TWENTY
The orchestra played "Somebody Loves Me', from George White's Scandals of 1924, as Catriona came down the staircase into the Grand Lounge, one upraised hand resting lightly on Edgar's white evening glove. Every one of the first-class passengers turned and applauded (even, with exaggerated fierceness, Marcia Conroy) and Sir Peregrine stepped forward to bow to his glittering new mistress.
"You're looking marvellous, Sir Peregrine," she told him, with exaggerated imperiousness, "They should have displayed you at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley."
Sir Peregrine cleared his throat with a coarse little bark. There wasn't any answer to a compliment like that, especially when it came from the heiress of the shipping company which employed him. Stiffly, and with many more sharp tugs at his cuffs than were necessary, he escorted her along an informal receiving line to be introduced to Princess Xenia, to Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, to Baroness Zawisza ("We've met," she smiled, and Sabran, who was glowering in the background, bared his teeth at her), to Claude Graham-White, and Jack Dempsey (who appeared to have shaken off his sulks and took her hand as gently as if he were picking up a porcelain ornament), to Dame Clara Butt, to Senora Zelmira Paz de Gainza (who smelled powerfully of gardenias, and displayed as many diamonds as Tiffany's engagement-ring counter), to Charles Schwab of Bethlehem Steel, and to Mr. O'Hara from the Irish bank.
Then, last of all, Mark Beeney stepped forward. Only a few yards away, Catriona could see Marcia Conroy, in a shimmering black evening-gown by Jeanne Lanvin, willowy and blonde and holding her champagne glass as if she could cheerfully crush it.
"I never saw anyone, ever, look as ravishing as you do tonight," said Mark, and kissed her hand.
"Thank you for your orchid," she told him.
"It was a pleasure. I chose it myself."
"Aren't you wondering why I'm not wearing it?"
"No. I didn't think for one moment that you would."
"I see," said Catriona, taking a few steps away from him across the floor of the Grand Lounge, and smiling brightly to a very tall woman with ginger hair and a long-sleeved dress in an uncompromising shade of brick-red.
Mark, who was following her at a wary distance, said, "You were flattered that I thought of you, but you didn't want to show that you owed me anything. "Who does this cowboy think he is, sending me flowers?" That's what you thought. So what did you do? Stick it in a glass of water? Press it in the pages of your diary?"
"I asked my maid to flush it down the loo, actually," Catriona smiled.
"Forgive me, Miss Keys," interrupted Rudyard Philips, stepping forward. Catriona couldn't help noticing how sweaty he was and how agitated, as if he were running a high fever. "I would like you to meet Mademoiselle Louise Narron, the celebrated operatic soprano."
"I'm charmed," said Catriona, touching hands with the tall woman in the brick-red dress. "And what a startling dress."
"I must tell you the truth, Miss Keys," said Mademoiselle Narron in a gush of unexpected familiarity, touching her forehead as if she were singing the part of Sieglinde in the Valkyries, and still maundering around the wooden hut in Act 1. "It is not what I chose to wear, but circumstances did not allow me to wear anything else. You are right. It is startling. I wish it were not."
Rudyard Philips pulled a tight face that Catriona didn't understand at all. "I'm sorry," she said, quite baffled.
Rudyard said, in a congested voice, "Mademoiselle Narron... had an accident."
"I cut my wrists," explained Mademoiselle Narron. She raised her hands as if they were still bleeding. "An unhappy association. A stupid moment of despair. But your gallant Mr. Philips here rescued me from myself, and from my own stupidity." She linked arms decisively with Rudyard Philips, who looked as if he were about to pass out from heat stroke. "Everything they say about British officers is true."
Now the orchestra played "I'll See You In My Dreams', and Mark Beeney reached out his hand to Catriona and said, "Dance?"
Edgar, watching Catriona from the side of one of the reflecting pillars, gave her a one-shouldered shrug that seemed to mean, "Go ahead, if you really have to."
Mark danced athletically, but with the noticeably self-conscious precision of someone who has never been a natural dancer, and who has had to spend hour after tedious hour being manhandled around the flour of his dance class by his exasperated instructor. In fact, whenever he took the dance floor, no matter what music was playing, and no matter who his partner was, he could still hear Miss CZestochowski screaming at him, "You haff niece, Mr Beeney! Bend them!"
Catriona was quiet for the first few minutes, enjoying the closeness of Mark, the silkiness of his shirt, and the smell of his cologne. He was so tall, compared to her, that if she looked straight ahead of her, she could see nothing but his white bow tie and his suntanned Adam's apple.
"Your friend Miss Conroy isn't smiling much," she said, as lightly as she could manage.
"Oh, Miss Conroy," said Mark. "Why, yes. She does look glum. She had some bad news over the ship's telegraph. Her great-great-great-grandfather is dead. And has been for some time."
"You shouldn't make fun of her," said Catriona.
"Who's making fun?"
They danced past Edgar, and Catriona glimpsed for the first time the man called George Welterman. He looked bulky and stiff in his evening clothes, and he held his arms a little way out from his body as if his sleeves were stuffed with handkerchiefs. Catriona smiled momentarily, but closed off the smile as soon as Mark had twirled her out of range.
"I hope that wasn't George Welterman," said Mark, his face expressionless.
"You know him?"
"Of course I know him. He's the chief chiseller at IMM. If they want to acquire something—whatever it is, equipment or stock or securities—out goes George Welterman. In the business, they call him Firesale Welterman, on account of the prices he pays for just about everything. You should be careful. From what I hear, he's got his beady little vulture eyes on Keys."
"What if he has?" said Catriona. "We haven't decided to sell up yet."
"You may not have a choice."
"What's that supposed to mean? I own a quarter of the voting stock, and my mother owns twenty-six per cent. Or at least we will do, when every thing's been transferred."
"There are plenty of ways of forcing you to sell," said Mark, "and you can believe me that George Welterman knows them all. In fact, he probably invented most of them. I don't know whether you're aware of it or not, but IMM already own something like twelve per cent of Keys stock, and if they start offering your shareholders better prices, and if they promise them a more profitable fleet, and higher dividends—well, your bankers and your shareholders may ultimately prefer dividends to glamour."
"Edgar seems to believe that if we do have to sell, then selling to IMM would be the most practical thing to do. And the most humane."
"The most humane? How does he work that out?"
"Well,"—Catriona blushed—"because at least IMM would keep Keys running as a company, and not sell it off bit by bit and put all of our employees out of work."
"You believe that?"
"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"
"Only that George Welterman is the most unscrupulous character since George Remus. I mean, look at it from his point of view. IMM already operate White Star through a British holding company. What on earth would be the point of duplicating that administration and setting up a separate holding company to run Keys? If I were IMM, I'd simply take the best Keys boats into the White Star fleet, and sell off the clunkers to the Greeks, or the Chinese, or maybe the Russians."