“Someone like me,” he said.
Rocky took a flower from a bowl in the centre of the table and held it against her trembling lips.
“But—you’ve been kind to me,” she said at last; and then, with the ghost of her old flashing smile: “You’ve even asked me to marry you—or wasn’t it really a proposal?”
Wheeler cleared a little space on the table before him and leaned his arms on it, looking at her steadily.
“Will you marry me? ” he asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
She said faintly: “You’ve asked me that before, and I’ve told you —because I know you don’t… love me—and because I want the man I marry to love me—to love me so much that no matter what I’d been—or what he knew I’d been—it wouldn’t make any difference. I couldn’t bear it if I knew that sometimes you—I mean he— was looking at me—and wondering—and—imagining all sorts of —dreadful things—even if he never spoke about it, I should know, and that would spoil everything for both of us.”
“Supposing the position was reversed,” Wheeler said. “Suppose you loved me—and there was something in my life—something to hide, which you half suspected—how would you feel?”
Rocky answered without hesitation:
“It wouldn’t make any difference at all, if I loved you. I should never even think about it—if I was sure that you loved me.”
“And you’re not sure?” he asked.
“Not sure?” she echoed.
“That I love you,” he said.
“Oh yes,” she answered, “I know quite well that you don’t, and that’s why I think it’s so—kind of you—to wish to help me as you said just now. I shall—always remember it.” She put the little flower back in its yellow bowl. “Don’t you think we ought to do a little more sight-seeing?” she asked with an effort.
Wheeler glanced at his watch.
“The ship sails in an hour. I’ll get the bill.” But he made no attempt to call the waiter; and after a moment he said: “Will you promise me something?”
“If I can.”
“That—if ever you want help—I know you think that you will be able to manage without it—but if ever you should need—a friend—will you remember me?”
Rocky felt as if someone had squeezed her heart.
“I shall never forget you,” she answered as lightly as she could. “I shall never forget you because nobody has ever—been so kind to me as you have—or so unkind,” she added with her old smile; and Wheeler answered:
“And nobody has ever attracted me in the way you have—or— angered me so much.”
She was so very near to tears that she had to laugh.
“Thank you very much,” she said. “There’s nothing like the brutal truth, is there? And now while you get the bill I’m going to ask Miss Esther what my handsome fortune-teller has been saying,” and before he could prevent her she had risen from her chair.
She was not really so very interested in hearing what Miss Esther had to say, but she felt that she could bear no more, and that if she sat beside Wheeler for another moment she would throw all pretence to the four winds and would say, as during the last half-hour she had longed to say: “Darling, I love you so much—and it doesn’t matter whether you love me or not, I’ll marry you.”
How frightful if she had said it, she thought a little hysterically as she crossed the room to Sir John’s table; what in the world would have happened?
“I must be a little mental,” she decided.
She took the empty chair beside Miss Esther.
“What did he tell you?” she enquired. “Was he any good? I thought he was very good. Do tell me what he said.”
It was Sir John who answered with a twinkle:
“He has promised that everything in the garden will be lovely from this day forward. The air is already echoing with the sound of wedding bells.”
Miss Esther looked at him pleadingly.
“Of course, I knew it couldn’t be true,” she said. “But it really did sound as if he knew what he was talking about—didn’t you think so?” she appealed to Rocky.
“I’m sure it did,” Rocky comforted her. “He promised me a husband and happiness ever after.”
“But for you that could be true,” Miss Esther said.
“And for you, my dear,” Sir John said in his kindly way; he patted her arm. “The fellow is probably a rogue, but I must admit that I enjoyed listening to him, and it will be amusing to see whether any of his prognostications come true”
He called to the waiter, and Miss Esther and Rocky walked away together.
“It’s been such a lovely morning,” Miss Esther said. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it—especially the fortune-teller,” she added candidly.
Rocky nodded. “And did he tell you that you’d had a lot of trouble, but that now it was all over and that henceforth the beautiful flower of happiness would blossom?” she asked with faint irony.
“Yes—that’s just what he did say,” Miss Esther agreed eagerly. “How did you guess?” But Rocky had, not the heart to answer: “Because that’s just what he told me.”
What did it matter if one listened to a fairy-story as long as it left a little happiness in its train?
Wheeler joined them. “Shall we walk back to the ship?” he asked. “Or would you ladies rather drive?”
“Walk,” they said in unison.
But now they were left to one another, and Sir John and Wheeler followed, and as they reached the long pontoon a disconsolate Clive appeared in sight. Rocky called after him—and reluctantly he turned to wait for them.
“Had a good time?” he asked dryly.
“Wonderful,” Rocky said.
“Wonderful,” Miss Esther echoed. “I hope you have,” she added politely; but Clive did not answer, though presently he said:
“I hear you had an adventure with a burglar this morning.”
Rocky turned to him eagerly.
“Oh, what happened? Have you heard any more about it?”
“Nothing, except that the fellow was taken off by the police. He seems to be quite a well-known character—there are lots of them, you know,” he added grandly. “Chaps who travel in ships from port to port living by their wits.”
“Like the crooks you read about in books,” Miss Esther said, thrilled at the idea; and then quickly: “Poor fellow! I wonder what they will do with him.”
Rocky ran on ahead and up the ship’s ladder to the deck.
She was longing to hear more and whether there was any hope of her money being returned. She met the Second Officer and stopped to question him, but he only shook his head.
“I haven’t heard any more—only that the fellow was caught.”
Rocky glanced back over her shoulder, hoping that Wheeler would follow her, but he had been waylaid by Gina Savoire, who seemed to be registering theatrical reproaches judging by the expressive movements of her thin hands. Clive had walked away, too, no doubt in order to show his utter indifference, and a little wave of loneliness crossed Rocky’s heart. Had she behaved wisely—or foolishly? Foolishly, it seemed, now that Wheeler was talking to the Frenchwoman. And yet what else could she have done? How could she have agreed to marry a man who was just sorry for her and nothing else?
“Pity is akin to love.” The words stole into her mind like a caressing voice, but she refused to listen. She did not want pity—she wanted the kind of love which all women dream about to the end of their lives and seldom find. The kind of love which, perhaps, Miss Esther still sought and was even now looking for in Sir John Stannard’s handsome face.
“Poor women!” Rocky thought, and she remembered her own mother and the far-away sound of her weeping.
Mr. Bumpus padded along the deck behind her. He always wore very clumsy canvas shoes which made a sound like a squeegee at every step, but he was enormously proud of them and had told Rocky with pride that he had tossed a friend who kept a boot-shop half a crown or nothi
ng for them and had won the toss.
“Not so bad,” he said, sticking out one large foot for it to be admired, and ever since then Rocky had found it difficult to keep her eyes from those shoes whenever Mr. Bumpus approached; she seemed always to see them first and their owner afterwards.
He spoke to her now in a sleuth-like whisper.
“I’ve been ashore—alone.”
“Is Mrs. Bumpus ill?” Rocky asked; but no, Mrs. Bumpus was quite well, only she had preferred to do a tour of the shops with another woman, leaving Mr. Bumpus free to explore the dark places of Port Said unchaperoned. And Mr. Bumpus, it appeared, had also had his fortune told.
“Not a word to the wife,” he whispered huskily, and Rocky whispered back: “Not a word. What did he tell you?”
“That the best of my life is yet to come,” he told her. He looked like an embarrassed schoolboy. “Of course, I don’t believe it,” he declared stoutly. “I know it’s all boloney, but he said that there’s a fair lady.” He glanced round the deck as if dreading that the stout form of Mrs. Bumpus would suddenly appear from nowhere. “Of course, it’s all boloney,” he said again in the tone of voice that asks for contradiction.
“I’m not so sure,” Rocky said kindly. “What else did he say?”
“That this voyage is to be one of great discovery,” the little man went on. As a matter of fact, he had almost forgotten what he had been told, but he drew freely upon his imagination to repair the omission. “That henceforth it will be all sunshine and that the flower of happiness will blossom.”
Rocky turned her face sharply away to hide an involuntary smile.
“How nice!” she said gently, or wasn’t it what they all wanted to be told?
“I hope it comes true,” she said.
“Not a word to the wife,” Mr. Bumpus urged once more. “You see—she’s a most excellent woman, but there’s no romance about her—no romance.” He shook his head sorrowfully.
If he had only known it, it was exactly what his wife was saying at that moment to her shopping friend, who agreed that, although lovers might all be different, all husbands came out of the same box. “And I’ve had three,” she said. “So I ought to know what I’m talking about….”
And down in her sister’s cabin Miss Esther was saying excitedly: “I wish you had been well enough to come ashore. It was so wonderful; quite different from any other place we have ever seen. I wish you had been well enough to come, too.”
Miss Pawson raised herself to stare at her sister’s flushed face.
“You look as if you’ve got a fever, and I shouldn’t be surprised if you have,” she said flatly. “You’d better take some quinine and lie down. You know what these horrid foreign places are—full of infection.”
“Yes, dear,” Miss Esther agreed, but, having escaped to her own cabin, she powdered her nose and then looked shyly at her hands. “I wonder if I dare,” she thought. Paint her finger-nails pink, she meant. Why not? Almost every other woman did it nowadays, and she had seen Sir John looking admiringly at Rocky’s. True, Rocky’s were only just the faintest pink, and not bright red like Gina Savoire’s. Still, it was an improvement—and she knew that the stuff could be bought in the ship’s shop, in little bottles with a tiny brush complete. And then as the bell rang through the silence, announcing the ship’s departure, she hurried up on deck and joined Rocky and Clive Durham.
“And now we’re going through the Canal,” Rocky said. “One of the seven wonders of the world which I’ve always longed to see.”
“Some people call it the Ditch,” Clive reminded her.
“You’ve told me that before,” Rocky answered. “And I don’t care what people call it—I know it’s wonderful.”
“A rose by any other name,” Clive murmured, but Rocky pretended not to hear.
A little way off, Wheeler was standing with Gina Savoire, apparently quite happy. Rocky stifled a sigh, but she instantly reminded herself that the long evening still lay before her, and the rest of the voyage, and tried not to remember that there would come a morning when she would wake on shore, to the knowledge that the ship had gone and that she had been left behind. And then—then what? For an instant she was conscious of a queer empty feeling, but she gave a defiant little toss of her head. Why worry about tomorrow when the sun had not yet set on today?
And that evening there was a glorious sunset as the big ship stole slowly through the Canal.
“I shan’t dress tonight,” Rocky announced. “I’m not going to lose a moment. I don’t think I even want any dinner—I just want to see everything I can.”
“You’ll soon have had enough of it,” Clive warned her.
He had been through the Canal four times himself and liked to feel that he was a blasé traveller, but Rocky remained on the promenade deck, darting from side to side, asking questions of everyone who was willing to answer.
“How deep is it? It must have taken years and years to make. What are the little lights for? What will happen if we meet another big ship?”
Mr. Bumpus, who had been reading it all up in the guidebook, gave her the information she required. The Canal was built by a Frenchman named de Lesseps. That was his statue—on the right hand side at the end of the breakwater, and that was the Palestine Railway she could see running out across the desert.
“You can find it all in the guidebook,” Clive said impatiently. He thought it shocking waste of time talking about such things when he longed to have Rocky to himself and to tell her how sorry he was for being so disagreeable. But she seemed to have forgotten about that—and even about him. She could only feast her eyes on the great waves of yellow sand stretching away into the far distance, bathed now in the riotous sunset colours.
“If you saw a picture of it, would you say it couldn’t be true?” she said in an awed voice. “And—oh, look! … There’s a camel.”
“There are a dozen in the London Zoo,” Clive said unkindly.
“It walks like an emperor,” Rocky declared.
Clive’s sister laughed contemptuously.
“You ought to write for the papers,” she said. But Rocky was not to be upset; indeed, she hardly heard what they were saying; she was straining her eyes to take in every detail so that she could never forget.
“You’ll see it all again coming back,” Mr. Bumpus said stolidly. He was very moved himself, but he felt that he had indulged in enough excitement for one day.
His words gave Rocky a little jar.
Coming back! Supposing she never came back?
Miss Esther touched her arm.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Rocky?” she asked softly.
The girl nodded silently, and Mr. Bumpus said, with the strong determination to suppress his emotion at all costs:
“I’ve seen sunsets as good as that over Wimbledon Common.”
“But not with a camel” Miss Esther ventured.
Rocky leaned her arms on the ship’s rail and looked and looked. A little farther along there was a tiny Arab encampment—a tent, an open fire, and two white-robed figures squatting beside it, and behind and beyond again the widespread desert, leading—where?
To Rocky it was all strangely bewildering—the slowly moving ship and the narrow Canal, so narrow that on either side it looked possible to jump ashore.
Supposing one did? she thought. Supposing one stood amongst those great sand-dunes and watched the ship slowly receding until it was out of sight? How many miles could one walk towards the east without finding shelter?
Clive’s matter-of-fact voice broke into her fanciful dreaming:
“Yes, I suppose Arabs look picturesque enough, but they’re better at a distance.”
She turned to frown up at him.
“I wish you wouldn’t” she appealed. “You spoil it all.”
“What is he saying?” Sir John’s cheery voice asked. He glanced down at her flushed face. “Never mind what he says, my dear. I’ve seen it all a dozen times, and for me it still keeps its magic.”
“It will for me, too,” she answered, “even if I see it a hundred times.”
A steward came along the deck and stopped beside her.
“Will you come to the Purser’s office, please, Miss?” he asked.
Rocky was awake in an instant, her cheeks flushing.
“The Purser? Am I to come now?”
“If you please, Miss.”
Rocky raced away, followed by half a dozen pairs of eyes, and Clive quoted unkindly:
“Plucky lot she cared for idols,
When I kissed her where she stood.”
“But—the Purser isn’t going to kiss her,” Miss Esther said in a puzzled way. “What do you mean?”
“Never mind what he means,” Sir John answered. “I doubt very much whether he knows himself. Come round to the other side of the ship—it’s an entirely different view there.”
When they had gone, Constance turned to her brother.
“You and I seem to be rather out of things,” she said dryly, but she looked a little envious.
Chapter
12
As Rocky dashed along the deck towards the Purser’s office, Wheeler turned from his contemplation of the desert to bar her way.
“Where are you going in such a desperate hurry?” he asked.
Rocky slowed down a little and flung a reply across her shoulder: “To the Purser’s office—he’s sent for me. I can’t wait.” And she was gone.
The Frenchwoman looked after her and shrugged her shoulders. “Does she ever walk?” she asked.
Wheeler laughed.
“Not if she can run, I imagine,” he said dryly, and perhaps it was unconsciously that he glanced down at his companion’s absurdly high-heeled shoes. He was feeling a little impatient with Gina; she was in what she herself would have described as one of her “intense” moods and inclined to be sentimental. She had asked various questions as to how he had spent the morning ashore, always with a veiled reproach in her voice, and Wheeler was a man who disliked being questioned. He had often sympathised with Mr. Bumpus, who, after a short absence from his wife, was invariably subjected to a battery of questions couched in terms which turned the poor man into a mass of hot embarrassment, making him appear guilty without the slightest cause.
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