Poet's Pub

by Eric Linklater

  “His own anxiety,” she said, “was clearly for Miss Benbow. The loss of his book was forgotten in the major claim which arose.”

  She had been tempted, but resisted the temptation, to stress the additional “human interest” dependent on Saturday’s affection for Joan. It would have made a pretty picture. And yet it was perhaps better to leave the gold ungilded, better to represent him as a poet who would leap to instant action at the sight of anyone’s distress.

  “To think that all this ’appened ’ere!” said Veronica when she had read as far.

  “That there Nelly Bly!” Maria commented. “Fancy ’er in the ’eadlines. An’ calling ’er pretty too.”

  “Well, so she is,” said Herbert. “I always told you that, and clever, ever since I first seen ’er.”

  “Lot you know about it! Anyway, I’m glad it isn’t my motor-car she’s gone off in. ’Er ladyship’ll never see it again, I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “What I can’t understand,” said George, “is why a man like the guv’nor wants to write poetry.”

  “’E’ll make money by it now,” said Bill. “D’you see what Mr. Solomon Something-or-other says?” And he pointed to a subjacent paragraph which read:

  “Mr. Solomon Pfennig, the managing director of Messrs. Pfennig and Fpunck, the well-known publishers, said in an interview last night: ‘Mr. Keith is the author of two volumes of poetry, both of which have been published by my firm. In my opinion Mr. Keith is one of the most promising poets in England, and I am surprised that his merit has not been more generally recognized. It is news to me, I confess, that his reputation in America is so high that a book-collector should run the risk of imprisonment to secure an unpublished manuscript of his. But American bibliophiles are very enterprising, and there is in the United States a genuine enthusiasm for high-class poetry. I have been eagerly looking forward to Mr. Keith’s new work, and there was little doubt in my mind but that it would win the favour of critics and public alike. I can safely promise that this, his third volume, will be published as soon as the manuscript so romantically misappropriated has been recovered. And I venture to prophesy a very large sale for it.’”

  “’E’ll make thousands of pounds,” said Bill. “Thousands of pounds out of poetry!”

  “And there’s another piece about ’im on the opposite page,” said Veronica excitedly.

  There was indeed an editorial paragraph—following a leading article entitled “More Cruisers and Less Cringing!”—to which George gave his attention. But it was not very interesting. He read a few lines:

  “Not since the discovery of the lost books of Livy was announced—erroneously, as it was subsequently found—has the public interest been so dramatically pointed to a work of literature, ancient or modern, as it is to-day to Mr. Keith’s new and unpublished poem.…”

  And then he said, “Pieces written on that page don’t count much. It’s only journalists who’ve got too old to go and look a fire in the face that write those pieces. Or else very young journalists, practising.”

  “It’s funny there isn’t nothing about ’Olly,” said Herbert.

  “He ’adn’t nothing to do with it,” said George.

  “Well, ’e’s disappeared, and that’s just what the others did.”

  “An’ the professor with ’im,” Veronica added.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve made a suicide pact,” Maria suggested hopefully.

  O’Higgins, who had read steadily on, began to laugh happily. His face grew dark red and his stomach shook.

  “Turn over,” he ordered, “there’s the best bit of the lot on the other side.”

  “Bodies?” whispered Maria.

  “You and your bodies! No! But the old woman—Lady Gawd ’elp us—as put ’er old man in quod.”

  “Go on!” said George.

  “You look and see,” said O’Higgins.

  The papers rustled as they were hurriedly turned about.

  “Right at the top,” said O’Higgins. “There!”

  “Scotland Yard at once became active on hearing Lady Mercy Cotton’s story. She was able to give them the number of her son’s motor-car in which Wesson is said to have escaped, and this was broadcast to police stations all over the country. Between seven and eight o’clock it was reported from King’s Lynn that a car which answered to the description issued had been stopped, and its driver taken into custody. The driver protested vigorously against his arrest and asserted that he was Mr. Sewald Cotton of Cotton’s Breweries. After being questioned and retained in custody for some time he succeeded in establishing his identity as such, the friends whom he had been visiting having been asked to come to the police-station. He was at once released. Police enquiries elicited from Lady Mercy Cotton the admission that she had made an unfortunate mistake when giving the number of her son’s motor-car. Both he and his father, she said, had Bentleys, and in her natural excitement she had evidently remembered the number of the wrong one. The police are still confident that the wanted car will soon be found.”

  “Gawd,” said Bill, “I’d ’ave given a week’s pay to ’ave seen him.”

  A guffaw, a snigger, a giggle, and hoarse laughter declared their enjoyment of Mr. Cotton’s predicament. “Well, I never!” they said. “Fancy that old Father Christmas in quod! Now that’s what I call a good ’un.”

  “I’d ’ave liked it better if it ’ad been that there Nelly Bly,” said Maria.

  “Chuck it, M’ria!” they said. “There’s nothing wrong with ’er except what’s in your nasty mind.”

  Maria sniffed, dissenting.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Nelly had slept very comfortably in a house which advertised by a placard on the gate, “Teas, Bed-Sitting-room”; ambiguously qualify them as “Moderate.” She said afterwards that the house was on the outskirts of St. Helens, which may have been true, and that she chose it for cheapness and because she was too tired to drive any further. There was a garage fairly near where she left the Isotta before asking for a night’s lodging; judging that so expensive a car was not the appropriate vehicle for the occupant of a moderate bed-sitting-room. She left the garage wearing Lady Mercy’s raincoat and carrying Lady Mercy’s attaché case, which the Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism and Saturday’s portfolio insufficiently ballasted. Her prospective landlady readily accepted her story, in which the Isotta—safely out of sight—was re-christened Ford and Nelly became a lonely tourist. The neighbourhood, said the landlady, was attracting an increasing number of visitors.

  Nelly slept too long and woke with an uncomfortable feeling that the day had got ahead of her. She dressed hurriedly, reassuring herself with the thought that Liverpool was not very far away, that Wesson’s ship did not sail till two o’clock, and that her plan was to wait on the quay and watch for him among the passengers going aboard whatever ship might be sailing for America that day. When she had paid for her bed and breakfast, for the Isotta’s accommodation and for some more petrol, she had one-and-threepence left.

  She had been in Liverpool before and knew her way to the proper docks. It was a quarter to twelve when she came in sight of the Customs sheds, and between them a glint of water, and over their roofs thin masts, red and black funnels, and a slow spouting smoke.

  She stopped and spoke confidently to a policeman, saying, “There’s an Atlantic liner leaving to-day, I think, but I forget its name.”

  “The Corybantic’s sailing at twelve,” said the policeman. “There she is, just down there.”

  “At twelve!” said Nelly, “I thought it was at two.”

  “Twelve o’clock’s her time,” said the policeman.

  And then she remembered, while hurriedly backing her car into a space among others that stood beside a tall wooden paling. Two o’clock was the hour at which the Glasgow ship was to sail. But Wesson hadn’t gone to Glasgow. He had come here. Obviously she had no time to lose.

  Bare-headed—for one-and-threepence had not been eno
ugh to buy a hat—and again wearing Lady Mercy’s raincoat and carrying Lady Mercy’s attaché case, she ran to a door in the wooden paling. Another policeman stood there.

  “Sailing on the Corybantic?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” said Nelly.

  “Then you can’t get in without a pass.”

  “Press,” said Nelly impatiently; and showed her card with its Daily Day inscription.

  The policeman stood aside.

  The quay beside the towering black flank of the liner was almost empty. Visitors had left the ship and were grouped on an upper platform. Passengers lined the shoreward side of the promenade deck. Wesson was probably among them. A few men stood about the quay and hoarsely responded to an occasional command. There was that look of expectancy in the scene, that stripped appearance of imminent action, which immediately precedes the sailing of an important vessel. Two gangways protruded from immense vacancies in the hull. Men stood beside them, waiting for the order to haul them in.

  Nelly ran to the nearer one.

  “Passenger?” asked an official of some kind.

  “No,” she said, “but I must go aboard. I’m a press representative.” And she showed her card.

  “No good,” said the official, “all visitors have gone ashore.”

  Nelly did not stay to argue. Her brain worked quickly, and shrugging her shoulders with the air of one casually disappointed, she turned away. The Customs shed was momentarily empty. In it she took off Lady Mercy’s raincoat, pulled from one of its pockets the discarded apron of her uniform, and tied it round her waist. Then she ran to the other end of the shed and out of it to the farther gangway.

  She tried to go aboard as if such were her right—and all the time she was conscious of ropes waiting to be cast off, of the liner straining to go—but again an official stopped her.

  “Passenger?” he asked.

  “Of course I’m a passenger,” she snapped.

  “Passport? Ticket?” He queried.

  “Do you think I carry them round my neck? I’ve showed them to you once.”

  “How do I know that?”

  Wesson—Wesson—Wesson, her brain was secretly repeating, but aloud she said with anger that there was no need to simulate, “I’m Lady Cotton’s maid. Ever heard of Lady Cotton? She’s up there now, watching you. She sent me ashore a minute ago—I went down the other gangway—to look for her attaché case which she’d left in the shed over there. Now will you let me pass?”

  “Go on,” said the man, “and tell her to get a brunette the next time.”

  The lower deck on to which the gangway led was dark and almost deserted. A couple of stewards looked curiously at her. With desperate feet Nelly raced up stairs, broad shallow stairs, endless stairs, stairs that curved and straightened again and split into two, branching either way. She turned to the right and faced a great embrasure that showed her the river, blue-grey and sparkling, a tug, a ferry, and in the distance like a smoky dry-point the Birkenhead shore. This was the wrong side. There were no people here.

  She ran to the other, where passengers stood at the rail looking at the cherished land and the friends they were about to leave. A long row of backs confronted her, a double row, a confused uneven row of men’s backs and women’s backs, some of them bending, some straight, square shoulders and round shoulders, obtrusive rumps and rumps recessive, red necks, white necks, no necks at all; bare heads and hats, tweed hats, felt hats and women’s cloche hats, hair ruffled by the wind, bald heads, square heads, shingled, bingled, bob-tailed heads.… How was she to find Wesson here? She had about five minutes to discover him, and she could not remember what the back of his head was like.

  Feverishly she looked for his among the other occupants, sought his nape in the host of napes, and eagerly scrutinized croup and crupper. Where hope arose, as from an apparently familiar scruff, or a counter that might be his, she pressed forward to peer round the angle of a jaw, the corner of a brow, for proof in the construction of the face. In this way she saw pale, proud, and pimply faces; a happy face and a perfectly horrid face; family faces and I’m-here-all-by-myself faces; but never the face of Mr. Wesson.

  Nelly reached the end of the line.

  She was in a fine breathless state of determination. A vivid petal flared on either cheek and her eyes sparkled. There was a lounge, she remembered, and people sitting in the lounge; children, husbands, dowagers, and young men who looked like somebody’s nephews. These glanced appreciatively at Nelly as she swept by with her keen Diana look and her red wind-tossed hair and her apple-green dress and her crumpled apron.

  Out of the lounge a smoking-room opened; out of the smoking-room, a music-room, out of the music-room a library; and out of the library a verandah café. In all of them people were sitting; reading, talking, counting their children, or merely sitting. At least a dozen men had Actæon’s eyes for the red-haired Diana who hunted through them. But Wesson was not among them.

  A deep shuddering blast shook the vessel and everywhere people put vain hands to their ears to shut out the intolerable noise. But Nelly stamped her foot and scarcely heard it.

  “Where is the purser’s office?” she shouted to a convenient young man.

  “Straight down there and turn to your left,” he shouted back.

  She ran down stairs again, broad shallow stairs, two at a time. An impenetrable crowd of people stood round the office. With a minute or so to spare it was useless to wait for the purser.

  “Where can I find the head steward?” she asked an under-steward.

  He looked at Nelly with interest and said, “I can’t just say for the moment, but if we were to walk along this way I shouldn’t be surprised if we saw him about somewhere.”

  They walked along a seemingly endless corridor with narrow doors on either side. Cabin trunks obstructed it. Every few yards an electrically-lighted sign drew attention to the recurrent needs of gentlemen aboard ship. Nelly tried to increase their pace but the steward was inclined to loiter and showed a too-friendly curiosity. Underfoot, Nelly felt a throbbing, the vague and immense stirring of hidden power. The ship was coming to life. Its heart was beating.

  With a sudden cry Nelly darted from the steward, swerved round a cabin trunk, and sped swiftly down the narrow way. She had just seen at a cross-roads in the corridor a figure which looked like Wesson. It had disappeared almost as soon as she caught sight of it. Her heart pounded as she ran.

  She turned a corner. The figure was in sight, turning another. It did look like Wesson. She followed with painfully growing excitement.

  On still more stairs she caught her man by the sleeve. He turned a dull and unfamiliar face. He had bushy eyebrows and a pale round polished wart beside his nose. He appeared unfriendly.

  “I’m sorry. I apologize. I’ve made a mistake,” said Nelly, and felt hollow and despairing. She gasped for breath, swallowed two or three times, and fumbled for a handkerchief. But she had no handkerchief. Nothing more comforting than the Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, and the manuscript of “Tellus Will Proceed.”

  The man with the shining wart grunted and left her.

  For a moment or two Nelly waited on the companion-way, her head drooping, leaning on the broad banister, dejected and utterly at a loss. Another steward—there were hundreds of them, it seemed— stopped in passing and said cheerfully, “Not sick already, are you?”

  The throbbing of the ship had grown louder. Nelly stared blankly at the steward and without answering him ran on deck.

  On the one side stretched grey-blue water, sun-flecked; small black craft stood under their smoke and behind them, like a dusty dry-point, was the shore. On the other side was more water, grey-green, and a nearer shore. The Corybantic had gone to sea.

  “There’s no need to be frightened,” said Nelly to herself but half-aloud. “There’s not the slightest occasion for fear. I’m doing my duty. Wesson must be aboard somewhere. I’ll catch him before we reach America. They can’t do anythin
g to me. I’m perfectly sure they can’t. I’m not a stowaway. They can’t.… I’ll send a wireless message to the Daily Day and to Keith and Quentin. There’s no need to be afraid. Not a bit. But I wish I had a handkerchief.”

  A kindly man, seeing her distress and her attractive features, said to her, “Is anything the matter? Can I help you?”

  “Tell me this,” said Nelly, “when do we arrive in New York?”

  “New York!” exclaimed the kindly man. “Why, we’re going to Madeira!”

  “Where?”

  “To Madeira. On a fourteen-day cruise. Didn’t your mistress tell you?”

  “No. Did yours?” said Nelly wildly. “Oh, for God’s sake take me to the captain!”

  CHAPTER XXIX

  Saturday woke to see through his window a blue sky over which white clouds were swiftly sailing. He stretched his arms upwards and his toes to the very foot of the bed. Oh, the luxury of slowly waking to a fine day and stretching every single joint under soft sheets! Blissfully he considered the ceiling, and between that virgin whiteness and the feather-smoothness of his bed he began to think of Joan.

  About the same time Joan also woke and saw through her window another section of the same blue sky and some almost identical clouds. Blissfully she stretched her arms and blissfully her legs; more delicately than a man would do it but, it is probable, with as much satisfaction. Then she curled herself up very neatly and something like a shrimp, and thought about Saturday.

  A little before this Quentin had wakened. There was blue sky beyond his window too, but he took no heed of it. Nor did he crack his several joints and luxuriate in smoothness and ease. He sat up immediately and hugged his knees and frowned at the nether bed-end. For he was thinking about Nelly, who was far away and under another sky. Quentin had dreamed a sinister dream of the Red Square in Moscow.

  None of them thought about Mr. Wesson, who had been awake for several hours. Even more than the defeat of all his schemes did his present confinement irk him, for like most Americans he was accustomed to rising at an hour when all but the most unfortunate classes in England are still comfortably asleep. And so he walked up and down his room in a very bad temper. He could not walk far, for the turret room was small. And he had no clothes to put on. Nor a razor. Nor a toothbrush. Nothing indeed but very old pyjamas and a magnificent view from his lofty window. But for the present he was not interested in scenery. He wanted to get dressed.