"It was your fault, then, this accident, was it?"
"Not at all, sir, although that's what Sir Peregrine's claiming."
"Why should he claim such a thing when it isn't true?"
Rudyard said, "I don't know, sir. I don't want to appear disloyal. "I was actually on the bridge at the time it was supposed to have happened, but we were steaming full ahead, on Sir Peregrine's specific orders, when in my own opinion we should have been going ahead far more slowly. The Dublin harbourmaster had already warned us to look out for small sightseeing boats. But Sir Peregrine told me not to worry, and to build up full speed as soon as possible."
"You realise what you're saying," said Mr Fearson seriously.
"Yes, Mr Fearson, I do. And that's why I've woken you up."
"Well, lad, I think I'm glad that you did."
"What shall I do, sir?"
"Stay where you are for the time being. If Sir Peregrine's ordered you to be confined to your cabin, then that's where you'd best stay put. But believe me, I'm going around to talk to Mr. Deacon now, and then we'll most likely have a talk with Sir Peregrine."
"Thank you, sir."
"Don't thank me till we've found out what's happened, and who's to blame. I can tell you that Mr. Deacon, for one, is going to explode. There's a lot hangs on this voyage, lad, and if the slightest whit goes wrong... well, there's going to be hell to pay. Hell."
Rudyard took a deep breath. "I'll await your call, sir."
"Like as not you will," said Mr Fearson, matter-of-factly, and put the telephone down.
At three minutes past seven, Catriona was sitting at her dressing-table, her chin in her hands, staring at her tear-blotched eyes in the mirror. A little way behind her, Alice was laying out her cream crepe-de-chine dress for the morning, along with her shoes, stockings, and silk slip (she never quite knew if she ought to put out panties, it depended so much on Catriona's mood). In the sitting-room, Trimmer was laying out the breakfast that Catriona had asked for: grilled grapefruit, toast, black coffee, and a glass of chilled apricot juice. He was humming "Gimme A Little Kiss'.
"They're always the same, these shipboard romances," said Alice, as she collected up Catriona's discarded evening gown. "They always end hi tears."
"This isn't a shipboard romance," said Catriona.
"It's a romance, and it's on board a ship, so what else can it be?"
"It's a clash of personalities, that's what it is. And apart from that, it's a complete and utter swizz."
"He told you he loved you," Alice reminded her. Alice adored a good shipboard romance, especially between the wealthier and more illustrious passengers. It was something she could tell her mother about, when she got back to Runcorn. Her mother would sit with her feet in her sheepskin footwarmer, cupping her hands around her mug of Bovril, and listen with doddering relish to Alice's stories about the glittering improprieties of the famous.
"Of course he told me he loved me," Catriona retorted. "The silly thing is, he actually does. Or at least, I think he does."
"Well, then," said Alice.
Catrion took a Craven-A out of the cigarette box on the dressing-table. "It's no use saving "well, then"," she retorted. "He loves me, yes, but the trouble is that he loves the Arcadia even more. He's a shipowner. He adores ships, the bigger and the more glamorous the better. How can a mere girl measure up to a fashionable ocean liner?"
"You mustn't upset yourself, Miss Keys," said Alice, with the syrupy sympathy of the personal servant.
"I'm not upsetting myself. It's everybody else who's upsetting me."
Trimmer knocked at her bedroom door, his face lifted as rigidly as a Zeppelin-spotter towards the north-east comer of the stateroom, so that he wouldn't be guilty of glimpsing Catriona in her crimson satin deshabille. "Your breakfast his ready, Miss Keys. Hit's hall laid bout. Hand a copy of the ship's newspaper, halso."
In common with most large Atlantic liners, the Arcadia was to produce her own daily newspaper, offering tidbits of gossip about her celebrity passengers, glowing ankles about the competence of her crew, and a crossword to white away those tiresome twenty-minute gaps between meals. Crosswords were a hot passion in 1924—so hot that a Chicago housewife had complained to the Press that she was "a crossword widow", and that a New York man had been arrested for refusing to leave a restaurant after four hours of struggling to complete a crossword there. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad provided dictionaries in each car for crossword-puzzle addicts; and if you were really obsessed, you could buy a tiny dictionary to strap to your wrist. The Arcadia's crossword wasn't noticeably sophisticated. It offered clues like "Kind words don't butter them" and "Propels ship and fastens wood."
Catriona sat down to her breakfast feeling unhappy beyond description. Her toast tasted like face flannels, and she could hardly bring herself to choke down even a mouthful of coffee. Her apricot juice, which had been laboriously squeezed by one of the Arcadia's chefs from eight fresh apricots, she didn't even touch.
Perhaps she had misjudged Mark altogether. After all, if he had really wanted the Arcadia more than he had wanted her, why he had even bothered to tell her that he loved her? Perhaps she was being more suspicious of herself than she was of him. Perhaps she was being as stubborn and as unforgiving as her father had been. Whatever anyone had said to her father, he had always needed concrete proof before he was prepared to believe it. He had never taken anything on trust, not even Catriona's assurances that she was happy and normal and well, and that her wildness didn't involve anything more than a few late-night dinner-dances, a few too many gin-and-bitters, a giggly striptease on a pleasure-boat that had been beating its way up the Thames, and regular but faithful fornication in Nigel's bed. Catriona's father had always been prepared to think the worst of her, and maybe that was why she was now prepared to think the worst of Mark Beeney. And yet: Mark had made an offer for the Arcadia, four million pounds in cash, and there was no question that to gain Catriona's support and friendship would be his quickest route to settle the deal, right under Edgar Deacon's disapproving nose.
Trimmer, who was flapping at a few toast crumbs with his napkin, said, "Hanything helse, Miss Keys?"
"No thank you, Trimmer. This will be fine."
"Residue, Miss Keys?"
"I beg your pardon?" „
"I beg your pardon, Miss Keys. "Residue" was the word which one of my hofficers used to use to describe an "angover. I was wondering hif you might be suffering the same problem. Hor similar, you understand."
"Well," said Catriona, "sort of."
"Hin that case, miss, might I make so bold as to hoffer you my patent remedy for "angovers? Trimmer's Terror, my hofficers used to call hit, but bit halways produces the most hinstant heffects."
Catriona couldn't help smiling. "Hall right," she said. "Let's have a taste of Trimmer's Terror."
Trimmer marched himself punctiliously to the cocktail cabinet, where he made a great exhibition of opening doors, taking out spoons, and arranging glasses. He poured into a tall Lalique glass a measure of Russian pepper-flavoured vodka, then stirred in a beaten raw egg, a liberal squeeze of lemon juice, and finally, for good measure, a quick dose of Tabasco sauce.
"Does it really work?" asked Catriona cautiously as Trimmer presented it to her on a circular silver tray.
"They used to drink it in the Royal Flying Corps, Miss Keys, whenever they was called hupon to fly hover the henemy trenches hafter an "eavy night on the Chateau Lafite."