“Well, I was part of the drama, too.”

“No. You had already left the stage before the drama began.”

“But the play’s not over is it? Because here are two of the characters engaging in their dialogue in another scene.”

I laughed. “No, it ended with Aunt Charlotte’s death. ‘The drama of the Queen’s House.’”

“But there’ll be a sequel, perhaps it will be the comedy of Serene Lady.”

“Why should it be a comedy?”

“Because I always liked them better than tragedies. It’s much more fun to laugh than cry.”

“Oh, I agree. But sometimes it seems to me that there is more in life to cry about than to laugh at.”

“My dear Miss Brett, you are misled. I shall make it my duty to change your view.”

“How … when?” I asked.

“On Serene Lady, perhaps.”

“But you …”

He was looking at me intently.

“But surely you had heard? She’s my ship. I shall be in charge of her during our voyage.”

“So … you …”

“Don’t tell me you’re disappointed. I thought you would be pleased. I assure you I am a most capable master. You need have no fears that we’ll founder.”

I gripped the rail behind me. I was thinking I should never have come. I should have found that post which would never again have brought me into contact with him.

I was not indifferent to him; I could never be, and he was aware of this. He did not mention his wife any more than he had on that other night. I wanted to talk of her. I wanted to know of the relationship between them. But what concern was it of mine?

I should never have come. I knew it now.


* * *

There followed weeks of feverish energy. Chantel was in a state of great excitement.

“Who would have believed this possible when we were in the Queen’s House, Anna?”

“I admit it’s strange that we should both be here, and about to leave the country.”

“And who brought it about, eh?”

“You did. And did you know that Edward’s father is the Captain of our ship?”

She was silent for a while. Then she said: “Well, we have to have a captain, don’t we? We can’t sail without one.”

“So you did know,” I said.

“In due course. But does it matter, Anna?”

“I knew that I would sail with his wife and son but not with him.”

“Does it bother you?”

I must be frank with Chantel. “Yes,” I said, “it does.”

“He still has power to stir your emotions in spite of the fact that you know him for what he is.”

“What is he?”

“A philanderer. A maritime Casanova. Oh, nothing serious. He likes women. That’s why women like him. It’s a false theory that we like misogamists. We don’t. The men who are attractive to women are those who are attracted by women. It’s simply a matter of flattery.”

“That may be, but …”

“Anna, you’re perfectly safe. You know him now. You know when he says charming things and gives you languishing looks it’s all part of a game. It’s not an unpleasant game. It’s known as Flirtation. Quite enjoyable as long as you know how to keep it under control.”

“As you do … with Rex.”

“Yes, if you like.”

“You mean you know Rex will never marry you, that he is going to propose to Miss Derringham, but you can be quite happy being what you would no doubt call flirtatious friends?”

“I can be quite happy with my relationship with Rex,” she said firmly. “As you must be about yours with our gallant Captain.”

“I can see,” I said, “that I must learn from your philosophy of life.”

“It has served me very well so far,” she admitted.


* * *

Teaching was easier than I had believed. Perhaps it was because I had such a bright and interested pupil. We studied maps together and I traced our journey with him. His eyes — so like his father’s, except that they were brown — would light up with excitement. The map was not a sheet of paper with different colored portions; it was a world.

“Here,” he would say, putting a finger into an expanse of blue, “is Mamma’s island.”

“You see it is not very far from the continent of Australia.”

“When she gets there she’ll be happy,” he told me.

“Let us hope that we shall all be happy there.”

“But …” His eyes were puzzled, and he struggled to express his thoughts. “We are now. It’s only Mamma who has to be happy. It’s because it’s her island, you see.”

“I see.”

“The Captain will love her again there,” he announced gravely. He always spoke of his father as the Captain with reverence and awe. I wondered how much he heard of their quarrels and what construction he put on them.

Monique never made any attempts to restrain herself, and I was near enough to her room often to hear her voice raised in anger. Sometimes she seemed to be pleading. I wondered how he was with her. Was he unhappy? He did not seem so. But then he probably treated his marriage too lightly to be especially bothered because it was not a success. As Chantel had said of him: He liked all women too well to be too much involved with one. That must be a comfort to him, and yet what sorrow for the woman who loved him, as I believed Monique did.

I should never have come. I was not sufficiently aloof. It was no use my trying to adopt Chantel’s philosophy. It could never be mine. I was already too deeply involved.

And Chantel, was she as in command of her feelings as she would have me believe?

When I saw her walking in the gardens with Rex it would have been easy to believe that they were lovers. There was something about their pleasure in each other’s company, the way they talked and laughed together. Is she as invulnerable as she pretends? I wondered; and I was concerned that she might be hurt as I had been.

Such uneasy weeks they were. I think the happiest hours were those when I was alone with Edward. We had taken to each other. I think I must have been an improvement on the not very satisfactory Miss Beddoes, and it is always easier to follow a failure than a success. Lessons had become centered round the coming trip. That was easily explained in geography, but I found myself telling of the colonization of Australia and the arrival of the First Fleet. In arithmetic he found it easier to concentrate when the sums were concerned with cargo. A magic word in itself.

Whenever we went out our walks always took us to those heights where we could look down on the docks and see the shipping spread out before us.

Edward would dance about with excitement.

“Look at her. She’s a wool clipper. She’s going to sail to Australia. Perhaps we’ll get there before her. I think we shall … because we are sailing with the Captain.”

Once we took the binoculars with us and there we saw her. We could make out her name painted on her side in bold black letters: Serene Lady.

“That’s our ship, Edward,” I told him.

“It’s the Captain’s ship,” he replied soberly.

“They’re getting her ready for her journey,” I added.

The time was close at hand when we should leave England.


* * *

It was a thrilling moment when, Edward’s hand in mine, I climbed the gangway and stepped onto the deck of Serene Lady. I felt reckless and yes, happy. I couldn’t help it. The excitement of the adventure was with me, and I knew that had I stayed behind and known that on this ship Redvers Stretton sailed — and Chantel with him — I should have been as depressed and unhappy as I ever was in my life.

I thought the Serene Lady beautiful. I had been as excited as Edward when I had seen her through the binoculars; but to step on board to see for myself her polished brass and gleaming decks and to think that she was Captain Stretton’s ship thrilled me deeply. She was one of the new steamers which Chantel told me “we” (quoting Edith) were adding to “our” fleet. “Perhaps nothing can be quite so romantic as the sailing barques, brigs, and cutters, but they’re fast becoming old fashioned and we have to be up-to-date.”

Serene Lady was not a big ship, but she carried a sizable cargo and twelve passengers into the bargain, among whom were to be Rex, Chantel, Edward, his mother, and myself.

Chantel was with me when I went on board. Her green eyes sparkling like gems, the breeze catching at her titian hair, she looked lovely and I wondered afresh whether the obvious interest she had in Rex made her as vulnerable as I feared I was.

The cabins were fitted with carpets, beds, fixed dressing tables, which could be used as desks, armchairs, and built-in cupboards.

While we were examining them Chantel came in. I must go and see hers which was only a few doors away. Hers was part of a suite and Monique’s adjoined it. She showed us this. There were flowers on the dressing table and the curtains at the porthole were of silk not chintz as in ours.

Edward sat on the bed and started to bounce up and down on it.

“It’s very grand,” I said.

“Well, what did you expect for the Captain’s wife?” demanded Chantel. “Mind you, she won’t always sleep here. Only when I have to keep my eyes on her. I daresay she will want to share the Captain’s quarters.” She pointed up. “Near the bridge,” she added.

“I’m going on the bridge,” said Edward.

“If you’re not careful, my lad,” said Chantel, “you’ll be ill with excitement before you have a chance to suffer from the sea.”

But there was no calming Edward. He wanted to explore; so I took him up to the top deck and we watched the final preparations being made for our departure.

On that wintry afternoon when a big red sun showed itself through the mist, to the sound of sirens we began to move out into the Channel and began our journey to the other side of the world.


* * *

The lady remained serene through the Bay of Biscay. When I awoke in my cabin on the first morning I had difficulty in recalling where I was; and as I looked round I really could not believe that I was on board the Captain’s ship en route for exotic places. My trouble was, as Chantel had pointed out on several occasions, that I expected life to be dull and uneventful. Hardly uneventful, I had pointed out grimly, recalling Aunt Charlotte’s death. “Well,” she had temporized, “you always imagine that exciting romantic things won’t happen to you. Therefore they don’t. We get what we work for in this world, remember … or some part of it. Take what you want That’s my motto.”

“There’s an old saying, Spanish I think, that says ‘Take what you want,’ said God. ‘Take it and pay for it.’”

“Who’s complaining of the cost?”

“People don’t always know what it will be until the bill is presented.”

“My dear, precise, prosaic old Anna! There you are, you see. Immediately you think of pleasure you start calculating the cost when anyone knows that that is likely to put a damper on the proceedings.”

I lay there on that first morning recalling that conversation, but when I got up and felt the slight roll of the ship beneath my feet, when I parted the chintz curtains and looked through the porthole at the gray-blue sea, I felt a lightening of my spirits that was more than excitement, and I said to myself: I’ll be like Chantel. I’ll start to enjoy life and I won’t think of the cost until the bill is presented.

And that determination stayed with me. I was indeed intoxicated by the novelty of being at sea, living close to my friend Chantel, and knowing that Red Stretton was on board and that at any moment I might meet him face to face.

She was a good ship because she was his ship. There was to me a feeling of security because he was in charge. The fact was that if I did not look into the future and ask myself what would happen at the end of the voyage, I could be content during those golden days when we sailed past the coast of Spain and Portugal to call at the Rock of Gibraltar before entering the Mediterranean Sea.


* * *

There were eight passengers on board besides our own party, including a boy of about Edward’s age. This was reckoned to be good luck because the two boys would be companions for each other.

The boy was Johnny Malloy, the son of Mrs. Vivian Malloy, who was going to Australia to join her husband who had already made a home for her there; she was accompanied by Mrs. Blakey, her widowed sister, who was helping her to look after young Johnny.