Mark took only the flicker of an eye to understand what the letter meant. His cheek muscles tensed and twitched, and as he folded the letter up and tucked it back into its envelope, he looked a terrible shade of beige, as if his suntan was nothing more than a blotchy foundation cream.
"Mark—" said Catriona, taking his arm.
He held up the envelope. "It's Marcia," he said. "It's Marcia who jumped overboard. She's drowned herself, and all because of me."
He folded up, like a marionette with cheap wooden hinges, and sat down hard on one of the promenade-deck benches. "I can't believe it," he said. "She always said that she loved me. But I never thought that she really meant it. It was all just like a play. I never once dreamed—"
Catriona sat down beside him. She felt desperately sorry for him; but at the same time she couldn't help thinking that the only serious rival she believed she had for Mark's affections had now suddenly disappeared. God, was she a witch for thinking that?
She said, "It couldn't have been all your fault. She must have been a bit strange in the head, too. Some people do the most peculiar things, and all because they're just a little unbalanced."
"Unbalanced?" said Mark, bitterly. He opened the letter again and passed it to her, so that she could read it. "I suppose you could call that unbalanced, but it seems pretty calm and rational to me."
Catriona touched his sleeve. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to say that—"
He made a face. "It doesn't matter. It's a shock, that's all. We'd better go up to the wheelhouse and tell Mr. Philips who it is."
There was a new arrival in the wheelhouse, and when she saw him, Catriona instinctively backed out of the door again and remained outside on the deck while Mark spoke to Rudyard Philips. It was George Welterman, in a yellow straw skimmer, and a blazer striped with red and black. He looked moody and irritable, and from the expression on Edgar's face, Catriona could guess that he had been giving everybody at Keys a difficult time.
Rudyard came to the wheelhouse door. "I've just told Mr. Beeney that we're doing our best to find the young lady," he told Catriona confidentially. "But I have warned him that the chances of us locating her are very slim."
"He owns his own ships," said Catriona. "He must know that as well as you do."
Mark glanced towards her from inside the wheelhouse. There was an expression on his face which told her that he might have known it, but perhaps, at this moment, he wasn't yet ready to believe it.
"I'm sorry," said Catriona. "It's been a terrible shock."
George Welterman said loudly, "Mr. Philips! How many miles are we going to sail back?"
"Until we find the girl," put hi Edgar. "Or at least until we're quite positive that she must have been lost."
George drummed his fingers on the varnished woodwork in a testy, spasmodic rhythm. "You realise you're going to lose all possible chance of winning the Blue Riband? This is the second time we've had to turn back."
"The Blue Riband is secondary to the safety of this ship and her passengers, Mr. Welterman," said Rudyard.
"Well, well," said George, "speaking like a commodore already, are we?"
Catriona, who had caught most of this conversation, suddenly found herself saying in a clear voice, "Mr. Welterman!"
George slowly swivelled his head towards her, his eyes bland but childishly threatening, Catriona hadn't looked at him face-to-face since he had assaulted her, and she had forgotten already how eerie those eyes could be. Her throat felt tight, and she became suddenly sensitive to the Arcadia's hesitant, nervous rolling.
"Mr Welterman," Catriona repeated, "I would prefer it if you addressed any comments you may have about the officers of this ship to the management, and not directly to the officers themselves. Now, will you kindly leave the bridge. It is out of bounds to all but invited passengers during the hours of daylight, and out of bounds to all passengers during emergencies."
George Welterman said, "You're joking, of course, Miss Keys. I'm the European director of International Mercantile Marine.'
"This ship is registered in Liverpool in the name of the Keys Shipping Line, and I am telling you to get off the bridge," said Catriona. Her voice sounded as brittle and sharp as a broken sliver of glass, although inside herself she was very close to angry tears.
George glanced uneasily at Edgar Deacon. But Edgar remained expressionless, neither confirming Catriona's instruction nor countermanding it. He did, however, take one neat step back, like a man who anticipates a fight brewing and doesn't want to be caught in the line of fire.
George let out an explosion of amusement that was more of a whinny than a laugh. "It's preposterous, of course! Edgar? Tell her it's preposterous."
But now Rudyard stepped forward. "I'm afraid Miss Keys is right, sir. The company regulations are quite clear. You'll have to leave the bridge."
There was a hideous moment when George Welterman's face went through as many contortions as a melting waxwork. Then he said with threatening softness, "Very well. If that's the way you people want to play it. But I warn you—I warn you—this won't be forgotten."
Catriona said, "We won't forget it either, Mr. Welterman." At that moment, she hated him more than anybody she had ever hated in her life. In fact, she hadn't hated anybody at all until she had met him. And yet, the curious thing was, he had gone through agony so that he could bear on his chest the name of the woman be had loved.
He raised his straw skimmer as he left the wheelhouse and gave Catriona a sarcastic nod of his head. "I'll see you at luncheon, Miss Keys?" he inquired, but she turned her face away.
It was Douglas Fairbanks who first saw Marcia in the ocean, thereby completely redeeming himself for his fluffed rescue of Lucille Foster. He let out a great Thief-of-Baghdad—style whoop and cried, "There, Captain! There she is! Just off to starboard?"
Without hesitation, Rudyard, tersely, said, "Full astern all," although it would still take the Arcadia nearly a mile of seaway to come to a complete stop. Then, as the cheers and shouts of the passengers rose all around him, Rudyard went out on to the bridge deck and stood with both hands on the railing to see for himself where his one lost passenger was.
"She's floating!" somebody shouted. Then the distinctive voice of Baroness Zawisza cried out, "She's not floating, you idiot! She's swimming!"
And miraculously enough, on the glassy swell of the ocean (through a sea which, if you were on board the Arcadia, looked almost preposterously flat, and yet which, if you were trying to swim in it, looked like the Himalayan mountains in ceaseless motion) there was Marcia Conroy in a clinging white negligee, the Ophelia of the Arcadia, doing a slow but entirely competent sidestroke.
"My God," said Mark, right next to Catriona. "My God, she's alive!" He looked at Catriona and he obviously didn't know whether to cheer or to cry.
Rudyard called to Dick Charles, "Lower nets to starboard! Then lower a boat! And double-quick!"
It was a remarkable sight, on that mid-morning in June, in mid-ocean: the largest ocean liner in the world drawing slowly to a stop within a hundred yards of a single woman in white splashing her way through the waves as if she were exercising at her local swimming baths.