29 Three Men and a Maid

“We must read him together. He is my favourite poet!”

“We will! There is something about Tennyson….”

“Yes, isn’t there! I’ve felt that myself so often!”

“Some poets are whales at epics and all that sort of thing, while others call it a day when they’ve written something that runs to a couple of verses, but where Tennyson had the bulge was that his long game was just as good as his short. He was great off the tee and a marvel with his chip-shots.”

“That sounds as though you played golf.”

“When I am not reading Tennyson, you can generally find me out on the links. Do you play?”

“I love it. How extraordinary that we should have so much in common. We really ought to be great friends.”

He was pausing to select the best of three replies when the lunch bugle sounded.

“Oh, dear!” she cried. “I must rush. But we shall see one another again up here afterwards?”

“We will,” said Sam.

“We’ll sit and read Tennyson.”

“Fine! Er—you and I and Mortimer?”

“Oh, no, Bream is going to sit down below and look after poor Pinky.”

“Does he—does he know he is?”

“Not yet,” said Billie. “I’m going to tell him at lunch.”

CHAPTER FOUR

It was the fourth morning of the voyage. Of course, when this story is done in the movies they won’t be satisfied with a bald statement like that; they will have a Spoken Title or a Cut-Back Sub-Caption or whatever they call the thing in the low dens where motion-picture scenario-lizards do their dark work, which will run:—

AND SO, CALM AND GOLDEN, THE DAYS WENT BY, EACH FRAUGHT WITH HOPE AND YOUTH AND SWEETNESS, LINKING TWO YOUNG HEARTS IN SILKEN FETTERS FORGED BY THE LAUGHING LOVE-GOD.

and the males in the audience will shift their chewing gum to the other cheek and take a firmer grip of their companions’ hands and the man at the piano will play “Everybody wants a key to my cellar” or something equally appropriate, very soulfully and slowly, with a wistful eye on the half-smoked cigarette which he has parked on the lowest octave and intends finishing as soon as the picture is over. But I prefer the plain frank statement that it was the fourth day of the voyage. That is my story and I mean to stick to it.

Samuel Marlowe, muffled in a bathrobe, came back to the stateroom from his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and happy and exuberant.

It was not merely the spiritual pride induced by a cold bath that was uplifting this young man. The fact was that, as he towelled his glowing back, he had suddenly come to the decision that this very day he would propose to Wilhelmina Bennett. Yes, he would put his fortune to the test, to win or lose it all. True, he had only known her for four days, but what of that?

Nothing in the way of modern progress is more remarkable than the manner in which the attitude of your lover has changed concerning proposals of marriage. When Samuel Marlowe’s grandfather had convinced himself, after about a year and a half of respectful aloofness, that the emotion which he felt towards Samuel Marlowe’s grandmother-to-be was love, the fashion of the period compelled him to approach the matter in a roundabout way. First, he spent an evening or two singing sentimental ballads, she accompanying him on the piano and the rest of the family sitting on the side-lines to see that no rough stuff was pulled. Having noted that she drooped her eyelashes and turned faintly pink when he came to the “Thee—only thee!” bit, he felt a mild sense of encouragement, strong enough to justify him in taking her sister aside next day and asking if the object of his affections ever happened to mention his name in the course of conversation. Further pour- parlers having passed with her aunt, two more sisters, and her little brother, he felt that the moment had arrived when he might send her a volume of Shelley, with some of the passages marked in pencil. A few weeks later, he interviewed her father and obtained his consent to the paying of his addresses. And finally, after writing her a letter which began “Madam! you will not have been insensible to the fact that for some time past you have inspired in my bosom feelings deeper than those of ordinary friendship….” he waylaid her in the rose-garden and brought the thing off.

How different is the behaviour of the modern young man. His courtship can hardly be called a courtship at all. His methods are those of Sir W. S. Gilbert’s Alphonso.

“Alphonso, who for cool assurance all creation licks, He up and said to Emily who has cheek enough for six: ‘Miss Emily, I love you. Will you marry? Say the word!’ And Emily said: ‘Certainly, Alphonso, like a bird!’”

Sam Marlowe was a warm supporter of the Alphonso method. He was a bright young man and did not require a year to make up his mind that Wilhelmina Bennett had been set apart by Fate from the beginning of time to be his bride. He had known it from the moment he saw her on the dock, and all the subsequent strolling, reading, talking, soup-drinking, tea-drinking, and shuffleboard-playing which they had done together had merely solidified his original impression. He loved this girl with all the force of a fiery nature—the fiery nature of the Marlowes was a byword in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square—and something seemed to whisper that she loved him. At any rate she wanted somebody like Sir Galahad, and, without wishing to hurl bouquets at himself, he could not see where she could possibly get anyone liker Sir Galahad than himself. So, wind and weather permitting, Samuel Marlowe intended to propose to Wilhelmina Bennett this very day.

He let down the trick basin which hung beneath the mirror and, collecting his shaving materials, began to lather his face.

“I am the Bandolero!” sang Sam blithely through the soap, “I am, I am the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!”

The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly.

“Oh, God!” said Eustace Hignett thrusting out a tousled head.