The Girl on the Boat
you were so fond of Eustace....”
“All right, is he?” said Sam.
“Well, not quite all right, but he’s going on very nicely.”
“Fine!”
“Eustace and I are engaged, you know!”
“No, really? Splendid! I can’t see you very distinctly—how those
Johnnies in the old days ever contrived to put up a scrap with things
like this on their heads beats me—but you sound a good sort. I hope
you’ll be very happy.”
“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Marlowe. I’m sure we shall.”
“Eustace is one of the best.”
“How nice of you to say so.”
“All this,” interrupted Mrs. Hignett, who had been a chaffing auditor
of this interchange of courtesies, “is beside the point. Why did you
dance in the hall, Samuel, and play the orchestrion?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Bennett, reminded of his grievance, “waking people up.”
“Scaring us all to death!” complained Mr. Mortimer.
“I remember you as a boy, Samuel,” said Mrs. Hignett, “lamentably
lacking in consideration for others and concentrated only on your
selfish pleasures. You seem to have altered very little.”
“Don’t ballyrag the poor man,” said Jane Hubbard. “Be human! Lend him a
sardine opener!”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” said Mrs. Hignett. “I never liked him
and I dislike him now. He has got himself into this trouble through his
own wrong-headedness.”
“It’s not his fault his head’s the wrong size,” said Jane.
“He must get himself out as best he can,” said Mrs. Hignett.
“Very well,” said Sam with bitter dignity. “Then I will not trespass
further on your hospitality, Aunt Adeline. I have no doubt the local
blacksmith will be able to get this damned thing off me. I shall go to
him now. I will let you have the helmet back by parcel-post at the
earliest opportunity. Good-night!” He walked coldly to the front door.
“And there are people,” he remarked sardonically, “who say that blood
is thicker than water! I’ll bet they never had any aunts!”
He tripped over the mat and withdrew.
§ 6
Billie meanwhile, with Bream trotting docilely at her heels, had
reached the garage and started the car. Like all cars which have been
spending a considerable time in secluded inaction, it did not start
readily. At each application of Billie’s foot on the self-starter, it
emitted a tinny and reproachful sound and then seemed to go to sleep
again. Eventually, however, the engines began to revolve and the
machine moved reluctantly out into the drive.
“The battery must be run down,” said Billie.
“All right,” said Bream.
Billie cast a glance of contempt at him out of the corner of her eyes.
She hardly knew why she had spoken to him except that, as all motorists
are aware, the impulse to say rude things about their battery is almost
irresistible. To a motorist the art of conversation consists in rapping
out scathing remarks either about the battery or the oiling-system.
Billie switched on the head-lights and turned the car down the dark
drive. She was feeling thoroughly upset. Her idealistic nature had
received a painful shock on the discovery of the yellow streak in
Bream. To call it a yellow streak was to understate the facts. It was a
great belt of saffron encircling his whole soul. That she, Wilhelmina
Bennett, who had gone through the world seeking a Galahad, should
finish her career as the wife of a man who hid under beds simply
because people shot at him with elephant guns was abhorrent to her.
Why, Samuel Marlowe would have perished rather than do such a thing.
You might say what you liked about Samuel Marlowe—and, of course, his
habit of playing practical jokes put him beyond the pale—but nobody
could question his courage. Look at the way he had dived overboard that
time in the harbour at New York! Billie found herself thinking
wistfully about Samuel Marlowe.
There are only a few makes of car in which you can think about anything
except the actual driving without stalling the engines, and Mr.
Bennett’s Twin-Six Complex was not one of them. It stopped as if it had
been waiting for the signal.... The noise of the engine died away. The
wheels ceased to revolve. The car did everything except lie down. It
was a particularly pig-headed car and right from the start it had been
unable to see the sense in this midnight expedition. It seemed now to
have the idea that if it just lay low and did nothing, presently it
would be taken back to its cosy garage.
Billie trod on the self-starter. Nothing happened.
“You’ll have to get down and crank her,” she said curtly.
“All right,” said Bream.
“Well, go on,” said Billie impatiently.
“Eh?”
“Get out and crank her.”
Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.
“All right,” he said.
The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of
our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job
towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help
not at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to
accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet
flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum.
This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow
impatient as Bream’s repeated efforts failed of their object. It was
wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have
told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an
emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress.
“Give it a good sharp twist,” she said.
“All right,” said Bream.
“Here, let me do it,” cried Billie.
She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent
brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint
protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and
was still once more.
“May I help?”
It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice—a sepulchral voice, the
sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe’s
cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking
from the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected
Bream painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which,
if he had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the
management to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up
under sudden sepulchral voices.
Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just
beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided
Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.
“Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone
wrong.”
Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure,
strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages
he would have excited no comment at all. Passers-by would simply have
said to themselves, “Ah, another of those knights off after the
dragons!” and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But
in the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted
head pop up in front of your motor car. At any rate, it startled Bream.
I will go further. It gave Bream the shock of a lifetime. He had had
shocks already that night, but none to be compared with this. Or
perhaps it was that this shock, coming on top of those shocks, affected
him more disastrously than it would have done if it had been the first
of the series instead of the last. One may express the thing briefly by
saying that, as far as Bream was concerned, Sam’s unconventional
appearance put the lid on it. He did not hesitate. He did not pause to
make comments or ask questions. With a single cat-like screech which
took years off the lives of the abruptly wakened birds roosting in the
neighbouring trees, he dashed away towards the house and, reaching his
room, locked the door and pushed the bed, the chest of drawers, two
chairs, the towel stand, and three pairs of boots against it.
Out on the drive Billie was staring at the man in armour who had now,
with a masterful wrench which informed the car right away that he would
stand no nonsense, set the engine going again.
“Why—why,” she stammered, “why are you wearing that thing on your
head?”
“Because I can’t get it off.”
Hollow as the voice was, Billie recognised it.
“S—Mr. Marlowe!” she exclaimed.
“Get in,” said Sam. He had seated himself at the steering wheel. “Where
can I take you?”
“Go away!” said Billie.
“Get in!”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I want to talk to _you!_ Get in!”
“I won’t.”
Sam bent over the side of the car, put his hands under her arms, lifted
her like a kitten, and deposited her on the seat beside him. Then
throwing in the clutch, he drove at an ever-increasing speed down the
drive and out into the silent road. Strange creatures of the night came
and went in the golden glow of the head-lights.
§ 7
“Put me down,” said Billie.
“You’d get hurt if I did, travelling at this pace.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Drive about till you promise to marry me.”
“You’ll have to drive a long time.”
“Right ho!” said Sam.
The car took a corner and purred down a lane. Billie reached out a hand
and grabbed at the steering wheel.
“Of course, if you _want_ to smash up in a ditch!” said Sam, righting
the car with a wrench.
“You’re a brute!” said Billie.
“Caveman stuff,” explained Sam, “I ought to have tried it before.”
“I don’t know what you expect to gain by this.”
“That’s all right,” said Sam, “I know what I’m about.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I thought you would be.”
“I’m not going to talk to you.”
“All right. Lean back and doze off. We’ve the whole night before us.”
“What do you mean?” cried Billie, sitting up with a jerk.
“Have you ever been to Scotland?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought we might push up there. We’ve got to go somewhere and, oddly
enough, I’ve never been to Scotland.”
Billie regarded him blankly.
“Are you crazy?”
“I’m crazy about you. If you knew what I’ve gone through to-night for
your sake you’d be more sympathetic. I love you,” said Sam, swerving to
avoid a rabbit. “And what’s more, you know it.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will!” said Sam confidently. “How about North Wales? I’ve heard
people speak well of North Wales. Shall we head for North Wales?”
“I’m engaged to Bream Mortimer.”
“Oh no, that’s all off,” Sam assured her.
“It’s not!”
“Right off!” said Sam firmly. “You could never bring yourself to marry
a man who dashed away like that and deserted you in your hour of need.
Why, for all he knew, I might have tried to murder you. And he ran
away! No, no, we eliminate Bream Mortimer once and for all. He won’t
do!”
This was so exactly what Billie was feeling herself that she could not
bring herself to dispute it.
“Anyway, I hate _you!_” she said, giving the conversation another turn.
“Why? In the name of goodness, why?”
“How dared you make a fool of me in your father’s office that morning?”
“It was a sudden inspiration. I had to do something to make you think
well of me, and I thought it might meet the case if I saved you from a
lunatic with a pistol. It wasn’t my fault that you found out.”
“I shall never forgive you!”
“Why not Cornwall?” said Sam. “The Riviera of England! Let’s go to
Cornwall. I beg your pardon. What were you saying?”
“I said I should never forgive you and I won’t.”
“Well, I hope you’re fond of motoring,” said Sam, “because we’re going
on till you do.”
“Very well! Go on, then!”
“I intend to. Of course, it’s all right now while it’s dark. But have
you considered what is going to happen when the sun gets up? We shall
have a sort of triumphal procession. How the small boys will laugh when
they see a man in a helmet go by in a car! I shan’t notice them myself
because it’s a little difficult to notice anything from inside this