"McNulty tells me you've tried the pass key," said Rudyard.
"Without avail, sir," nodded Monty Willowby. "I think as how she's crammed up the keyhole with pieces of writing-paper."
Rudyard listened at the door. When Monty Willowby tried to speak again, he raised his hand to silence him. From inside the stateroom, he could hear faint whimpers of anguish, interrupted by an occasional cough. He hoped to God that Mademoiselle Narron wasn't taking sleeping-tablets, or anything hysterical like that. But she certainly didn't sound as if she were gargling for the good of her vocal chords, or practising her Caruso sob.
"Go and break out a fire-axe," Rudyard told one of the stewards. "I don't want to smash down the door, but I may be obliged to."
Dick Charles said, "I p-p-peeped in through the pp-p-porthole, b-b-but she'd p-p-p—she'd p-p-p-p—she'd p-p-p-p—"
Everybody waited in high tension as Dick Charles stood staring at them, his tongue poised on the tip of his teeth, his whole being concentrated on pronouncing that one unutterable "p'. He was fourth officer, so none of the stewards could think of interrupting him, and Rudyard was far too sympathetic to finish his sentence.
"Pulled down the blind," said Dick Charles, quite suddenly, as if sentences like that rolled off his tongue all the time. Monty Willowby puffed out his cheeks in relief.
Rudyard knocked loudly at Mademoiselle Narron's door. "Mademoiselle Narron! Mademoiselle Narron! Can you hear me, Mademoiselle Narron?"
There were renewed sobs, immediately followed by a peculiar gag-ging sound.
"Mademoiselle Narron! It's Mr. Philips, the first officer! Are you in difficulty? Mademoiselle Narron!"
"Go away!" shrieked the diva. "I wish only to die!"
Rudyard looked at Monty Willowby and both of them pulled their mouths down. "What did I tell you?" said Monty. "The artistic hystericals, in full flight. There's always one of them. Last trip I did on the Excellent, we had an Italian juggler who threw himself into the sea with his pockets full of cutlery, to help him sink."
"That's enough, Mr Willowby," said Rudyard. He was on his knees in front of the door now with his Swiss Army penknife. With one of the thinner blades, he was poking at the lock, trying to extricate the crumpled-up pieces of paper which Mademoiselle Narron had forced into it.
"Go away!" called Mademoiselle Narron, even more histrionically. "I want to be alone with myself! I wish only death!"
McNulty was quite disappointed when Rudyard managed to push the paper out, and quickly thrust the key in the lock: he had been looking forward to swinging at Mademoiselle Narron's maple-veneered door with the fire-axe. Rudyard slammed the door wide and there on her chaise-longue was the celebrated dramatic soprano, frighteningly upright, far taller than any of them had expected, in an astonishing Wagnerian costume of silvered drapery. Her bare wrists were held out in front of her, and both of them were slashed, so that her dark blood was dripping on to the crimson lake carpet, red on red.
She stood up, her eyes wide and wild. She was nearly six feet tall, and on top of her red frizzy hair she wore a high silver headdress with silver-painted ferns and silver sleigh-bells on it, so that she appeared even taller. Her costume was the one she had worn as Freia in The Rhinegold, and she wore it now as she had worn it at the Metropolitan during the season of 1922, with one white gigantic breast exposed. That one breast alone, thought Rudyard, as he stood in front of the towering Mademoiselle Narron feeling absurdly short and intimidated, that one breast alone is bigger than my head.
It was then that Mademoiselle Narron swayed, her headdress jingling, and collapsed. Rudyard tried to catch her and support her, but she must have weighed 170 pounds, and she toppled him over as well.
"Mr. Willowby, go and find Dr. Fields!" Rudyard ordered, struggling under Mademoiselle Narron's weight. "McNulty, give me a hand here. Mr. Charles, tear up that tablecloth for bandages!"
Between them, they lifted the soprano on to the blood-spattered chaise-longue, and tied up her wrists with strips of Irish linen. The cuts were only superficiaclass="underline" Mademoiselle Narron hadn't succeeded in slicing into any of the larger veins. Rudyard picked up a gory Gillette razor-blade, and handed it to McNulty.
"Let's get her into bed," said Rudyard. "Iris, would you raise the blinds please? I'd like some light on the subject."
Mademoiselle Narron's suite was decorated to represent "Sweetness', with walls lined in pink moire silk, and pink marble furniture. Her bed was French, painted pink and white, with carved cupids and bows across the headboard. For a woman so large, the decor seemed incongruously fussy and pretty, and for a woman who had tried to slash her wrists, cupids and hearts seemed ironic. But when Iris had wrestled off her headdress, and they had managed between them to cover her up with her pink and white silk counterpane, Mademoiselle Narron lay there with her eyes closed and her red pre-Raphaelite hair spread out on the pink satin pillow, and Rudyard with surprise realised that she was an extremely handsome woman. She had a firm square opera-singer's jaw, but good cheekbones, and a long straight nose. Her lips, which she had painted the same pink as the walls, were curved and full.
Monty Willowby came back with Dr. Fields. A ship's doctor for Keys Shipping for over fifteen years, Dr. Fields still retained his Harley Street hauteur, and wore grey morning coats and grey silk him with gates ajar collars. He sat down on the edge of the diva's bed and examined her through his half-glasses as if he couldn't decide whether to take Mademoiselle's temperature or recite Charles Lamb on convalescence. He had been known to do either, or both. "Sickness enlarges the dimensions of one's self to oneself," he would say.
"She tried to kill herself," said Rudyard helpfully.
"Hmm," said Dr Fields. "Not very successfully, even by operatic standards. Opera singers make very poor suicides, you know. Did you know that? Similarly, trawlermen. Don't ask me why. Are you awake, my dear Mademoiselle Narron?"
Mademoiselle Narron's eyes flickered, and then opened. They were a pale translucent green, but very expressive and intense.
"I passed out," she said. "What happened?"
Dr. Field raised one of her bloody wrists so that she could see it. "I fear that you attempted to diminish your enjoyment of this voyage by cutting your wrists."
The diva nodded, slowly. "Yes," she said. "I wished for death. It was oblivion I wanted."
"Oblivion? Well," sniffed Dr Field. "If it was oblivion you wanted, I could have prescribed it for you. At least my kind of oblivion is only temporary. "And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul." George Meredith that was. Rotten writer. Couldn't stand the man. Would you like some pills to help you calm yourself down?"
"I don't think so," said Mademoiselle Narron. "I think—" she raised both her wrists and stared at them—"I think I will not try this again."
"Well, that's capital," said Dr. Fields. "I'll send up the nurse to tidy up your dressings. But just remember, if there's anything at all I can do, I'm always on call to assist. So is the ship's chaplain, Mr. Porrit. Strange chap, though, bit of a fundamentalist. If I were you, I'd give the hospital a call first, as a rule, before the chapel."
Rudyard stayed by Mademoiselle's bedside after everyone had left. Their only chaperone was Iris, who was doing her best to scrub the soprano's blood out of the carpet. Mademoiselle Narron closed her eyes for a while, as the sunlight moved gradually across the bedroom, and for a minute or two she slept. But then she opened her eyes again and Rudyard was still there.