The Girl Who Had To Die

by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

  He had not danced since he came on board, nor wanted to; several times he had sat with Jocelyn watching the others, both of them in that mist of loneliness that she evoked. “I hate dancing,” she had told him. “Being guided around. I get in a sort of panic.” It was a defiance of Jocelyn to be dancing with the tall, superior girl from the Purser's table; the music and the little coloured lights were a defiance of the ocean. None of these pleasant, nice people had mentioned Jocelyn, and that put her in her place. She was something that had happened on a voyage, that's all.

  Elly spoiled everything. “John,” she said, when he was dancing with her, “you're going to the Bells' aren't you?”

  “Let's not talk about that now,” he said.

  “Let's never talk about it,” said Elly. “Just go, and that will be the end of it.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “but it's the end of it for me when I put my foot on shore.”

  “It won't be the end, if you thwart our little friend,” she said.

  “She might just as well be thwarted now as later,” he said.

  She gripped his hand and frowned, with a look of exasperation. “Don't be pig-headed! I've tried to help you,” she said.

  “I know that,” Killian said. “I appreciate it. But—”

  She still held his hand still frowning. “Then do this for me,” she said. “One weekend out of your life can't hurt you, and it will really help me.”

  “How do you mean, help you?” he asked.

  “Oh, it's complicated,” she said. “It's crazy and horrible. But Jocelyn's got it in her head that I can persuade you to come, and if you won't come she'll blame me.”

  “Does that matter?” he asked frowning himself. “Do you mind being blamed by her?”

  “We all have our horrible little secrets,” she said with a sigh. “I do mind. She could make things very unpleasant for me.”

  So she's got something on you, has she? thought Killian. And this weekend is the cure for everything? I can't see it. It's easy to believe that Jocelyn would make all the trouble she could for anyone. I like Elly. She helped me, and I'd be glad to help her. But this weekend idea won't do any good. Couldn't. I'm not going to visit these Bells. I'm going to get away from Starry Eyes. Maybe it's because I hate her, or maybe I'm afraid of her; but I'm going to get away from her.

  He went to bed, and he was nearly asleep when someone knocked at the door.

  “Radio message for you, sir,” said the calm and melancholy voice of the watchman.

  He put on the light, and took the message. “Delighted to welcome you. Will meet ship. Luther Bell.”

  He tore the message into pieces and threw them out of the port. He saw them spin and flutter in the light, and then float away into darkness. He put out the light and lay down and went to sleep at once, feeling that he had accomplished something important.

  He went down to breakfast in the morning with a feeling of confidence, of vigour, that made him happy. Across the room he saw the two spinsters who had abandoned him; one of them gave a bleak little smile, but he did not return it. He was now, thank God, in another world, and they were left behind with Jocelyn and Mr. Bracey and the doctor and other shadows. Chauverney was alone at his table, smoking a cigarette.

  “Oh, good morning!” he said eagerly, and pushed back his chair as if he were about to rise respectfully.

  Angelo came forward, anxious and gentle, and Killian gave him his unvarying order.

  “Did you get a wireless from Bell?” asked Chauverney, and laughed. “I never quite get used to American hospitality. It's overwhelming. Still, I hear that the Bells do you very well. We ought to have a good weekend.”

  “I'm not going,” said Killian.

  Chauverney's dark face was too mobile; his expression of surprise was exaggerated. “Oh,” he said, “I understood that when we talked the thing over yesterday with Mrs. L'O... I thought the thing was settled.”

  “I never considered it for a moment,” said Killian. “I have my own arrangements. I'm not going to visit these people I never heard of before.”

  “Look here, Killian!” Chauverney began, and was unable to go on for a while. “Killian,” he said at last, “that girl can do you a great deal of harm.”

  “Not too much.”

  “Killian,” he began again, “it's a matter of—” He stopped and made an odd. grimace. “I'll be frank,” he said, getting out another cigarette. “The situation is dangerous, Killian.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes.”

  Killian waited.

  “The doctor...” said Chauverney. “He told me he heard the girl say—a very peculiar thing.”

  “Oh, yes! She said I murdered her. But I don't think that needs to be taken very seriously. In the first place, y'see, he's not dead. And, in the second place, she's already given the Captain one account of the thing. If she suddenly came out with another version, he wouldn't be entirely convinced, would he?”

  “If she makes a charge against you, he's got to take it seriously.”

  “I don't have to,” said Killian. “When a girl tells me I've murdered her, I take it with a grain of salt.”

  “There's a bit more to it than that,” murmured Chauverney. “The doctor says he heard her say—says he couldn't help hearing her say—that you were going to try it again.”

  “She did say that.”

  “In the ordinary course of things, I'd have reported it to the Captain. But in the circumstances, I advised the doctor to let it drop. I told him it was obviously”—he paused—“a love affair.”

  “Very tropical love,” said Killian.

  “And if you and she leave the ship together—go off for a weekend together—hell be convinced. He's very fond of talking, y'know, Killian.”

  “Everybody seems to be,” said Killian.

  “For God's sake!” said Chauverney in a sudden rage. “Can't you behave decently? If you don't care anything for your own reputation, can't you consider other people?” He jerked back his chair. “Take my word for it,” he said. “If you won't do this very trifling thing, all hell will break loose.”

  He walked off, slender and elegant in his white uniform; and Killian drank his coffee. I won't go to the Bells', he thought. I won't behave decently. I won't consider other people. How many other people? I wouldn't know.

  All morning he was waiting for a summons from Jocelyn; at noon he went to look for the doctor. “How's Miss Frey getting on?” he asked.

  “She's exhausted,” the doctor answered fretfully.- “I've forbidden any visitors.”

  And it went on that way.

  Everything was so pleasant. The weather was pleasant, calm and warm; the young couple and the heart specialist were pleasant, and they introduced Killian to two or three other pleasant people. This little group stayed together all the time; they never broke up without arranging to meet again. “Then I'll see you up at the swimming pool at four?... Then we'll meet in the smoke-room at half-past six?”

  Nobody mentioned Jocelyn; she was not to be seen. Killian was able to forget her. He lived in this pleasantness for three days as if it were Heaven—no past, no future; and he made no plans. Then on the last night the weather changed.

  The rain came down hissing into the rumbling sea; a rough wind blew; the ship rolled heavily. Killian started his packing before dinner, and it was difficult and irritating. Things fell down; the little wicker chair balanced on its hind legs, creaking; everything creaked and strained; his cabin was damp and chilly and blue with smoke. It was sad.

  He shut and locked his trunk and got ready for dinner. They had had the Captain's dinner last night. Paper cups, noisemakers, champagne at the Purser's table. Elly had been given a little Scotch bonnet of plaid paper, and she put it on with the style that was natural to her. Tonight everyone looked strange. No more white suits. Everyone in dark clothes; all looking strange and a little common. Peasants going to town. I look like a gun-man, he thought. Dark and sinister. What's happened to me, anyhow? />
  The pleasantness had evaporated; no one had anything to say. All of them preoccupied, thinking ahead.

  “There's Miss Frey,” said the heart specialist in his quiet voice. “At the doctor's table.”

  Killian had his back to that table. If he didn't look at her, maybe she wouldn't really be there. The orchestra was playing Gems from Gilbert and Sullivan. Gems from Victor Herbert. The ship wallowed slowly, and the stewards came slanting across the saloon. Angelo leaned back a little, carrying his great ceremonious tray loaded with silver dishes.

  Well, she's there, thought Killian. The more you don't look at her, the worse it is. He turned in his chair and saw her. He saw her face in profile, pale, sweetly delicate against her bright, misty hair. She wore a white silk blouse, and it took the gentle lines of her slight shoulder and bosom. “That is beauty,” he said to himself. Oh, I could look at you forever. Anyone could write a poem, looking at you. Your throat is beautiful, my beloved, and your little narrow feet are swift. Your waist is like a wand, and your legs are slim and nervous as a gazelle's. Beauty is only skin deep. Beauty is a delusion and a snare. Get thee to a nunnery.

  He rose and went to her. “Glad to see you down again,” he said earnestly. “Feeling better?”

  She raised her tired lids, and her eyes were violet, not starry. Dark; fathomless and dark. She didn't answer at all, and he went back to his place.

  The pleasant people all went up to the smoke-room together. They had to do that. They sat there and had liqueur brandy. Only Elly had a Kummel. The steward was nimble and composed. He had already presented his chits; he had already got his tips. Was he disappointed, or did he have some infallible system by which he could figure out in advance what he would get? They broke up early; they all had packing to do. Killian went to his cabin, and Jocelyn was there.

  She was sitting in the little wicker armchair, her long legs stretched out, her arms hanging limply.

  “Close the door,” she said, and he did so. She held up her arms to him, and he drew her to her feet. She clung to him wildly, trembling. There was a dreadful sense of urgency and haste upon them, as if in a moment the world was going to end.

  “Forgive me!” she cried. “I don't know any better.”

  “Dear,” he said. “Don't, dear.”

  He stroked her hair back from her forehead; he had wanted to do that for a long time. She was sobbing, but with no tears; she clung to him; she turned to him for comfort, for help. But he felt no triumph, only a tenderness that was almost anguish, an overwhelming gentleness.

  “Don't, dear,” he said.

  “I love you so,” she said. “I don't care about anything else.”

  She was right. Nothing else mattered. He sat down on the chair and took her on his knees; she laid her head on his shoulder, one arm around his neck. “It's only for a little while,” she said. “Let's be happy while we can. Let's not care.”

  He didn't care.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AT BREAKFAST he gave Angelo a good tip—not lavish, but good. A degrading custom, the heart specialist thought, but Killian didn't agree.

  “It must make life a damn sight more interesting than a fixed salary,” he said. “And it's an incentive to work, too. I wish I got tips myself.”

  “It's a matter of self-respect,” the specialist said.

  “Well,” said Killian, “I have to get my money from somebody else. I can't demand anything. I have to take what's given to me, and I'd be glad of a little extra now and then. I could call it a bonus, of course.”

  He went on deck. They had run out of the bad weather; it was a fresh and glittering May morning, very exhilarating. He was not able to think and could see no necessity for trying. He lit a cigarette and stood by the rail; two or three people stopped to talk to him, and they were all happy. We're like convalescents, he thought, getting back into life. Where's my girl?

  If people wanted to talk to him, he would talk. If they let him alone, it was just as good. He saw the gentle hills of Staten Island, and that made him remember taking a ride on the ferry last summer with a girl. A fat man in a grey cap with a camera slung over his shoulder sat down in Jocelyn's deck chair, and that upset Killian. He wanted to tell the fellow to get out. Get off the earth.

  It was her earth. She came out on deck in a black suit with a collar of silver fox that brushed her pale face, a black hat with a veil across her eyes. She was a princess, shrinking a little from contact with other people, aloof, almost frightened.

  “Jocko?”

  “All packed, dear?” he asked. “Everything under control?”

  “I haven't any money for tips,” she said. “All my money was in my little silver evening bag; and that went overboard.”

  “Sit down, and I'll get you some money.” He went to the Purser's office and got a couple of traveler's checks cashed.

  “You pay them, Jocko,” she said. “I never know how much to give.”

  “Steward, stewardess, table steward—anyone else, dear?”

  “I don't know, Jocko. The deck steward? He's done things.”

  Nobody came to talk to her. When he returned after distributing largesse, she still sat there alone. “How about your passport, Jocelyn? And your landing card?”

  “I don't know,” she said.

  “You can't land without your card.”

  “Chauverney will do something about it,” she said.

  He got her to look in her purse, and then in her pockets, and she found the card. “Do you feel all right?” he asked, troubled.

  “I hate to go ashore,” she said. “I'm frightened.”

  He sat down on the footrest of her chair; he lit a cigarette for her and tried to make her talk. Nothing she did, or said, was irritating to him. He had never before been patient with anyone, but for her he had a patience without limit. “Nothing to be afraid of,” he told her.

  “I don't want to go to the Bells',” she said.

  “Don't then.”

  “I have to,” she said. “Please, Jocko, don't ask me about it. I have to go, Jocko. I wish I'd never told you anything about myself.”

  “What you told me doesn't matter.”

  She gave him a veiled, furtive glance. “I haven't had a drink for five days,” she said. “I hope I'll never take another.”

  You wouldn't, he thought, if you had someone to look after you. A crazy kid, drifting around, lost and lonely. Wasting her life, throwing away her youth, her beauty, all the bewildered gentleness of her heart. If there were someone to help her...

  The people at the rail were beginning to wave at friends they saw, or thought they saw, on the pier.

  “Any of your family coming to meet you, Jocelyn?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered. “They don't know I'm on this ship. If they knew, they'd meet me, all right. With their hard-luck stories. They'd want money.”

  “Have you any money?”

  “Enough,” she said, and took his hand. “Jocko, don't go away! Not yet! Wait till I get back on earth.”

  “I'm going along with you.”

  They waited until the first eager crowd had gone ashore; then they rose, without speaking, without looking at each other. She went down the gangplank first. A woman came up to her and drew her aside, and Killian went to wait for his luggage. He did not look in Jocelyn's direction. I don't want to see the Bells, he thought. They're rich. Probably Jocelyn's rich. And I'm feeling very poor, just now. My deah Jocelyn, who is this impossible young man? A mere clerk. A fortune hunter. I have nothing to declare. That's symbolic. C'est la vie. La vida. Vida es sueno. Well, if life is a dream, it's not a peaceful one.

  “Mr. Killian?” said a voice. “I'm Harriet Lamb.” That's nice, thought Killian. Only who is Harriet Lamb? A darn cross-looking lamb you are, if you ask me. A tall girl, sunburnt to a biscuit colour, with sandy brows straight across her face, and half-closed eyes, and a straight, wide mouth; sandy hair, curly and short, with two points at the temples like little horns. No hat, no coat, no glov
es—just standing there in a blue cotton dress.

  “We're ready,” she said. “If you'll come along.”

  “I'm sorry,” Killian explained, “but I'll have to clear my baggage.”

  “The chauffeur will do that. Give me your keys and that thing—that slip—whatever you call it.”

  “Do you belong to the Bells?” he asked.

  “Yes. Of course,” she said, and held out her hand.

  You want the keys, he thought. You're a bully. A rich vixen. He took her outstretched hand and shook it. “Very nice to see you, Miss Lamb,” he said, earnestly.

  Her eyes got a little narrower. “If you'll hand over your keys,” she said, “we needn't waste any more time. The others are waiting.”

  He gave her his key ring, and she handed it to the chauffeur in uniform who hovered near her. “This way,” she said, and set off, walking fast, toward the little group waiting for her: Jocelyn, and Elly, and Chauverney. “Ready?” she asked.

  “I'll see you later,” said Chauverney, smiling at everyone.

  “This way!” said Harriet Lamb again. She herded them into an elevator and down to the street, where a very superior open car waited. “Mr. Killian, will you sit in front with me?” she said.

  She set off, driving adroitly through the traffic, and Killian looked sidelong at her. She's handsome, he thought. In her way. Her features were a little sharp, and her underlip a little outthrust; and that, combined with her narrowed eyes, gave her a dogged and even menacing look. But, just the same, she was handsome, and finely put together—nice spaces, strong lines, good wrists. And who may you be, Miss Lamb? What's a Lamb doing among Bells?

  What am I doing among Bells? I don't even know where I'm going. Long Island, Chauverney said. I'm just going along with Jocelyn. As if I couldn't help myself. And maybe I can't. That's love, isn't it? To get caught in a current, and dragged along. And drowned?