Eustace Hignett nodded listlessly, sat down on his bag, and emitted a deep sigh. He was a small, fragile-looking young man with a pale, intellectual face. Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write _vers libre_, as indeed he did.
"Hullo!" he said, in a hollow voice.
Sam regarded him blankly. He had not seen him for some years, but, going by his recollections of him at the University, he had expected something cheerier than this. In fact, he had rather been relying on Eustace to be the life and soul of the party. The man sitting on the bag before him could hardly have filled that role at a gathering of Russian novelists.
"What on earth"s the matter?" said Sam.
"The matter?" Eustace Hignett laughed mirthlessly. "Oh, nothing. Nothing much. Nothing to signify. Only my heart"s broken." He eyed with considerable malignity the bottle of water in the rack above his head, a harmless object provided by the White Star Company for clients who might desire to clean their teeth during the voyage.
"If you would care to hear the story...?" he said.
"Go ahead."
"It is quite short."
"That"s good."
"Soon after I arrived in America, I met a girl...."
"Talking of girls," said Sam with enthusiasm, "I"ve just seen the only one in the world that really amounts to anything. It was like this. I was shoving my way through the mob on the dock, when suddenly...."
"Shall I tell you my story, or will you tell yours?"
"Oh, sorry! Go ahead."
Eustace Hignett scowled at the printed notice on the wall, informing occupants of the state-room that the name of their steward was J. B.
Midgeley.
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"So was mine! I give you my honest word I never in all my life saw such...."
"Of course, if you prefer that I postponed my narrative?" said Eustace coldly.
"Oh, sorry! Carry on."
"She was an extraordinarily pretty girl...."
"What was her name?"
"Wilhelmina Bennett. She was an extraordinarily pretty girl, and highly intelligent. I read her all my poems, and she appreciated them immensely. She enjoyed my singing. My conversation appeared to interest her. She admired my...."
"I see. You made a hit. Now get on with the story."
"Don"t bustle me," said Eustace querulously.
"Well, you know, the voyage only takes eight days."
"I"ve forgotten where I was."
"You were saying what a devil of a chap she thought you. What happened?
I suppose, when you actually came to propose, you found she was engaged to some other johnny?"
"Not at all! I asked her to be my wife and she consented. We both agreed that a quiet wedding was what we wanted--she thought her father might stop the thing if he knew, and I was dashed sure my mother would--so we decided to get married without telling anybody. By now," said Eustace, with a morose glance at the porthole, "I ought to have been on my honeymoon. Everything was settled. I had the licence and the parson"s fee. I had been breaking in a new tie for the wedding."
"And then you quarrelled?"
"Nothing of the kind. I wish you would stop trying to tell me the story.
I"m telling _you_. What happened was this: somehow--I can"t make out how--mother found out. And then, of course, it was all over. She stopped the thing."
Sam was indignant. He thoroughly disliked his Aunt Adeline, and his cousin"s meek subservience to her revolted him.
"Stopped it? I suppose she said "Now, Eustace, you mustn"t!" and you said "Very well, mother!" and scratched the fixture?"
"She didn"t say a word. She never has said a word. As far as that goes, she might never have heard anything about the marriage."
"Then how do you mean she stopped it?"
"She pinched my trousers!"
"Pinched your trousers!"
Eustace groaned. "All of them! The whole bally lot! She gets up long before I do, and she must have come into my room and cleaned it out while I was asleep. When I woke up and started to dress, I couldn"t find a single d.a.m.ned pair of bags in the whole place. I looked everywhere.
Finally, I went into the sitting-room where she was writing letters and asked if she had happened to see any anywhere. She said she had sent them all to be pressed. She said she knew I never went out in the mornings--I don"t as a rule--and they would be back at lunch-time. A fat lot of use that was! I had to be at the church at eleven. Well, I told her I had a most important engagement with a man at eleven, and she wanted to know what it was, and I tried to think of something, but it sounded pretty feeble, and she said I had better telephone to the man and put it off. I did it, too. Rang up the first number in the book and told some fellow I had never seen in my life that I couldn"t meet him because I hadn"t any trousers! He was pretty peeved, judging from what he said about my being on the wrong number. And mother, listening all the time, and I knowing that she knew--something told me that she knew--and she knowing that I knew she knew.... I tell you, it was awful!"
"And the girl?"
"She broke off the engagement. Apparently she waited at the church from eleven till one-thirty, and then began to get impatient. She wouldn"t see me when I called in the afternoon, but I got a letter from her saying that what had happened was all for the best, as she had been thinking it over and had come to the conclusion that she had made a mistake. She said something about my not being as dynamic as she had thought I was. She said that what she wanted was something more like Lancelot or Sir Galahad, and would I look on the episode as closed."
"Did you explain about the trousers?"
"Yes. It seemed to make things worse. She said that she could forgive a man anything except being ridiculous."
"I think you"re well out of it," said Sam, judicially. "She can"t have been much of a girl."
"I feel that now. But it doesn"t alter the fact that my life is ruined.
I have become a woman-hater. It"s an infernal nuisance, because practically all the poetry I have ever written rather went out of its way to boost women, and now I"ll have to start all over again and approach the subject from another angle. Women! When I think how mother behaved and how Wilhelmina treated me, I wonder there isn"t a law against them. "What mighty ills have not been done by Woman! Who was"t betrayed the Capitol....""
"In Washington?" said Sam, puzzled. He had heard nothing of this. But then he generally confined his reading of the papers to the sporting page.
"In Rome, you a.s.s! Ancient Rome."
"Oh, as long ago as that?"
"I was quoting from Thomas Otway"s "Orphan." I wish I could write like Otway. He knew what he was talking about. "Who was"t betrayed the Capitol? A woman. Who lost Marc Anthony the world? A woman. Who was the cause of a long ten years" war and laid at last old Troy in ashes?
Woman! Destructive, d.a.m.nable, deceitful woman!""
"Well, of course, he may be right in a way. As regards some women, I mean. But the girl I met on the dock...."