Chapter XII R.M.S. Utopia
‘There,’ said Challis, ‘that is exactly the middle of the sheet, mother. Just as many again, and we’re all kissing each other and going mad.’
She held a piece of note-paper in her hand, and had just carefully marked out with a red pencil one more of the thirty-three days of their voyaging.
‘That leaves just sixteen,’ said Mrs. Cameron.
‘And a half,’ said Challis, ‘and Mr. Brooks told me the captain says we may be two whole days late, so we’ll count seventeen, darling, and not disappoint ourselves.’
‘There is the captain now, talking to Mrs. Macgregor and Lady Millbourne,’ said Mrs. Cameron. ‘Run and ask him, dear, if it is true. I can’t bear the thought.’
‘Oh, mother,’ said the little girl, and hung back, looking with nervous eyes at the group.
‘Girlie, you must get over this silly shyness,’ said Mrs. Cameron. ‘I think you get worse every day, instead of better. Run along at once.’
The girl rose and walked slowly down the long deck. Some children rushed to her.
‘Come and play, come and play,’ they said. ‘It’s rounders, and we want another on our side.’
‘Don’t ask her,’ said a boy, ‘she’s a stuck-up—never plays with any one.’ The voice reached Challis, and coloured her cheeks.
‘You will be on our side, won’t you?’ a little girl said. ‘We don’t know what to do for another.’
‘I—I don’t know how to play. I’m very sorry—if I could I would,’ Challis said.
‘Oh, but you can’t help knowing,’ urged the small girl. ‘All you’ve to do is hit the ball and run. Mamma’s deck-chair there is one rounder, and the barometer thing’s another, and that life-buoy’s the third, and here’s home. Of course you mustn’t hit the ball overboard.’
‘Oh, please,’ said Challis, ‘won’t you get some one else? I should spoil the game. Oh, I couldn’t play—please,’ and she broke away from the hand, and heard ‘stuck-up’ again from the boy as she moved away.
Used to the fire of a thousand eyes, the girl shrank nervously from disporting herself before half a dozen idle watchers. She liked the quiet corners on the deck where no one could see her; she had a habit of lying on some cushions by her mother’s side, and pretending to be asleep, just to escape being talked to.
A group of ladies drew her amongst themselves before she could pass.
‘The sweet little thing!’ said one.
‘Have you been dreaming a Wave Nocturne up in your corner?’ said another.
‘Don’t tease the child,’ said a third. ‘Darling, we’re getting up a concert for to-morrow evening, and we’re going to give the money to the Patriotic Fund when we get to Sydney. You will play some of your lovely pieces for us, won’t you? You know we couldn’t have a concert without the aid of the famous Miss Cameron.’
‘I am afraid mother will not allow me to again,’ Challis said. ‘She said yesterday was to be the last time.’
‘The last time! Oh, why—why?’ chorused the ladies.
‘She said something about wanting me to rest now,’ said poor Challis, flushing.
‘Oh, but just two or three little pieces,’ persisted the promoter of the concert, ‘for the wives of the brave boys going to the war! Oh, I know you won’t refuse us, will you? That pretty little thing you played for the funds of the Sailors’ Home on Monday—what was that?’
‘The Funeral March from Chopin’s Second Sonata,’ said Challis shyly. ‘I will ask mother. I am sure, as it is for the soldiers, she will allow me,’ and she edged out of the group.
A lady lying on a lounge beckoned to her.
‘How are you, my dear, to-day?’ she said.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ was Challis’s answer.
‘You are looking pale, I think. Your mother should give you quinine. Don’t you ever take anything before you play to your big audiences?’
‘No,’ said Challis.
‘Your mother should see you have a quinine powder before you begin, and just before going home a dessert-spoonful of malt extract. It would fortify the system immensely.’
‘Would it?’ said Challis, a little wearily.
‘Is that little Miss Cameron?’ said another lady, coming up. ‘Now I think Mrs. Goodenough might really introduce us. Ah, now we know each other, and I am very proud—very proud indeed to shake hands with Australia’s celebrated player. I heard you in the Albert Hall two nights before we left London, my dear. You play magnificently—magnificently.’
Challis stood with gravely downcast eyes, and never said a word.
‘I wonder could you spare me a photograph, my dear,’ continued the lady, ‘one of those in a white frock that are all over London? And I should like you to write your name across it. Will you?’
‘We have not any left—we gave the last away,’ said Challis, and with a little good-bye bending her head—something like the grave quiet bend she gave her audiences—she moved along on her errand.
‘So that’s your player,’ the flouted lady said. ‘Well, I don’t think much of her. Not a word to say for herself. I suppose she is greatly overrated; it is mostly advertisements, you know—wonderful nowadays what can be done by advertisements.’
Challis reached the captain at last. Lady Melbourne had a pleasant word for her, and asked nothing but how she was enjoying Treasure Island, which was in her hand. Mrs. Macgregor merely inquired after her mother’s headache.
‘Captain,’ Challis said, ‘are we really going to be two days late? Mother is very anxious.’
‘Why, we are all hoping it will be more than that,’ said Lady Millbourne. ‘A perfect voyage like this should last for ever. I want to persuade the captain to break the shaft of his propeller, like the Perthshire did, and let us drift for forty days.’
‘Then mother and I would steal the captain’s gig and row home by ourselves,’ Challis said with a little shy roguery that dimpled her mouth, and made you think she was pretty after all.
‘I never loved a dear gazelle,’ said the captain, ‘but I had to land it days before I should have had to, if it had only been a tiresome elephant. My dear little fairy-fingers, I have to give you up two days before the time. This will be the quickest run I’ve made this year.’
The glad colour leapt all over the girl’s face. ‘Oh-h-h!’ she cried, and broke away from them, and went bounding back along the deck to her mother, just as any of the children might have gone.
The delightful news necessitated giving all the rest of the morning up to happy chat. They drew their chairs close up together, sheltered from over-much observation by the angle of the deck-house. Mrs. Cameron had no more headache, Treasure Island fell flat and forgotten on the deck.’
‘Now let’s just go over it all again,’ said Challis. ‘Father’ll come first. I don’t want to kiss any one till I have kissed him. Well, what’s he like? No, don’t you say, I’ll say. He’ll have a moustache—no, I think he’ll have a beard—yes, a beard. Not a long one, just a short one, and rather curly. And his eyes have a nice laughing look in them, just the nice look like M’sieu de Briot’s, who said there was nothing in the world worth worrying about. You said, didn’t you? that daddy hated worrying over things. I can’t help thinking he’ll have a brown velveteen jacket when he comes to meet us, like Mr. Menel’s, at Fontainebleau, and paint all over it. But of course he won’t. Let’s see, he’ll have a grey suit and a shiny hat, like Mr. Warner. No, he mustn’t have that—that’s not like daddie at all. No, I’ll tell you; it’s very hot at Wilgandra, so he’ll have a nice white linen suit and a white helmet, and he might—he might be holding up a big white umbrella lined with green—you know, mamma, like that nice man who came on board at Malta.’
Mrs. Cameron was leaning back, her eyes shining, a fond smile on her lips as she listened to the girl’s prattle.
‘Then there’ll be Hermie, and I know she’s lovely. Don’t you think she will be? You said you always thought she would grow up very beautiful. Oh, isn’t it dreadful that we’ve never had a photo of them? Such lots of mine sent to them, and never any of theirs! It’s like drawing their faces with your eyes shut. I think Hermie will have her hair in a thick plait. I suppose she goes to picnics and dances and everything, and always knows what to say to people. Mother, I don’t think I shall ever get to know what to say. I’m fourteen, and nothing will come into my head to answer people. A lady said to me this morning, “You play magnificently.” Now what can you answer to that? I really felt I’d like to say, “Yes, don’t I?” just to see how she would look. Only I was afraid it would be rude. If I’d said, “Oh no, I don’t, you’re mistaken,” she would have thought I was mock modest, wouldn’t she? But Hermie, yes, she’ll always know what to say. I can sleep in her room, can’t I? You said there wouldn’t be any other. It will be like Ellen and Edie Fowler we met on the trip to Dover; they always had their arms round each other, and used to tell each other everything and everything. Hermie and I will; we’ll whisper and whisper all night, just like they did.’
The steward came up with eleven-o’clock tea and the glass of milk that Challis always drank. Mrs. Cameron left her cup to grow cold, Challis set her tumbler in an insecure place, and a lurch of the ship sent it flying.
‘Never mind, I couldn’t have drunk it,’ she said, then as the man came back, ‘I am so sorry to give you that trouble, steward. If you like to bring a cloth, I’ll wipe it up myself.’
‘Well, about Bart,’ said the mother, ‘what will Bart be like?’
‘Oh, Bart,’ said Challis, ‘I just feel as if we’ll rush straight together, and never come undone again. That’s the sort of feeling you have when you’re twins. I feel I’d like to give him everything and sew his buttons on and let him bully me. You notice the Griffithses here. They’re twins, and she does everything he tells her, and he gets everything for her. It’s lovely. I hope Bart hasn’t forgotten we’re twins.’
‘And Roly?’
‘Roly? I’m not sure of Roly. I can hardly see him at all. I think, p’r’aps, he’s like that little boy at our table who wears Eton suits and tries to walk like the boatswain. All I can remember about Roly is one day we were eating water-melon in the paddock, and Roly ate his slice away and away, till there was just a green circle round his head.’
‘And Flossie—my little baby Floss?’
‘Darling little Flossie, I almost love her best of all. She’s got very goldy hair and a teeny little face, and she’s as little as Lady Millbourne’s little girl. And she likes being carried about, and she can’t dress herself, and I shall dress her, and fasten all the dear little buttons, and tie her sashes. And I shall put her to bed myself, nobody else must, and I’ll tell her stories and stories. And every day there’ll be something new for her out of my box. There are fifteen things for her, mother, not counting what she’s to go halves with Roly in. Isn’t it a darling little tea-set? I never saw such sweet little cups. And won’t she like the little dolls from the Crystal Palace? I’d really like to play with them myself. And the big doll we got in the Rue de Crenelle. I must get on with its frock to-morrow, mother, or it never will be done.’
On, on went the ship through the secret waters. New stars came out on the great night skies, new breezes played in the rigging. On, on, and the long days dropped away, somewhere, somewhere, beyond the edge of the sea. On, on, and the happy eyes saw at last the dear frown of the Australian coast-line.