Charles Beaumont: Selected Stories (7 page)

SONG FOR A LADY
by Charles Beaumont
The travel agent had warned us. It was an old ship, very old, very tired. And slow. "In fact," said Mr. Spierto, who had been everywhere and knew all about travel, "there's nothing slower afloat. Thirteen days to Le Havre, fourteen to Southampton. Provided there are favorable winds, of course! No; I doubt that we'll spend our honeymoon on her. Besides, this will be her last crossing. They're going to scrap the old relic in a month." And I think that's the reason we picked the Lady Anne for our first trip abroad. There was something appealing about taking part in a ship's last voyage, something, Eileen said, poignant and special.
Or maybe it was simply the agent's smirk. He might have been able to talk to us out of it otherwise, but he had to smirk-the veteran of Katmandu and the innocent untraveled Iowans-and that got us mad. Anyway, we made two first class reservations, got married and caught a plane for New York.
What we saw at the dock surprised us. Spierto's horrified descriptions of the ship had led us to expect something between a kayak and The Flying Dutchman, whereas at first glance the Lady Anne seemed to be a perfectly ordinary ocean liner. Not that either of us had ever actually seen an ocean liner, except in films; but we decided what one should look like, and this looked like one. A tall giant of a vessel, it was, with a bright orange hull and two regal smokestacks; and a feeling of lightness, of grace, almost, despite the twenty thousand tons.
Then we got a little closer. And the Lady Anne turned into one of those welldressed women who look so fine a block away and then disintegrate as you approach them. The orange on the hull was bright, but it wasn't paint. It was rust. Rust, like fungus, infecting every inch, trailing down from every port hole. Eating through the iron.
We gazed at the old wreck for a moment, then resolutely made our way past some elderly people on the dock and, at the gangplank, stopped. There was nothing to say, so Eileen said: "It's beautiful."
I was about to respond when a voice snapped: "No!" An aged man with thin but fierce red hair was standing behind us, bags in hand. "Not 'it'," he said, angrily. "She. This ship is a lady."
"Oh, I'm sorry." My wife nodded respectfully. "Well, then, she's beautiful."
"Indeed she is!" The man continued to glare, not malevolently, not furiously, but with great suspicion. He stared up the plank, then paused. "You're seeing someone off?"
I told him no.
"Visitors, then."
"No," I said. "Passengers."
The old man's eyes widened. "How's that?" he said, exactly as if I'd just admitted that we were Russian spies. "You're what?"
"Passengers," I said again.
"Oh, no," he said, "no, no, I hardly think so. I hardly think that. This, you see, is the Lady Anne. There's been a mistake."
"Jack, please!" A small square woman with thick glasses shook her head reproach. fully.
"Be still," the old man snapped at her. His voice was becoming reedy with excitement. "If you'll consult your tickets, young fellow, I think you'll find that a serious error has occurred here. I repeat, this is the Lady Anne-"
"-and I repeat," I said, not too patiently, "that we're passengers." However, he didn't move, so I fished the tickets out of my pockets and shoved them at him.
He stared at the papers for a long time; then, sighing, handed them back. "Private party," he muttered; "excursion, might say. Planned so long. Outsiders! I…"    And without another word, he turned and marched stiffly up the gangplank. The small square woman followed him, giving us a thin, curious smile.
"Well!" Eileen grinned, after the slightest hesitation. "I guess that means 'Welcome Aboard' in British."
"Forget it." I took her hand and we went directly to the cabin. It was small, just as the friendly travel agent had prophesied: two bunks, an upper and lower, a sink, a crown-shaped pot du chambre. But it wasn't stark. Incredible fat cupids stared blindly from the ceiling, the door was encrusted with flaked gold paint, and there was a chipped chandelier. Grotesque, but cheerful, somehow. Of course, it would have been cheerful at half the size-with a few rats thrown in-because we'd gotten ourselves into this mess against everyone's advice and, one way or another, we were determined to prove that our instincts had been right.
"Nice," said Eileen, reaching up and patting a cupid's belly.
I kissed her and felt, then, that things wouldn't be too bad. It would take more than a grumpy old Englishman and a crazy stateroom to spoil our trip. A lot more.
Unfortunately, a lot more was fast in coming.
When we took our stroll out on deck, we noticed a surprisingly large number of elderly people standing at the rail; but, we were excited, and somehow this didn't register. We waved at the strangers on the dock, watched the passengers still coming aboard, and began to feel the magic. Then I saw the old red-headed gentleman tottering toward us, still glaring and blinking. In a way he looked like the late C. Aubrey Smith, only older and thinner. Just as straight, though, and just as bushy in the eyebrows.
"See here," he said, pointing at me with his cane, "you aren't really serious about this, are you?"
"About what?" I said.
"Traveling on the Lady Anne. That is, hate to sound cliqueish and all that, but-"
"We're serious," Eileen said, curtly.
"Dear me." The old man clucked his tongue. "Americans, too. British ship, y'know. Sort of reunion and-" He motioned toward another man in tweeds. "Burgess! Over here!" The man, if anything older than our friend, caned his way across the wooden planks. "Burgess, these are the ones I mean. They've tickets!"
"No, no, no," said the man with the cane. "Whole thing obviously a ghastly blunder. Calm yourself, McKenzie: we've time yet. Now then." He gave us a crafty, crooked smile. "No doubt you young people aren't aware that this is rather a, how shall I put it, private, sort of, cruise; d'ye see? Very tight. Dear me, yes. Unquestionably a slip-up on the part of-"
"Look," I said, "I'm getting tired of this routine. There hasn't been any slip-up or anything else. This is our ship and by God we're sailing to Europe on it. Her."
"That," said Burgess, "is bad news indeed."
I started to walk away, but the old man's fingers gripped my arm. "Please," he said. "I expect this may seem odd to you, quite odd, but we're actually trying to be of help."
"Exactly so," said the redheaded man, McKenzie. "There are," he whispered darkly, "things you don't know about this ship."
"For example," Burgess cut in, "she is over sixty-five years old. No ventilation, y'know; no modern conveniences whatever on her. And she takes forever to cross."
"And dangerous," said the redheaded man. "Dear me, yes."
The two old fellows pulled us along the deck, gesturing with their canes.
"Look at those deck chairs, just look at 'em. Absolute antiques. Falling to pieces. Wouldn't trust the best of 'em to hold a baby."
"And the blankets, as you see, are rags. Quite threadbare."
"And look at that staircase. Shameful! Shouldn't be at all surprised to see it collapse at any moment."
"Oh, we can tell you, the Lady Anne is nothing but an ancient rust bucket."
"So you see, of course, how impractical the whole idea is."
They looked at us.
Eileen smiled her sweetest smile. "As a matter of fact," she said, "I think this is the most darling little boat I've ever seen. Don't you agree, Alan?"
"Definitely," I said.
The old men stared in disbelief; then Burgess said: "You'll get bored."
"We never get bored," Eileen said.
McKenzie said, "You'll get sick, then!"
"Never."
"Wait!" Burgess was frowning. "We're wasting time. Look here, why you are both so damned determined to travel on an outdated ship when there are dozens of fine modern vessels available, I shan't pretend to understand. Perhaps it is typical American stubbornness. Flying in the face of convention, that sort of thing. Eh? Admirable! However, we must insist that you overcome this determination."
Eileen opened her mouth, then shut it when she saw the roll of money clutched in the old man's fist.
"I am prepared," he said, in a firm voice, "to pay you double the amount you spent for your tickets, provided you will abandon your plan."
There was a short silence.
"Well?"
I glanced at Eileen. "Not a chance," I said.
"Triple the amount?"
"No."
"Very well. I am forced to extremes. If you will leave the Lady Anne now, I will give you the equivalent of five thousand American dollars."
"Which," McKenzie said, "I will meet."
"Making it ten thousand dollars."
Eileen seemed almost on the edge of tears. "Not for a million," she said. "Now let me tell you gentlemen something. Ever since we picked this ship, people have been doing their best to discourage us. I don't know why and I don't care. If you're so afraid the brash Americans are going to upset your British tea-"
"My good lady, we-"
"-you can forget it. We won't go near you. But we paid for our tickets and that gives us every bit as much right to the Lady Anne as you have! Now just go away and leave us alone!"
The conversation ended. We walked back to the bow and waited, in silence, until the line had been cast off and the tugs had begun to pull us out to sea; then, still not mentioning the episode, we wandered around to the other side of the ship. I know now that there were elderly people there, too, and only elderly people, but again, we were too sore-and the adventure was too new-to notice this.
It wasn't, in fact, until the fire drill, with the corridor packed, that it first began to sink in. There weren't any young people to be seen. No students. No children. Only old men and old women, most of them walking, but several on canes and on crutches, a few in wheel chairs. And, judging from the number of tweed suits, pipes, mustaches, and woolen dresses, mostly all British.
I was thinking about the two weeks to Southampton and the ten thousand dollars, when Eileen said, "Look."
I looked. And ran into hundreds of unblinking eyes, turned directly on us. Staring as though we were a new species.
"Don't worry," I whispered, without much assurance, "we'll find somebody our age on board. It stands to reason."
And it did stand to reason. But although we looked everywhere, everywhere it was the same: old men, old women. British. Silent. Staring.
Finally we got tired of the search and walked into the ship's single public room. It was called the Imperial Lounge: a big hall with hundreds of chairs and tables, a tiny dance floor, a podium for musicians, and a bar. All done in the rococo style you'd expect to find on the Titanic: purples and greens, faded to gray, and chipped gold. People sat in the chairs, neither reading nor playing cards nor talking. Just sitting, with hands folded. We tiptoed across a frayed rug to the bar and asked the grandfather in charge for two double-Scotches; then we ordered two more.
"Housie-Housie tonight," Eileen said, gesturing toward a blackboard. "That's British bingo. But I suppose we won't be invited."
"Nuts to 'em," I said. We looked at each other, then out over the white-thatched balding sea of heads-some dropping in afternoon sleep already-and back at each other; and I'm proud to say that neither of us wept.
After the drinks we exited the Imperial Lounge, softly, and queued up for lunch. The restaurant was Empire style, the silks smelling of age and dust, the tapestries blurred. We ordered something called Bubble and Squeak because it sounded jolly, but it wasn't. And neither were the diners surrounding us. Particularly those who sat alone. They all had an air of melancholy, and they stared at us throughout the meal, some surreptitiously, some openly.
Finally we gave up trying to eat and fled back to the Imperial Lounge, because where else was there to go?
The sea of heads was calm. Except for one. It was red, and when we entered it nodded and bounced up.
Mr. Friendly's eyes were snapping. "I beg your pardon," he said. "Hate to bother you. But my wife, Mrs. McKenzie, over there-she, uh, points out that I've been rude. Quite rude. And I expect I ought to apologize."
"Do you?" I asked.
"Oh, yes! But there is something more important. Really good news, in fact." It was strange to see the old boy smiling so happily; the frown seemed to have been a fixture. "Mr. Burgess and I talked the whole thing over," he said, "and we've decided that you won't have to leave the ship after all."
"Say," I said, a trifle bitterly, "that is good news. We were afraid we'd have to swim back and it's had us sick with worry."
"Really?" Mr. McKenzie cocked his head to one side. "Sorry about that, my boy. But we were quite concerned, all of us, as I daresay you gathered. Y'see, it simply hadn't occurred to us that an outsider would ever want to go on the Lady. I mean, she's primarily a freighter, as it were; and the last time she took on a new passenger was, according to Captain Protheroe, the summer of '48. So you can understand- but never mind that, never mind that. It's all settled now."
"What's all settled?" asked my wife.
"Why, everything," said the old man, expressively. "But come, you really must join Mrs. McKenzie and me for a bit of tea. That's one thing that hasn't changed on the Lady. She still has the finest tea of any ship afloat. Eh, my dear?"
The small square woman nodded.
We exchanged introductions as if we were meeting for the first time. The man named Burgess extended his hand and shook mine with real warmth, which was quite a shock. His wife, a quiet, pale woman, smiled. She stared at her cup for a moment, then said, "Ian, I expect the Ransomes are wondering a bit about your and Mr. McKenzie's behavior this morning."

"Eh?" Burgess coughed. "Oh, yes. But it's all right now, Cynthia; I told you that."
"Still-"
"Perhaps I can help," said Mrs. McKenzie, who had not yet spoken. Her voice was a lovely soft thing, yet, oddly, commanding. She looked at Eileen. "But first you must tell us why you chose the Lady Anne."
Eileen told them.
Mrs. McKenzie's smile changed her face, it washed away the years and she became almost beautiful. "My dear," she said, "you were quite right. The Lady is special. More special, I should say, than either you or your husband might imagine. You see, this is the ship Jack and I sailed on when we were married-which would be fifty-six years ago."
"Fifty-five," said the redheaded man. He took a drink of tea and set the cup down gently. "She was a splendid thing then, though. The ship, I mean!"
"Jack, really."
Eileen looked at McKenzie and said, in an even voice: "I thought you told us that it was an old rust bucket."
"Not 'it.' She." Burgess blushed. "Should both have been struck down by lightning," he said. "Greatest lie ever uttered. Mrs. Ransome, mark this: the Lady Anne was and is now the finest ship that ever crossed the sea. Queen of the fleet, she was."
"And quite unusual," put in McKenzie. "Only one of her kind, I believe. Y'see, she specialized in honeymooners. That was her freight then: young people in love; aye. That's what makes your presence so-what shall I say-ironic? Eh? No, that isn't it. Not ironic. Sally, what is the damned word I'm looking for?"
"Sweet," said his wife, smiling.
"No, no. Anyway, that was it. A regular floating wedding suite, y'might say. Young married couples, that's all you'd ever see on her. Full of juice and the moon in their eyes. Dear me. It was funny, though. All those children trying to act grown-up and worldly, trying to act married and used to it, d'you see, and every one of 'em as nervous as a mouse. Remember, Burgess?"
"I do. Of course, now, that only lasted for a few days, McKenzie. The Lady Anne gave 'em time to know each other." The old man laughed. "She was a wise ship. She understood such things."
Mrs. McKenzie lowered her eyes, but not, I thought, out of embarrassment. "At any rate," she said, "although it was, needless to say, unofficial, that did seem to be the policy of the owners, then. Everything arranged for young people. For anyone else, I imagine the ship must have been a bit on the absurd side. Love has its own particular point of view, you know: it sees everything larger than life. Nothing too ornate for it, or too fancy, or too dramatic. If it is a good love, it demands the theatrical-and then transfigures it. It turns the grotesque into the lovely, as a child does…"    The old woman raised her eyes. "Where a shipping line ever found that particular vision, I shall never know. But they made the Lady Anne into an enchanted gondola and took that moment of happiness and-pure-sweet pain that all lovers have and made the moment live for two really unspeakably pleasant weeks…"
The redheaded McKenzie cleared his throat loudly. "Quite so," he said, glancing at his wife, who smiled secretly. "Quite so. I expect they get the drift, my dear. No need to go sticky."
"But," said his wife, "I feel sticky."
"Eh? Oh." He patted her hand. "Of course. Still-"
Burgess removed his pipe. "The point is," he said, "that we spent a good many fine hours aboard this old scow. The sort of hours one doesn't forget. When we heard that they were going to… retire… the Lady, well, it seemed right, somehow, that we should join her on her last two-way sailing. And that, I think accounts for the number of old parties aboard.. Most of 'em here for the same reason, actually. Boshier-Jones and his wife over there, sound asleep: the bald chap. Engineer in his day, and a good one. The Whiteaways, just past the column. They were on our first sailing. Innes Champion, the writer: quite a droll fellow most of the time, though you wouldn't guess it now. A widower, y'know. Wife passed on in '29. They had their honeymoon on the Lady-a better one, if possible, than ours: propeller fell off-that would be in 1906-and they were four days in repairing it, so he says. Terrible liar, though. Don't know that chap in the wheel-chair; do you, McKenzie?"
"Brabham. Nice enough, but getting on, if you know what I mean. Tends to tremble and totter. Still, a decent sort."
"Alone?"
"I fear so."
Mrs. McKenzie took a sip of cold tea and said: "I hope you understand a bit more of our attitude, Mrs. Ransome. And I do hope you will forgive us for staring at you and your husband occasionally. It's quite impolite, but I think we are not actually seeing you so much as we are seeing ourselves, as we were fifty years ago. Isn't that foolish?"
Eileen tried to say something, but it didn't work. She shook her head.
"One other thing," Mrs. McKenzie said. "You are in love with each other, aren't you?"
"Yes," I said. "Very much."
"Splendid. I told Jack that when I first saw you this morning. But, of course, that wasn't the point. I'd forgotten the plan."
"Sally!" McKenzie frowned. "Do watch it."
The old woman put a hand to her mouth, and we sat there quietly. Then Burgess said, "I think it's time for the men to adjourn for a cigar. With your permission?"
We walked to the bar and Burgess introduced me around. "Van Vlyman, this is Ransome. He's American but he's all right. Nothing to worry about." "Sanders, shake hands with young Ransome. He and his wife are on their honeymoon, y'know. Picked the Lady Anne! No, no, I tell you: it's all been straightened out." "Fairman, here now, wake up; this is-"
The warmth of these men suddenly filled me, and after a while it seemed as though, magically, I wasn't thirty-two at all, but seventy-two, with all the wisdom of those years.
The man called Sanders insisted upon buying a round and raised his glass. "To the finest, lovliest, happiest ship that ever was!" he said, and we drank, solemnly.
"Pity," someone said.
"No!" The portly ex-colonel, Van Vlyman, crashed his fist down upon the polished mahogany. "Not a 'pity'! A crime. An evil, black-hearted crime, perpetrated by stupid little men with bow ties."
"Easy, Van Vlyman. Nothing to get heated over now."
"Nothing, indeed!" roared the old soldier. "Easy, indeed! God Almighty, are all of you so ancient, so feeble that you can't see the truth? Don't you know why they want to scrap the Lady?"
Sanders shrugged. "Outlived her usefulness," he said.
"Usefulness? Usefulness to whom, sir? Nonsense! D'you hear? She's the best ship on the sea." Van Vlyman scowled darkly. "A little slow, perhaps-but, I put it to you, Sanders, by whose standards? Yours? Mine? Thirteen, fourteen days for a crossing is fast enough for anyone in his right mind. Only people aren't in their right minds any more, that's the trouble. That's the core of it right there. People, I say, have forgotten how to relax. They've forgotten how to appreciate genuine luxury. Speed: that's all that counts nowadays. Get it over with! Why? Why are they in such a hurry?" He glared at me. "What's the damned rush?"
Burgess looked sad. "Van Vlyman, aren't you being a bit-"
"To the contrary. I am merely making an observation upon the state of the world today. Also, I am attempting to point out the true reason for this shameful decision."
"Which is?"
"A plot, doubtless of Communist origin," declared the colonel.
"Oh, really, Van Vlyman-"
"Haven't you eyes? Are you all that senile? The Lady Anne was condemned because she represents a way of life. A better way of life, by God, sir, than anything they're brewing up today; and they can't stand that. She's not just a ship, I tell you; she's the old way. She's grace and manners and tradition. Don't you see? She's the Empire!"
The old man's eyes were flashing.
"Nothing," he said, in a lower voice, "is sacred any more. The beasts are at the gate, and we're all too old to fight them. Like the Lady herself, too old and too tired. So we stand about in stone fury like pathetic statues with our medals gone to rust and our swords broken while the vandals turn our castles into sideshows, put advertisements for soap along our roads, and-wait! the time is soon!-reach up their hairy hands and pull the Queen down from her throne. Scrap the Lady! No. But how are we to stop them from scrapping England?"
The old man stood quite still for several minutes, then he turned and walked away; and McKenzie said, beneath his breath: "Poor chap. He'd planned this with his wife, and then she had to go and die on him."
Burgess nodded. "Well, we'll have some cards tonight and he'll feel better."
We drank another; then Eileen and I had dinner with the McKenzies and retired to our cabin.
Mrs. McKenzie had been right. Love does have its own particular vision: the plaster cupids and golden door didn't seem grotesque at all; in fact, very late at night, with the moon striping the calm black ocean, it seemed to me that there could hardly be a nicer room.
The next twelve days were like a lazy, endless dream. We had trouble, at first, adjusting to it. When you've lived most of your life in a city, you forget that leisure can be a creative thing. You forget that there is nothing sinful in relaxation. But the Lady Anne was good to us. She gave us time, plenty of time. And on the fourth day I stopped fidgeting and began to enjoy the pleasures of getting to know the woman I'd married. Eileen and I talked together and made love together and walked the ancient deck together, hoping that it would never end, secure in the knowledge that it would
but not for a while.
We forgot, too, that the other passengers were in their seventies and eighties. It wasn't important, any longer. They were married couples, as we were, and in a very real way, they were on their honeymoons, too. Twice we surprised McKenzie and his wife on the promenade deck well after midnight, and the Burgesses hardly ever stopped holding hands. The women and men who were alone looked melancholy, but somehow not sad. Even the old colonel, Van Vlyman, had stopped being angry. We'd see him every now and then seated on the deck, his eyes looking out over the Atlantic, dreaming.
Then, treacherously, as if it had sneaked up on us, the twelfth day came, and the smell of land was in the air. Far in the distance we could see the gray spine of Cherbourg, and we wondered what had happened to the hours.
McKenzie stopped us in The Imperial Lounge. His face wore a slightly odd expression. "Well," he said, "it's almost over. I expect you're glad."
"No," I told him. "Not really."
That pleased him. "The Lady's done her job for you, then?"
"She has," said Eileen, a different, softer, more feminine Eileen that I'd known two weeks before.
"Well, then; you'll be coming to the dance tonight?"
"Wouldn't miss it."
"Capital! Uh… one thing. Have you packed your luggage?"
"No. I mean, we don't dock till tomorrow night, so-"
"Quite. Still, it would do no harm to pack them anyhow," said McKenzie. "See you at the dance!"
Like so many others, the things he said frequently sounded peculiar and meant nothing. We went outside and stood at the rail and watched the old sailors-who were all part of the original crew-scrubbing down the ship. They seemed to be working especially hard, removing every trace of dirt, scraping the rails with stiff wire brushes, getting things neat.
At eight we went back to the cabin and changed into our evening dress; and at nine-thirty joined the others in the Imperial Lounge.
The incredible little band was playing antique waltzes and fox trots, and the floor was filled with dancing couples. After a few drinks, we became one of the couples. I danced with Eileen for a while, then with almost every other woman aboard. Everyone seemed to be happy again. Eileen was trying to rumba with Colonel Van Vlyman, who kept sputtering that he didn't know how, and Mrs. McKenzie taught me a step she'd learned in 1896. We drank some more and danced more and laughed, and then the clock struck midnight and the band stood up and played Auld Lang Syne and the people held hands and were quiet.
McKenzie and Burgess walked up then, and Burgess said: "Mr. Ransome, Mrs. Ransome: we'd like you to meet our captain, Captain Protheroe. He's been here as long as the Lady has; isn't that right, sir?"
An unbelievably old man in a neat blue uniform nodded his head. His hair was thin and white, his eyes were clear.
"A most unusual man, the captain," said Burgess. "He understands things. Like the rest of us, actually-except that his wife is a ship. Still, I doubt I love my Cynthia more than he loves the Lady Anne."
The captain smiled and looked directly at us. "You've had a pleasant voyage?" he asked, in a good strong voice.
"Yes, sir," I said. "We're grateful to have been part of it."
"Indeed? Well, that's very nice."
There was a pause, and I suddenly became aware of a curious fact. The vibration of the engines, deep below us, had stopped. The ship itself had stopped.
Captain Protheroe's smile broadened. "Very nice, indeed," he said. "As Mr. McKenzie pointed out to me earlier, your presence aboard has been rather symbolic, if I may use the word. Us ending, you beginning; that sort of thing, eh?" He rose from the chair. "Now then. I'm afraid that I must say good bye to you. We've radioed your position and you oughtn't to be inconvenienced for more than a few hours."
"Beg pardon?" I said.
Burgess coughed. "They don't know," he said. "Thought it would be better that way."
"Eh? Oh, yes, how stupid of me. Of course." Captain Protheroe turned his clear eyes back to us. "You won't mind obliging us," he said, "by gathering up your things?"