she was well off and stuck to the bridge that carried her over. Yet she had her other side, and every penny that she could save went into the Postal savings bank for her “pauvre Philippe.” She had been with Mrs. Trevelyan five years and during that period had never been guilty of the slightest indiscretion nor seen any. Such women sometimes become the mothers of deputies and cabinet ministers.
Now the maid pushed aside the silk curtain of the berth and assisted her mistress to rise, and when the starchy stewardess arrived with a hot special breakfast prepared under the second steward’s own particular eye, Mrs. Trevelyan, rosy from her bath, was reclining in an armchair in a blue Japanese dressing-gown heavily embroidered with roses and dragons, while Fantine deftly dressed the heavy mass of golden yellow hair that hung almost to the floor. Mrs. Trevelyan’s cheeks always glowed with unfictitious health, and now as she sat smiling and chatting to Fantine she presented a truly lovely picture to the eyes of the stewardess bringing in the tray.
“Good morning, Mrs. Dorrance,” said Mrs. Trevelyan. “What a glorious day!”
“Fine, madam,” answered the stewardess as she placed the tray on the wicker table in front of Mrs. Trevelyan. “It ’s lovely weather—and, if you will pardon me sayin’ it as should n’t—you 're as lovely as a rose yourself this mornin’.”
Fantine doing her mistress’ hair smiled the faintest undefinable smile at the directness and banality of this broadside compliment.
“Thanks, Dorrance!” laughed Lily. “You can say it just as often as you like! Why does n’t everybody realize that nobody minds the nice things people say, no matter how undeserved we know them to be. And truly they have a great deal to do with how we look and act. I ’m sure I really shall look lovely this morning just because you say so, and if you only believed I was very, very good, I ’m convinced I should be a saint.”
“Yes, madam,” answered Dorrance, feeling a bit out of her depth and also a little ill at ease, for although she was a stout, middle-aged and rosy-cheeked English party with a Santa Claus smile and motherly manner, she eyed human nature with suspicion and made a living as a detective in the United States Customs’ Service. “Yes, madam,—thank you, madam.—Shall I go or can I get you anything?”
“Nothing, thank you!” smiled Lily “Unless you hand me my pearls over there. Fantine’s hands are full of my hair and things.”
She nodded towards the dresser where on a red morocco case lay coiled the pearl necklace that she had bought at Voysans’ in the Rue de la Paix the week before sailing with the money her husband had sent her for the purpose.
Mrs. Dorrance had seen the pearls before, had seen them daily, had been watching for them, in fact, when Mrs. Trevelyan had come aboard at Genoa, owing to the perfection of that system of espionage adopted by the Cus-toms Service over the American in Paris and the compulsory information extorted from the jewelers of the Rue de Rivoli and the Rue de la Paix in return for being allowed to do business in peace, whereby every important sale is reported to the eager officials. The necklace had cost her $50,000. Against her husband’s express advice she had spent the entire amount on the pearls themselves instead of reserving a portion of the money to pay the duty, but the obvious difference between the necklace offered her for 150,000 francs and the present one at 250,000 had been too much for her and she had succumbed to the soft iridescence of the handful of weightless things, had set prudence aside, and with the idea of getting them in somehow without duty had hardly hesitated before purchasing the more expensive string. And can she be blamed?
Perfect—every one—bluish white, almost opalescent at times, the necklace contained thirty-nine pearls, absolutely matched on each side and graduated exactly from the big one in the center to the smaller ones at the ends next to the diamond clasp which in itself was a precious thing of value. She took them from the stewardess and held them up in the light swinging them to and fro, gently
“Beautiful—are n’t they?” she cried.
“Beautiful, madam!” gasped the stewardess in unfeigned appreciation, for she knew a good pearl as well as anybody.
“Yes,” continued Lily, “I care for them more than for any of my other things, Mr. Trevelyan bought them for me five years ago at Tiffany ’s in New York and I wear them everywhere. I just could n’t live without them. No, nothing else, Dorrance!”
She poured out a cup of steaming coffee and crushed a honey-dipped Vienna roll between her white teeth.
“Dear old Dorrance!” she laughed. “If they were all as easy as she is! But Hubert would never get over it if he had to pay $30,000 more duty on those pearls—never! I fancy I can manage. Surely I can hide them somewhere!”
“The inspectors are very thorough, madam,” ventured Famine. “I am told that now thy even make the ladies undress,—and they look everywhere! There is no escape at all!”
“Nonsense!” returned her mistress rather nervously. “They would n’t do such a thing. Anyhow, you could bring them in. No one would think of searching you!”
“I?—Oh, madam! I should not dare! They might put me in prison!” cried Fantine.
“Don’t!” snapped Mrs. Trevelyan. “You are pulling my hair. Well, I ’m sure we can devise some way to fool the inspectors. Anyway, it does n’t do any harm to try. You can always pay the duty if you don’t succeed!”
“Peut-etre, madame!” answered Fantine, shrugging her shoulders. “I should not like to do it!”
By this time Mrs. Trevelyan had finished her breakfast and the maid had fastened her into a trim, ochre-colored costume and pinned on her hat.
“Voila! Madame!” she sighed, stepping back. “Vous etes charmante! La plus chic!”
Mrs. Trevelyan glanced at herself in the glass and lit a cigarette from a silver box lying on the dressing table. Then she stepped out on deck and walked erectly towards the stern. It was now about eleven o’clock and the edge had been already taken off the morning appetite for exercise on the part of the ship ’s passengers. The shuffle-boarders were still at their eternal game, but most of the others had retired to the saloon or smoking-room for bridge, or were tucked up in their deck chairs, dreading over novels. Lily Trevelyan crossed the reserved second-cabin space, and, hesitating for a moment outside Cloud's door, climbed briskly up the ladder to Micky's office. The door was shut but, always ready for a joke, she opened it stealthily. Perhaps she put her hands over his eyes and make him guess who it was! He ’d guess, too!
But to her amazement Micky lay at his desk, his head on his arms, amid a riot of yellow sheets, sound asleep. He breathed heavily. He was, as she would have said, “dead to the world.” Poldhu or The Ushant might shriek across the ether waves, Tangier might summon impatiently, a sinking ship might send out the danger call of “S O S”—but it would be in vain. I would take more than a wireless message to wake Micky Fitz.
“Poor little man!” she whispered to herself. “Poor tired, little man!”
She leaned over and brushed his hair with her lips,—antl as she did so she seized the opportunity of glancing at the messages in Micky’s penciled scrawl on the sheet around him. She absorbed the news about France and Germany, took in the situation diplomatique, made a mental note of the price of consols, observed that Brother John had died suddenly, and then started forward with half-parted lips as she read of the murder of the Earl of Roakby.
“My God!” she ejaculated. “Cosmo has done it! The fool! Why did he take a man like that!”
She was trembling with excitement.
“I never guessed!” she gasped. “I never suspected for a minute! Why, they ’ll hang him! Poor Cosmo!—The idiot!—I wonder if Micky ’s told the Captain. Of course! Lucky they did n’t see me with him last night! This is a go!”
She glanced hastily around the office, missed the picture of the Hon. Evelyn from its accustomed place and smiled in spite of her upset nerves. Funny coincidence—three men on the same ship, thrown together quite by chance, and all in love with the same girl! And three such men—a masher, a murderer
and a Marconi man! Yet she knew which she would have taken had the way been open to her—even though he had red hair, a pub nose, and freckles! The “way of a man with a maid”? Rather, if you please, the way of a maid with a man! Who can explain the idiosyncrasies,—— the charming irrationalities of woman's gift for unnatural selection?
So Mrs. Trevelyan, with a lingering look at Micky lying hot and flushed in the noonday sun quietly closed the door of the wireless house and hurried back to the boat deck, fearful lest she should meet Cosmo Graeme and not know what to say to him.