"NigeI was a nice chap, wasn't he?" Catriona's mother asked her carefully. "He didn't—well, he didn't treat you roughly, did he?"
Catriona gave her mother a brief, rueful smile. "No, mother. He didn't treat me roughly. He was a bit of a harebrain. Father would have called him a "rumble-seat Roger". But he was very fond of me. He could be marvellous. And when he was on the stage, you wouldn't have believed it was the same man."
"Well, anyway," said Catriona's mother, smoothing her dress. There were tears in her eyes again and Catriona knew that another wave a was coming over her, in spite of the beef tea and the sedatives that Dr Whitby had given her.
"I'll stay, mother, don't worry," Catriona told her softly.
"It's the ship," said her mother. "It's so sad about the ship. The finest ship that ever was, and he never saw it sail."
"I know, mother," whispered Catriona. "But try to be brave. He wouldn't have asked for a better way to be remembered, would he? Whenever anyone mentions the Arcadia, they'll always think of Stanley Keys."
At that moment, Catriona raised her eyes, and there on the small Regency table beside the window was a photograph of her father in a silver frame. The picture must have been taken on a windy day, because his hand was blurred as it went up to catch his cap. But he was smiling, brightly and confidently, a man who was very pleased with himself, and a pleased with life, and quite certain about the future.
THREE
Edgar Deacon arrived late, at a quarter past nine, when they were already at dinner. He came straight into the mahogany-panelled dining-room in his blade clawhammer coat and kissed Catriona's hand. He bowed to Isabelle and said, "Good evening, Percy," to Mr Fearson. Then he took his seat at the far end of the table and meticulously opened out his napkin. Still red-eyed from crying, Lettice the maid ladled out tomato soup for him, although he raised his hand after two helpings to show that he only wanted a little.
"I can't say that it's really been the kind of day that whets one's appetite," he remarked, sprinkling salt over his soup before be had tasted it, and stirring it with his spoon. Too many sad duties to perform, don't you know." He turned to Catriona, and said, "I can't tell you how sorry I am, my dear. The whole business has been a frightful shock. You and your mother have the condolences of the entire company, both board and managerial. Yes, and clerical, too."
"And manual," put in Mr Fearson, breaking a bread roll.
"Well, of course," said Edgar. "Manual, too. Plenty of honest tears have been spilled down at the quayside, and in the warehouse. Your father was an exceptional man, missed by all."
Catriona managed an evanescent smile. She had never quite known what to make of Edgar Deacon, although her father had always seemed to trust him implicitly. "The very Devil when it comes to accounts," her father had always said of him, "and likes to gamble, too, although you wouldn't think it, not to look at him."
Edgar Deacon had been managing director of Keys Shipping for four years now; and for two years before that he had been works manager and chief engineer. Stanley Keys had come across him in India, on one of the first exploratory cruises he had made after the War, when Keys were busily planning for the prosperous and peaceful future. The War to end all wars was over, and Stanley Keys had envisioned a luxury shipping operation that would carry the wealthy and the curious to every country on the map, mundane or exotic, from Antwerp to Surabaja.
They had shared a tonga along English Laundry Road in Calcutta, on their way to the Bengal Club. When Stanley Keys had told Edgar who he was, and why he had come to India, Edgar had nodded in approval. "You're quite right, of course. Luxury travel is about to come into its own. I've been trying to tell that to the directors of Calcutta railway for absolutely years."
He had taken out an Indian ivory cigarette holder, and inserted a Players Perfectos No. 1 into it with the firm twist of an engineer. You should make your shipping line appear to be as elitist as possible. That's the way to reap the greatest rewards. You may carry any a of second- and steerage-class passengers, of course, to pay for your bread and butter, but make the first-class as exclusive as you possibly can. Make it almost impossible for anyone to buy a ticket, and then charge monstrous prices for it. Give your passengers the of being able to tilt their noses up into the air, and say, "I travel Keys, don't y'know."
Stanley Keys had been amused. "And where did you learn that philosophy?" he had asked, as Edgar lit his cigarette.
At the Bengal Club," Edgar had said, between clenched teeth. "I took over the running of the District Engineer's Ball three years ago. It had always been a dismal affair, or so I was told. So I trebled the price of the tickets to twenty rupees, and made it as inconvenient as I could for anyone to get hold of one; and lo and behold it became the most sought-after social event on the calendar."
That evening, on the verandah of the Bengal Club, Stanley had approached Edgar and asked him quite bluntly, "Do you want a job?"
Edgar had been standing with his hands in his pockets watching the sunset, puffing away at his cigarette holder. "You don't know the first thing about me," he had said.
"I know that you run a shipfitting business down at Diamond Harbour, and that you're very well thought of."
"By some," Edgar had said, cryptically. And then, without taking his cigarette holder out of his mouth, "Very well. I accept. I think it's time I went home, anyway."
As Stanley Keys had enlarged and built up his shipping line, he and Edgar had become closer and closer, sharing an office, and taking all of their working lunches together. They were so close, sometimes, that other directors like Percy Fearson had begun uncomfortably to feel that Keys Shipping was a two-man company. But Edgar was ferociously hard worker—punctilious, correct, and tireless, even if he could be a triffle distant with the staff, and that was probably nothing more than a hangover from India. Anyone who still salled the winter months the "cold weather" and referred to the works canteen staff as khitmutgars could hardly be expected to be chummy with anyone on the shop floor.
Edgar had never been seen with a woman; but although Mr. Thurrock insisted that he was "one of those", Mr. Fearson said that he was probably more interested in his work than in petty flirtations. Edgar lived by himself in a severe grey house in the better part of Formby and was not to be drawn on the subject.
He was thin, with black polished hair and drawn-in cheeks; rather like one of the sketches of Sherlock Holmes in The Strand Magazine. He wore half-glasses to read, and his only concession to British life was a rather shorter cigarette-holder than the one he had customarily used in Calcutta.
"I didn't really want to discuss business tonight," he remarked, cracking open his bread roll. "Unfortunately, I think that there is something with which you should be acquainted as soon as possible."
Catriona said, "I really don't know anything about business at all."
"Nonetheless, it is important that you hear what I have to say."
Catriona looked across at Percy Fearson; and Percy Fearson gave her an approving nod. She felt sophisticated enough tonight to talk about business, she supposed; and sad enough, too. Her hair was drawn tightly back from her face and tied with two strings of pearls from her mother's jewellery box. She wore a black silk dress with batwing sleeves, pinned together at the front with a clustered-pearl brooch. Her father would have considered that the gown was cut too low for an occasion as sombre as this, and in a peculiar way Catriona felt upset that she was able to wear it without being admonished.