The Song and the Sea

by Isobel Chace

  Charlotte agreed that it would. Monique, of course, took wines with her meals as a matter of course, but to her it had all the added charm of being a novelty. She was terribly lacking in sophistication, she supposed, but she had known other things and there was plenty of time.

  Monique eyed her beans with distaste.

  “The English will eat anything,” she said to no one in particular. “Are we reduced to this so early on?”

  No one paid any attention to her. Seamus ate all his food with an undivided concentration that defied light conversation and Nick was too busy looking at Charlotte.

  “You and Liam seem to have struck up quite a friendship,” he remarked at last. “How come?”

  Charlotte shrugged her shoulders.

  “I expect he likes my Irish, blood,” she replied easily.

  “He certainly doesn’t care for my French blood,” Monique put in acidly. “He does nothing but tell me old sailor superstitions about how unlucky it is to have females on a boat! That is, when he is not being rude about my work!”

  Charlotte chuckled.

  “Woman of stone!” she teased.

  But to her surprise Monique was not at all amused.

  “It is enough that I should have to put up with this terrible boat without having everyone sneering at my work!” she exclaimed. “I was stupid to come! I wish I was dead!”

  Charlotte saw how quickly Nick’s hand covered the French girl’s. His sympathy was unspoken, but it seemed to have the desired effect, for in a second Monique was smiling again and the storm had blown over.

  “I cannot eat any more beans,” She said. “I am going to bed. Bonne nuit, tous!”

  Seamus too got to his feet.

  “Am I expected to wash up?” he asked. “Or is that woman's work?”

  Charlotte smiled up at him.

  “I’ll do it—tonight,” she said.

  His smile was so like hers that she could have been looking in a mirror.

  “That’s what I hoped you’d say,” he told her.

  He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “Good night, my dear.” There was a slight catch in his voice that told her he was deeply moved in some way.

  Silently she kissed him back. She didn’t want to go to her cabin yet. The motion of the boat made her feel very peculiar, or could it possibly be the wine? And then when she was alone she was more apt to think of her mother, or, more truly, a ghost with her mother’s voice who sternly accused her of some kind of betrayal. She shivered suddenly.

  “Cold?” Nick asked. There was deep concern in his grey eyes, but there was nothing special in that! Hadn't he just been equally concerned for Monique?

  “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “Come and take a turn round the deck before bed,” he bade her, and because he had made it sound like an order she followed him meekly out into the night, welcoming the black velvet anonymity of the darkness.

  It was a godlike sensation to stand on the small bridge and to hear the sails flapping in the wind, the creaking of the stretched ropes and the rush of the sea against the prow, white and mysterious in the moonlight.

  Nick exchanged a few words with the helmsman and then he came and stood beside her.

  “Traherne said it all,” he said out of the darkness. “ ‘You will never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars.’ ”

  Charlotte turned quickly.

  “Oh, speak for yourself, Nicholas D’Abernon!” she flung at him over her shoulder. “You’ll need more than fine words and charm to—” she broke off, having had the wild sensation that he was just behind her ready to pounce, but when she looked he was exactly where he had been before.

  “To what?” he asked. His lazy interest made her realize how close she had been to falling under the spell of the night and the sea.

  “I’m going below to wash up,” she said with dignity. “You and Dad had your way, but you can’t make me like the sea.”

  “No,” he agreed, “we can’t make you do that. But be careful that the sea doesn’t steal your heart in spite of yourself. She’s like to prove a tougher mistress than your opera. The sea is real. If the tides and the winds are wrong you can’t alter them to suit your fancy—not as you altered that aria the other day because you found it too difficult!”

  “I did not!” she denied hotly. But even as she said the words she knew he was right. That was why she had suddenly been able to manage that passage. She had changed it to something that she could manage. She felt a burning anger against him that he should have noticed, but she was too honest not to admit her mistake.

  “I thought it was too easy! Why didn’t you tell me then? Was that why you didn’t ask for a song?” She deplored the hurt note that had somehow crept into her voice and smiled brilliantly into the darkness, completely forgetting that he wouldn’t be able to see her gallant effort.

  “No,” he said briefly. “That wasn’t the reason.” It didn’t admit any further questioning. At least he wasn’t being charming now. He was abrupt almost to rudeness.

  They stood in silence for a few minutes longer, and then Nick pushed his cap farther on to his head.

  “I’d better go and check with the watch,” he said. “See you in the morning.”

  And then she was alone, except for a small red glow that came and went in the darkness and told her that the helmsman was smoking.

  She washed the dishes in the small sink in the galley. A faint smell of Calor gas lingered in the air, but by pushing the door to and fro she managed to dispel most of it into the saloon where she hoped it would find its way up the companionway. She supposed someone should go and turn off the cylinders for the night, and with a sigh she went herself, taking the torch that she found hanging on a nail. The knobs were stiff and it needed all her strength to move them in the clockwise direction that the arrow directed. When she straightened up, her knees were trembling and the shivering had begun again. A faint feeling of nausea caught her unawares in abrupt warning.

  “I’m sea-sick,” she told herself in astonishment. It had never occurred to her that she would not be a good sailor.

  “What are you doing?” Nick’s voice asked her. She might have known that he would still be prowling around the decks.

  “Being sick,” she informed him without ornament. To her surprise he came and held her head for her, and she was unexpectedly grateful to him.

  “You’d better get to bed,” he told her. “It’s probably excitement. Take a Dramamine from the first aid chest and try to think about something else.”

  She staggered down the companionway without bothering to say good night and took the pill as he had directed her. Her cabin seemed a very long way away, and when she did reach it she found that the smell of curried beans and Calor gas had got there before her.

  “Excitement!” she exclaimed to herself with mounting indignation, and clambered into bed. Someone on watch rang three bells. It was just half-past nine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Odd snatches of conversation from the saloon came floating down the corridor to Charlotte’s cabin.

  “Be better to take her easily—”

  And an amused gasp from Monique, followed by: “I once knew an American woman who put chewed gum in her ears!”

  Charlotte struggled upright. She couldn’t believe her ears. She had heard many strange things since coming to Europe, but surely no one was mad enough to stuff their ears with chewing gum?

  She got cautiously to her feet and was relieved to discover that she felt better. She could smell coffee and bacon and eggs as clearly as if they had been in the cabin with her, and she wondered what time everyone else had got up. At least someone else had cooked breakfast, she thought with satisfaction, she hadn’t that hazard before her. She dressed quickly, marvelling at how much steadier the boat had become overnight, and went to join the others.

  “Sluggerbed!” Nick grinned at her as she en
tered the saloon. “Slept well?”

  “Very well,” she agreed. “It was the smell of breakfast that got me up. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I could smell it much better in my cabin than you can in here.”

  Seamus looked up from the serious business of buttering his toast.

  “Not so ridiculous,” he said. “The airstream on a boat always moves forward. You’ll find all the smells will collect with you.”

  Charlotte looked resigned.

  “I might have known it!” she sighed.

  Monique smiled.

  “It is true,” she said. “I have Nick’s aftershave lotion with me all morning!” She sniffed appreciatively. “What is it that you use, cheri?”

  Nick leaned forward.

  “A French lotion,” he told her confidently.

  Charlotte sat down beside her father. For an instant Monique looked really happy, she thought, and prettier too, for she had tied her hair neatly behind her head and one could see the pretty sweep to her neck and the fine set of her head much more clearly. She looked impatiently at Nick. Couldn’t he see what a few kind words from him did? A man with his experience didn’t need telling these things!

  “No bacon and eggs for you, Charlotte,” Nick ordered from across the table. “I put out some cold chicken for you, and go easy with the butter on your toast.”

  “But I don’t want chicken now!” she protested.

  He went into the galley and got it for her, plonking the plate down before her.

  “No fried food until we’re sure you’ve found your sea-legs,” he said firmly.

  “But why chicken?” she asked dismally.

  His eyes smiled directly into hers.

  “Because it’s one of the few things that’s reasonable on the return trip,” he informed her frankly.

  “Then I won’t eat anything at all,” she said with distaste.

  “But you must!” Monique insisted. “To eat sensibly, keep warm and busy, these are the only things to do. I know! I wanted to lie down and die the first time I sailed with Nick, but he cured me!”

  Charlotte picked up her knife and fork. It would be quite useless, she knew, to say that she was better. They were determined that she was to be initiated properly.

  “May I have some coffee?” she asked humbly.

  Only Nick saw the glint in her eyes, a faint glint of temper that she could not quite repress. He smiled.

  “I don’t see why not,” he drawled.

  The chicken had been cut some time and had hardened slightly at the edges. It still tasted good, though, and Charlotte was surprised to discover that she was hungry. The coffee was hot and tempting too, black as she liked it, without sugar and strong.

  “Peace?” Nick asked, as she put down her knife and fork.

  Reluctantly she found herself smiling.

  “Peace,” she agreed. “Tell me all about the lady who put chewing gum in her ears.”

  Monique laughed.

  “So,” she said, “it is more than smells that travel up that corridor? We were talking of diving—this girl was an American and she always blocked her ears with gum.”

  “A dangerous practise, I think,” Nick put in. “If you’re going down to any depth at all you’d build up tremendous pressure in the middle ear. Don’t you agree, Seamus?”

  Seamus came to with a start.

  “Never tried it,” he said. His eyes went from one girl to the other, looking slightly bewildered. “I think I’ll go up on deck,” he said. “Anyone coming?”

  Monique looked down at her finger-nails.

  “Take your daughter,” she said. “Nick and I are going to talk stones and plants, and other things—perhaps.” Her voice was full of significance, and Charlotte rose sharply to her feet.

  “Of course I’ll come, Dad,” she said warmly. “I want you to show me how to do all sorts of things. I’m tired of being made to feel a fool!”

  And she had no intention of playing gooseberry, she added angrily to herself.

  She followed, her father up the companionway into the sunshine above, but not before she had heard Nick say to Monique:

  “Well, you got rid of them, if that was what you wanted. Where do we go from here?”

  As if he didn’t know.

  After a few days at sea they began to fall into a natural routine and Charlotte began to learn some of the things that were expected of her as secretary. Nick was methodical about his work, she discovered. He read everything he could about the area he had chosen to explore, and this meant an abundance of notes for future reference—notes that he expected Charlotte to type out and keep. Her father too was busy preparing his tanks for specimens, making sure that his surgical instruments were complete and, when he had time, explaining the basic things he was interested in.

  “Fish,” he would say, “have more primitive brains even than birds. I want to make a particular study of their eyes. One has to remember that they see two complete pictures all the time and the left-hand side of the brain doesn’t always know what the right side is seeing, if you follow me?”

  Charlotte would listen entranced as he explained experiments that had already been carried out in this field and what he meant to do. Breeding habits were the most important thing, of course, for on those depended the replenishing of the seas. Mankind is still terribly ignorant about fish.

  Nick’s interests lay in sea weeds and plankton.

  “One storm can do an immense amount of damage,” he told her. “I remember an old fisherman in Norfolk telling me about a storm in the eighteen-seventies that ruined the local breeding grounds. They haven’t recovered yet.”

  Charlotte began to dream about fish.

  Monique remained aloof from these discussions. The only times she came to life were when they went ashore for supplies. With a highly-colored handkerchief tied round her head and wearing an ice-blue raincoat she would issue out of her cabin, leaving behind her a clutter of cosmetic bottles and used tissues that bore silent witness to the care she had taken with her face.

  Usually she went ashore with Seamus. Charlotte thought Nick was pretty wily. He had his fun with the French girl, but he gave nothing away. She wondered how Monique could stand it. You couldn’t get away from a person, living with them on a boat. She could only be thankful that she wasn’t in love with Nick! To be forewarned was to be fore-armed!

  Charlotte was glad when they reached the Mediterranean. Nick was going to try out the equipment and she was longing to see what the work entailed. As long as no one suggested that she herself should go down into the depths, she was quite happy to find out what everyone else was doing.

  The Admiralty charts were eagerly consulted. Charlotte gazed with unseeing eyes at the white maps covered with little figures, trying in vain to make it all add up to some part of the sea that the yacht was sailing over. Seamus and Nick stared down at it with eager eyes.

  “There!” her father suggested, his blunt finger landing on a little group of islands some thirty-five miles north of Tunisia. “La Galite! Perhaps we could see some of Cousteau’s Monk seals.”

  His enthusiasm was catching and everyone looked excitedly at Nick.

  “Okay.” he said at last, his eyes still thoughtfully on the charts. “That’s where we’ll go.” He grinned suddenly, his whole face lighting up. “It’ll be fun seeing Charlotte among the seals!”

  They anchored some little distance off the islands and lowered the two tenders into the water. Charlotte got into one of them and Liam lowered the equipment down to her. The cylinders were unbelievably heavy and she could hardly believe that men could really dress themselves as pack-horses in such a way and survive.

  With nimble agility, she hoisted herself back on board the Sea Fever and went down to her cabin to change into her swimming things. She had brought two swimming-suits with her; one a regulation black one that she had used in New Zealand when she had swum for her local club, the other a bright scarlet affair with tailored lines and white edging round the bodice. For
this first occasion she chose the latter. It was unlikely that even Nick would expect her to carry some fifty pounds of compressed air on her back in such a costume.

  The sailors lined up on the deck and whistled at her approach.

  “Looks like we’ll have a bit of film worth looking at!” they teased her as she passed them. “Wow!”

  Charlotte grinned back.

  “I’m not going down,” she said. “I'm going for a nice regulation swim along the surface.”

  Nick’s eyebrows went up when he saw her. , “I like it better than the dress,” he told her, and she knew that he was referring to their first meeting and the dress that she had put on for her father. “A present from Mama?”

  Charlotte looked down at the scarlet satin with affection.

  “Certainly not,” she denied. “Mother believed in wool for swimming. I bought this for the voyage to England.”

  “And you’re still single? I can’t understand it!”

  Charlotte gave an elaborate sigh.

  “Between you and me,” she said confidentially, neither can I!”

  She thought Nick looked pretty good himself. His body was a deep brown from being almost continually in the sun, and he was a good shape, his wide shoulders accentuating his slim hips. He looked strong and wiry and very, very French, especially when he smiled at her in such a flattering manner. She didn’t want to be made to feel aware of him like that. She was quite happy for him to play his little games with Monique. In fact she was just on the point of telling him so, when the French girl came over to them.

  “I shall put sun-tan oil on your shoulders,” She suggested to Charlotte. “You are very dark, but the sun here is strong. You will blister badly.”

  Charlotte submitted as she rubbed her shoulders and back and rubbed in a little of the oil on her arms and legs and finally on her face, herself.

  “Aren’t you coming in even for a swim?” she asked.

  Monique shook her head.

  “I am too fair for the sun,” she said. “In a few minutes I am burned.”