"The rules, squire, are the rules," said Mr Willowby. "And much as I sympathise with what you say, there is a rhyme and reason behind the rules. This shipping line aims to satisfy every one of its passengers, from first-class to third; and if we were to let the third-class passengers stray on to the first-class decks, then, well, they might glimpse more than they ought to of first-class life, mightn't they not, squire? And that would-hardly leave them satisfied, would it? Not having caviar and private bathrooms, for instance? So the things the third-class can't stretch to, we keep out of their sight, for their own well-being, don't you see?"
Harry slowly took off his spectacles. "Did I hear you right?" he asked incredulously. "Did you actually say what I thought you said?"
But the argument didn't go any further. The little girl in the pink coat was tugging at Mr Willowby's hand and pointing to the doll. "That's Margaret," she said excitedly. "He's got Margaret."
"Ah, yes," said Mr Willowby, staring at Harry with one of those official looks that meant, I'll know you again, chum, you just watch it. "The delightful Margaret who nearly got herself lost at sea." He held out his hand for the doll, and said, "Thank you, squire. The little girl's very grateful."
But Harry hunkered down in the doorway, on the dividing line between third- and second-class, and held the doll up so that the little girl could come and get it for herself. Mr. Willowby hesitated for a moment, but then released her hand and let her go.
She was petite and delicate, this little girl, with dark fashionably cut hair and brown eyes that were wide and solemn and almost too large for her oval, fine-boned face. She would either grow up plain or stunningly beautiful. But right now she still had that fey flirtatious magic that made some girls of her age seem to know things that they shouldn't, and started men thinking ridiculously forbidden thoughts.
She wore a three-strand pearl necklace and pearl earrings, and her fingernails were manicured and painted. Her pink velvet shoes had probably cost more than Harry had earned in three months with the Mersey Port Authority, and her perfume was light and flowery and eight guineas an ounce.
"Margaret hit her head when she fell," said Harry, gently. "I think you should maybe take her to the ship's infirmary, and have them put a plaster on it." He glanced up at Mr. Willowby, who rolled his eyes up in ill-disguised disgust.
The little girl took the doll and clutched it tight. "Thank you for saving her," she said, seriously. She had a strong Texas accent. "I'll ask Mrs. Hall to see that you're rewarded."
"Rewarded?" smiled Harry. "I don't want a reward."
"Well, maybe I could stand you a drink," said the little girl.
"You don't have to do that, either," Harry told her. "I'm just happy to see you and Margaret reunited. Will you tell me your name?"
"Yours first," the little girl demanded.
"No, yours first. You're the one who owes me the favour, remember?"
"Oh. Well, okay then. I'm Lucille Theodora Foster."
Harry took her hand and gently squeezed it. "Good to meet you. My name's Harold Janeck Pakenow. Are you from Texas?"
Lucille nodded, gravely. "My daddy was Winthrop Foster the Third. My mommy was Gala Jones."
Harry attempted an answer but couldn't. If he thought that leaving Janice was a tragedy, this little girl's loss by comparison was cataclysmic. It had been front-page news for almost a week during May, and it was still a hot item in some of the gossip sheets. He said, at last, "I'm sorry. It was dumb of me not to realise."
Winthrop Foster the Third had been one of the richest oilmen in the United States, his fortune challenging the Rockefellers and the Mellons. Last year, 1923, he had sent his beautiful wife Gala Jones, the one-time toast of Broadway, to spend eighteen months in Europe, taking their daughter Lucille with her. Gala was going to visit London, Paris, Vienna, and Rome, buying clothes, jewellery, and whatever antiques might suit the Foster houses in Houston, Chicago, and New York.
In May, however, Winthrop Foster had decided on the spur of the moment to leave the oil business in the hands of his deputies and join his wife and child for a two-week vacation. He had travelled incognito on the Mauretania, and planned his visit as a surprise. It was a greater surprise for both of them than he could have anticipated. He flung open the double-doors of Gala's suite at the Paris Ritz to discover her copulating on the carpet with the famous Italian racing-driver Giorgio Manciano.
Manciano had fled through the lobby of the Ritz in his white silk shirttails, but Winthrop Foster, after an initial argument, had appeared to take his wife's faithlessness as a model of stony acceptance. He hadn't beaten her, or even raised his voice to her, and for three days he had escorted her around Paris as if nothing at all were amiss.
On the fourth day, while Lucille stayed in the care of their American maids, Winthrop had taken Gala for a drive in the huge cherry-coloured Hispano-Suiza convertible which he had borrowed for his vacation from King Manuel of Portugal; and he had driven it at eighty miles an hour into the granite base of the statue of Emile Decize, an obscure French politician whose major claim to fame had been the invention of an unworkable tax system. Gala had been smartly guillotined by the Hispano's hood-cover, and Winthrop Foster the Third had died of internal haemhorrage.
So here was their ten-year-old daughter Lucille, a victim of her parents" fierce and unfaithful passions, travelling back to the United States to be cared for by trust funds and attorneys and reluctant relatives. So poised, and so sophisticated. A child brought up in the overheated atmosphere of wealth, fashion and celebrated affairs. A child to whom the aroma of real hide automobile seats and costly perfumes was more familiar than that of cotton candy.
Harry laid a hand on Lucille's shoulder, although he was conscious that Mr. Willowby was growing restless now, and about as short-tempered as the company rules would ever allow him to get.
"I read about your parents," he told her. "I guess you must miss them a whole lot."
"Mrs. Hall said it was fate."
"Fate? Is that what she called it? Do you know what that means?"
Lucille said, "Sure I do," but then she frowned in uncertainty.
Harry said softly, "Fate means when something was always going happen, whether you wanted it to or not. But you know something? People can change their own fate, whichever way they want to. I did when I was your age. I was poor, not like you. My mother had a hard time finding us enough to eat. But when I was your age, I promised myself that my life was never going to be like that."
"You're still poor, though, aren't you?" asked Lucille innocently. 1 "I mean, you're travelling steerage. Daddy used to say that steerage was the cattle market."
Harry wiped his face with his hand. Mr. Willowby said, "Come along, now, Miss Foster," but Harry kept his grip on her shoulder and said, "Money doesn't really matter, you know? It's not money that makes your life happy or unhappy. I'm happier than your daddy was, right? And that's because I know what I am, what kind of a person I am, and I know what my future is going to be. But your daddy and your mommy, they were in control of everything except themselves. They didn't take care of the most important thing in the whole world, which was themselves."
"I think that's enough, squire," said Mr Willowby, with no pretence at courtesy. He took Lucille's hand and tugged her away. Harry got to his feet, and tried to follow, but the thin-moustached steward barred his way with his arm.
"Just remember." Harry called. "Whatever you do from here on in, it's up to you. You take charge of your life. Don't let anyone else try to do it. And that goes for Margaret, too."
"Margaret?" asked Lucille.
"Sure," said Harry. "You and Margaret, you both have to decide for yourselves. And listen, if you want to talk some more, just lean over the rail and whistle."