Return Journey

by Ruby M. Ayres

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—Paris—and all that happened there.”

  “I know more about that than you do,” he answered.

  Rocky half raised herself in the long chair and then sank back again; and he went on quietly:

  “I told you, when we first met in this ship, that I remembered you—but I did not tell you that for weeks after—the night that poor fellow Louis—died I could not forget you, or the way you looked at me when I prevented you from entering that room. Perhaps I loved you then—I don’t know.” He half smiled at her. “Do you believe in love at first sight, Rocky?”

  She turned her face away.

  “Do you believe that—I had nothing to do with it—with Louis —dying, I mean?” she asked.

  “I know you had nothing to do with it.”

  “But—I took the money,” she said. “I took the money—told you about it—and I don’t know whose money it was.”

  “It was mine,” Wheeler said.

  “Yours?”

  “Yes. You see—you looked so alone—as I knew you must be——” He stopped abruptly to ask again after a moment: “Will you marry me?”

  But Rocky only said: “And if some day—my father finds out where I am——”

  “If you are my wife it can make no difference.”

  “It might,” she said tremulously. “You see—you wouldn’t be very proud of him; you see … I didn’t tell you before, but I know —I know that he’s been in prison—it was before I went to live with him … but it’s true—and you wouldn’t like to know that you’d married the daughter of a man who’d been in prison— would you—Richard?”

  He laughed for the first time.

  “Don’t you know that many a respectable member of society has been in prison?” he asked; and then, as her eyes filled with tears again: “My dear, it can never happen.”

  “Never happen? What can never happen?”

  “Your father died on his way to America—a week or two after I first met you.” He laid his hand over hers. “Forgive me—I “ought to have told you before, but somehow—I thought you were trying to make a fool of me, Rocky. That you were just—amusing yourself.”

  The slender hand beneath his trembled.

  “I’ve always loved you,” she said simply. “At least, it seems like always.” And then she drew her hand quickly away as Gina Savoire suddenly appeared in the distance.

  “Confound the woman,” Wheeler muttered. He rose to his feet as she drew nearer.

  “Oh, the little Rocky!” Gina said in her shrill, affected voice. “I did not know that you were out of bed, my poor little one. But how ill you look!”

  It was not the truth, for Rocky had never looked sweeter or happier in all her life.

  Gina turned her painted eyes to Wheeler.

  “You did not tell me!” she said reproachfully. “Why did you not tell me that Rocky was so much better?”

  The nurse came along the deck towards them.

  “I said, ‘No visitors’!” she admonished Rocky. She consulted her watch. “You have had two hours—and now it’s time for bed.”

  Rocky made a little grimace.

  “Oh, not yet,” she appealed, for there was still so much to be said; but the nurse was adamant.

  “Yes, at once,” she insisted. “I’ll fetch the stewards to carry you.”

  “I’ll walk,” Rocky said quickly.

  “Pardon me, but you’re both entirely wrong,” Wheeler interposed; and before anyone could object he stooped and picked Rocky up in his arms. “I’ll carry my own property myself,” he said calmly.

  And so everybody knew!

  “Why not?” Richard asked, with a twinkle, when Rocky told him that she could never bear to face them all. “Are you so terribly ashamed of me?”

  Her long lashes flickered.

  “Aren’t you—just a little ashamed of me?” she asked painfully.

  He was sitting beside her bed then, having firmly refused to be driven away by either the strong-minded nurse or the sympathetic doctor.

  “I flatter myself that I shall do her more good than any of your drugs and pills,” he told the doctor audaciously.

  The nurse sighed, perhaps a little enviously.

  “Well—just a quarter of an hour, then,” she said.

  It was the shortest quarter of an hour Rocky could ever remember.

  “There are so many things I want to say to you,” she said. “And I shan’t have begun them before they tell you it’s time for you to go.”

  Richard raised her slim hand to his lips. “They’ll keep,” he said calmly.

  There was a little silence, and Rocky sighed.

  “What is that for?” Wheeler demanded. “You’ve nothing to sigh about—or have you?” he asked humorously.

  “It’s—my father,” she whispered. “I wish——” But he interrupted gently.

  “Don’t wish anything, Rocky; it’s best as it is. You mustn’t forget that sometimes death is kinder than life.”

  She looked at him wistfully. “You mean—if my father had lived … ?”

  “He didn’t live, Rocky.”

  She lay still for a moment looking back painfully to her life in Paris—so long ago it seemed—to the day when hard-faced Madame had locked her in a dark room where the plane tree tapped at the window—to the day when her father arrived to take her away—to the few hectic weeks of her life with him, and to its culminating tragedy and her flight with Celeste.

  Celeste!

  She turned eagerly to Wheeler.

  “We must write to Celeste; she will think I have forgotten her. But perhaps you don’t remember that I told you about her?”

  “I remember perfectly; she sent you a cable to this ship.”

  “Yes.” A little worried line creased the girl’s smooth forehead. “She said in the cable that someone had been making enquiries for me.”

  “I think it must have been for your father,” Wheeler answered soothingly. He glanced at his wrist-watch.

  “Only five minutes of that quarter of ah hour left,” he said briskly, and they looked at one another shyly before Wheeler slipped an arm beneath her head and drew her to him.

  “Love me?”

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly.

  “Happy?”

  “Yes.”

  He laid his cheek against her soft hair.

  “I’m such an ineloquent chap,” he said ruefully.

  Rocky laughed softly. “I like ineloquent chaps,” she whispered, and she turned her face to kiss his cheek.

  “Is that all I get?” he demanded. He held her a little from him to look into her eyes.

  “Well,” she said in sweet confusion, and her arms went round his neck as he bent to kiss her lips. …

  There was another party on board the night before the ship reached Colombo, and an obliging head steward arranged for a long horseshoe-shaped table which would accommodate all those whom Rocky wished to invite.

  “I’d like everyone!” she said, but the head steward reminded her that there were two hundred first-class passengers, and that the task of accommodating them all at one table was beyond even his powers.

  So the party included the Captain, the Second Officer, the Doctor, Sir John and Miss Esther, and all those with whom Rocky had been most friendly.

  “Wear your best frock,” Rocky told everyone, “because it’s a farewell party.” And then she felt sad. A farewell party!

  “I wish they were all getting off at Colombo,” she told Wheeler.

  “Do you? Well, I don’t,” he answered. “But ours won’t be the only wedding. Sir John and his lady-love have decided to be married as soon as we arrive, and to spend their honeymoon in Neuralia.”

  Rocky looked delighted.

  “How ripping!” she said childishly. “And Miss Pawson?”

  Wheeler made a little grimace.

  “I didn’t make any tender enquiries about Miss Pawson.”

  “Poor thing! …
She’s not so bad,” protested Rocky. “I think her bark is much worse than her bite.”

  “I devoutly hope so,” he answered.

  Rocky slipped a hand into his.

  “But nobody in the whole ship is so happy as me,” she said.

  “As ‘I,’ ” he corrected solemnly. “I thought you were educated in Paris.”

  “Which reminds me,” she said. “I don’t know anything at all about you, where you come from, how many relations you’ve got, what you do for a living. It’s rather a risk!” she added, with pretended gravity.

  Wheeler laughed.

  “My name is Richard Edward Wheeler,” he said in a long-suffering voice. “I am a lone orphan without brothers or sisters. My sole relations are an uncle and aunt who live in Jersey to save income tax. Incidentally, they are very rich and can well afford to pay. By profession I am an accountant—not a very brilliant accountant, but I have a small private income of my own—five hundred a year.”

  “Small private income!” she objected. “It’s a fortune.”

  He went on unheedingly.

  “I knock up another thousand or twelve hundred a year by the sweat of my brow. I have a flat in St. James’s Street—a service flat where no women are allowed.”

  “Thank you,” she said gaily; and then, suddenly grave: “I never want to live in an apartment again.”

  “In the best British circles they are called ‘flats,’ ” Wheeler reminded her. “And, anyway, I infinitely prefer a house myself, so we shan’t quarrel on that point.”

  “Well—go on,” she urged. “Tell me why you came in this ship?”

  “Ha!” Wheeler said darkly. “This is where the true tragedy reveals itself. I had pneumonia— double pneumonia, if you know what that means! … My life was hanging by a thread—literally by a thread, so you need not smile! The beauteous nurse who tended me——”

  “Was she beautiful?” Rocky broke in.

  “Darling,” Wheeler said, “she was uglier than the two ugly sisters of the Cinderella story.”

  “I’m so glad,” Rocky said.

  “To resume,” Wheeler went on. “As soon as I recovered I was ordered to take a sea voyage, to take things easily and to spare myself all excitement.” He looked at her severely. “And then you rushed up the gangway at Toulon, and that did it!”

  Rocky flushed. “Did it? Did it really?” she asked anxiously. But Wheeler’s only answer was:

  “I love you.”

  The depressed Edith came towards them.

  “I’ve lost the belt of my evening frock,” she sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do! Everything seems to go wrong for me.”

  “I’ll lend you one,” Rocky said kindly. “Cheer up!” But the depressed one refused to smile.

  “I expect it will be too small for my waist,” she said gloomily. “And I’ve nothing to cheer up about! It’s all very well for you” She looked at Wheeler as if he were to blame for all her woes.

  “I’m leaving the ship tomorrow,” he apologised.

  Rocky touched Edith’s unresponsive hand.

  “Don’t be miserable,” she said gently. “Come down to my cabin and you can try on all my belts. It’s the last night and we’re going to have a lovely party.”

  Edith shook her head dismally.

  “Gina Savoire says she isn’t coming. She says she hates celebrations. She’s been crying.”

  “Oh,” Rocky said in distress, and Wheeler frowned.

  And then Sir John made a timely and welcome appearance. He was already dressed for dinner.

  “Do you know the time?” he demanded. He was looking particularly handsome and happy, and Rocky’s face brightened.

  “I’m just going. Come along, Edith.” And she dragged the despondent one away with her.

  Sir John sat down in Rocky’s chair.

  “Well, I’m sorry the voyage is over,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  The elder man looked at him.

  “It’s been a lucky trip for us, Wheeler.”

  “Yes.”

  “I congratulate you with all my heart,” Sir John said. “Rocky is a darling child.”

  Wheeler flushed a little.

  “I congratulate you too,” he said.

  Sir John leaned back and stretched his long legs.

  “That’s a wonderful sunset,” he said; and then for a little they were both silent, watching the sky with its ever-changing rainbow hues.

  It was a wonderful party. “Better than any,” so Rocky declared afterwards; and it was not even marred by Gina’s absence, for Rocky had persuaded her out of her depression and had given her the seat of honour on the Captain’s right hand.

  “It should be your place, my dear,” he told her when she explained the arrangements; but Rocky said hurriedly:

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I shall be just as happy no matter where I sit; and I can always blow kisses to you across the table,” she added saucily.

  “I don’t want Wheeler punching my head,” he answered. “He’s a hefty chap, you know.”

  But nobody punched anybody’s head, and everything went off, as Mr. Bumpus said, dropping an “h” in his excitement, “without an ‘itch.”

  Even the depressed Edith was quite gay because the Second Officer, rising to the spirit of the occasion, told her, under cover of the hubbub, that she was looking “charming.”

  And Gina—whose eyes were still a little red with weeping beneath their heavy make-up, drank several glasses of Wheeler’s champagne and told everyone that she was expecting a great reception when she arrived in Sydney.

  “I hope she gets it,” Constance murmured unkindly.

  Clive was the most silent of them all; he had carefully avoided Rocky since the night of the accident, except once when she met him on deck and insisted that he stopped to speak to her.

  “You must never blame yourself,” she said earnestly. “Think how happily it’s all ended.” And then she would have given a great deal to recall the words as she saw his face whiten.

  “Happily for you,” he answered; and then with a little burst of real anguish: “I shall never love anyone but you, young ‘un.”

  But he had been man enough to grip Wheeler’s hand and to congratulate him.

  “You’ve got the finest girl in the world,” he said.

  And so there was much speech-making and laughter, and in between the excitement Mrs. Bumpus and Miss Pawson found that they had a good deal in common because they both loved playing patience and knitting jumpers.

  “Your husband seems to be enjoying himself,” Miss Pawson said graciously; to which Mrs. Bumpus answered that it was wonderful how easily a middle-aged man could forget that he was middle-aged.

  “Marriage is not everything!” she sighed, without in the least meaning what she said. “As you have no doubt realised,” she added ingratiatingly.

  “I prefer my independence,” Miss Pawson retorted, with the air of one who has broken many hearts. “I shall have two brides to chaperon, it seems,” she added importantly, but she checked a sigh as she looked across at her sister’s happy face. And Miss Esther was thinking proudly:

  “John is the handsomest and most distinguished-looking man of them all.” And presently she shyly slipped her hand into his beneath the cover of the table.

  And Rocky, talking at the top of her voice as usual, and playing a tattoo on the floor with her high-heeled shoes, was thinking just the same thing!

  “Richard’s a darling, the best-looking of them all, and I’m the happiest girl in the world.”

  And then when it was past nine they all sang “God Save the King” and dispersed.

  “A heavenly party,” Rocky sighed, and she paused to look back a little regretfully at the littered table and the big empty saloon.

  The voyage was over and it had been wonderful, but it was always sad to say good-bye.

  “I love this ship,” she told Wheeler as they went out on deck. “And I believe she’s sorry we’
re leaving her. Still——” her eyes brightened. “We shall come back, shan’t we? It’s not as if we can never go home again.” And then, remembering Sir John’s words, she added softly: “And perhaps the return journey will be even better. …”

  But the following night, when after ten hours in port the ship was due to sail, Rocky was conscious again of a little heartache.

  She and Miss Esther had insisted upon being taken out in the tender to say a last good-bye. It was a glorious night—hot and moonlit—and once they were on board Rocky slipped away from the rest and went down below to say good-bye to Mrs. Bingham.

  “Good-bye, and thank you for being so kind to me.”

  “I’m sorry to see you go, Miss,” Mrs. Bingham answered sincerely. “I hope some day you’ll sail with me again.”

  She spoke as if the ship was her own exclusive property.

  And Rocky shook hands with the head steward, and with the man in the shop, and with everyone she happened to meet on her own particular deck before she mounted the stairs to find the Second Officer.

  “Good-bye, and thank you for everything.”

  “Don’t fall overboard again,” he said, smiling.

  “Never again,” she promised; and then she climbed to the top deck to the Captain’s cabin.

  “Good-bye. I hope you’ve forgiven me for all the trouble I made.”

  “Good-bye, little Sunshine,” he answered heartily. “You’ll be quite safe with Wheeler to keep an eye on you.”

  They smiled at one another.

  “Quite safe,” Rocky echoed softly.

  A great bell rang through the silence.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “That’s ‘All Ashore,’ ” he told her. “It means that you must go.” Rocky scuttled back to the promenade deck, where Wheeler was anxiously searching for her.

  “Where have you been, Rocky?”

  “Only saying good-bye.”

  “Good-bye,” the melancholy Edith said. “I don’t suppose we shall ever meet again—it’s frightfully sad.”

  “It’s a small world,” Sir John reminded her cheerfully.

  “Good-bye,” Constance said. “If ever you come to New Zealand——”

  And then it was Clive’s turn; he wrung her hand in a bearlike grip.

  “Don’t come to New Zealand,” he said huskily and turned away.