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Authors: Carola Dunn

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BOOK: To Davy Jones Below
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“I couldn't risk losing you to some other lucky man,” Gotobed said simply.
The requisite congratulations were forthcoming, Arbuckle speaking them as if they puckered his mouth like pure vinegar. Daisy thought his dismay excessive.
She didn't suppose Mrs. Gotobed to be madly in love with her elderly husband, but she appeared to be mildly fond of him. There seemed no reason why she should not cheer his declining years—not that he looked likely to decline in the near future. Arbuckle said the Yorkshireman had never married before, so there were no children to be done out of his millions.
“But where are Mr. and Mrs. Petrie?” Gotobed asked. “Wanda is eager to meet them.”
“Oh yes, I'm ever so keen. Mr. Gotobed's told me all about them. Mr. Petrie's the son of a lord, isn't he? An Honourable?”
Arbuckle glanced at Daisy and opened his mouth. Daisy frowned at him fiercely. She didn't want Wanda Gotobed, or anyone else on board, sucking up to her because she, too, had an Honorable before her name. Alec was likewise incognito. Perfectly ordinary, law-abiding people tended to get shifty-eyed if they discovered there was a Scotland Yard detective among them.
“Gloria and Phillip have gone to take a look at the ship's engines,” Arbuckle told the Gotobeds. “And I guess you'll be wanting to take a look at your stateroom—cabin, as you Britishers call it.”
“Mr. Gotobed's taken a de luxe suite for us, not just a cabin. My maid's down there unpacking. He made me bring a maid, you know. He says you just can't rely on the stewardesses.”
“I expect they're frightfully overworked today, poor things,” said Daisy, who had unpacked and put away her own and Alec's things. The years since her father's death had accustomed her to doing for herself. She didn't want a stranger pawing through her belongings.
Mrs. Gotobed gave her an unexpectedly sharp look. “Yes, I s'pose they are busy,” she quickly agreed, “poor things. Dickie-bird, let's go and take a peek at our suite.”
“Right you are, love. Arbuckle, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, I hope you and the Petries will join us there before dinner and drink a toast to my lovely bride.”
They all accepted, Daisy trying to sound enthusiastic enough to make up for Arbuckle's lack of enthusiasm. The newly-weds departed.
At that moment, the
Talavera's
steam whistle let go with an ear-shattering blast. Daisy jumped.
“Last warning for those going ashore,” said Arbuckle gloomily, staring after them. “Which she's not. Wanda Gotobed. What a name! You'd think that alone would be enough to make him forget about marrying her. Must be all the old goat's thinking about, though, because why else …”
Alec coughed.
Arbuckle blushed. “Pardon me, Mrs. Fletcher. This business has me in such a tizzy, I'm forgetting my manners. No offence, I hope!”
“No offence,” Daisy assured him. “But I don't believe it's as bad as you fear. She may be … well, common, but if he's the son of a farm labourer, that very likely suits him better than a wife who might look down on him. And you say he has plenty of money. The worst she can do now is help him spend it. I expect he'll enjoy the process.”
T
he Gotobeds' sitting room was three times the size of Daisy and Alec's tourist-class cabin. On the walls hung large paintings of the
Talavera's
sister ships,
Vitoria
and
Waterloo
. The furniture was in the style of Sheraton or Hepplewhite (Daisy was vague as to which was which), gleaming with polish and silk brocade. Matching curtains hung at the portholes, which were disguised as casement windows, presumably so that the occupants could pretend they were not at sea.
Under one of these windows stood a table large enough to seat four in reasonable comfort. A tray of champagne glasses and a silver ice-bucket with the wired neck of a magnum protruding promised oil to smooth the social waters.
Alec and Daisy were the first guests to arrive.
“Welcome to our home away from home,” Gotobed greeted them expansively. “Fletcher, mebbe you'd like to tackle the champagne bottle? I've niver opened one in my life. Beer I was brought up on and beer's my tipple, though I confess to an occasional whisky and water.”
“A man after my own heart,” said Alec, grinning. “I've never opened champagne either, but Great Scott, how difficult
can it be? Absolute idiots do it all the time. Let's have a dekko.”
The two men moved over to the table. Alec tore off the foil and, examining the wiring beneath, they discussed the best way to attack it.
“Have a seat, do,” Mrs. Gotobed invited Daisy. With a careless gesture, she waved at the room. “Not bad, eh?”
Daisy detected tension beneath the assumption of nonchalance. The poor woman must feel like a dandelion in a bed of dahlias. Well, perhaps not quite, not with the peroxided, marcelled hair, that fringed, beaded, rose silk evening frock—probably straight from Paris, as was her perfume—and the long rope of pearls which Daisy suspected of being genuine.
Still, Mrs. Gotobed was not altogether at ease. Daisy sympathized, remembering how odd she had felt just after her wedding, although she had been amongst friends and relatives.
“Very nice,” she said, glancing around the room again.
The white walls, picked out in gilt, the blue-and-gold brocade and blue-and-white carpet were in the best of interior decorator taste. Daisy preferred the comfortably eclectic decor of Fairacres, where every style from Jacobean onwards had melded over the centuries into its own particular charm, happily unaltered by Edgar and Geraldine. Possibly Mrs. Gotobed preferred something gaudier.
“Very elegant,” Daisy assured her. “I hope your sleeping cabin is comfortable.”
“Oh yes,” said Mrs. Gotobed archly. “Mr. Gotobed insisted on me taking forty winks before you came, after such a busy day as we had. I had to chase him out so's I could get ready in time. He doesn't understand yet how long it takes a girl to make the best of herself, even with Baines to help.”
She paused, apparently awaiting a compliment on her appearance,
but Daisy's sympathy did not extend quite so far. It had taken her just fifteen minutes, in the cramped little cabin with pipes running across the ceiling, to wash, dress, and powder her nose. She had been feeling quite smart in a new, black georgette frock, dressed up with a cerise chiffon scarf held with a diamanté brooch, until she saw Wanda Gotobed's Paris model.
“It's such a beautiful evening, Alec and I stayed up on deck. It was interesting watching the tugs pull and push the ship out into the channel. Then we met the
Talavera's
sister ship,
Salamanca
, coming in. I expect you heard the whistles blowing again? They greet each other with a W for Wellington in Morse code, short-long-long. All the
Salamanca's
passengers were at the rails waving to us.”
Supremely uninterested, Mrs. Gotobed complained, “I don't see why British ships have foreign names. You'd think they'd want to give them good English names.”
“I suppose, since it's the Wellington Line, they thought it a good idea to name them after Wellington's victories.” History at Daisy's school had consisted of long lists of English kings and battles, that she remembered, with dates, that she forgot. “I wonder if there's a
Ciudad Rodrigo.”
“But even the big liners of the other lines, like the
Mauretania,
they have funny-sounding names. I'd've rather sailed on … Dickie, someone's knocking.”
“Come in, come in!” called Gotobed, striding to open wide the door. “Ah, Mrs. Petrie, come and meet my wife. You know the Fletchers, don't you? Arbuckle, happen you or Petrie can help us. Fletcher and I are afraid to open the champagne for fear of sending the cork ricocheting around the room, to the danger of the ladies.” He laughed heartily.
“Phillip's your man,” said Arbuckle.
“Aye, o' course, the technical wizard. Just the lad we need.”
Daisy went over to Alec while the introductions were performed, but she observed the participants. Phillip was, as ever, the courteous English gentleman. Gloria, usually outgoing in the American manner, was reserved. Arbuckle looked on with the impassivity of a good butler.
Phillip came to join Alec and Daisy at the table. “Have to make the best of a bad job,” he said in a low voice, dealing efficiently with the champagne's wire headdress. “No good getting into a stew over spilt milk.”
“No,” Daisy agreed, “nor locking the stable door after the cows have come home.”
He gave her a slightly puzzled look, then concentrated on easing out the cork.
Pop!
“Ooh, I do love bubbly!” Mrs. Gotobed cried. “I was afraid we wouldn't be able to get it on this ship. As I was just saying to Mrs. Fletcher, I wanted to go on one of the big, fast liners, but Mr. Gotobed simply wouldn't hear of it. ‘Not on your life,' says he, 'not when my friend Arbuckle's booked on the
Talavera.'
”
Though this was uttered in a tone as much playful as complaining, Arbuckle didn't take it kindly.
“I prefer smaller ships,” he grunted. “For one thing, if I must be one of a crowd, I'd rather it was a small crowd. And then, I saw the
Vaterland's
arrival and departure from New York on her maiden voyage.”
Phillip looked round from pouring the champagne. “It must have been quite a spectacle.”
“It was the largest vessel in the world when it was built, wasn't it, sir?” Alec asked, handing round glasses. “I remember something about its having trouble leaving New York.”
“Trouble! It was darn near disaster. The Germans enlarged her in the building just so as to beat Cunard's
Aquitania,
with no regard for common sense or engineering
principles. The noospapers were full of her expected arrival, with the
New York World
calling her a ‘sea monster' in huge headlines. Thousands gathered in Hoboken to watch. Waal, she steamed up the Hudson and came abreast her pier. Then a string of barges cut across her bows.” Arbuckle's pause was a masterpiece of the raconteur's art.
Sipping her champagne, Daisy watched Mrs. Gotobed's face. At first bored, she was quickly caught up in the story.
Arbuckle continued. “The pilot ordered the engines cut. The wind and tide and current were all against her, and she started moving broadside downstream. Being so long, she had no room to manoeuvre. They didn't dare restart the engines. More and more tugs joined in—twenty—five in the end, I heard—and they finally managed to stop her just before she went aground on a mud-bank.”
“Cripes!” exclaimed Mrs. Gotobed. “And it was worse when it left New York?”
“Much worse.” Arbuckle actually smiled at her. “She backed out of her berth much too fast, zipped across the river, and got stuck in the mud between two piers on the other side. The engines were reversed at high speed to try to get her off. A couple of small ships docked nearby were sucked from their moorings, hawsers snapping, then flung back against the piers and badly damaged.”
“Cripes!”
“At the same time, the wash of those great engines swamped a coal barge. The captain of that managed to jump to the nearest pier, but the engineer of a nearby tug was drowned.”
“Good heavens!” said Daisy.
“Did the
Vaterland
get out of the mud?” asked Mrs. Gotobed, agog.
“Yes siree, she pulled out, turned, and steamed off downriver, calm as you please. She was just too big to notice
the difficulties of anything smaller. But you wouldn't get me travelling on anything that size, let alone investing in 'em.”
“I'd give something to see her engines,” said Phillip. “More champers, anyone?” He refilled glasses.
“I can fix it for you to take a look, son,” promised his father-in-law. “She's sailed under the American flag since the War as
Leviathan
. She's not doing too well, I guess. Prohibition is in effect on board all U.S. ships. I'm as patriotic as the next man, but you won't catch me sailing in her.” He hoisted his glass. “Here's to my good pal, Jethro Gotobed, and his blooming bride. May they have many happy years together.”
As Fletchers and Petries joined the toast, Gotobed looked delighted, his wife relieved. Daisy thought “blooming” was an unfortunate choice of adjective. She was not sure whether the American realized its significance in English slang, but as neither of the principals took it amiss, all was well.
Arbuckle seemed to have resigned himself to his friend's
faux
pas,
a changed attitude which was bound to make the voyage much pleasanter.
 
The
Talavera's
comparatively small complement of passengers meant that first, tourist, and third classes all shared the same public facilities.
“Real democratic,” Arbuckle observed to Daisy as they entered the extravagantly named Grand Salon, “but you won't mind that. They clear away the tables after dinner for concerts and dancing and such. I fixed with the Purser to seat us at the doctor's table. He's an interesting guy.”
“The doctor!” pouted Mrs. Gotobed. “We paid for a suite; don't we get to sit with the Captain?”
“We were invited to the Captain's table eastbound,” Gloria told her. “He hardly said a word. Gee, most evenings he
didn't even turn up to dinner. The crossing was kind of rough, and he had to be on the bridge.”
“Cripes, I'm glad we've got fine weather. I dunno if I'm a good sailor or not and I don't want to find out!”
No one pointed out to her that they were still in the Irish Sea, with three thousand miles of Atlantic to cross.
“Where ignorance is bliss … ,” Daisy whispered to Alec.
“I wouldn't mind being ignorant. I'm in the same boat. I don't know if I'm a good sailor and I'd rather not have to find out.”
“I was all right on a roughish Channel crossing when I was a child,” Daisy said doubtfully.
“Don't anticipate trouble, darling. And don't listen to the story the blooming bride is presently recounting.”
Mrs. Gotobed had embarked on an all too vivid description of the revolting symptoms suffered by a dear friend on a ferry from Ireland. Daisy, normally the least high-nosed scion of the nobility, decided there was common and then there was common, and Mrs. Gotobed was really too, too frightfully vulgar.
Gotobed's gentle hints failed of their purpose. Fortunately, the Chief Steward came over to take them to their table.
Dr. Amboyne was already there, standing behind his chair as he waited to see what the Purser had thrown to his lot. His weatherbeaten face broke into a smile as he saw Arbuckle approaching. They shook hands.
“You remember my girl, Gloria?” Arbuckle introduced the rest of his party.
In turn, Dr. Amboyne presented them to the passenger already seated on his right. Miss Oliphant was a lady of middle years, somewhere between forty-five and sixty—her round, pink, chinless face was smooth, though her hair, worn in a coronet of braids, was pure silver.
Her brown eyes bright as a sparrow's, she said cheerfully, in the precise accents of a schoolmistress, “Oh dear, you are all travelling together? I am quite the interloper!”
“Not at all, not at all,” Gotobed assured her. “It's for us to do our best not to overwhelm you.”
“I am not easily overwhelmed,” she retorted.
He laughed as he pulled out the chair opposite her for his wife. “Good for you, Miss Oliphant.”
Daisy noticed that his Yorkshire vowels, having reappeared in the intimate setting of his own suite, had once more vanished. Intrigued, she wondered whether the phenomenon was due to a conscious decision or if he had merely, among friends, relaxed his vigilance over his speech. Arbuckle described him as a canny old bird—a smart cookie—in all but his relations with women, so probably he knew exactly what he was doing.
BOOK: To Davy Jones Below
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