Death Under Sail

1:  Six Pleasant People

I kept turning down lanes, every one of which was exactly the same as the one before it. I began to lose my temper after the third mile.

It had seemed pleasant when Roger had written, asking me to join a party of our friends for a fortnight on the Broads. Every year I found it more of an effort to tear myself from my pleasant chambers, where I could indulge my bachelor habits, enjoy good food, and sleep in comfort; but at sixty-three I was still prepared to submit to a little mild discomfort for the sake of friendly company. And I knew that at any of Roger’s parties one was certain to meet some amusing young men and women.

Besides, I have always liked flat country, and lazy motion through slow water, and the sunsets one can only see when there are no hills within a hundred miles. Even the fatuity of following another lane, still muddier than the one before it, did not destroy a sort of irritated pleasure provoked by the livid skyline broken by a solitary ridiculous windmill.

Nevertheless, I was annoyed with Roger. The party had already been sailing for a week before I could get away from London. He had told me to go by train to Wroxham and find my way on foot to a staithe near Salhouse. In his letter he had said:…‘it is easy to find and not very far.’ I told myself that I ought to have remembered that, since he began to deal with well-to-do women patients, Roger’s misplaced optimism had been considerably strengthened. So here I was at eight o’clock on a September night, amid a light rain carried by the fresh wind. I was getting damp – and I was beginning strenuously to resent the weight of my suitcase. I felt I was too old for this sort of thing.

Then I saw the glint of water over the reeds as the river turned towards the Salhouse marshes; a few hundred yards away the bare mast of a yacht stood black against the sky. The yacht was moored for the night, and there were patches of light through the portholes and a green shine under the canvas of the awning. As I hurried to it, I heard a booming voice which could only belong to one man in the world.

I never have heard anyone who made a noise like Roger. It was a welcome sound now, for I had a prospect of a comfortable seat in the cabin and a pretty girl to hand me a drink. With that in mind, I was prepared to forgive Roger his foghorn of a voice and even his causing me to tramp miles through a moist night.

I almost recovered my temper as I walked along the side of the staithe and called for Roger. There was a rumble of movement inside the yacht, and Roger’s head appeared between the flaps of the awning.

‘That you, Ian? Where have you been?’ he said heartily.

‘Taking part in the oddest obstacle race you ever saw,’ I said coldly. ‘The conditions are set by an idiot. It’s like this: One walks an interminable number of miles on a cold, wet night carrying a heavy object to an indeterminate part of the earth. If one doesn’t reach it, one loses and dies; if one does reach it, one wins and kills the idiot.’

Roger guffawed.

‘Come along in and have a drink. You’ll feel better soon!’

I climbed on to the yacht.

‘Better!’ I said. ‘I only hope for death.’

Roger laughed again, and I followed him down the hatch into the cabin. I noticed, as I walked behind him, that he was getting fatter than ever.

The cabin was full of light and noise and the clink of glasses.

‘Here’s Ian!’ someone shouted, and I was pushed on to a bunk and Avice poured a golden-looking cocktail into a long-stemmed glass.

Whenever I saw Avice I always felt that, had I been twenty years younger, I should have looked at her with even greater appreciation and much less ease of mind than I actually did. As it was, at my age, I was grateful for the pleasures of contemplation.

It seemed almost a shame for anyone to be as pretty as she was tonight. Only Avice could pour out drinks as though it were a task of great importance and charm, to be done with an air of melancholy gaiety, which made me admire all the more her discontented mouth and her thin white hands.

She was lovely, from the brown hair smoothed from her high forehead to her long and slender legs; but I felt, as I took the cocktail from her and saw her smile, that, with everything taken away except her eyes, she would still be a charming creature.

‘Your eyes are attractively sad, my dear,’ I said. After all, I was forty years older than she was, and age gives one the liberty to pay compliments – even if it takes away the reward for which compliments are paid.

‘You do say nice things, Ian,’ she replied, and lit a cigarette for me.

‘Long practice: when I was young I wasn’t anything like so good at it,’ I murmured, sinking back into my corner.

‘Her eyes really are attractively sad,’ said Christopher, who was sitting in the opposite corner. ‘As sad as anyone’s can possibly be who’s never had anything unpleasant happen to her in her life.’ His brown face came out of the darkness of the corner for a moment, and there was a smile round his firm mouth.

Avice blushed quickly and laughed happily at him. I remembered that there was a rumour that at last they were likely to be married. For two years he had been in love with her and, like many of her friends, he had often been driven to despair.

At least so I imagined from what I had seen, and I decided that he deserved her if he had captured her at last. I liked him; he was a young man with a vigorous mind and a strong personality.

Even his many merits, however, did not altogether allay a twinge of jealousy which I ought to have outgrown at my age. I looked at Avice as she laughed at him, and I wished that I too, as well as Christopher, were young and sunburnt and twenty-six.

However, they were a pleasant pair, and I told myself it was far better that Avice should marry him than Roger – and I knew that Roger not long ago had pursued her with the same rough, optimistic energy that he brought to every occupation of his life. She had refused him, and he had been bitter at the time. He was not used to being refused anything.

I was glad, though; as I was thinking of that affair, I studied Roger as he sat by the cabin door. He was becoming red-faced and noisy; and there would have seemed something sacrilegious about a marriage between him and Avice. I knew of his growing fame. He had planted a foot successfully in Harley Street, and was spoken of among doctors as the best man in his own line of his generation. But that was not enough. He was too – what shall I say – ‘robust’ for Avice. They were utterly different in every way; curiously enough, they were cousins, a fact I found it almost impossible to believe. In my case, all that business about their marriage was fortunately over; Avice, so far as I could judge, was fond of Christopher, and Roger had recovered and was his old jovial self. I had a suspicion that this yachting party had been arranged as a signal that everything was well again.

The voice of Roger himself broke upon my thoughts. It was very different from my idea of the voice of a man suffering from a broken heart. It said: ‘Ian, you’re looking like a stuffed fish.’

‘I was thinking,’ I said.

‘What of?’ said Roger.

‘Of the increasing expansion of my host,’ I said.

Roger laughed his loudest laugh.

‘I suppose I am getting fatter,’ he said. ‘It comes of having a contented mind. But there’s someone here you haven’t seen. Have you ever met a girl called Tonia?’

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But I hope to.’

‘Here she is,’ Roger pointed with a fat hand. ‘Philip brought her – she’s Tonia Gilmour.’

I had been so busy watching Avice that I had scarcely noticed the exact constitution of the rest of the party. Philip had grinned cheerfully at me as I came in, but I had not paid much attention to the girl reclining on the bunk by his side.

‘Let me introduce you,’ Roger said. ‘Tonia, this is Ian Capel. He’s very, very old – at least sixty. I invited him as a sort of concession to Edwardian gentility.’

‘I think I should have liked the Edwardians,’ said Tonia in a low husky voice, and I blessed her for it. She was a girl who immediately held one’s glance, not with the delicate appeal of Avice, but with a striking quality all her own. Very high eyebrows under masses of hair, which shone red as it caught the lamplight, made a setting for long narrow eyes, one of which, I observed with almost a start, was brown and the other grey; her mouth was painted deep red on a darkish skin. Her slim body was covered by a dress of bright green, and a black belt wound round a narrow waist. Bare sunburned legs were drawn up on the bunk and Philip was playing with her ankles.

‘Philip’s taste is better than we had any right to expect,’ I replied; and everyone rapped their glasses on the table, for Philip was popular with us all. He had never done anything in his life but be charming to his friends; he had idled his way through Oxford, writing a little poetry, acting a little, talking a great deal; and now, at twenty-five, he sauntered over Europe, still doing nothing but be charming. His father could afford to let him, and it was difficult not to forgive Philip whatever he did or wanted to do.

As he lay now, his hands caressing Tonia’s ankles and a mass of hair falling over his mobile eager face, I for my part was prepared to laugh at any of his escapades, for his own sake and for the sake of this enticing vital Tonia whom he had brought amongst us.

He echoed my remark.

‘Taste? Taste, Ian, you old scoundrel! If you say any more, I’ll tell everybody about the flat-faced woman with the twisted nose.’

This was utterly new to me. I looked lost. There was a general chuckle. Philip went on: ‘Ian met her on a bus. She was reading a book. Ian, the old dog, went and sat down by her and said: Wouldn’t you like to read another book? and she said; What book? And he said: The railway timetable. She said: What for? Ian said: So that we can go away together! She had an absolutely flat face and a twisted nose.’

Roger led a chorus of laughter in which I joined, after a protest which was drowned in the merriment. Then William’s hard, clear voice broke in: ‘Ian is a man of taste, so that adventure can’t have happened to him. And Philip hasn’t any imagination, so he can’t have invented it. I can only conclude it must have happened to Philip himself.’

Philip grinned unashamedly, and Tonia gently pulled his ear. I raised my glass to William, and said: ‘William, my boy, you’ve saved me. Greetings and thanks!’

It was characteristic of William to have said nothing until he considered it necessary for him to make a direct remark.

He was sitting as we had so often seen him sit, with the trace of a smile on his pale face and one hand fondling his square chin. Four years ago Roger had introduced him to me, and had said he was a young doctor with a future; and lately I had heard that he was likely to usurp some of Roger’s own reputation. I confess I was not surprised; though William was not yet thirty, there was a confidence and directness about his thinking, and a fixed ambition under his impassive manner, that marked him as destined for whatever heights he chose.

There he sat beyond Roger, his pale clever face contrasting oddly with Roger’s round red one, and I know that if ever I had to choose a cancer specialist – and I prayed that it would not be necessary, for I had and have all the fear of doctors of a man who has been healthy all his life – I should go to William without a second’s hesitation.

The seven of us almost filled the cabin. I drained my glass and, with the warm well-being that comes at the end of a good cocktail, I surveyed the party.

In order to appreciate them more, I described them to myself as though I were taking an inventory for the use of an acquaintance.

It was pleasant to be among youth – and among friends. There was Avice Loring on my left, with a cigarette between her lips, looking at me in her grave charming way. Sitting next to Avice, between her and the door, was her cousin, Roger Mills, our host, the exuberantly successful doctor who, as I glanced at him, raised a tumbler of whisky to his mouth. William Garnett occupied the whole of the end seat farthest from us, but, like the unrestful young man he was, he sat on the edge of it with his face supported in his hands; I told myself that soon he would be the most distinguished of them all. On the side bunk away from the door Tonia Gilmour was stretched languorously, her fingers twisted in Philip Wade’s hair. Philip was basking with his eyes closed, every inch the pleasant idler. And, my glance returning to my end of the cabin, there was Christopher Tarrant in the other corner, with his thin brown face half in shadow and his deep-set eyes fixedly watching Avice’s hands.

They were six pleasant people, I thought, and life seemed good as I watched them. Except for Tonia, who was a stranger, so far as I knew, to everyone but Philip, we all knew each other well. Three years ago, the other six of us had formed part of a large house-party in a villa in Southern Italy, and there had sprung up an intimacy between us all that was a very dear thing in my life and, I hoped and believed, in the lives of the others. I looked at them all, and smiled with content.

Avice leaned against me, and said: ‘Beginning to be smug already, are you, Ian?’

I was pleased to be mocked by Avice.

‘My dear,’ I said, ‘being smug is one of the compensations of getting old. We all of us enjoy being here, and being with people we like. But you young people have to conceal it from yourselves that you enjoy it. I just feel pleased and admit it.’

‘It must be wonderful to be old,’ she said, and I think that she sighed.

‘It has its drawbacks,’ I replied, as I looked at her parted lips.

Roger produced another bottle of whisky from the cupboard, and filled our glasses in turn. There had been a time when I should have been surprised to see girls like Avice and Tonia drink spirits, but I had come to accept it as another of the things which are inevitable in these troubled days of ours – and I could not see any possible reason why they should not drink whisky if they liked it. William tasted his glass, then looked across at me, and said: ‘Ian hasn’t heard the news yet. He doesn’t know we’re celebrating tonight.’

‘What are we celebrating?’ I asked, and added: ‘Except our being here together.’

‘Christopher has just been given the job of supervising all the rubber growing in Malaya,’ William said.

‘Splendid! I’m so glad, Christopher.’ I turned to him, and said: ‘I hope it’s profitable, as well as essential.’

Avice broke in quickly: ‘Oh, they’re going to give him such a lot of money!’

‘This is the best news I’ve heard for a long time,’ I said. I was aware that Christopher depended entirely on what he earned, and I was excited to hear that success had come to him like this.

‘All of you – I give you Christopher!’ I lifted my tumbler, and we drank.

‘It’s terribly good of you,’ said Christopher, and his face, often hard, looked affectionate and young. ‘It isn’t quite settled yet’ – and he smiled as he said it – ‘I’ve got to be looked at by various heads of the company: so that they’ll be sure I shan’t go ga-ga as soon as I get out there.’

We laughed and shouted: ‘Christopher!’ again. Then Philip inquired plaintively: ‘Isn’t anyone going to celebrate me getting a job, too?’

Avice said sweetly: ‘My dear Philip, we should all be horribly annoyed if you did. The fact that you’re doing nothing at all is the one certain thing we know.’

Philip drew himself up with a comic pretence of dignity: ‘Avice, you’re a child, and know no better. As a matter of fact, Tonia is seriously thinking of employing me as her secretary.’

Tonia put a hand on his shoulder, and said huskily: ‘His only duty would be to open my letters.’

I was surprised, and asked her: ‘Why ever do you want him to do that?’

‘To make him jealous, of course.’ She arched her high eyebrows. ‘He’s far too English to read them without being paid to. He’ll have to plough solemnly through them, and I hope it’ll rouse him. Even if I have to write love-letters to myself.’ She let her eyes dwell on Philip for a moment, and I fancy that only Roger prevented them kissing in front of us all. But Roger could be relied on to interrupt any tense situation, and in his most boisterous voice he said: ‘Now then, you children, it’s time for bed. I want to sail up to Horning before breakfast tomorrow.’

‘We shall have breakfast at Horning, I suppose,’ Philip murmured. ‘That means getting up indecently early.’

‘Why in the name of our good friend Mr Willett do you always sail before breakfast?’ Christopher asked, yawning.

‘As I always get up at eight and sail her myself, I don’t see that it matters. You slackers manage to get another hour in bed,’ Roger replied, smiling at Christopher.

I noticed that they were on friendly terms, which, I thought, after their rivalry for Avice, did credit to them both.

‘And it’s good for everyone to be made thoroughly uncomfortable for a fortnight in their lives,’ he chuckled.

‘Where am I sleeping, Roger?’ I put in gently. ‘On the roof of the cabin – I should be quite reasonably uncomfortable there?’

Roger got up and stretched his bulk, his face shining red and moist.

‘No, you and I sleep in these two double berths in here. We’re the oldest and the fattest and we need the room. All last week the girls here have had the other two double berths in the aft cabin. Why, I don’t know. We just pamper them. These other parasites have the three single berths in the middle of the boat. That’s how we’ve been sleeping all the week.’

‘You don’t really believe in your Spartan theories at all, or you’d hang head downwards from the mast and sleep like that,’ Avice said to Roger, as she gathered up the glasses from the table.

‘My dear Avice,’ Roger burst out very loudly, ‘none of you have ever got it clear what this sort of holiday depends on. It’s really roughing it in comfort. That is, we live in a thing we have to sail ourselves: a motorboat would be a lot more convenient, but nothing like such fun. On the other hand, we have decent food: we might live on lard and black bread, but that wouldn’t be such fun. Like all games, we make the rules for ourselves. Getting up early in the morning is part of the game!’

‘Very lucidly put, Roger,’ I said. ‘I’m going to think over your wisdom outside, while you enjoy another part of the game – which is getting this cabin ready for me to sleep in. Good night, everyone.’

They were all going to their berths as I left Roger clearing up cigarette ends and bottles. I went up the fore-hatchway, which was just outside the cabin, and felt the air cool on my face as I stood on the narrow deck.

For a few minutes I thought about the people inside the yacht, what they meant to me and what they would do. I am an oldish man; there have been times in my life when I have doubted whether there is the slightest justice in this world of ours, which is arranged so casually and so haphazardly that one man can divide his year between languid days in a yacht and still more languid days by the side of the Mediterranean, while another spends fifty weeks in a year in Oldham and the other two in Blackpool.

But as I grow older those doubts get less and less. I am certain that in the end there is no arrangement which will be better than this uneven balance. If this world of comfort and leisure were swept away, there would be too much lost! I said this to myself as I stood on the yacht that night before the real beginning of the story I am going to tell.

There would be too much lost! Often I have heard the fierce indignation with which some of my acquaintances say that any change must be for the better. Often I have sat uneasily, my slow mind unable to explain my attitude. Yet, alone on deck on this tranquil night, I felt that if I had them here I could perhaps make them understand.

From below there came Avice’s low and rippling laugh. To think of her charm lost irretrievably in a drab work-a-day routine! More strongly than ever, I felt that a state of affairs which could produce her is justified by its results. I thought of the others on the wherry. Why should not gay and pleasant idlers like Philip and this Tonia of his be allowed to go their own diverting way? They make their contribution to the colour of life, and if they and their kind go, then it will mean the destruction of a world. A world which, whatever its faults, gives more of the good things of life