Vintage Love (17 page)

“A strange individual,” Eric agreed.

“What can we do?”

“Nothing, but wait. I may be wrong. I could be having a bad case of imagination. Let’s hope so. Along the way I’m writing my impressions in a long letter which I’ll mail to Black when we dock at Gibraltar.”

The concert was held the night before the ship was to dock at Gibraltar, the reason being that a number of the passengers would be leaving at this port. A proud George Frederick Kingston had rounded up a dozen or so passengers with talents as varied as imitating bird whistles, singing sad ballads, and playing the pianoforte — plus he was contributing his readings from Shakespeare.

Because both men were involved with the concert, Betsy had to sit by herself. She had no sooner found a chair with a good view than a familiar figure slumped down in the chair next to her. It was none other than Samuel Jessup!

The sour-faced man told her, “I don’t like concerts. They give me indigestion.”

She suggested, “Then perhaps you shouldn’t remain.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. And he took a silver box out of his jacket pocket. “I have two kinds of indigestion pills here. Would you like one?”

“I think not,” she said.

“Better consider,” he warned. “That Patricia Gaylin is going to play the pianoforte and sing. I heard her this afternoon practicing. She not only looks like a colt, she sounds like one.”

“Mr. Jessup!” she reproved him.

“Your friend is a good actor,” Samuel Jessup said.

“Yes. He is.”

The old man stared at her. “Somehow he don’t seem right to be your future father-in-law. Just not the type. You even have a different way of talking.”

Hastily she said, “I can explain that. I was brought up by my mother. She was most particular about correct speech.”

“I’ll venture she was a regular lady?”

“Oh, yes! From a very good family!”

“That explains it,” Samuel Jessup said, popping a pill into his mouth. “Your friend talks like an actor, but you can tell he isn’t a real gent.”

The dining salon filled quickly. The elderly curé in his white collar and black clerical habit came to sit on her other side. The only passenger not present was probably the sinister East Indian.

George Frederick Kingston in a blue jacket and checked trousers and boasting a huge crimson cravat came forward brightly and bowed to the audience. The murmuring among them ceased as the actor addressed them.

“Tonight we have a truly wonderful lot of talent, drawn from passengers and crew, for our ship’s concert. We shall begin the evening with a hornpipe danced by Midshipman Murray to the accordion music of Midshipman Trent.” He ushered the two young sailors on and stepped back as the performers were greeted with a loud applause.

The dance went well, and the music induced the right mood in the audience. Then an elderly man came on and did his bird imitations. Samuel Jessup groaned aloud during this and brought himself a number of reproachful glances from many seated near him. After that another sailor sang sea chanteys, followed by George Frederick Kingston doing his scenes from
Hamlet.
He was excellent, and when he ended he received a great ovation.

By this time the old curé on Betsy’s right had begun to nod off. His chin had drooped and his eyes had closed and he was oblivious to what was going on. Samuel Jessup popped a large pill in his mouth and chewed it with crackling sounds. Then a nervous-looking Eric came out and placed some sheet music on the pianoforte and stood by it. The coltish Patricia Gaylin, looking angular and awkward in a gray evening gown, appeared uneasy before the audience. Her mother clapped loudly in the front row and offered encouraging bravos!

Patricia sat gingerly at the pianoforte and gazed fondly up at Eric with her wide-spaced colt’s eyes and then set herself to the task of singing a doleful ballad and playing her own accompaniment. Not only did she seem to go on endlessly, but Eric apparently was having a hard time following her with the music. He made frantic turns and then turned the sheet back again as she came out with a strident, sour note.

Betsy could not watch. She felt dreadfully sorry for him. Finally it came to an end, and there was the usual applause. George Frederick Kingston came forward and thanked everyone and told them refreshments were to be served, so they were not to leave their seats.

Samuel Jessup at once stood up. “I never eat at this time of night,” he announced firmly. “And it’s time for my late medicine so I must go to my cabin.”

Meanwhile the coltish Patricia had linked her arm about Eric’s and was braying to him of the wonderful work he’d done in turning her music sheets.

Looking distraught, Eric told the girl, “Excuse me, I must attend to my fiancée.”

He then came hastily to her and taking her by the arm, told her, “I need air more than I do food. Let us go outside.”

She smiled. “If you like.”

In a moment they were out on the deserted deck under a starlit sky. He led her far from the doors of the dining salon to a spot in the bow where they would not be apt to be bothered when the crowd came out from the concert.

He gave a sigh of relief. “I feel safe at last.”

She smiled up at him. “You did very well.”

“I was a bumbling fool! I turned the pages at all the wrong moments.”

“No. I think it was Patricia who lost her place.”

“Thanks,” he said gratefully. “Her mother seemed to blame me.”

“She and her mother will be leaving the ship tomorrow,” Betsy said. “That ought to make you breathe easier.”

“It will,” he promised.

“There are some very pleasant other girls on board if you are interested,” she said.

“You know better than that!”

She pointed out, “It would be perfectly natural for you to find one of them worth your time.”

“This is not a pleasure trip,” he said grimly. “Or don’t you remember?”

“Your time is your own on board ship.”

“I’m not even all that sure,” he replied. “I still have a feeling of danger.”

“Nothing has happened yet,” she said, gazing up at his handsome face in the shadows.

“We can be thankful for that,” he said. “Where is your pistol?”

“I have it locked in my bag.”

He frowned. “That’s not an ideal place for it should you be attacked.”

Her eyebrows raised. “You don’t expect me to carry it around with me on shipboard?”

“What if you were suddenly attacked?”

“I don’t expect to be.”

“That’s no answer,” he replied unhappily. “I can’t seem to make you understand that danger can turn up anywhere — even on shipboard.”

She said, “You could, of course, be right. But up to now it has been so uneventful.”

“It can always change,” he said earnestly. “I don’t think you understand yet what you have let yourself in for.”

“I know it will be risky after we get to Marseilles.”

“It can be risky at any time,” he said. “I’m worried for you, Betsy.” He took her by surprise by grasping her by the arms and drawing her close to him. “I’m also in love with you.”

“No, please!” she protested.

“I can’t help it,” he said unhappily, “I can’t play games any longer. I love you, and I have from the moment of our first meeting.”

“Eric!” she pleaded with him to let her go.

He brought her protests to an end by pressing his lips to hers. He kissed her passionately, and she found herself responding despite her determination not to be swayed. It was a reckless, dizzying moment of ecstasy as he held her close and their lips caressed.

“Betsy, my dearest!” he whispered in her ear.

Still in his embrace she said with a tiny moan, “Eric, you know this is wrong!”

“Wrong? How can it be?” His handsome face showed anguish as he gazed at her.

She looked up at him imploringly. “I hadn’t planned it this way!”

“Does one plan love?”

“It’s being here on the ship together!”

“No!” he said. “Not true. I have been in love with you since that first night in London. Don’t you care for me at all?”

He was still holding her, and she leaned against him, tears filling her eyes, her heart pounding so wildly she was sure he must be ware of it. “I didn’t want us to fall in love!”

“Because of a fantasy on your part!”

“Call it what you will! It has been real to me!”

“You hated the man you thought caused your brother’s death. And when you found that I had been his superior officer, you hated me!”

“I couldn’t help it!” she said piteously.

“You know different now,” he said. “I was fond of Richard. I was wounded in the same advance in which he was killed. I was a victim as much as he!”

She listened to his tense words and knew that he was right. For too long she had built up this hatred inside her, fueled by the words of someone who had not known the truth about her brother’s death. And she had made Eric the target of her desire for revenge.

In a whisper she said, “I understand now. But give me time. Let me work it out my own way.”

“You may have all the time you like,” he said gently. “Just tell me that you no longer hate me.”

She looked up at him. “I no longer hate you, Eric.”

“Thank you, my darling,” he said. And he kissed her again tenderly.

She remained in his arms for a long, silent period. She somehow felt a great relief. She had known for long enough that she’d fallen in love with the handsome young major and he with her. She had tried to keep a barrier between them, though she was making herself unhappy. Now she had let the barrier down. Their love would have a chance to grow.

He saw her back to the door of her cabin, and they kissed each other good night. She prepared for bed in a happier state of mind than she’d known for a very long while. As a result she almost instantly fell into a deep sleep.

She wakened to darkness and the sound of her cabin door slowly creaking open. A shudder of fear raced through her, and she gazed at the door wide-eyed, not knowing what to do. Very slowly the door inched open, and then she saw a clawlike hand appear!

She screamed, and as she did so, the door was closed and the hand vanished. After a moment Eric and Kingston were knocking at her door.

Eric asked, “Betsy, are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said faintly, rising and finding slippers and her robe.

“We heard your screams!” he went on.

“I know.” She tied the robe around her and went to the door and opened it.

Eric and Kingston were standing out there in hastily donned trousers and tucked-in nightshirts. She saw there was a businesslike gun in Eric’s hand.

He said, “What made you cry out?”

“Someone opened my cabin door. I saw a hand like a claw!” she said in a voice which had a tremor in it.

Kingston said, “Where did this intruder go?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “When I screamed, he slammed the door and ran off.”

Eric looked grim. “That Indian, I’ll wager!”

“I can’t say!” she told him.

“We’ll take a look around,” Eric said.

“Be careful!” she cautioned him.

Eric told Kingston, “You stay close to her while I move around a little.”

“Don’t worry!” the actor said. “I’ll be at her side every moment!”

Eric nodded and vanished.

Betsy stood there unhappily and then said, “I’m frightened for him going up there alone!”

“He’ll be all right!” Kingston tried to placate her.

“I think we ought to go up there also,” she said. “There may be more than one to deal with.”

“Eric can defend himself,” Kingston said worriedly.

“Please!” she said. “Let us go up!”

He looked unhappy, then shrugged. “If you like. I haven’t any weapon!”

“Mine is locked in the bag,” she said. “But there isn’t time to get it. We can at least scream for help if we see him in trouble! Be there to watch out for him!”

“As you like!” the actor said.

She left the cabin and hurried along the passage to the steps leading to the deck. In a moment she was out in the open with Kingston behind her. She glanced around to see where Eric might be, but he was nowhere in sight.

“No sign of him,” she whispered.

Behind her Kingston said, “He may be at the other end of the ship.”

“We’ll look thoroughly here first,” she suggested.

“He may have even gone back down below.”

“I doubt that,” she said, keeping close to the shadows of the cabin wall and edging along slowly.

All at once she heard a thudding sound behind her. She quickly whirled around and to her consternation saw Kingston collapsed on the floor. Standing over him and smiling at her in a maniacal manner was the old curé! And he had a knife in his hand!

BETSY TRIED to scream, but terror had robbed her of the ability to cry out! Just a frustrated, choking sound escaped her lips. The old priest showed a wicked look of satisfaction on his broad lined face, and with the hand with the knife upraised, he straddled the prostrate body of Kingston and came after her!

She automatically turned and fled, racing for a gangway which led to the upper deck. She could hear him behind her, his scudding footsteps and his labored breathing! She kept on and climbed up a ladder to the level above her pursuer. As he came forward to climb up the ladder after her, she saw a strand of heavy rope swinging from the foremast. She grasped the rope and curled it about her and took a few rapid steps back! Then she swung ahead on the rope just as he came up over the edge of the cabin top!

Her slippered feet caught him full in the face, and he let out a cry, threw his hands up in the air, lost the knife, and fell back! He fell all the way to the deck below. And as he lay there, Eric appeared. He stood over the fallen priest, gun in hand.

“Up here!” she cried.

He glanced up. And then she saw she had done him a great disservice. For at the moment of his glancing up to look at her, the priest bounded up from the deck and wrested the gun from his hand. Eric, now aware of his danger, took a step back. The priest was pointing the gun at him, ready to fire!

She screamed again, certain that Eric would be killed. But at that very moment still another figure appeared. The turbaned Indian. He loomed up behind the crouching priest and seized him so suddenly that the gun went off wildly in the air! For a moment the Indian held the squirming priest in the air, and then with great contempt he hurled him over the side!