Catriona took the glass, and sniffed it. "No wonder there were so many casualties," she said.
"Right down the "atch, miss," Trimmer urged her.
Catriona hesitated for a moment, and then swallowed her glassful of Trimmer's Terror in three gagging gulps. It was like drinking blazing frog spawn, if such a thing were conceivable. She lay back on the sofa and gasped for breath, her eyes springing with tears, and her stomach gurgling and burning. For a whole minute the world seemed to be splintered and spotted with pain and pepper.
"I hope you haven't done her a mischief, you and your patent remedies," said Alice, bustling into the sitting-room with clean towels over her arm.
Catriona sat up. "I think," she said, swallowing and reswallowing, "I think that I'm going to be all right. I think."
"What did I tell you," said Trimmer, with self-satisfaction. "Nothing like it hafter an "eavy night."
Catriona was just about to creep into her bed for two or three hours" sleep, and Alice was already unscrewing the thick green frosted-glass jars of night cream, when there was a knock at the stateroom door. Trimmer answered it, and from the bedroom, Catriona could hear the clipped consonants and rounded vowels of a young and well-bred Englishman.
"Who is it, Trimmer?" she called.
"Begging your pardon, Miss Keys, hit's a gentleman. "Ere's "is card. "E wonders hif " might be allowed a minute's conversation."
"Well..." frowned Catriona. She read the card, crisply engraved with copperplate script. Mr Philip Carter-Helm, 3 Pont Street, London НSW1.
"I don't know him, do I?" she asked. Tell him I'll see him later."
"E says "Noel's a friend hof Mr Beeney's, miss; hand that " halso "appened to be han hacquaintance hof your respected late father."
"Oh," said Catriona. She hesitated for a moment, and glanced across at Alice, seeking approval. Alice, who didn't like to be committed to giving her approval for anything, in case she was blamed afterwards, was industriously plumping up cushions. A friend of Mark Beeney's? thought Catriona. Perhaps Mark was trying to say that he was sorry, in which case Catriona would quite properly be able to forgive him.
Alice said, "You must do as you wish, miss. Far be it from me."
"All right, then, Trimmer," said Catriona. "Why don't you show him in? But only for a moment, please. I'm hideously tired."
Trimmer opened the door and Philip Carter-Helm stepped in, a little reticently, holding his hat hi front of him like a small steering-wheel. "Miss Keys," he said. "You must think me terribly ill-mannered."
"Well, this is hardly the time, if you know what I mean."
"I appreciate that," Philip Carter-Helm agreed. Catriona turned away, with what she hoped was an imperious look of disregard; but she had to admit to herself that Philip Carter-Helm was really rather attractive, if you fancied wholesome-looking chaps like Tom Merry, from the Magnet. There was also something inexplicably familiar about him, although she couldn't even begin to think what it was. She had certainly never met him before; not even at the Arts Ball.
Philip said, "I can only claim-a very recent friendship with Mark Beeney, I'm afraid. But he did ask me if I could sort of have a chat with you."
"Was he too retiring to come and do his own chatting?" asked Catriona.
"Well, no, but he's afraid that he's been rather misunderstood."
"I see," said Catriona. Cold as Cleopatra. Modern and aggressive as Isadora Duncan.
"He wants you to know that his feelings towards you are completely separate from his desire to buy the Arcadia."
"All right," replied Catriona, airily. "I'm quite prepared to believe him; although it really won't make any difference at all, since the Arcadia happens not to be for sale. Not to Mark Beeney, anyway."
Philip said, "Oh," and looked around the stateroom as if he had mislaid something. Alice said, "Whenever sir happens to be ready," but at the same instant Philip blurted out, "Do you think that's a terribly good idea?"
"Do I think what's a terribly good idea?"
"Not to consider Mark Beeney as a possible buyer for the Arcadia."
"What does it have to do with you?" Catriona demanded. "I don't want to sell her at all, as a matter of fact. It all depends on how successful this voyage turns out to be. That, and a few financial matters, but I can't see that any of them are any affair of yours."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to speak out of turn. But in the shipping business, the state of Keys" affairs are pretty much common knowledge. Besides, I did know your father."
"Thousands of people knew my father."
"Of course. But I always liked to think that there was a special little spark of recognition between us. Like minds, don't you know."
"So you're in ships, too?" Catriona asked him, not frantically interested if he was or not. As a matter of fact he was getting to be rather a bore; and she felt tired, and vexed.
"Marine insurance, tedious stuff like that," said Philip.
"Well, in that case, you couldn't have been much of a like mind; not with the father I knew. He could never abide anything tedious. Any more than I can. It's hereditary, I suppose."
"I'm sorry if I'm boring you. But-Mark did ask me to come and explain how he felt. And I do feel myself that you could do very much worse than sell the Arcadia to American TransAtlantic. For one thing, they'll certainly look after her."
"Did Mark send you to explain why he behaved like a copper-bottomed cad, or did he send you to persuade me to sell him the Arcadia?" Catriona inquired. "That was exactly what I was trying to tell him: that he doesn't know the difference between business and pleasure. If you ask me, I think he keeps his heart pressed flat in his bank book."
"Please," said Philip. He looked for somewhere to put his hat; he couldn't find one; and so hung on to it. "I'm really not making a very good job of this. What I feel about the Arcadia is entirely my own opinion. I really feel that if your father had been given the choice—either of selling off the whole shipping line or simply of selling off its biggest asset and its biggest liability, the Arcadia—well, I believe that he would have gritted his teeth and sold the Arcadia. Better to keep the business in the family. You'll never get half as much as the shipping line's really worth, not if you sell it outright. Think of the goodwill Keys have built up, over the years; think of the shipping contracts."
"For your information," Catriona retorted, "our managing director has looked into the figures more than thoroughly, and he happens to believe that if we have to sell, an outright sale would be best. And whatever you feel about what my father would or wouldn't have done, I happen to know that he cared about the people who worked for him more than anything else, and I also happen to know that he wouldn't have sold the Arcadia to Mark Beeney because if he had, the rest of the shipping line would have collapsed and half of Liverpool would have been joining the dole queue."
Philip Carter-Helm was about to say something sharp in reply, but he stopped himself, and bowed his head, and said, "I'm sorry. This is very impertinent of me, and tiresome, too. You're right, of course, in a way. It would be very difficult to keep Keys going, just on the proceeds from selling the Arcadia. Even four million doesn't go frightfully far these days, not in the shipping business. You'd have to struggle very hard to keep your head above water; and that wouldn't really be your sort of style, would it?"