Chapter 4
The Fletchers did not get up early. By the time they appeared on deck, the Talavera had passed the Fastnet lighthouse and was ploughing through great Atlantic rollers.
The south coast of Ireland was fading on the starboard bow.
The weather remained unusually benign for mid-October, but Dr. Amboyne, taking the air, reported that quite a few passengers had failed to emerge from their cabins that morning.
“It always happens as soon as we move from the Bristol Channel into the Atlantic,” he said with a heartless grin. “Some can’t take even this calm. There’s really nothing I can do for them except advise tea and toast and fresh air. Not many take my advice.”
“Miss Oliphant said she has a remedy,” Daisy reminded him.
The doctor laughed. “I’m not about to recommend witchcraft to my patients! The Captain would have me in irons.”
Pluming themselves on their immunity to sickness, Daisy and Alec continued their brisk stroll along the boat-deck, circling the central massif of the bridge, funnels, masts, skylights, and mysterious machinery. The sun was warm, but it was after
all an October morning so most deck-chairs were set out on the enclosed promenade deck below. There were plenty of other obstacles to walkers, however, in the shape of ventilation ducts and game players.
They passed Arbuckle, Gotobed, and Miss Oliphant—in purple bloomers—playing shuffle-board.
“The blooming bride’s probably still doing her face,” Daisy observed.
“Cat. She may feel games are beneath her dignity. People who feel inferior have to stand on their dignity.”
“It raises them in their own estimation, if no one else’s,” Daisy quipped. “No, that was beastly of me. I must try to be nice to her. I wish I liked her.”
“You can’t like everyone, love.”
“Why do I feel I shall very shortly dislike Phillip extremely?” she asked, as that gentleman hallooed and waved them over to where he and Gloria were playing deck tennis against another couple.
“Daisy, Fletcher, we’ll take you on next!”
“Phil, you know perfectly well I’m hopeless at games.”
“Gee, Daisy, that doesn’t matter,” Gloria assured her earnestly. “It’s only for fun.”
“As long as you don’t chuck too many quoits overboard,” Phillip teased.
With deep misgivings, Daisy allowed herself to be persuaded. On their next circuit, she and Alec stopped to play. The best that could be said of her game was that not a single quoit was actually lost, but she enjoyed it anyway.
A second game with Phillip partnering her and Gloria playing with Alec was more evenly matched.
At the end, quite a few spectators were there to applaud, including Arbuckle and Gotobed.
Turning over the court to a waiting group, Phillip picked up his discarded jacket and offered his cigarette case to Alec.
“No, no,” interjected Arbuckle, “have a Havana.” He opened his cigar case.
Alec shook his head. “Thank you.” With identical gestures, he and Gotobed felt in their pockets and produced pipes and tobacco pouches, Alec’s embroidered by Belinda with a wobbly “A. F.” Phillip took a cigar.
Daisy was not going to wait around for clouds of tobacco smoke. Besides, she was dripping. (Her nanny’s maxim: “Horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, ladies merely glow,” had clearly not been intended to apply to deck tennis.)
“I’m going to change, darling,” she said.
“Me too,” said Gloria, who really was glowing, her golden curls slightly tousled but prettier than ever. “Daisy, have you figured out what you’re wearing for the Fancy Dress Ball?”
“No,” Daisy admitted. “What about you?”
Together they went down the forward companion-way to the open area of the promenade deck, in the bows, where more deck games were in progress around the cargo-hatch.
On each side was a door into the enclosed area, the glassed-in promenade encircling the public rooms. Here they parted, Gloria to the port door and thence down the port companionway to the Arbuckle suite, Daisy taking the starboard door and the stairs just within.
As Daisy moved from the door to the companion-way, she caught sight of Mrs. Gotobed some way along the promenade, sitting in one of the slatted, wooden deck-chairs. She was talking earnestly with the men in the chairs on either side of her.
The one facing Daisy was large and dark, good-looking in a rather flashy way. She rather thought she had seen him with the young American poker-player, Chester, going into the Smoking Room. The other was unmemorable, smaller, wiry, with thinning, mousy hair. Both sat stiffly, leaning
slightly towards Wanda Gotobed, giving an impression of nervousness.
Hot and sticky, Daisy had no intention of going to speak to the blooming bride. She was about to turn to go down the stairs when Mrs. Gotobed raised one hand and touched the smaller man’s cheek.
Daisy must have made some involuntary gesture which caught the other man’s attention, for he stared straight at her. He said something which made Mrs. Gotobed look round and speak sharply. Both men at once rose and, with slight bows, hurried away.
Mrs. Gotobed waved to Daisy, an unmistakable summons.
Reluctantly, Daisy went over to her. “I was on my way to change,” she said. “We’ve been playing a rather energetic game of deck tennis.”
“Oh, games! So undignified. Mrs. Fletcher, I suppose you’ve heard I was on the stage?”
“Well, yes.”
“I wasn’t a fancy actress or anything, not a star, but I did have my fans,” she said coyly. “That was a couple of them, just a couple of stage-door Johnnies, like they say. They recognized me and had the blooming cheek to come and introduce themselves, would you believe?”
“How … er … flattering.”
“Well, if you want the truth, it was, and no mistake. Ever so disappointed they was when I told ‘em I’m a married woman now and they wasn’t to hang about.
So I talked to them for just a minute, just to cheer ’em up a bit, like.
Only Mr. Gotobed doesn’t care to be reminded of what I was, so be a sport and don’t tell, eh? ”
“I wouldn’t dream of carrying tales,” said Daisy, trying not to sound indignant. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really must go and change.”
If Mrs. Gotobed wanted to flirt with her admirers, it was none of Daisy’s business, though it didn’t make her like the woman any better. She just hoped Mr. Gotobed would not find out, since she did rather like him.
They all met at the group of deck-chairs reserved by Mr. Arbuckle, forward, where they would catch the afternoon sun as long as possible.
Here the deck stewards served hot bouillon, Bath Olivers, and digestive biscuits.
It was very pleasant with the sun shining through the glass, the vast Atlantic spread glittering before them.
They were still close enough to land for a few seagulls to sail alongside the ship, peering in hopefully.
Gloria persuaded a steward to open a window so that she could throw them crumbs.
Swooping, they caught them in mid-air, to her delight.
The Talavera’s gentle pitch as she cut through the swells was cradle-like, soporific. Daisy started to drift off, only to be rudely awoken by the noon whistle.
Arbuckle jumped up. “Time for the mileage pool,” he said. “I’m not a gambling man in the general way, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Oh aye, it’s like putting a fiver each way on the Derby,” Gotobed agreed. “Almost a patriotic duty.” He and his wife went off with Arbuckle to find out whether the distance the ship had sailed from Liverpool matched any of the numbers they had acquired in the auction pool last evening.
As half the take would go to seamen’s charities, the others had each put a shilling in one of the lesser pools. Each drew a single digit to match against the last digit of the mileage. One of the stewards came round the promenade deck to report the result.
In spite of the one-in-ten odds, none of the four had won. However, a few minutes later Miss Oliphant came up to them,
glowing with delight at her winnings of seventeen and sixpence.
They congratulated her and invited her to join them. She was a “nice old bird,” as Phillip later remarked to Daisy.
Arbuckle and the Gotobeds returned.
“Nowt doing today,” Gotobed reported.
“If you was to ask me,” said the blooming bride resentfully, “that American Riddman rigged it with the stewards. I ought to’ve won, if he hadn’t got hold of my number.”
“You sold it to him, lass,” Gotobed reminded her with a smile. “And I seem to remember you were right pleased with the price he paid.”
After glowering at him momentarily, she switched on a blinding smile and squeezed his arm.
“That’s right, love; and after all, it was you bought the ticket for me in the first place.
So kind he is to his little Wanda!” She mouthed a kiss at him, then turned her glower on Miss Oliphant. “Hey, that’s my chair!”
“I’m so sorry,” said the witch, flustered by the attack, and floundering as she tried to stand at the same time as retrieving her handbag from beneath the chair.
Alec sprang up to lend her his arm, and Phillip knelt down to fish for her bag.
“Don’t go, ma’am,” said Arbuckle. “We can easily get ahold of another seat.”
“No, no, I really must go and tidy myself for lunch.”
“Me too,” said Daisy, trying—as were all the rest—not to look at Gotobed’s red face. As she and Miss Oliphant walked towards the ladies’ room, Daisy apologised. “My fault. I should have offered you my chair, or Mr. Arbuckle’s.”
“My dear, how could you have guessed that Mrs. Gotobed was so ferociously attached to that particular seat?”
“I couldn’t, of course. After all, I only met her yesterday.
But I’m afraid she seems to be rather on the look out for slights.”
“Only natural in her position,” said the witch forgivingly. “Lavender, I think, to lift her spirits and calm her nerves. Perhaps even St. ’John’s-wort. It must be difficult for her, married to a gentleman so superior to her.”