These phrases in Doctor Jaquith’s message were quoted from a poem by Walt Whitman, which he had given her typed on a bit of paper her last day at Cascade. It was in her pocketbook nearby.
She pushed both the radiograms into her evening bag, snapped it shut with a click, snapped off the electric lights with several clicks, and left the room, her silver slippers scuttling along the long narrow corridor with the haste of a Cinderella’s. She was already ten minutes late.
3
A SECRET SHARED
Charlotte stood in the threshold searching the crowded, smoke-filled room, not sure that she would recognize him among so many. Not sure that he would recognize her. She saw him finally emerging out of the smoke, coming toward her smiling. He had been waiting for her in a distant alcove. He led the way to it. They sat down at a bare table side by side on a straight-backed bench. He was dressed as conventionally as in the afternoon—dinner coat, black bowtie, dark mother-of-pearl studs.
“What will you have?”
She had no knowledge of the various names of cocktails. “I’ll leave it to you.”
“Well, how are Old-fashioneds? Will you have a cigarette?” And he offered her one from a half-package, which he produced from an inner pocket.
She took it, and gave a slight cough when he lit it this time. I can’t keep up this farce much longer, she said to herself.
“Oh, by the way,” he remarked, “I just saw Thompson, and he wanted to know if I’d signed up for Majorca. I hadn’t. He said you hadn’t either, and asked me if we’d like to sign up to go together. He says they like to have us pair up, or quadruple up, beforehand if possible. You may not be getting off at Majorca. You’ve been there before probably. And very likely you’d rather leave it to luck whom you get. Or probably you’ve a friend or some acquaintance on board you’d like to go with.”
“I haven’t a friend, nor an acquaintance either, on board. I’d like to go with you very much.”
They didn’t dine together. She sat in her allotted place at a table with five others, and he somewhere on the other side of the dining room. She was seated in the deserted library after dinner, close to an imitation open fire when they again met.
“Oh, here you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Do you want to take the automobile trip to some town—Söller, I think it’s called—on the other side of the island, or just stay around Palma? Thompson wants to know.”
“What do you want to do?” asked Charlotte, secretly preferring to stay around Palma.
“Let’s go to Söller. Take in everything there is!”
“All right! Let’s!”
“Good! I’ll tell Thompson.” He drew up a chair beside her. “Don’t you love the smell of an open fire?” He rubbed his outstretched hands before the artificial flame.
“Yes, and the crackle, too.”
“Might as well try to get milk out of a wooden cow!” He gave an exaggerated shiver. The temperature had been steadily dropping ever since Gibraltar’s fringe of lights had disappeared. “Who’d ever believe you and I were sitting on that open terrace in the sun drinking coffee and liqueurs at noon?”
“Nobody!” Also nobody, who knew her, would believe that she was sitting here now with rouge on her lips, and perfumery behind her ears, so much perfumery in fact that this man, sniffing the air, remarked upon it.
“I can smell something much sweeter than burning logs.” He glanced around in search of its source. “I wonder what it is.”
“It’s called Quelques Fleurs,” she announced flatly. What a fool! She’d put on too much!
“How awfully nice of you!” He paused, leaned back and gazed at her closely, a whimsical expression in his eyes. “I can’t seem to pigeonhole you.” His close scrutiny was disconcerting. She drew the cape closer about her as if in protection. “That’s a marvelous coat you’ve got on—wrap, garment, whatever you call it. You made quite an impression up there in the bar as you stood in the doorway looking for me tonight.” Oh, dear, she thought, I put on too much lipstick too, probably. “Whoever designed it knew his entomology mighty well too. I don’t pretend to know much, but I recognize the Fritillaries.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Charlotte.
“Why, the butterfly design painted on your cape.” She looked at him in dumb amazement. “Didn’t you know you’re a perfect specimen of one of the silver-spotted Fritillaries? I have several Mountain Silver-Spots in my collection. They’re Fritillaries, too. I caught my specimens myself one June on Mount Washington.”
“Are you an entomologist?”
“No, indeed! Butterflies are just a hobby of mine. Do you mind leaning forward? Those dark lines coming over your shoulder are supposed to be your antennae, I think.” He was bending over her now. “I hope you don’t mind being examined. Wish I had a magnifying glass. Hello,” he broke off. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?”
“Something on your cape! Wait a minute! Why, it’s pinned on! Somebody has been playing a joke on you, I guess.”
“Unpin it, please.”
He did so, fumbling so long with the small pin that he couldn’t help reading whatever Lisa had written. “Here it is!” he said at last, and passed the paper to her.
In Lisa’s clear firm hand Charlotte read: I had no evening coat that was right, so Renée wants to contribute hers. She says it always makes an impression, and has always given her a good time. She hopes it will do the same for you.
“Well, this ought to pigeonhole me for you, all right.” She gave a short derogatory laugh and passed the paper back to him.
He put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and studied it. “What does it mean? I can’t make head or tail of it.”
“It’s perfectly clear. Read it again.” She raised her chin, resorting as usual to hauteur to conceal discomfort.
He studied the paper. “I don’t get it.”
“Why, this cape belongs to your friend Renée Beauchamp. Naturally she had no use for it at a ranch and so she lent it to me. I didn’t know what design was painted on it, or I assure you I would never have appeared in wings tonight!” she informed him, with all the scorn she could summon.
“Oh, I see!” he exclaimed with delight. “Your wings are borrowed! Well, they suit you mighty well!”
“No, they don’t!” she contradicted. “They don’t suit me in the least! They’re perfectly ridiculous on me! This entire situation is ridiculous!”
She spoke with such indignation that it was his turn now to stare at her in amazement. He sat down again. “What situation? Why is it ridiculous? I’m all in the dark about you.”
“I’ll enlighten you then. Did you ever read a book when you were a child called Sara Crewe?”
“I don’t think so, but the name sounds familiar.”
“Well, Sara Crewe,” she began, picking her words slowly the better to express her self-contempt, “was a poor, pathetic creature who had no friends, and only a few ugly clothes. She lived a dreary existence on a bare garret until a nice, rich, old gentleman came along one day, and took pity on the poor thing.” She paused, her lips curving into more of a grimace than a smile. She simply mustn’t let that painful red flood of hot blood rise to her face. He would think she had no sense of humor. “Give the paper back to me, please.” He did so. She tore it into small bits and shoved them into her bag. Thank goodness, he was getting off at Nice. She needn’t see him after tomorrow! “You were quite right when you said someone was playing a joke on me,” she went on desperately. “It’s a far funnier joke than you realize. Jokes are usually based on the incongruous, you know.” She rose, slipping the cape off her shoulders and throwing it over her arm.
“You aren’t going, are you?” he said rising too. “Please don’t, yet.”
Suddenly from the threshold someone called out in a high shrill voice, “Oh, here you are!” It was Miss Demarest, dressed in a black taffeta gown with a voluminous skirt. She approached the fireplace with the bobbing m
otion of a toy balloon. Such balloons have small mouthpieces attached and when the air escapes a shrill whistle is emitted. When the wearer of the taffeta skirt reached the close vicinity of the fireplace, it emitted a similar shrill squeal.
“O—oh! Mister Durrance! Just the man I’m looking for! And Miss Beauchamp too! How simply perfect!” She paused for breath. “We lack one couple for our contract tournament. Will you two be a couple of lambs and join us? It will help me out no end.”
“Oh, I’m afraid I’m not good enough.”
“Oh, Mister Durrance! Don’t believe him, Miss Beauchamp! He played the other night and made two little slams. I saw you make one with my own two eyes!” She wagged a playful forefinger at him.
“Yes, I know, but—” He turned to Charlotte. “Do you play cards?”
“I used to play slapjack when I was a child, and later whist occasionally years and years ago.” That would date her, and put an end to this farce she was enacting.
“Oh, Miss Beauchamp! I just know you’re joking!” Miss Demarest wagged her finger at Charlotte.
Charlotte was speaking the literal truth. Her mother disliked all card games. But her father was an inveterate whist player, and sometimes she had made a fourth when one of his cronies dropped out. But not until she had gone to Cascade had she ever made a fourth at a bridge table. However, for the last six weeks she had been playing bridge almost every evening. Everybody at Cascade was supposed to spend the evenings in some form of social intercourse, and contribute something to their small community, even though it was an agreeable facial expression. Charlotte had chosen bridge as the least painful contribution she could make to sociability.
“You can’t swear to me you never played a game of bridge in all your life. Now, can you, Miss Beauchamp?” Miss Demarest persisted.
“Well, but I know only the bare rudiments.”
“Oh, if you know the rudiments, then let’s try it!” exclaimed Durrance. “It will help out Miss Demarest.”
Such amiability was a new experience to Charlotte. Her mother’s attitude toward all paid hostesses was always chilly. She preferred to make her own social contacts. Charlotte hesitated. Respond, take part, contribute, she could hear Doctor Jaquith saying from 3,000 miles away. And as she pressed her evening bag closer to her side, she could hear the crackle of his last message, and in her mind’s eye see the typed words on the ice-blue paper: Now, Voyager—exhorting her to effort and to action.
“I don’t know many conventions,” she demurred.
“Thank Heaven! Neither do I,” said Durrance.
She turned to Miss Demarest. “Do we have to change partners?” Too late she realized that her question implied a preference.
“No. Same partners from start to finish tonight,” Miss Demarest assured her.
“Come on, let’s try our luck together—Miss Beauchamp,” said Durrance, pausing significantly before the Miss Beauchamp, his eyes flashing her an intimate look that implied, We know something this interloper doesn’t know, don’t we?
Her heart warmed toward him. She had often seen such signals flashed between others when she was the one excluded. They always made her feel the chill of rejection. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have corrected the hostess’s mistake about her name. Didn’t his not doing so imply that he considered her explanation confidential, and show protection of it? As she returned his intimate look, she felt he would be just as protective of her embarrassments as his partner at the bridge table.
“Well, all right,” she acquiesced. “I’ll do my best.”
Of course, then was the moment when she herself should have told the hostess that she was not Miss Beauchamp, but before she could say anything at all, the balloon was exclaiming “Lovely! Perfect! Hurry!”
THE SHARING OF A SECRET usually spins a binding thread between two people. At the end of every four hands the winning couple moved to the next table, and before the cards were dealt, names were exchanged if the players had not already met. Charlotte had met no one, and Durrance only a few. Taking the initiative as her partner, he introduced her as Miss Beauchamp at each shift—five times in all, and always with a covert twinkle whenever he could catch her glance.
As the evening progressed, she wasn’t sure whether his object was so much protection of her as just prankishness. But for her to come out with a bald statement that her name wasn’t Beauchamp would be a flat refusal to play any longer the role of secret sharer with him, and snap the fast-growing thread he was spinning. Of course, a woman of experience would have known how to dispose of the situation with a little playful persiflage. But persiflage was something that couldn’t very well be practiced alone behind closed doors. It would be ridiculous for her to attempt it for the first time now. As for humor, though she possessed it, it was of the caustic variety, and caustic was the last thing she wanted to be to this kindly-intentioned stranger. So, despising her shyness, she acknowledged the repeated introduction as Miss Beauchamp without a word of remonstrance.
Charlotte needed all the composure she possessed to apply to her bridge game and prayed that nothing would arise to tax it further. But before the tournament was over, something so near a catastrophe occurred that she didn’t breathe freely for ten minutes afterward.
At the beginning of the last round of play an elderly woman turned to her and said, “Do you remember me, Renée?”
“I’m afraid not. I—”
“I don’t blame you. I would never have recognized you either, but I saw your name on the passenger list. I used to visit in your home when you were a little girl. Before my marriage I was Harriet Parmallee, your mother’s best friend at school—‘Aunt Hattie’ you used to call me.” She looked at Charlotte with a sickishly sweet smile, waiting for her outburst of recognition.
Charlotte shot her partner one despairing glance and started to speak. But he cut in first. “Oh, this isn’t Renée Beauchamp!” obligingly he informed Aunt Hattie. “You’ve made the same mistake I did! This is”—he paused a moment, then brought out with a perfectly straight face, “this is Camille Beauchamp. Quite a different family, Miss Beauchamp tells me, though distantly related. Such stupid mistakes as they make on passenger lists! But are we playing bridge or not? Whose bid is it, anyway? Oh, mine! I must consider this.” In silence he studied his cards for a long quarter minute or more, then glancing up and giving Charlotte a triumphant little wink, “Pass,” he said briefly.
At the end of the tournament, after the names of the winning couple had been announced (which were not Miss Beauchamp and Mr. Durrance) and the prize (an aluminum ashtray with a colored picture of the boat embossed upon it) had been presented, Durrance suggested a nightcap in the bar. “Perhaps our alcove will be empty.”
They hadn’t been seated over three minutes when the balloon reappeared. “Oh, here are the runaways! I want you to meet the people you’re going to share an automobile with tomorrow. Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts of Sioux City, Iowa. Such nice people. And they play bridge, too.” She had Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts in tow. Mrs. Ricketts wore an extremely low-cut gown, covered with sequins and a scintillating display of bracelets on her plump wrists. Mr. Ricketts—a small, harried-looking man—hadn’t changed for the evening. He wore a business suit, and a red tie. “Mr. and Mrs. Ricketts, Mr. Durrance and Miss Beauchamp,” announced Miss Demarest. “And I hope you all have a lovely time together tomorrow. And, by the way, Miss Beauchamp, I have a favor to ask of you. Will you be an angel and take part in our Benefit Concert next week? Somebody told me you do the cleverest monologues!”
Again, before Charlotte could speak her companion leaped to her rescue. “This isn’t Renée Beauchamp,” again he announced, looking immensely pleased with himself.
4
MUTUAL RESPONSE
You’re very ingenious,” remarked Charlotte dryly, once they were alone again, not at all sure she was enjoying the situation.
He didn’t deny it. “But I’m not so quick on the trigger as I seemed with Aunt Hattie. I was prepa
red for her. I’d been afraid someone who knew Renée might pop up, ever since I began introducing you as Miss Beauchamp.”
“But why did you begin?”
“Why, I thought you wanted me to!”
“Why should I want you to?”
“I didn’t know why, but seeing you didn’t tell the Demarest woman that you weren’t Miss Beauchamp, I concluded it wasn’t up to me to let the cat out of the bag, especially after I’d found that paper, and forced you to tell me something you wouldn’t have otherwise. Did I do the wrong thing?”
“Well, it doesn’t make my situation on this cruise any easier.”
“Why didn’t you stop me, then, at the first table?”
“Because I haven’t enough backbone. I simply lacked the courage,” she scoffed.
“Lacked the courage! Why are you in need of so much courage? What is the big mystery anyway? I still don’t know. I’m really awfully sorry if I’ve made things difficult for you. But is it very serious? After I leave the boat at Nice, all you’ll need to say is that I was just having a little fun.”
“Why did you call me Camille?”
“Oh, it just came to my mind. I thought it was as good a first name to go with Beauchamp as Renée. I considered Fifi, but I didn’t think that went with you very well. My knowledge of French names for girls is limited, and the few I know disappeared from my mind completely, except those two. I hope I haven’t offended you. The fact is, my knowledge of French literature is limited too. I never read Camille. I couldn’t say offhand whether it’s a play or a novel.”
“And yet it went with me!”
“Well, better than Fifi. In that stunning red gown you’re sort of like a gorgeous red camellia, I think. Except,” he added, leaning nearer and again sniffing the air, his eyes full of merriment, “camellias don’t have any such sweet smell.”
Now, Voyager Page 3
