"That's Ireland," nodded Sir Peregrine. "We anchor in Dublin Bay at five and stay until eight o'clock tonight. Taking on mail, you see, and a few more dignitaries. Not my choice, but there you are. When you're only a sea captain, you have to do what your company tells you to do, what?"
Dick Charles was standing by the wheel, and he turned around to frown at Sir Peregrine with such an expression of mock-despair that it was all Catriona could do not to laugh.
"Ireland, very odd place," muttered Sir Peregrine. "You can't trust them, you see, the Irish. I played chess once with Andrew Bonar Law, and do you know what he said? "Peregrine," he said, "when the Irish can prove to me beyond any shadow of a doubt that the ten per cent of the population who aren't insane aren't murderously malicious, then they can have their home rule by return of post"."
Catriona peered into two or three of the Arcadia's softly effulgent dials. "What's this one for?" she asked Dick Charles. She noticed the crewman at the wheel give her that kind of sideways squint with which private soldiers and naval ratings and automobile mechanics always appraise the tastier-looking wives and daughters of what Trimmer would have called "haristocrats and hofficers."
Dick Charles went very pink, and said, "That's our wind-speed indicator. Our anemometer. It t-tells us our p-p-p—"
There was a very long pause. Sir Peregrine offered his fourth officer no assistance, but stood lean and dried-up and emaciated, like a Bombay duck in full uniform, while Dick Charles opened and closed his mouth, and stared at Catriona as if he were about to blow up.
"Precise wind velocity," he said, quite suddenly. "At the moment it's eleven point four. You see there? Quite average for the t-time of—"
He tried hard, but he couldn't find the strength to utter the first "y' of "year', and he withdrew flustered.
"How fast are we going now?" Catriona asked cheerfully, to cover Dick Charles" embarrassment.
"Thirteen and a half knots," said Sir Peregrine. "But we're beginning to slow down. We don't want to cut Ireland in half. At least, some of us don't."
"How fast will we have to sail to win the Blue Riband?" Catriona asked. Sir Peregrine, rather crossly, cleared his throat, and turned away. It was not protocol for a liner captain to admit that he was trying for a record crossing. On the instructions of his company, he would simply sail his vessel at maximum speed, and if by good fortune he happened to outrun every other express liner on the Atlantic, and if by chance the purser happened to have on board a supply of celebratory Blue Ribands which could be tied around the stems of the passengers" champagne glasses when they reached New York, then that, naturally, was a bonus. But a captain never tried for a record, and especially not a British captain. That kind of behaviour would rank him as a show-off.
Mark Beeney put Sir Peregrine out of his discomfiture. "The Mauretania has been the fastest liner on the Atlantic since 1907," he told Catriona quietly. "She can hit twenty-seven knots when she's really running, which means anything up to 650 miles a day. All the Arcadia has to do is beat that. It would be quite a bonus for you if she did, of course. Your bookings would go up, and so would the market value of your ship. So you can see that I wouldn't exactly crack open a bottle of champagne to help you celebrate."
"We should be able to manage it," put in Rudyard Philips, stiffly. "We have the very latest steam turbines, capable of more than 85,000 horsepower. God and the weather willing, we should be the toast of the Atlantic by the time we reach New York harbour."
"I'd rather you tempted neither the Almighty nor the elements, Mr Philips," said Sir Peregrine. "I have enough difficulties as it is, what with Mr. Douglas Fairbanks aboard, and my sciatica."
He settled back hi his chair, and morosely began to chew at his hare pate, while Rudyard Philips with tedious efficiency set out to explain to Catriona how the ship's steering system worked, and how she could be handled in rough seas, and how every major function of the massive marine engines could be monitored at a glance. Catriona yawned. Mark, however, was interested in absolutely everything, though his ceaseless technical questions obviously grated on Sir Peregrine's nerves, for the old commodore shifted hi his seat and chewed his toast with the steady ferocity of a skua, and didn't stop muttering to himself until they were ready to leave.
But Catriona said sweetly, "Thank you, Sir Peregrine. I'm sorry about your sciatica. It must be dreadful. Thank you for being so kind." And she bent over his chair before the old man could summon up the energy to stand up, and kissed him on the forehead. He sat back again, speechless.
"Now the lower decks, and the engine-room," said Rudyard Philips. He peered surreptitiously down at his wrist-watch and wished this tour were over, so that he could quickly go round to Mademoiselle Narron's stateroom and confront her. Well, it wasn't so much Mademoiselle Narron he needed to confront. It was himself, and all those geysering emotions that Mademoiselle Narron had released in him. He had to talk to her again, talk to her face-to-face, and find out what the hell was happening to him.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked Catriona, as they stepped into the electric lift which would take them down to lower deck G on the Arcadia's waterline.
"You can burst into flames if you want to," said Catriona. Corny humour was one of the youthful enthusiasms of 1924. Even a respectable sporting magazine had suggested that mixed foursomes should take care how they played on the "petting green'.
"By the way," said Rudyard Philips, pinching out his used match and funnelling smoke from his nostrils, "this is only one of ten electric lifts aboard the Arcadia. Each lift is designed in a different motif, according to where it goes. The library lift is lined with bronze and steel bas-reliefs of books, with all their pages flying out. This one, as you can see, has ship's wheels and compasses all over it. And the lift that goes to the swimming pool has mermaids and waves."
"I haven't even seen the swimming pool yet," said Catriona.
Rudyard Philips checked his watch, more for his own benefit than for hers. "There's a ladies-only swim session at five o'clock, if you're interested." Then, unexpectedly, he looked up and said, "That's a pretty wonderful necklace, if you don't mind my saying so."
"All women appreciate diamonds," grinned Mark Beeney. "If there's a woman in your life, give her diamonds. She'll love you for ever."
Rudyard gave a dismissive shrug, half-bitter, half-joking. Even if I could afford diamonds, who would I give them to? To Toy, who right at this minute is probably lying in my marriage bed with "Uncle Laurence', relieved that I've gone? Or to Mademoiselle Narron, whose hot and powerful thigh has started such an upsurge of unwelcome and uncontrollable sensations? First officers on Keys Shipping Line were only paid 1 pound a day, and on 1 pound a day you couldn't afford anything from Van Cleef & Arpels.
"Are you all right, Mr Philips?" Catriona asked him. "You look pale."
The lift hummed to a stop, and the doors slid open. The noise of the Arcadia's engines was much louder down here, and there was a penetrating odour of grease and paint and hot steam. "I'm fine, thank you," he said, in a dullish sort of voice, as if he were answering a question in a merchant marine examination; and then, nipping out his Gold Flake cigarette and tucking it back into the yellow-and-gold box, "shall I lead on?"
He stepped out of the lift, and began to walk along the cream-painted corridor. Catriona and Mark both started to follow him, but they collided with each other as they reached the lift doors.