MADEMOISELLE TREBIZOND
Pye had interpreted his employer's face correctly, and Lane had not
boasted unduly. On Wednesday evening I received a letter appointing me
to the position of doctor, and at the same time informing me of my
remuneration. This was well enough, as it chanced; though not on too
liberal a scale, it was yet sufficient to meet my wants, and mentally I
cast myself adrift from Wapping with a psalm of thankfulness. The _Sea
Queen_ was to sail on Friday, and so I had little time left; yet by a
lucky chance I was enabled to dispose of my practice "on the nail," to
use a convenient colloquialism, and, with that adventitious sum of
money, equipped and fortified myself for my voyage. I paid two
preliminary visits to the yacht, but found no one of importance on
board, and it was not until the actual afternoon of our departure that
I made the acquaintance of any more of my shipmates.
We warped out of the docks, and dropped down the river unexpectedly,
the captain on his bridge at intervals, and the pilot all the time, and
at ten o'clock we reached Gravesend, where we anchored in the stream.
It was blowing hard of a cold night, and the wind was peppered with
sleet; a depressing proem to our unknown voyage. We swung at anchor
there until Mr. Morland came aboard with his friends, and we left on
the turn of the tide about midnight. I did not see Mr. Morland arrive,
as I was busy in the forecastle with a man who had met with a trivial
accident. It was Lane who informed me that the "butterflies were come"
and we might spread our wings. Lane I had encountered for a few minutes
in the afternoon, when he smilingly saluted me.
"Well, what price me?" and hurried off ere I could answer him or thank
him, as this form of salutation seemed to require. But he had more
leisure at supper, to which he invited me in his cabin.
"We chaps have the benefit of a pleasure yacht, doctor," said he,
winking, "and you bet I'm not purser for nothing. Blame me if I sup
with that crew until they shake down a bit. Barraclough's all right,
and a gentleman, but I can't stand Legrand or Holgate."
"I've met Mr. Holgate, and thought him intelligent," I ventured.
Lane emitted scorn. "Intelligent! He's a bladder of peas, and thinks
himself a monarch. Precious little swank about him, if he can help it.
He's fly enough there. Well, a tot won't hurt us now. I can tell you
I've been hustled." He had recourse to a decanter of whisky. "This is
the real stuff. I took care of that. Legrand can do on two-bob vitriol
for all I care. He don't know the difference. Well, the boss's aboard
and his crowd, and we're off, and here's fortune, doctor."
The toast was irreproachable, and I put down my glass and reverted to
his phrase. "His crowd?"
"Yes, his sister and the other lady--rippers both. I saw them when they
came aboard at Hamburg."
"And now can you tell me where we're going?" I asked.
"I don't know," said Lane carelessly. "I hope we're running out of this
beastly weather--that's all."
"I merely engaged for twelve months," I put in.
"Same here, and that's good enough," said Lane. "I'll ask the old man
to-morrow if his prickles don't stand up too thick. Here she goes,
doctor."
When I left the purser I turned in, for the night was shrewd and
discomfortable enough to bar romantic thoughts on leaving the English
coast. Besides, we were bound down channel, and should keep company
with our native cliffs the whole of the next day. It would be time to
wave a farewell when we passed the Lizard.
The quarters in the _Sea Queen_ were roomy. I was berthed aft with the
other officers, and Mr. Morland's rooms and the cabins of the two
ladies were on the upper deck, ample in appearance from the outside,
and no doubt furnished luxuriously. The guests had the run of a fine
saloon also, on the lower deck, as well as a music-gallery which ran
round it, and there was a boudoir, as I heard, attached to the ladies'
compartments, as well as a private room to Mr. Morland's. Breakfast was
mainly interesting as introducing me practically for the first time to
my companions. We were then abreast of the Isle of Wight, and were
keeping well away towards France. The chief officer I now, to my
astonishment, discovered to be a man of title. Sir John Barraclough was
a tall, loose-limbed, good-looking man of thirty something, with a blue
eye, and a casual manner. He nodded at me amiably and continued his
talk with Legrand, the second officer, who was dark and high-coloured,
with a restless expression of face. Lane threw a jocular greeting
across the table to me, and I shook hands cordially with Holgate, whom
I now saw for the first time since I had come aboard. Presently
Barraclough turned to me.
"Glad to see you, doctor," he said in an indifferent manner. "Hope it's
goin' to be a fine cruise."
I had just echoed his wish formally when the captain made his
appearance from the deck. Captain Day was a most fastidious-looking
man, with a brown Vandyke beard and a flow of good manners. Seeing me
and Holgate there as the only strangers, he singled us out at once with
quite the right degree of friendliness.
"Glad to make your acquaintance, Dr. Phillimore. This your first
voyage? I hope we'll make a happy family."
But having thus condescended briefly, he relapsed into silence and
shortly afterwards left us.
"There's too much condemned R.N.R. about the old man," confided Lane as
we went on deck, "but he's all right."
It was on deck that I met with my surprise, for the first person my
eyes fell on was no other than Pye, the little lawyer's clerk.
"I never expected to see you here," I told him.
"Well, you see, I did expect to see you," he replied in his
self-satisfied little way. "I'm here to represent Mr. Morland for the
time being."
"Oh," said I, "then you can tell us all where we are bound for, for no
one seems to know."
He considered a little. "I shall be able to tell you shortly, I have no
doubt," he said at last. "At present Mr. Morland alone knows. Perhaps
even he doesn't," he added with his smile.
"I don't like that little buffer," declared Lane grumpily as we walked
on. "He is too fussy and by-your-leave-please for me. Made me get out
all my books yesterday, as if I were an office-boy."
"He feels responsible, I suppose," I ventured.
"Well, who's responsible if I'm not?" demanded the purser hotly. "I've
been at sea fifteen years, and this brat hasn't so much as been sick in
the _Marguerite_, I'll lay. Let him look after his own books. I'm all
right."
It was quite manifest that Lane was decided in his likes and dislikes,
as his unreasonable objection to the second officer had already
discovered to me. The passengers were not visible during the morning,
but in the afternoon I received a message calling me to Mr. Morland's
cabin. I found him seated before a bureau with a docket of papers
before him, and he was civil and abrupt.
"Is there anything you can recommend for sea-sickness, Dr. Phillimore?"
he asked bluntly.
I told him of several remedies which had been tried, and mentioned
cocaine as probably the best, adding that I had little faith in any of
them. He thought a moment.
"Prepare me some cocaine," he said, and with a bow intimated that he
had done with me.
It was civil as I have said, but it was also abrupt. He had the air of
a martinet and the expression of a schoolmaster who set his pupil a
task. But I made up the doses forthwith and let him have them.
Later I saw two figures walking upon the hurricane promenade, one of
which I easily made out as Mr. Morland, and the other was a woman
heavily cloaked in fur. A strong breeze was beating up channel, and as
they stood and faced it the woman put her hand to her hat. But for the
most part they walked to and fro, sometimes in conversation, but often
in silence. Once, at eight bells, I noticed, from my point of
observation, the woman stop, lean across the railing, and point towards
the coast of France, which was fast fading into the gathering mists.
She seemed to speak, her face turned level with her shoulders towards
the man. He put out a hand and snapped his fingers, and they presently
resumed their promenade. The sun had gone down, and darkness was
settling on us; the _Sea Queen_ ploughed steadily westward, her lights
springing out one by one, and the figures on the hurricane deck were
presently merged in shadow. As I leaned over the stern, reflecting, and
contemplating now the dull wash of the water about the screw, I was
conscious of some one's approach.
"Well, doctor," said the cheerful voice of Pye, "have you had a good
look at our passengers?"
"Mr. Pye," said I, pleasantly enough, "I am a man of moods. And I have
lived long in silence and routine as no doubt you yourself also. I find
occupation even in my own thoughts."
"You are well equipped for the sea," he rejoined. "I'm not sure about
myself. You see, I'm a Londoner, and I shall miss those peopled spaces.
Here there's nothing but----" he waved his hand.
"At all events. I see you're a respectable sailor," I said, "which,
apparently, others are not." His silence seemed to inquire of me. "I
gave Mr. Morland a prescription for sea-sickness this afternoon."
"That would be for one of the ladies," he made answer; "he is evidently
firm on his legs, and--and his companion. I suppose I may tell you that
his companion is his sister," he said after a pause.
"Well, yes," I replied drily, for his precautions jarred on me. "For I
suppose we shall discover the mystery in the course of the next twelve
months."
"Mystery!" he repeated musingly. "I suppose I am by training somewhat
circumspect. It's difficult to get out of it. But there's no mystery.
Mr. and Miss Morland have brought a friend with them."
"If there's no mystery," I said, "the friend?"
"I have not heard her name," he replied, "or at least, if I have, I
have forgotten. It is a friend of Miss Morland's. I believe she is a
French lady."
The dusk had enclosed us, but through it I perceived some one hurriedly
approaching. "Is it the doctor?" said the steward's voice, and I
answered in the affirmative.
"You're wanted at once, sir. Mr. Morland has sent for you."
I moved off quickly, and had got half-way down the deck when a woman
came forward noiselessly through the gloom.
"Dr. Phillimore," she said, "I want you to see to Mlle. Chateray at
once. She is very ill."
I entered the state rooms without further question, hurried down the
handsome corridor, and under Miss Morland's guidance found the cabin.
Certain constitutions are peculiarly affected by the sea, and it is
even undertaking a risk for some people to travel on that element.
Clearly it was, as Pye hinted, for the French lady that my prescription
had been required. Outside the cabin in the corridor I encountered Mr.
Morland, who exhibited a troubled face unusual to one of such apparent
equanimity. But he said nothing, only looked at his sister and turned
away.
Inside I found a blue chamber, roomy and well lighted by electricity,
an elegant broad bed affixed to the one wall, and upon it, stretched in
the most wonderful _deshabille_, my patient. Mlle. Chateray was of
middle height, of a pleasant fulness, and dark of feature. She had
large eyes that, as I entered, were roaming in a restless way about the
room, and her voice was lifted sharply abusive of her maid, a mild
Frenchwoman who stood by her.
"She is in a state of collapse, Dr. Phillimore," said my guide's voice
in my ear.
I knew better than that. It was hysteria, or I had never seen hysteria,
and the _mal-de-mer_ had been merely provocative. I took her hand
without ceremony, and, wheeling on me her lustrous eyes, she broke out
in torrential French.
She would die if she remained there. They were beasts to keep her
there. Why was she not put ashore at Havre? Havre was a port, as every
one knew, and there were ports not only in England. I had a kind face
and would do as she bade me.... Very well, then, let her be put ashore.
She began to tear at her elaborate dressing-gown, and I was afraid of
one of those outbreaks which are known as _crises des nerfs._ I took
her hands firmly.
"You shall be put ashore as you wish," I said, "and in the meantime,
while the yacht is going about, you will drink what I give you. It will
comfort you."
She gazed into my eyes, ceasing to struggle, and then said more
quietly: "Yes--yes, give it me quick."
It was a case for bromide, and I turned away at once to go to my
surgery.
"You will lie exactly as you are, mademoiselle," I said peremptorily,
"until I return."
I left the cabin and descended, and I think I was not gone more than
ten minutes. When Mlle. Chateray had taken the draught, I turned to her
maid: "She will be quieter now," I said. "Let me know if anything
further develops," and I moved towards the door. Miss Morland stood in
my way.
For the first time I observed her. Her cloak had fallen from her,
leaving her fine figure in the full illumination of the light. Her head
was set well back above the eloquent lines of a strong throat and the
square shoulders underneath. The lace over her bosom stirred with her
breathing, and to my fancy at the moment she was as a statue into which
life was flowing suddenly. I saw this before I met her gaze, and the
calm beauty of that confirmed my fancy. She moved then and opened the
door for me.
"You have promised she shall be landed?" she said in a low voice.
"Madam, I would promise anything in such a case," I answered.
A faint smile passed over her face, for we were now outside the cabin
and in the ladies' boudoir.
"You can promise relief, then, I understand?" she queried.
"She will probably be all right to-night, though I cannot say the
hysteria will not recur," I replied.
An expression flitted over her face, but whether it was of pity or
annoyance I could not have said.
"My brother will not put the yacht about," she said.
"I'm not going to ask him," I rejoined.
"I thank you, doctor," said she simply, "and so will he."
"It is my business," I responded indifferently.
She had spoken with distance, even coldly, and with the air of
condescension. There was no necessity to thank me at all, and certainly
not in that way.
Bidding her good evening, I went down again, and as I went a problem
which had vaguely bothered me during my administrations recurred, now
more insistently. There was something familiar in Mlle. Chateray's
face. What was it?
I spent some time in the surgery, and later joined the officers at
dinner. Captain Day wore a short dinner-jacket like my own, but the
others had made no attempt to dress. Perhaps that was the reason why
the captain devoted his attention to me. His voice was that of a
cultivated man, and he seemed to converse on the same level of
cultivation. He made a figure apart from the rest of the company, to
which little Pye was now joined, and as I looked down and across the
table (from which only Holgate was absent on duty) their marvellous
unlikeness to him struck me. Even Sir John Barraclough and Lane seemed
by comparison more or less of a piece, though the first officer ignored
the purser quite markedly. Captain Day, I discovered, had some taste in
letters, and as that also had been my consolation in my exile in
Wapping, I think we drew nearer on a common hobby. I visited my patient
about nine o'clock, and found her sleeping. As she lay asleep, I was
again haunted by the likeness to some one I had seen before; but I was
unable to trace it to its source nor did I trouble my head in the
matter, since resemblances are so frequently accidental and baffling.
Pye had invited me to his room earlier in the day, and I went straight
to him from the deck cabin. To find Holgate there was not unpleasing,
as it seemed in a way to recall what I almost began to consider old
times--the time that was in the "Three Tuns." Pye mixed the toddy, and
we smoked more or less at our ease. I spoke of my patient, in answer to
a question, as one suffering from sea-sickness.
"What's she like?" inquired Holgate.
"I should say handsome," I rejoined. "I understood from Mr. Pye that
she is French."
"I think I heard so," said Pye, "but you could tell."
"Well, she spoke French," I said with a smile.
Pye's smile seemed to commend my reticence, but Holgate, ignoring the
obvious retort on me, pursued a different subject.
"Upon my soul, I envy people like those millionaires. Here am I working
like a navvy for a bare living, never been able to marry; Pye probably
in the same case; and you, doctor?"
"No; I'm a bachelor," I answered.
"Well, take us three--no doubt in our different walks every bit as
capable as Mr. Morland on his Wall Street, or wherever it is. It isn't
a righteous distribution of this world's goods."
"It is odd," said I, speaking my thoughts, "how you came to take up
this life."
"The sort of blunder," said Holgate, "that is made in three cases out
of four. I hankered after it in my teens, and once out of them it was
too late. Who is going to adapt a youth of twenty-one, without capital,
to a commercial life, or a legal life, or a medical life? There is no
changing the dice. When the hands are dealt you must abide by them."
"Yes, we are all waifs," said I sententiously, not being greatly
interested in the argument.
"When I came back from my last voyage," pursued Holgate, "I was in
Paris for a bit, and went into the Comedie one night, and----"
I never heard the rest of Holgate's reminiscence, for the word
regarding the theatre suddenly sent a message to my memory and lighted
it up instantaneously. I said aloud, and with some excitement,
"Trebizond!"
Holgate ceased talking, and Pye removed his cigarette hastily.
"What, may we venture to ask, is Trebizond?" he said presently.
I smiled foolishly. "Oh, it is only that I have made a discovery," I
said, "a small discovery."
Again there was silence.
"Perhaps we are worthy to hear it," suggested Holgate equably.
Pye still held his cigarette between his fingers and looked at me out
of his gold-rimmed glasses.
"Oh, nothing much," said I, and glanced at my watch. "I'm sorry, I must
see my patient safe for the night. I'll look in again."
I left them and went upstairs, knocking on the boudoir door. Miss
Morland opened it.
"Mlle. Chateray is still sleeping," she said formally.
"I will leave a dose with her maid," I replied, "so that if it be
necessary it may be given in the night."
"You will, of course, be in attendance if required," she said coldly.
I bowed.
"I am paid for it, madam," I answered, though I must confess to a
hostile feeling within my heart.
"I think, then, that is all," she said, and I took my dismissal at the
hands of the arrogant beauty with an internal conflict of anger and
admiration.
I did not return to Pye, but went to my own cabin in an irritable
condition. It ought not to have mattered to me that the sister of a
millionaire, my employer, should treat me more or less as a lackey; but
it did. I threw myself on my bunk and took down a book at random from
my little shelf. Out of its pages tumbled an evening news-sheet which I
now remembered to have bought of a screaming boy as I hurried into the
dock gates on the previous afternoon. I had not had time to look at it
in my various preoccupations, but, after all, it was the last news of
my native land I should have for some time, and so I opened it and
began the perusal.
It was one of those half-penny journals which seem to combine the
maximum of vulgarity with a minimum of news. But I passed over the
blatant racing items and murder trials with less than my customary
distaste, and was rambling leisurely through the columns when I was
arrested by a paragraph and sat up briskly. It was the tail that
interested me.
"... It is stated that Prince Frederic is in London. The name of the
lady who has so infatuated him is Mlle. Yvonne Trebizond, the
well-known prima donna."
I had recalled the name Trebizond during Holgate's talk, and it seemed
strange now that this second discovery should fall so coincidently. The
face of Mlle. Chateray had taken me back, by a sudden gust of memory,
to certain pleasant days in Paris before I was banished to the East
End. I had frequented the theatres and the concert-rooms, and I
remembered the vivacious singer, a true _comedienne_, with her pack of
tricks and her remarkable individuality. Mlle. Chateray, then, was no
other than Yvonne Trebizond, and----
I looked down at the paper and read another sentence, which, ere that
illumination, had had no significance, but now was pregnant with it.
"The prince has the full support and sympathy of his sister, Princess
Alix."
I rose abruptly. I can keep my own counsel as well as a lawyer's clerk,
but I saw no reason in the world for it now. I had left my glass
untouched and my cigar unlit in Pye's cabin. I went back forthwith to
finish both.
The pair were still seated as if expecting me.
"Patient all right, doctor?" inquired Holgate.
I nodded. "Mr. Pye," I said, "I find my discovery has amplified itself.
When I was here it was of small dimensions. Now it has grown to the
proportions of a--well, a balloon," I ended.
Both men gazed at me steadily.
"Out with it, man," urged the third officer.
"I have your permission?" I asked the lawyer's clerk, smiling.
"When you have told me what it is, I will tell you," said he, gravely
jocose.
I put the paper in Holgate's hands, and pointed to the paragraph. He
read it slowly aloud and then looked up.
"Well?" he asked.
"I am going to tell you something which you know," I said, addressing
Pye. "The lady in the deck cabin is Mlle. Trebizond."
Holgate started. "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, but Pye was quite
silent, only keeping his eyes on me.
"I recognized her, but couldn't name her," I went on. "Now it has come
back to me."
"Which means, of course," said Pye unemotionally, "that Mr. Morland
is----"
"The Prince," said Holgate with a heavy breath.
Pye resumed his cigarette. "With all these sensations, my dear
Holgate," he remarked, "I have forgotten my duty. Perhaps you will help
yourself."
Holgate did so. "Good Heavens!" he said again, and then, "I suppose, if
you're right, that we carry Caesar and his fortunes. He has got off with
the lady and the plunder."
"The plunder!" I echoed.
He indicated the paragraph, and I read now another sentence which I had
overlooked.
"The prince has expressed his intention, according to rumour, of
marrying as he chooses, and as he inherits more than a million pounds
from his mother, he is in a position to snap his fingers at the
Empress. In that case, no doubt, he would follow precedent, and take
rank as an ordinary subject."
I looked up at Holgate.
"We carry Caesar and his fortune," he said with a smiling emphasis on
the singular, and then he waved his arm melodramatically. "And to think
we are all paupers!" and grinned at me.
"It is inequitable," said I lightly; "it's an unjust distribution of
this world's goods," echoing therein his own remark earlier in the
evening.
Pye sat still, with an inexpressive face. His admirable silence,
however, now ceased.
"So we shall have this gossip all over the ship to-morrow."
"No," said I curtly, for the suggestion annoyed me. "It is nothing to
me. I told you because you knew. And I told Mr. Holgate----" I paused.
"Because I'm your chum," said the third officer.
I did not contradict him. I had spoken really out of the excitement of
my discovery. Certainly I had not spoken because Holgate was my chum.