The Passing Bells (11 page)

“It's been a pleasure traveling with you, Martin,” Dr. Horner had said before going below. “Perhaps we can have lunch one day in London. I'll be at Guy's Hospital . . . the Sir William Osler seminar group.”

A seaman with a handcart waited impatiently outside the cabin door. Martin hoped that the good doctor had been better organized than he.

“Okay,” Martin said. “You can take the steamer trunk and the suitcase, but leave the leather attaché case.”

“Yes, sir,” the sailor grunted as he pushed his cart into the cabin.

Martin took one last look around—under the bunk, in the dresser drawers, the closet. He suffered from a vague absentmindedness at times, and it wouldn't have surprised him to have come across a drawer filled with socks and underwear. But everything had been packed. Though rushed, he had been thorough. There was nothing of his left in the cabin except the attaché case, a brown wool jacket, and a Kodak folding camera in a leather carrying case. He put on the jacket and checked his appearance in the mirror. He wasn't all that happy about the fit of the jacket. It had been bought off the rack at Marshall Field and was a bit too tight across the chest. He solved that problem by leaving it unbuttoned.

Well, he thought, as he slung the Kodak over one shoulder, you look every inch the world traveler. He was, finally and irrevocably, a long way from Chicago.

Jaimie Ross managed to find a parking space for the big Lanchester touring car, but they were a good distance from the Cunard dock.

“Can't you get a bit closer, Ross?” Charles asked.

“Afraid not, sir. Take us an hour to crawl through that mess.”

The mess he referred to was a nearly solid line of cars, lorries, and taxicabs jamming the narrow approaches to the Cunard and White Star Line piers.

“Looks like three big ships came in at once this afternoon, sir,” Ross said as he slipped his driving goggles from his face.

“So it seems,” Charles said, suppressing an urge to swear. He picked up his straw boater from the seat and placed it squarely on his head.

Roger Wood-Lacy did the same. The hats of both men bore the Cambridge colors on a silk band around the crown. “Nothing for it, old boy, but to plod resolutely ahead.”

“I hope we can snare a porter, Ross.”

“I'm sure we can, sir,” the chauffeur replied as he got out of the car and hurried to open the passenger doors.

“A thought just struck me,” Roger said as they walked away from the car, the nattily uniformed Ross keeping a respectful six paces behind them. “How do we go about finding the chap? Do you have any idea what he looks like?”

“Haven't a clue. My age . . . a bit Germanic, I expect. I suppose we shall have to have him paged.”

Charles glared balefully ahead. The street was narrow, dingy, lined with small shops and eating places. The fumes from the backed-up vehicles poisoned the air. He was in a bitter mood; the thought of what he would have been doing at this moment galled him. But for Martin Rilke's inopportune arrival, he would have been resting his back against an oak tree in the cool glades of Leith Woods while Lydia, her body uncorseted beneath a light summer dress, served him watercress and ham sandwiches from a wicker basket. Damn!

Both young men found the jumble of large wooden structures along the wharf bewildering. Beyond the roofs of the buildings they could see the tall funnels of the
Laconia
, wisps of smoke still trailing after them. Ross stepped forward and suggested that they head for an enormous, open-sided structure which bore a sign marked
BAGGAGE DISPERSAL—CUNARD LINE.
Hundreds of people could be seen inside milling about under twenty-six large metal shingles which dangled from the roof beams and had the letters of the alphabet painted on them. A regiment of stevedores in blue coveralls trundled carts filled with luggage into the building from the ship.

“Good thinking, Ross,” Charles said. “The chap's bound to be under the ‘R' sign sooner or later.”

There were a great many people under the “R” sign, roaming through canyons of steamer trunks and stacked suitcases. Several officious-looking men representing various tour organizations walked about calling for their groups to stay together.

“Raymond Whitcomb people over here, please!”

“Will all passengers on Cook tour number seven please wait at the customs shed. Will all passengers . . .”

“Is that him, do you suppose?” Roger asked, pointing discreetly down one of the aisles of baggage.

Charles contemplated the man Roger had pointed out, seeking a family resemblance. He saw a man in his early twenties, of medium height and stocky build, blond-haired and square-jawed. His nose was long and high bridged, the eyes blue and merry. Very much a masculine version of his mother's face. And he certainly had the Rilke mouth: wide, full-lipped, and quick to smile—as it was smiling now in his direction, a warm, faintly lopsided grin.

“Say,” the man called out, “you wouldn't happen to be Charles Greville, would you?”

“Why, yes, I am,” Charles said, taken slightly aback. He hadn't expected to find him so quickly.

Martin came toward him with his right hand thrust forward. “Don't ask me how I knew,” he said, grinning more broadly. “I guess you just look like I thought you'd look.” He took hold of his cousin's hand and pumped it vigorously. “Gosh, it's nice of you to meet me. Is Aunt Hanna with you?”

“No,” Charles said, managing a weak smile—his hand felt as though it had been gripped in a vise. “I came down with my friend.” He gestured toward Roger. “Martin . . . Roger Wood-Lacy. Roger . . . my cousin from America, Martin Rilke.”

Roger tipped his hat. “How do you do?”

“Very well, thanks,” Martin said. “Had a swell trip . . . a bit rough for a few days, but all the passengers were good eggs. Had a really great time.”

“Glad to hear it,” Roger said. A pleasant-looking fellow, he was thinking, although a bit on the boisterous side—like most Americans. Not one of the millionaire Rilkes, he remembered Charles remarking. Some kind of poor relation. The jacket he was wearing certainly confirmed that fact. “Welcome to Merrie England.”

“Thanks.” He let go of Charles's hand and stood facing them, arms folded, grinning like a fool. “I just can't believe I'm
here
—that I'm actually on the other side of the Atlantic. Travel is really fantastic when you think about it. Just a week ago I was in Chicago and now I'm in the Old World.”

“The
old
world?” Roger repeated dully.

“Takes some getting used to,” he went on blithely. “But here I am, Martin Rilke in the flesh . . . or on the hoof, as they say on the South Side. Maybe you guys wouldn't mind helping me find my trunk. It's dark brown leather—a bit scuffed—and it has my name painted on the side.”

The two inhabitants of the Old World exchanged bleak glances and then helped Martin in his search. The trunk and suitcase were soon located and Charles had Ross collar a porter, tipped the man half a crown, and the luggage was soon safely strapped to the rack on the back of the Lanchester.

Martin sat between Roger and Charles in the back seat, his attaché case on the floor between his feet, his camera case on his lap.

“Beautiful scenery,” Martin said as they left the outskirts of Southampton and drove into the open countryside. “I hope you won't mind if I ask your driver to stop now and then. I'd sure like to take some pictures of this.”

Oh, God, Charles groaned silently. He couldn't look at Roger. “Well, it's rather a long drive, and we'd like to get there before dark. But we shall stop soon at Taverhurst for lunch. A quite ancient inn—the Three Talbards—and you can take all the pictures you want.”

“That'd be fine. Thanks a lot. Where are we now? The county, I mean.”

“Hampshire,” Roger said.

“Hampshire? Near Thomas Hardy country . . . well, I'll be darned.”

“The edge of it, yes,” Charles said. “Dorset more than Hampshire, of course.”

Roger arched one eyebrow. “I suppose Hardy's novels are required reading everywhere.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
and
Jude the Obscure
.”

Martin nodded. “That's right, but to be honest, I never could get into the novels. I prefer Hardy the poet.”

“Oh, I say,” Roger said with exuberance. “Jolly good for you. I feel the same way about him. Have you read ‘Channel Firing' yet?”

“Yes, just before I left home. I especially liked the last stanza, where he talks about Camelot and Stonehenge.” He glanced wistfully at the green hills of the South Downs. “I'd sure like to see those places.”

“But you shall, old boy,” Roger cried. “We'll see to that, won't we, Charles? Oh, I say, this is absolutely marvelous. Think of old Hardy's poems being read in
Chicago
!”

Their accents and mannerisms began to grate on Martin's nerves a little. They seemed so affected, like certain theatrical people he had known. But unlike actors, Charles and Roger were not trying to be something they were not. They were, in the slang of the city room, “genuine articles.” He knew enough about England to recognize that, and so he did not inwardly sneer at their way of speaking, their attitudes or their posturings. They did everything and said everything in a manner designed, consciously or unconsciously, to set them apart. It was something they had been born to practice, a manner carefully nurtured by their parents, steadily built upon at Eton, and then honed to a silver perfection at Cambridge. They were, by every gesture, every nuance of speech, English gentlemen. They could have been set down in rags in the middle of the Arabian desert, and that fact would have been apparent to the lowliest bedouin, just as it was apparent to the chauffeur, the porter at the docks, and the young woman who waited upon them at the Three Talbards inn in the village of Taverhurst. Driver, porter, and barmaid treated these two young men without the slightest sign of servility, but with a natural deference. This he knew was what the English called “class,” the lower class recognizing and accepting without resentment the superiority of the upper class. It was not an exportable commodity, like English woolens, although a great many rich Americans had tried to import it. He thought of his uncle Paul and aunt Jessica Rilke in Chicago, their huge palace of a house—referred to as the North Side horror by many of Chicago's younger architects—staffed with footmen in knee breeches, butlers, and grooms. A façade of upper-class splendor, no more than that. The servants needed the money they were paid, but they had no ingrained respect for their master and mistress. None at all. They felt degraded by their costumes and saw the difference between themselves and the Rilkes not in terms of “class,” but in terms of money. Paul Rilke owned breweries, a brokerage house, real estate in the Loop, iron foundries in Gary, Indiana, Toledo, and Cleveland, and held half ownership in a baseball team of the American League. That made him rich, even powerful, but did not insure by right of heritage or custom that a porter would tip his cap to him and say sir.

“Here you are, sirs,” the barmaid said as she approached their table with a loaded tray. “All piping hot.”

“And very good it looks, too,” Roger said, rubbing his hands. “I tell you, Rilke, it's steak and kidney—in pudding or pie—that is the true secret of British fortitude.”

“Has my man been taken care of?” Charles asked.

“Oh, yes, sir,” the barmaid said. “He's out back, sir.”

She placed the steaming beef and kidney pie on the table along with mugs of dark brown ale, curtsied, and departed.

“I understand you work on a newspaper, Rilke,” Roger said after a few minutes of silent eating.

“That's right—the Chicago
Express.
I joined the paper when I left college last June.”

“Where'd you go?” Charles asked. “Yale, I suppose.”

“No. University of Chicago.”

“Thank heaven for that. We had our fill of Yale men when cousin Karl was over here.”

Martin laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. We have a saying in the States—you can always tell a Yale man, but you can't tell him much.”

“Oh, I say,” Roger chuckled, “that's rather good. I must remember that.”

“Anyway,” Martin said, “I joined the paper hoping to become a reporter—on the police beat. You see, I'd like to become a novelist, and I thought a year or two of seeing the seamier side of life would be a big help. That's how Theodore Dreiser started . . . and Frank Norris and . . . oh, a lot of good writers. But they stuck me in a little office of my own and have me writing book reviews and theater reviews. I'm getting sick of that and may quit when I get back unless they give me a more challenging job.”

“Jolly good for you,” Charles said. “There's nothing worse than being stuck in something you don't like.”

“Well, I liked it okay at first, but I'm not going to learn very much about life reviewing the novels of Gene Stratton-Porter or Harold Bell Wright.”

He wondered if he should mention that he had the first sixty pages of a novel in progress with him—a saga of Chicago, men struggling to break the power of the street railway barons. The manuscript was in his attaché case, but he decided against it. He was apprehensive about the direction the book was taking. It was—although he hated to admit it even to himself—too imitative of the “class struggle” novels of others. And besides, looking at the two faultlessly dressed men, he doubted whether they would have the slightest empathy for the problems of poor Chicago streetcar motormen.

“What are your plans, Martin?” Charles asked.

“Well, let's see. . . . Ten days here in England, then I go to Paris . . . Berlin . . . Zurich . . . Milan . . . Rome. . . . Then home on the Red Star liner
Majestic
, from Naples. Six weeks in all. Not exactly the grand tour, but the limit I could afford.”