“Oh, they must be removed.”
“Ah, but passengers can be ‘removed’ in various ways,
I smiled and lowered my head in capitulation.
The lovely philanthropist made introductions. Seated next to her was Dr. James Houghton, a distinguished- looking gent in his middle forties, who was travelling to join Madame DePage’s husband as his assistant at the hospital at La Panne. Seated opposite them were a slender, bird-like but not unattractive woman in her later forties and a much younger man, possibly thirty or at most thirty-five, who seemed nonetheless to be her sweetheart. The woman was Theodate Pope, daughter of a car manufacturer in New England somewhere, and her bright-eyed soul mate was Edwin Friend.
“So you’re a journalist?” the bird-like Miss Pope asked, in a breathy, high-pitched voice. Her beaded gown was a light green satin.
I had at this point taken my seat at the far end of the table, next to Miss Vance, lovely in a blue satin the color of her eyes, every tendril of the blonde hair neatly up, complemented by a small hat with a large darker blue feather. This put me next to Mr. Friend, as well.
“That’s right,” I said, seeing no reason to amplify, though the designation “journalist” obviously did me little justice.
The woman persisted. “Have you any interest in the paranormal?”
“Psychic phenomenon, do you mean? I’m afraid I have little patience with superstition, Miss Pope.”
Her friend Friend chimed in. “Ah, but this isn’t superstition, sir-it’s science. That’s why we’re going to England, you see.”
I didn’t see, nor did I particularly care to.
But Miss Pope was saying, “Edwin and I are pursuing our mutual interest in psychic science. We’ve arranged to confer with the members of the English Society for Psychical Research!”
That last had been delivered so triumphantly I was obviously expected to cheer or at least provide an ooh or an ah. Instead I merely nodded, and said, “Well, I wish you both luck.”
This response disappointed them, but it achieved my desired effect: They turned away from me, to their own company, and throughout the evening spoke enthusiastically and incessantly to one another about spiritualistic matters.
Miss Vance whispered, “You handled that well, Van.”
I looked into the china-blue eyes, wishing I might live there-no pleasanter place could be easily imagined. “Did I, Vance?”
Still speaking so low that only I could hear her, she said, “You dispensed of them without insulting them-it’s nice to know your acid tongue can be reigned in.”
From the balcony the strained strains of “The End of a Perfect Day” wafted unsettlingly down, replacing Strauss with the inexplicably popular treacle of songwriter Carrie Jacobs Bond.
“The orchestra certainly knows how to kill one’s appetite,” I said to Miss Vance.
And a familiar male voice nearby blurted: “How wonderful! One of my favorite tunes, by my favorite composer!”
Elbert Hubbard had arrived. Pausing just behind us, the homespun excuse for a philosopher was escorting his wife, Alice, apparently in search of a table. Mrs. Hubbard was slender and not unattractive, in a scrubbed sort of way, though the woman seemed ill at ease in her chocolate-color satin evening gown, which had been in style once. Hubbard wore the required tuxedo, but one of his trademark floppy silk ties flowed down over his white shirt front, in seeming protest. With his shoulder-length gray-touched hair-so much like his wife’s-he cut a distinctive if bizarre figure in the midst of so much conservative wealth.
Then he noticed Madame DePage, who had turned to smile and nod to him. They were apparently acquainted-or at least had been introduced, at some point-because Hubbard and his wife went to her like iron shavings to a magnet.
“Marie,” he said, “how lovely you look. . I hope you can find time, on this voyage, to sit with me and exchange ideas and thoughts.”
“I would be delighted, Fra Hubbard,” she said.
I was dismayed to think so intelligent a woman could be swayed by this master of middle-brow blather.
“I am afraid I would have little to discuss,” Madame DePage said frankly, glancing about the room with mild distaste, “with these rich.”
Hubbard shrugged and his thick locks bounced on his shoulders. “Men are rich only as they give, Madame-you are the rich one in this room. He. . or
“Someone should follow him around,” I whispered to Miss Vance, “and sew that stuff on samplers.”
She gave me a reproving look, but her eyes were laughing.
Madame DePage introduced the Hubbards to Miss Pope and her young lapdog, and the bird-like female inquired as to the great Hubbard’s opinion of paranormal research.
“My opinion is favorable,” he said. “The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.”
That brightened Miss Pope’s eyes like a Hallowe’en pumpkin whose candle had just been lit.
But then Hubbard moved on-he seemed incapable of real conversation: He was strictly in the aphorism business. And his wife hadn’t said a word, merely a pleasant appendage of his. They made their way to a table beneath the orchestra, which had just begun playing another Carrie Jacobs Bond number, “Just-a Wearyin’ for You,” a forlornly lachrymose affair that had Hubbard looking skyward, as if God Himself were responsible for this dismal dirge.
“Why would a man so determinedly sanguine,” I asked Miss Vance, speaking of Hubbard, “be prone to such simple-minded sentimental slop?”
Miss Vance just looked at me. “Perhaps I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“Your ability to control that tongue of yours.”
I smiled. “You seem to have an abnormal interest in my tongue, Vance.”
Another woman might have blushed; Miss Vance merely smiled wickedly and said, “That remains to be seen. . Have you noticed that Captain Turner is at the head of the captain’s table?”
“Why, is that a surprise?”
“It’s well-known that Bowler Bill rarely makes such an appearance-he delegates the social duties to Staff Captain Anderson.”
I nodded. “And Staff Captain Anderson is conspicuous in his absence.”
She nodded back. “Supervising the search of the ship, no doubt.”
“Shouldn’t the ship’s detective be accompanying him?”
She frowned, shook her head, letting me know that-even in a hushed conversation like ours-mentioning her function as the
Still, she answered my question. “I’m travelling with Madame DePage-and I dine with Madame DePage.”
Glancing at the centrally placed captain’s table, I noted that-of the celebrities aboard, specifically those who’d received warning telegrams-only Vanderbilt and his friend Williamson were sharing Turner’s company. I asked Miss Vance if she recognized any of the other diners at the coveted central table, and three of them proved to be shipbuilders; a tall, dignified woman in a dark gown was (Miss Vance said) Lady Marguerite Allan, wife of Sir Montagu Allan, heir to a Canadian shipping concern, whom Lady Allan and her precociously lovely teenaged daughters were sailing to meet in England.
Vanderbilt and Williamson were listening to Captain Turner’s every word as if seated at Socrates’ knee; everyone at the table was fawningly attentive to the captain, who was taking a game stab at playing the genial host.
“Amusing, isn’t it?” I said to Miss Vance. “If old Bowler Bill weren’t in that gold-braided uniform, say a plain blue serge suit, those people wouldn’t look twice at him-he’d just be another provincial with a queer north-country twang.”
Miss Vance glanced over and she laughed a little. “Cruel but true. . and the wealthier they are, the more attentively they listen.”
