``Who was I?''
``Well ... someone called Colonel Strapper.''
``Do I look so old?''
``Are colonels old? I didn't know. It's not a thing we have much in Trinidad. Now I know who you are because I asked the head steward. Do tell me about your exploring.''
``You'd better ask Doctor Messinger. He knows more about it than I do.''
``No, you tell me.''
She was eighteen years old; small and dark, with a face that disappeared in a soft pointed chin so that attention was drawn to the large, grave eyes and the high forehead; she had not long outgrown her schoolgirl plumpness and she moved with an air of exultance, as though she had lately shed an encumbrance and was not yet fatigued by the other burdens that would succeed it. For two years she had been at school in Paris.
``... Some of us used to keep lipstick and rouge secretly in our bedrooms and try it on at night. One girl called Antoinette came to Mass on Sunday wearing it. There was a terrible row with Madame de Supplice and she left after that term. It was awfully brave. We all envied her ... But she was an ugly girl, always eating chocolates ...
``... Now I am coming home to be married ... No, I am not yet affiancйe but you see there are so few young men I can marry. They must be Catholic and of an island family,. It would not do to marry an official and go back to live in England. But it will be easy because I have no brothers or sisters and my father has one of the best houses in Trinidad. You must come and see it. It is a stone house, outside the town. My family came to Trinidad in the French Revolution. There are two or three other rich families and I shall marry one of them. Our son will have the house. It will be easy ...''
She wore a little coat, of the kind that were then fashionable, and no ornament except a string of pearls. ``... There was an American girl at Madame de Supplice who was engaged. She had a ring with a big diamond but she could never wear it except in bed. Then one day she had a letter from her young man saying he was going to marry another girclass="underline" How she cried. We all read the letter and most of us cried too ... But in Trinidad it will be quite easy.''
Tony told her about the expedition; of the Peruvian emigrants in the middle age and their long caravan working through the mountains and forests, llamas packed with works of intricate craftsmanship; of the continual rumours percolating to the coast and luring adventurers up into the forests; of the route they would take up the rivers, then cutting through the bush along Indian trails and across untravelled country; of the stream they might strike higher up and how, Dr. Messinger said, they would make woodskin canoes and take to the water again; how finally they would arrive under the walls of the city like the Vikings at Byzantium. ``But of course,'' he added, ``there may be nothing in it. It ought to be an interesting journey in any case.''
``How I wish I was a man,'' said Thйrиse de Vitrй. After dinner they danced to the music of an amplified gramophone and the girl drank lemon squash on the bench outside the deck bar, sucking it through two straws.
A week of blue water that grew clearer and more tranquil daily, of sun that grew warmer, radiating the ship and her passengers, filling them with good humour and ease; blue water that caught the sun to a thousand brilliant points, dazzling the eyes as they searched for porpoises and flying fish; clear blue water in the shallows revealing its bed of silver sand and smooth pebble, fathoms down; soft warm shade on deck under the awnings; the ship moved amid unbroken horizons on a vast blue disc of blue, sparkling with sunlight.
Tony and Miss de Vitrй played quoits and shuffleboard; they threw rope rings into a bucket from a short distance. (``We'll go in a small boat,'' Dr. Messinger had said, ``so as to escape all that hideous nonsense of deck games.'') Twice consecutively Tony won the sweepstake on the ship's run; the prize was eighteen shillings. He bought Miss de Vitrй a woollen rabbit at the barber's shop.
It was unusual for Tony to use `Miss' in talking to anyone. Except Miss Tendril he could think of no one he addressed in that way. But it was Thйrиse who first called him `Tony,' seeing it engraved in Brenda's handwriting in his cigarette case. ``How funny,'' she said, ``that was the name of the man who didn't marry the American girl at Madame de Supplice's''; and after that they used each other's Christian names to the great satisfaction of the other passengers who had little to interest them on board except the flowering of this romance.
``I can't believe this is the same ship as in those cold, rough days,'' said Thйrиse.
They reached the first of the islands; a green belt of palm trees with wooded hills rising beyond them and a small town heaped up along the shores of a bay. Thйrиse and Tony went ashore and bathed. Thйrиse swam badly with her head ridiculously erect out of the water. There was practically no bathing in Trinidad, she explained. They lay for some time on the firm, silver beach; then drove back into the town in the shaky, two-horse carriage he had hired, past ramshackle cabins from which little black boys ran out to beg or swing behind on the axle, in the white dust. There was nowhere in the town to dine so they returned to the ship at sundown. She lay out at some distance but from where they stood after dinner, leaning over the rail, they could just hear in the intervals when the winch was not working, the chatter and singing in the streets. Thйrиse put her arm through Tony's, but the decks were full of passengers and agents and swarthy little men with lists of cargo. There was no dancing that night. They went above on to the boat deck and Tony kissed her.
Dr. Messinger came on board by the last launch. He had met an acquaintance in the town. He had observed the growing friendship between Tony and Thйrиse with the strongest disapproval and told him of a friend of his who had been knifed in a back street of Smyrna, as a warning of what happened if one got mixed up with women.
In the islands the life of the ship disintegrated. There were changes of passengers; the black archdeacon left after shaking hands with everyone on board; on their last morning his wife took round a collecting box in aid of an organ that needed repairs. The captain never appeared at meals in the dining saloon. Even Tony's first friend no longer changed for dinner; the cabins were stuffy from being kept locked all day.
Tony and Thйrиse bathed again at Barbados and drove round the island visiting castellated churches. They dined at an hotel high up out of town and ate flying fish
``You must come to my home and see what real creole cooking is like,'' said Thйrиse. ``We have a lot of old recipes that the planters used to use. You must meet my father and mother.''
They could see the lights of the ship from the terrace where they were dining; the bright decks with figures moving about and the double line of portholes.
``Trinidad the day after tomorrow,'' said Tony.
They talked of the expedition and she said it was sure to be dangerous. ``I don't like Doctor Messinger at all,'' she said. ``Not anything about him.''
``And you will have to choose your husband.''
``Yes. There are seven of them. There was one called Honorй I liked but of course I haven't seen him for two years. He was studying to be an engineer. There's one called Mendoza who's very rich but he isn't really a Trinidadian. His grandfather came from Dominica and they say he has coloured blood. I expect it will be Honorй. Mother always brought in his name when she wrote to me and he sent me things at Christmas and on my fкte. Rather silly things because the shops aren't good in Port of Spain.''
Later she said, ``You'll be coming back by Trinidad, won't you? So I shall see you then. Will you be a long time in the bush?''
``I expect you'll be married by then.''