by Nevil Shute
“Please, Mr. Stevenson,” she said—“oh, I mean, Commander Stevenson—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean——” She abandoned that sentence and started again. “I don’t quite understand what’s been happening,” she said, a little pitifully.
I smiled. “I know you don’t,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it when we get home. We’ll get along now and”—I searched my brain for words of feminine comfort—“you can have a cup of tea and a bit of cake, and lie down for a bit if you want to. Come on.” I stared around. “Got all your things?”
She got up and picked her bag up from the table. “There’s one thing you may as well know right away,” I said. “Your brother’s all right. He wasn’t in that lorry when it got burnt up.”
She stared at me. “Did he go to Hammersmith?” Fedden was there, all ears, and I said hurriedly: “That’s enough about that.”
I spoke sharply, I suppose, because she started crying in real earnest then. I was too much occupied in getting her out of the building before she put her foot in it again to pay much heed to that. I got her out and into the Bentley in double quick time, and she sat there crying by my side as we slid out of the town. A policeman on point duty looked curiously at us as we swept past, and I wondered if he thought I was abducting her. If I were, I reflected, it was from the police.
She dried up after a mile or two, but all that drive we never spoke a word. I thought it best to leave her to herself, and so we went along in silence all the way. We got back to the house at about half-past twelve. I left the car standing on the drive and took her through into the library, sat her down in a chair, reached out for the telephone and put in a trunk call to Jenkinson. Then I turned to her.
“Now,” I said, “what are you going to have? Cup of tea? Lunch will be ready in about three-quarters of an hour.”
She shook her head miserably. “Please, I don’t want anything.”
I stood there looking down at her, and thought that I had never seen a girl less likely to enjoy her lunch than this one. I rang the bell, and told Rogers to get her a cup of Bovril and some toast. It was the best thing I could think of. “You needn’t have it if you don’t want it when it comes,” I said. “You can just sniff at it and then go upstairs and lie down if you want to.”
She smiled up at me weakly. “You’re ever so kind to me.” And then she said: “I don’t understand a bit what happened over there.”
“No,” I said, “I don’t suppose you do.” I paused for a minute, and lit a cigarette. “It’s a very long story and I’m not going to tell you now—not all of it. I’ll tell you after dinner to-night, when you’ve had a rest. But the bit you want to know now is this.”
I paused, and looked at her reflectively. “Those men over there were police officers,” I said. “Did you know that?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know who they were.”
“Well,” I said, “you know now. They were playing a trick on you. They wanted to find out something about your brother.”
She stared at me, her brows wrinkled in perplexity. “They said he’d had an accident.”
I shook my head. “Not him. He wasn’t in that lorry when it got burnt up—he’s very much alive somewhere. They just told you that for a trick, so that you would tell them everything you knew about him. You would have done, wouldn’t you?”
She stared at me, wide-eyed. “Of course I would.” And then she said: “What did they want to know about him for? Has he done anything wrong?”
I shook my head. “I’ll tell you this evening,” I replied. “It’s nothing very bad. He’s got himself mixed up in a much bigger business. But you don’t want to worry about that. It’s going to be all right.”
Her Bovril came then, and my trunk call. I picked up the telephone and spoke to Jenkinson in London.
“Look here,” I said, “I’ve got myself into a bit of a mess down here, I’m afraid, with the police. Yes; no, not a motoring offence—something rather more serious than that. I’ve got a C.I.D. man from Scotland Yard down here sitting on my doorstep waiting for a statement. Yes. Do you think you could slip down to-night? One of your juniors would do if you can’t, but I’d very much rather you came if you can, old boy. If it’s not terribly inconvenient. That’s really very decent of you. Well, you can catch the 5.30—gets to Exeter at 8.45. That’s the easiest way. To-night, that is. Yes. I’ll have the car there, at Exeter, at 8.45. Right you are. See you then. Good-bye.”
I hung up the receiver. “That’s your solicitor,” I said. “He’s coming down to-night.”
She wrinkled her brows. “Is that what you were speaking about over there?” she asked. “From London?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Oh——” And then she said: “Please, I don’t think you quite understand——” She came to an end there, and I was puzzled; I couldn’t make out what she was driving at. “Couldn’t I have somebody from here?”
I stared at her. “But this is one of the best men in the country—much better than anyone in a little town like this. He’ll have these policemen absolutely taped. He handles all my work.”
“I know——” She hesitated. “But coming all down from London like that. You see, I haven’t got very much money.” She looked up at me appealingly. “You do understand, don’t you?”
I was silent for a minute. When I spoke, I said: “My dear, he’s coming down for me. I didn’t mean it to cost you anything at all.”
She was troubled. “I don’t know what to say. It’s bound to cost a terrible lot, coming all that way.”
I smiled, a little ironically. “Not more than I can afford,” I said. She had finished her toast and Bovril. “Now look here, you’d better go upstairs and tidy yourself. You’d like some lunch, wouldn’t you?”
She shook her head.
“All right,” I said. “Go and lie down for a bit, or have a bath, or anything you like.” She smiled. “I’ve got to go down to my office after lunch, but I’ll be back about half-past four and we’ll have tea in here. In the meantime, you can explore the place. You can go anywhere you like, you know,” and I told her roughly the boundaries of my land. “Only don’t go bathing till I show you where to go. The tide runs out a bit fast round this point.”
She nodded obediently, and went upstairs. I went in and ate my lunch alone, and then took the car and went down to the yard. I spent the afternoon with Tillotson in the office, getting the hang of what had happened in my absence in the north. I had a ketch docking for a refit that day on the evening flood, the Sweet Anna, and I should have stayed to see her in. I usually do. But that afternoon I broke my rule and left the ship to Tillotson, and I went back to Sixpence in my house.
I found her in the model room when I got back. I saw her as I passed into the hall. She was sitting quietly on the window-seat gazing out through the open window over the sunlit garden to the deep blue sea. I don’t know what I had expected to find her doing, but I was surprised. She seemed to be doing nothing at all but sit there looking out over the harbour mouth. In an idle moment I might have sat like that myself.
She got up when I came in. “I’ve been looking at the little ships,” she told me. “They are lovely, aren’t they?”
I turned with her and looked at them. This room is a hobby for me, a room of reminiscences. One or two of the models are historical, the caravel and the fifteenth-century pinnace, but most of them are little vessels of my own, ships that I have owned or sailed in in my time, that I keep for remembrance and as pointers of experience. At the moment there are fourteen in the little fleet; all sail except the trawler, Martin Dodd.
Rogers brought tea to us in there and I moved about the room with Mollie, bread and butter in hand, talking to her about my little ships. She was interested and asked a lot of questions, and so we went round the room till finally we brought up at the Jane Ellen.
Sometimes I have thought that it would be better if I didn’t keep that model, and I have considered sending it to some museum.
But there it is still, and she paused beside it. “What are those things on the deck?” she asked. “Are they guns?”
I nodded. “Those three are guns, and those two there are depth-charge throwers. That’s a vessel I was in in the war.”
She looked up at me, puzzled. I noticed that she had done something to her eyelashes. They were no longer waxed together in little groups, but lay long and soft upon her cheek. I wondered if that was because she had been crying, that they had come unstuck. “But it’s a sailing ship,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “we used them in the war a bit.” I paused. “I wasn’t in her very long.”
I turned away and went back to the tea, and asked how she had spent the afternoon. She said, a little diffidently, that she hadn’t been outside—“it was all so lovely.” I took her out on to the terrace and showed her the lie of the hills and of the sea, and then we went down into the garden in the sun.
We spent all evening strolling round the place. Counting the Melrose land I have about three hundred acres now, but most of that is waste stuff—cliff and bracken. In the made gardens I found that she knew quite a lot about flowers and shrubs—rather more than I do, in fact. She had had a little garden of her own in Preston when she was living at home as a child. I took her through the hot-houses, but I don’t think she cared much for those; she peered uncomprehendingly into the empty stalls of the stables. She was delighted with the fuzzy.
We call it the fuzzy, but I don’t know if that’s the proper name for it. It’s the coppice that fills the little ravine that runs down to my bathing beach. A stream runs down the middle of it in little waterfalls and it’s a great place for wild flowers—bluebells and primroses, and all that sort of thing. The path goes winding down the middle of it, and now and then as you go down to the beach you get a good view of the sea at the entrance. There is a beach at one of the corners, and we paused by that.
In the Range Sweet Anna lay at anchor, waiting for the ebb to slacken before going in. The wind was light, and she lay at anchor with both main and mizzen set, and swaying gently in the roll. As we watched the main came slowly down in great folds upon the deck; I stood and watched the hands gathering it up.
Mollie stirred beside me. “What’s that ship?” she asked. “Doesn’t she look lovely there?”
They were lashing the gaff down on the boom. “All ships are lovely,” I said, without taking my eyes from her. “That’s one of mine.”
“Oh——” she said. And then she said: “What’s she doing out there?”
I glanced down at her. “Waiting for the tug,” I said. “It should be here any minute now. We’ll wait and see.”
We sat down on the beach in the sun. “She’s a cargo ship, isn’t she?” she asked. “Goods, and that?”
I nodded. “She hasn’t got anything in her now. She’s just come up from Falmouth in ballast. She’s come in to refit.”
The Trojan came bustling into sight down the harbour, shoving a bow wave away from her broad bows. I saw her with pleasure as I always do; that tug is one of my extravagances. I bought her two years ago after a quarrel with the harbour tug-master and, buying a tug, I saw that I got a good one. Twin-screw, driven by a couple of heavy oil engines, each of about three hundred horse-power, she’s a good seaworthy rough-weather boat; I’d rather go to sea in her than in our motor lifeboat any day. For my work, of course, she is too good. Too powerful, and more expensive than she need have been. That’s probably why I’m fond of her.
She ranged up alongside Sweet Anna in the calm sea, and they began to manhandle a hawser to her. Mollie turned to me. “What’s that they’re doing now?” she asked.
“Passing the tow-rope.” I saw them man the windlass, and across the harbour mouth I heard the clanking of the pawls and the groaning of the chain. “They’re getting up anchor now.”
They broke it out and we watched the Trojan forge ahead, watched the foam gathering at her stern as she put on power, watched Sweet Anna stir and move ahead. They catted her anchor as she went, and we sat there watching tug and vessel till they passed from sight behind the point.
“Oh … ” said Mollie. “Was she really yours?”
I smiled. “She was. We’ll go and have a look at her to-morrow, if you like.”
In the evening everything was very gold and blue. “Oh,” she said, “it must be lovely to have ships like that.”
We went on down to the beach; there was a great calm over everything that night, and a faint easterly wind. I showed her the little hut that she could bathe from when she liked, and showed her the current running past the Checkstone buoy. “We’ll come down and bathe to-morrow, if it’s fine,” I said. “I don’t know if we’ll get Jenkinson to come in.”
We walked slowly back up through the wood towards the house. In the fuzzy there were thrushes calling in the evening, and high above our heads the seagulls swept along the cliff against a deep blue sky. We went up through the garden to the house, and stopped on the terrace to pick a few roses for her room.
It was getting on for dinner-time when we went in. She paused for a moment at the window leading into the library and turned to me. “It has been lovely going round like this, just sort of quietly,” she said. She stood looking out over the harbour mouth. “I do think it’s beautiful here.”
I turned into the house. “Let’s get a vase to put these roses in.”
She went and fetched one from her room, and I stood by the window and watched her while she pottered about arranging the flowers, clipping the stalks and talking about little trivial things. I could have given her nothing that pleased her more at the moment than those flowers for her bedroom, flowers that she had picked herself. I stood there listening to her talk and wondering, a little grimly, if I should ever learn to please a girl except by accident. It was time to dress for dinner, then, and she carried them carefully upstairs with her, and made me come into her room to see how nice they looked.
I didn’t stay there long. She had filled that bedroom with her personality; in some subtle way it had become peculiarly her own. I left her there and went on to my own room to dress. I must have taken rather longer than usual that night because she was down first; I found her in the hall examining the player-piano there.
I spoke a word or two to her, and she looked up at me. “Do you think I might play on it sometimes?” She looked doubtful. “I mean, when you’re at the office, or like that.”
I smiled. “Play on it any time you like,” I said. “I’ll show you where the rolls are kept.”
She followed me to the cupboard. “I didn’t mean that way,” she murmured. “I meant really play it. It does play properly as well, doesn’t it?”
I turned to her in surprise. “Oh, yes. Do you play much?”
She shook her head. “I never had more than a few lessons. But I do love a piano.”
She dropped her hands on to the keys and touched a chord. “Carry on,” I said.
She moved away hurriedly. “Oh, I couldn’t now. I don’t know very many pieces.”
She was always giving me little surprises of that sort. We went into dinner. She was wearing a dark blue dancing-dress with a silver bodice; she had made herself look very pretty in it and I told her so. That set her smiling, and we dined merrily that night. I offered her Pommard, Barsac, or Château Yquem to drink, and found to my surprise that she knew something about wines. She said: “Could I have Barsac? I do like that. It’s a sort of sweet, like lemonade, isn’t it?” And so we had the Barsac that night.
Later we retired to sit in opposite corners of the chesterfield in the library, full of Barsac and roast duck and caramel pudding, and when Rogers had served our coffee and departed I told her everything I knew about her business. I told her how I had blundered into the affair when I had been as drunk as a lord, and how I had got what I deserved. And then I went on and told her the whole thing, how she had given me a cross-bearing on the matter on that first night in the Palais by speaking of her brother and his lorry; I
told her about Stenning and his tale of Rotterdam. Then I told her about the gun that Fedden had showed me, and how I had been with him to Scotland Yard. I didn’t hide anything from her; I told her how I had been sent to Leeds to get more information out of her, and how I had brought her down with me under false pretences to confront her with the lorry.
She listened to me for the most part in silence, now and again asking trivial little questions. I am not sure that she ever really understood the inwardness of the affair. Finally I came to the incidents of the morning, and explained to her how she had been tricked into giving evidence about her brother.
I came to an end, and we sat for a little time in silence; she didn’t seem to have anything much to say about it all. “I’m not very proud of my part in this affair,” I said at last.
She stared at me helplessly. “I don’t know what to say. You didn’t do anything wrong. Lots of the gentlemen could have been terribly nasty, but you weren’t.”
I smiled; her mind, I thought, was running in a groove. “In any case,” I said, “you needn’t worry much about this thing. Jenkinson’s a good man. I think you’ll find that Billy will come out of it all right.”
She didn’t seem to be much interested in him. Perhaps she had confidence in his ability to get himself out of any scrape he got himself into. “I don’t understand,” she said at last. “If you were on their side, why did you upset everything this morning like you did? They were terribly angry with you, weren’t they?”
I smiled, a little grimly. “I don’t know. Yes, I suppose they were.”
She wrinkled her brows. “I don’t see why you went against them like that.”
I was silent for a minute. “You can’t stand by and see a trick like that go on,” I said at last. “You might with a stranger, but not with somebody you know.”
She stared across at me with wonder in her eyes. “Oh,” she said softly. “You mean you did all that for me.…”
There was a long silence after she said that. Presently she leaned across to me. “Please,” she said simply, “I think I’d like to go to bed now, if I may. I’m so tired. You said it would be all right if I saw the lawyer in the morning, didn’t you?”
