"You can leave me now" she said softly. "I think I have learned my lesson. I was acting, you see, acting a part. But my suicide was only acting, too."
"You felt upset about something, though," said Rudyard.
Mademoiselle Narron smiled wanly.
"Someone you had to leave behind?" asked Rudyard.
She nodded.
Rudyard stood up and paced across the bedroom to the porthole. Outside, the sea was sparkling like smashed glass.
"I had to leave someone behind, too," he said, with his back to her. His throat felt unexpectedly dry.
"Someone you loved?" she asked him.
"That's right. Someone I loved. Someone I thought would always love me. But, well... that wasn't to be."
"You couldn't have stayed behind, to mend your love with her?"
"And miss this voyage? Not a chance. Besides, I don't think there's anything left to mend. You can't put a broken teapot back together again if you don't have the pieces, can you?"
Mademoiselle Narron said, "I'm sorry. Your heart must hurt like mine."
Rudyard looked down at his gold-braided cap. "I shouldn't have told you," he said. "You're here to enjoy yourself, not listen to problems. But if there's anything I can do—well, you know. I just want you to know that I understand."
"You're a sad man," said Mademoiselle Narron.
"Only when I'm off duty," Rudyard told her, attempting a smile.
"You know something," she said, "I had to leave behind in England a man I thought would stay with me forever. But, he went back to his wife and his children; and all of a sudden the dream that I thought was going to last for the rest of my life was vanished for ever. I wake up in the morning now and I fed pain. Do you know that pain? I never thought that you could suffer real physical pain from losing someone."
Rudyard checked his watch. "I'm sorry," he said, "I'm very late already. If there's anything more you need, your bedroom steward will help you. But I'll come back later."
Mademoiselle Narron reached out her hand. "Why don't we help each other, you and I?" she said. "Just for the duration of this voyage, no longer. We are both sharing a ship, and sharing a heartache."
Rudyard hesitated for a moment, and then came across and took Mademoiselle Narron's hand. He squeezed it gently, and said, "All right. If that's what you wish. If you'll have me."
"It's what I wish," she said softly.
Iris was standing in the doorway, watching them. When Rudyard noticed that she was there, he put on his cap, saluted Mademoiselle Narron, and left the stateroom.
Mademoiselle Narron looked down at her freshly-bandaged wrists and sighed. Now she would be able to wear so few of her beautiful evening gowns. She thought of Raymond. Raymond's hawklike profile, with that stray piece of grey hair that fell over his forehead when he played his cello. She thought of Raymond's kisses, Raymond's musical lovemaking. But she thought, too, of that ugly a scene in his friend's rented flat in Kensington, and how he had deserted her, walked off, in spite of everything that he had promised.
She began to sing, very softly, the part of Elvira from I Puritani, and in the next room Iris raised her head like a curious starling to listen.
THIRTEEN
Catriona couldn't think why, but Edgar Deacon seemed almost reluctant for her to meet Mark Beeney. Of course—since Mark and Catriona were sitting opposite each other at Sir Peregrine's table for the first luncheon of the Arcadia's maiden voyage—they could scarcely have remained strangers. But Edgar seemed to go very tight-lipped and testy when he introduced them, and for most of the luncheon he tormented his food as if he bore a personal grudge against it, and scarcely spoke a word to the vivacious young movie actress who sat next to him and gushed on and on about Rudie Valentino and D.W. Griffith, and how D.W. had promised her that if he ever decided to remake Broken Blossoms, he would definitely, but definitely, find a part for her.
Catriona and Mark Beeney sat and watched each other at first like two people who know they have always been destined to meet, and who scarcely need to say anything. All around them, the first-class dining-lounge glittered with electric chandeliers, rows and rows of them, and each row was reflected a dozen times in the tall gilt-frame mirrors which were hung the whole 270-foot length of the room. It was like the dining-room of an 18th century French palace, with tall palms and canaries in cages and the ten-piece orchestra playing Mozart. The tables were laid with heavy silver plate provided by the same company who had furnished the cutlery for the Titanic, the Goldsmiths & Silversmiths Company of Regent Street, in London. Each table was decorated with a massive solid-silver centrepiece of mermaids and fish plunging through an engraved ocean.
For this first luncheon, Catriona wore a simple sleeveless dress of Chinese blue, and a brooch of pearls and diamonds. Her bobbed hair was circled by a blue headband. Her shoes were pale blue satin, and even her stockings were the colour of sea, and sky, and short-circuits. Mark Beeney, in his beautifully-tailored grey suit from Wetzel of New York, and his silk necktie from Henry Poole of London, sat and looked at her and thought she was perfectly stunning.
Marcia Conroy had been separated from Mark and was sitting further along Sir Peregrine's table next to Douglas Fairbanks.
Although Mr. Fairbanks was waving his arms around and being his usual witty and anecdotal self, telling everybody a very long story about the time he had knocked himself unconscious while leaping off a balcony, without insurance, of course, Marcia was looking decidedly uncomfortable and irritated, and she kept glaring at Mark to catch his attention.
"I saw your press," Mark told Catriona, as the stewards came around with steaming tureens of real turtle soup.
Catriona blushed. "The Flapper Queen of the Seas?" she asked him.
"That's right. You're not embarrassed, are you? I thought it was cute. But I did expect a genuine flapper. Instead, there's you."
"You don't think I'm a flapper?"
Of course not. How could the daughter of Stanley Keys ever be a flapper? Besides, you don't even look like a flapper, or act like a flapper. You're not even a jazz baby. You're just what they say you are, Queen of the Atlantic."
Catriona said, "I think you're flattering me on purpose."
"Of course I am. I never flatter anybody by accident."
"I think you have something in mind, is what I meant."
"An ulterior motive?" asked Mark. He declined the amontillado sherry that the steward offered him for his turtle soup.
"That's right," said Catriona. "Yes, sherry for me, please."
Mark sipped his soup. "It's not up to Savoy standard, but it's okay."
"Do you want me to send it back?" asked Catriona. "I can, you know."
"Listen, he told her, "I can take care of myself. You may own this shipping line, but I have a shipping line too."
"Does that make us enemies, or associates?"
Mark tore off a piece of fresh-baked bread, and chewed it. "It makes us equal, that's all. Whether you want to be friendly or not, that's up to you."
"What makes you think I shouldn't be friendly? Don't I look friendly?"
Mark shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't got as far as that yet. Right now, I'm still bowled over by how pretty you look."
"You're being very American, you know," said Catriona. "A bit too snappy for your own good."
"You can give as sharp as you get," said Mark, without looking up. "You're a rare girl. You know that?"
"Rare?" asked Catriona, more cautiously this time.