The Girl on the Boat
Peters shook his head.
“I confess that, when there was this delay in your coming here, I
sometimes feared something might have happened to you. I recall
mentioning it to the young lady who recently did me the honour to
promise to become my wife.”
“Ocean liners aren’t often wrecked nowadays.”
“I was thinking more of the brawls on shore. America’s a dangerous
country. But perhaps you were not in touch with the underworld?”
“I don’t think I was.”
“Ah!” said John Peters significantly.
He took up the revolver, gave it a fond and almost paternal look, and
replaced it on the desk.
“What on earth are you doing with that thing?” asked Sam.
Mr. Peters lowered his voice.
“I’m going to America myself in a few days’ time, Mr. Samuel. It’s my
annual holiday, and the guv’nor’s sending me over with papers in
connection with The People _v._ Schultz and Bowen. It’s a big case over
there. A client of ours is mixed up in it, an American gentleman. I am
to take these important papers to his legal representative in New York.
So I thought it best to be prepared.”
The first smile that he had permitted himself for nearly two weeks
flitted across Sam’s face.
“What on earth sort of place do you think New York is?” he asked. “It’s
safer than London.”
“Ah, but what about the Underworld? I’ve seen these American films that
they send over here, Mr. Samuel. Did you ever see ‘Wolves of the
Bowery?’ There was a man in that in just my position, carrying
important papers, and what they didn’t try to do to him! No, I’m taking
no chances, Mr. Samuel!”
“I should have said you were, lugging that thing about with you.”
Mr. Peters seemed wounded.
“Oh, I understand the mechanism perfectly, and I am becoming a very
fair shot. I take my little bite of food in here early and go and
practise at the Rupert Street Rifle Range during my lunch hour. You’d
be surprised how quickly one picks it up. When I get home of a night I
try how quickly I can draw. You have to draw like a flash of lightning,
Mr. Samuel. If you’d ever seen a film called ‘Two-Gun-Thomas,’ you’d
realise that. You haven’t time to wait loitering about.”
Mr. Peters picked up a speaking-tube and blew down it.
“Mr. Samuel to see you, Sir Mallaby. Yes, sir, very good. Will you go
right in, Mr. Samuel?”
Sam proceeded to the inner office, and found his father dictating into
the attentive ear of Miss Milliken, his elderly and respectable
stenographer, replies to his morning mail.
Sir Mallaby Marlowe was a dapper little man, with a round, cheerful
face and a bright eye. His morning coat had been cut by London’s best
tailor, and his trousers perfectly creased by a sedulous valet. A pink
carnation in his buttonhole matched his healthy complexion. His golf
handicap was twelve. His sister, Mrs. Horace Hignett, considered him
worldly.
“Dear Sirs,—We are in receipt of your favour and in reply beg to state
that nothing will induce us ... will induce us ... where did I put that
letter? Ah!... nothing will induce us ... oh, tell ’em to go to blazes,
Miss Milliken.”
“Very well, Sir Mallaby.”
“That’s that. Ready? Messrs. Brigney, Goole and Butterworth. What
infernal names these people have. Sirs,—On behalf of our client ... oh,
hullo, Sam!”
“Good morning, father.”
“Take a seat. I’m busy, but I’ll be finished in a moment. Where was I,
Miss Milliken?”
“‘On behalf of our client....’”
“Oh, yes. On behalf of our client Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw.... Where
these people get their names I’m hanged if I know. Your poor mother
wanted to call you Hyacinth, Sam. You may not know it, but in the
’nineties when you were born, children were frequently christened
Hyacinth. Well, I saved you from that.”
His attention now diverted to his son, Sir Mallaby seemed to remember
that the latter had just returned from a long journey and that he had
not seen him for many weeks. He inspected him with interest.
“Very glad you’re back, Sam. So you didn’t win?”
“No, I got beaten in the semi-finals.”
“American amateurs are a very hot lot, the best ones. I suppose you
were weak on the greens. I warned you about that. You’ll have to rub up
your putting before next year.”
At the idea that any such mundane pursuit as practising putting could
appeal to his broken spirit now, Sam uttered a bitter laugh. It was as
if Dante had recommended some lost soul in the Inferno to occupy his
mind by knitting jumpers.
“Well, you seem to be in great spirits,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly.
“It’s pleasant to hear your merry laugh again. Isn’t it, Miss
Milliken?”
“Extremely exhilarating,” agreed the stenographer, adjusting her
spectacles and smiling at Sam, for whom there was a soft spot in her
heart.
A sense of the futility of life oppressed Sam. As he gazed in the glass
that morning, he had thought, not without a certain gloomy
satisfaction, how remarkably pale and drawn his face looked. And these
people seemed to imagine that he was in the highest spirits. His
laughter, which had sounded to him like the wailing of a demon, struck
Miss Milliken as exhilarating.
“On behalf of our client, Mr. Wibblesley Eggshaw,” said Sir Mallaby,
swooping back to duty once more, “we beg to state that we are prepared
to accept service ... what time did you dock this morning?”
“I landed nearly a week ago.”
“A week ago! Then what the deuce have you been doing with yourself? Why
haven’t I seen you?”
“I’ve been down at Bingley-on-the-Sea.”
“Bingley! What on earth were you doing at that God-forsaken place?”
“Wrestling with myself,” said Sam with simple dignity.
Sir Mallaby’s agile mind had leaped back to the letter which he was
answering.
“We should be glad to meet you.... Wrestling, eh? Well, I like a boy to
be fond of manly sports. Still, life isn’t all athletics. Don’t forget
that. Life is real! Life is ... how does it go, Miss Milliken?”
Miss Milliken folded her hands and shut her eyes, her invariable habit
when called upon to recite.
“Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; dust
thou art to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul. Art is long and
time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still like
muffled drums are beating, Funeral marches to the grave. Lives of great
men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave
behind us footsteps on the sands of Time. Let us then ...” said Miss
Milliken respectfully, ... “be up and doing....”
“All right, all right, all right!” said Sir Mallaby. “I don’t want it
all. Life is real! Life is earnest, Sam. I want to speak to you about
that when I’ve finished answering these letters. Where was I? ‘We
should be glad to meet you at any time, if you will make an
appointment....’ Bingley-on-the-Sea! Good heavens! Why
Bingley-on-the-Sea? Why not Margate while you were about it?”
“Margate is too bracing. I did not wish to be braced. Bingley suited my
mood. It was grey and dark and it rained all the time, and the sea
slunk about in the distance like some baffled beast....”
He stopped, becoming aware that his father was not listening. Sir
Mallaby’s attention had returned to the letter.
“Oh, what’s the good of answering the dashed thing at all?” said Sir
Mallaby. “Brigney, Goole and Butterworth know perfectly well that
they’ve got us in a cleft stick. Butterworth knows it better than
Goole, and Brigney knows it better than Butterworth. This young fool,
Eggshaw, Sam, admits that he wrote the girl twenty-three letters,
twelve of them in verse, and twenty-one specifically asking her to
marry him, and he comes to me and expects me to get him out of it. The
girl is suing him for ten thousand.”
“How like a woman!”
Miss Milliken bridled reproachfully at this slur on her sex. Sir
Mallaby took no notice of it whatever.
“... if you will make an appointment, when we can discuss the matter
without prejudice. Get those typed, Miss Milliken. Have a cigar, Sam.
Miss Milliken, tell Peters as you go out that I am occupied with a
conference and can see nobody for half an hour.”
When Miss Milliken had withdrawn Sir Mallaby occupied ten seconds of
the period which he had set aside for communion with his son in staring
silently at him.
“I’m glad you’re back, Sam,” he said at length. “I want to have a talk
with you. You know, it’s time you were settling down. I’ve been
thinking about you while you were in America and I’ve come to the
conclusion that I’ve been letting you drift along. Very bad for a young
man. You’re getting on. I don’t say you’re senile, but you’re not
twenty-one any longer, and at your age I was working like a beaver.
You’ve got to remember that life is—dash it! I’ve forgotten it again.”
He broke off and puffed vigorously into the speaking tube. “Miss
Milliken, kindly repeat what you were saying just now about life....
Yes, yes, that’s enough!” He put down the instrument. “Yes, life is
real, life is earnest,” he said, gazing at Sam seriously, “and the
grave is not our goal. Lives of great men all remind us we can make our
lives sublime. In fact, it’s time you took your coat off and started
work.”
“I am quite ready, father.”
“You didn’t hear what I said,” exclaimed Sir Mallaby, with a look of
surprise. “I said it was time you began work.”
“And I said I was quite ready.”
“Bless my soul! You’ve changed your views a trifle since I saw you
last.”
“I have changed them altogether.”
Long hours of brooding among the red plush settees in the lounge of the
Hotel Magnificent at Bingley-on-the-Sea had brought about this strange,
even morbid, attitude of mind in Samuel Marlowe. Work, he had decided,
was the only medicine for his sick soul. Here, he felt, in this quiet
office, far from the tumult and noise of the world, in a haven of torts
and misdemeanours and Vic. I. cap. 3’s, and all the rest of it, he
might find peace. At any rate, it was worth taking a stab at it.
“Your trip has done you good,” said Sir Mallaby approvingly. “The sea
air has given you some sense. I’m glad of it. It makes it easier for me
to say something else that I’ve had on my mind for a good while. Sam,
it’s time you got married.”
Sam barked bitterly. His father looked at him with concern.
“Swallow some smoke the wrong way?”
“I was laughing,” explained Sam with dignity.
Sir Mallaby shook his head.
“I don’t want to discourage your high spirits, but I must ask you to
approach this matter seriously. Marriage would do you a world of good,
Sam. It would brace you up. You really ought to consider the idea. I
was two years younger than you are when I married your poor mother, and
it was the making of me. A wife might make something of you.”
“Impossible!”
“I don’t see why she shouldn’t. There’s lots of good in you, my boy,
though you may not think so.”
“When I said it was impossible,” said Sam coldly, “I was referring to
the impossibility of the possibility.... I mean, that it was impossible
that I could possibly ... in other words, father, I can never marry. My
heart is dead.”
“Your what?”
“My heart.”
“Don’t be a fool. There’s nothing wrong with your heart. All our family
have had hearts like steam-engines. Probably you have been feeling a
sort of burning. Knock off cigars and that will soon stop.”
“You don’t understand me. I mean that a woman has treated me in a way
that has finished her whole sex as far as I am concerned. For me, women
do not exist.”
“You didn’t tell me about this,” said Sir Mallaby, interested. “When
did this happen? Did she jilt you?”
“Yes.”
“In America, was it?”
“On the boat.”
Sir Mallaby chuckled heartily.
“My dear boy, you don’t mean to tell me that you’re taking a shipboard
flirtation seriously? Why, you’re expected to fall in love with a
different girl every time you go on a voyage. You’ll get over this in a