Oscar and Lucinda

Leplastrier. 'That such a God can look unkindly on a chap wagering a few quid on the likelihood of a dumb animal crossing a line first, unless,' (and here it seemed he would split his lips with the pleasure of his smile, which was, surely, caused more by Luanda's admiring face than by the new thought which had just, at that moment, taken possession of him) 'unless-and no one has ever suggested such a thing to meit might be considered blasphemy to apply to common pleasure that which is by its very nature divine.'

'Mr Hopkins,' Lucinda said, coming at last to sit down, 'we must not place our souls at risk with fancies.'

She meant this sincerely. She also did not mean it at all-there was nothing she liked better than to construct a fancy. She put great weight on fancies and was not in the habit of using the word in a dismissive way. The Crystal Palace, that building she admired more than any

Oscar and Lucinda

other, was nothing but a fancy of a kind, and there were ideas like this, the philosophical equivalent of great cathedrals of steel and glass, which were her passion, and she held these to her tightly, secretly.

'Not a fancy,' said Oscar.

He picked up the cards and put them together. It was not his intention that they play. It was Lucinda who suggested the game of cards. But later, when she knew Oscar better, she confessed that she had only done it because she thought it was what he had intended. 58

Reputation

It was already a scandal. It was known about by Mr Smith and Mr Borrodaile, by Mr Carraway, Mrs Menzies, Mr and Mrs Johnston. The stewards, of course, all knew-for they were not only judges but also conduits and they wound their way from class to class and even down into the rivet-studded steel innards of the ship, not quite as far as young Master Smiggins (whose task it was to ready the live-stock for the approaching storm). He knew a lady had 'lost her reputation' but he had this from long-nosed Clemence, the apprentice engineer. He did not know it was 'his' lady for whom he had planned to work.

'She gone and bleeding done it now. She lost it now,' said demence who was frightened by the animals.

'What?' asked Master Smiggins.

'Er reputation. I told you, didn' I? Compreyvous?'

'Course I bloody compreyvous. I got a sister, ain't? Now nick off. I got me animals and the sea's coming up.'

'Coming up your back passage more like,' said Clemence, but stepped back, ready to run. Master Smiggins kicked the llama doe in the backside and forced it into its crush. He strapped the crush shut.

'There,' he said, 'all tucked in now. Can't roll out of bed no matter

ttn

Thou Rulest the Raging of the Sea

what.' He went to deal with the buck. 'Now, don't you fuss,' he said. He looked around. Clemence had gone. 'Lost her reputation,' he said. He had a stick to prod the buck with.

'Course,' he said. 'Course I bloody compreyvous.' r 59

Thou Rulest the Raging of the Sea

Lucinda liked to play poker on a table covered with a grey wool blanket. This, of course, is how she first played cribbage in the house of Mr d'Abbs, and on windy nights, alone in her rented cottage at Longnose Point, she sometimes laid a blanket across the oilskin on her kitchen table and dealt herself a hand of patience. It was a comfort to her: to drink tea, to riddle the grate on the stove, to feel the soft blanket beneath the slippery cards. She did not feel the same affection for the tables in gaming houses. She liked the games, my word she did, but it was a different sort of 'like' to the one she had for the grey blanket-covered tables of her home and Mr d'Abbs's. The tables of gaming houses were cold and slippery. It was an icier pleasure, a showy dancer's thrill, like a tight, stretched smile or a pair of shiny patent-leather shoes. In her stateroom, alone with the priest, Lucinda took a blanket from her bed and draped it across the little table. She knew this action lacked propriety but she did not let herself address the matter. She must have it right. She would be blinkered. If he was shocked, she would not look at him. She would have everything in its proper place. She took a little amber lamp and set it to one side.

She thought: Alone in my bedroom with a priest.

'There,' she said, but could not bring her eyes up to look at him. She laid her hand flat on the blanket. She had been

Oscar and Luanda

biting her nails. She hid the evidence beneath her palm. H

'So,' she said, and looked him boldly in the eye.

His face was not how she had imagined it. She had rebuilt it in her imagination, had made it long and censorious when it was, in reality, doelike, almost pretty, with soft eyes regarding her from beneath long lashes.

'Shall we play?' he asked. < Lucinda blushed.

They played with penny bets.

It was such a still game. She might not have remarked on this quality were it not for the fact that he had previously been so agitated, such a kicker and scuffer, a squirmer in his seat-she had felt him next to her at dinner, had felt the vital life in his body through the table, through the legs of her own chair. But now she felt only this concentrated stillness. It was not a lifeless stillness-it was not that dead-eyed mask most men adopted when playing poker, their eyes gone blind like statues. He was a cello, a violin, he was all strapped down like Ulysses at the mast. She lost. She felt so light, an airy, dragon-fly wing of feeling. It was always like this when she lost. She felt such guilt and fear after she had lost that she did not imagine she liked losing, and yet this sensation always came with it, and once, seeing the carcass of a grasshopper all eaten out by ants, only its delicate and papery form remaining, she had recognized, in that light and lovely shell, the physical expression of this feeling she had when losing.

She shed her money, sloughed it off. A penny, a penny, a three penny piece. Mr Hopkins played the most exquisite poker. She cornplimented him, as another woman might have complimented her partner at a waltz. She sat up straight. She fanned her cards neatly. She had lost a sovereign but she did not wish to stop. She knew she would have the perfect voyage now. She knew herself happy.

At half past one the ship began to bluster in the wind and she felt the beginning of a long, deep swell. The ship made noises which made Lucinda think of a pianist cracking knuckles. She accommodated the motion of the ship to her idea of happiness.

She smiled at Oscar. He smiled back. He rested his left ankle across his knee. He jiggled it, but he did not knock the table and she did not notice.

At two-thirty the game turned again. He pushed through, bluffing to victory three hands in a row. He was breathing through his mouth. There was perspiration on his forehead but she took this to be produced by the excitement of the game.

Thou Rulest the Raging of the Sea

He observed that the ship, although large, seemed to move as one would imagine a small ship to move. He remarked on the size of the sea. It was such a large thing, he said. ' 'Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?' ' He smiled, showing the neat, ordered set of his lower teeth. She smiled. She had no appreciation of his phobia. He raised his betting. A crown to see her. There was a tremor in his voice it would have taken Mrs Williams to explain.

The game had changed. It was no longer still and calm. Lucinda no longer played leaning back. She bent forward. She rubbed her neck. She was making a small red spot, just from friction. Oscar was pale. He played with a sort of clipped breathlessness. His foot tapped against the table leg. She minded this not at all. He took her for two pounds and five shillings. She raised the betting again. She was so light, almost giddy. She confessed her happiness out loud. She hardly noticed the pitching of the ship. Her hat case tumbled off its rack and a vase of paper flowers-left carelessly on a side table, slipped and rolled-not breaking-across the floor. It was three twenty- three. The first wave washed across the deck. They turned ('Hoo,' said Oscar) to see the next wave-its white head towering over them like a ghost in the night. It was frightening. Lucinda found it frightening. She made some silly