"Do I have to read the whole page?" she asked.
"No," said Patrick. "The title is enough. Isn't it helpful?"
"I don't see how," said Ben, and she left the shop.
"It's never failed yet," he called after her. "Either up or down, it's
bound to work."
At intervals during the rest of the day Ben repeated the words "ancient
mariner," "ancient mariner," "venerable salt," "antique navigator,"
"senile sailor." Nothing suggested anything. Perhaps, she thought,
it means the sea. But what could the sea do for Miss Marquand? She
couldn't--no, impossible--have meant to suggest committing suicide; and
certainly she was not going to run away: that was not a solution to
this kind of problem. Facing the music here.
Ancient mariner, ancient mariner.... Ben racked her brains to think
of any elderly naval men that she might know. There was her father's
friend, the Admiral, old Sir Albert Ross; but he was dead. Nor had he
possessed a very sympathetic or understanding mind. The quarter-deck
manner. "Damn it," he would have said, "you've got to take your
punishment. People who play cards for stakes they can't afford get no
pity from me." Well, the Admiral was dead, anyway.
Ancient mariner, ancient mariner. What was the next thing to a real
mariner? Why, a longshoreman, a boatman on the river. And the next
thing to the real sea? The Thames. Ought she to go down to the docks
and see what happened there? But why the Thames? Why not a lake? There
were boats on the Serpentine, close by, and this was a lovely evening
and the attendants would certainly be there and one of them might be
old. In fact they were sure to be old. And in conversation something
useful might occur.
Ben was on her way to the Serpentine when she thought of the Round
Pond, and in a second Coleridge's meaning flashed upon her. Of course.
Why hadn't she thought of it at once? Uncle Paul. Uncle Paul was the
only ancient mariner in her acquaintance: Uncle Paul with his toy
boats, and, even more, Uncle Paul with his kind old heart and wise if
simple old head. She would go to see him directly after dinner. Of
course!
Uncle Paul, if he had known of Ben's approach, could not have been
employed more suitably, both for her and for Coleridge, for he was
rigging a ship. A three-masted schooner. And he looked quite old enough
to be called ancient.
"Well, my dear," he said. "How nice of you to call!"
He moved away from the model and fetched the cigarettes.
"Please don't stop, Uncle Paul," said Ben. "I shall be much happier if
you go on with your work. In fact, you must. And it isn't nice of me to
call, really. Because I've come for advice. To bother you."
"Don't apologize for that," he said. "People like to be asked for
advice. It's flattering."
Ben told him the whole story--without names--while his busy fingers
were deftly binding spars and threading cordage through tiny blocks.
"And she struck you as being all right?" he asked at the end. "You felt
the thing to be genuine? She really seemed to mean it when she said
that this time it really was the end of her gambling?"
"Absolutely," said Ben.
"She must be helped," said Uncle Paul, and he went to his desk and
wrote a cheque for two hundred pounds made out to his niece. "Give her
this. But see that she pays it back to you, no matter in how small
instalments, beginning with her next allowance. I'm afraid she must
deny herself a lot of little luxuries; but that will be good for her.
Yes," he said, "she ought to go without all kinds of things she's used
to. But you'll talk to her like a mother and tell her so, of course."
"A mother!" Ben exclaimed. "Why, I'm not more than three years older."
"Age has nothing to do with it," said Uncle Paul.
"You are the sweetest thing," said Ben, as she folded the cheque and
put it in her bag. And she hurried home.
"Well," said Patrick, putting his head in at Ben's door the next
afternoon, "did it work?"
"To perfection," said Ben.
"It's a wonderful method," said Patrick.
"I prefer it to all others," said Ben. "And, by the way, I've got a new
assistant. A Miss Marquand. We're getting on, you see."