Holbrook was a man of about sixty, not tall, but so heavily thickset as to be short of breath, with a red, porous, mottled face partly covered by a short grizzled beard, and small, bloodshot, genially knowing eyes. He was badly dressed in a greenish readymade suit, grey flannel shirt and a stringy maroon tie. His wife a little homely woman with small features and a gentle expression, was, in contrast, wearing heavy, fashionable clothes and an elaborate black-sequined toque. Yet she carried them without ease, as though they encumbered her and she would have preferred much simpler attire—instinctively Moray thought of her in an old loose print wrapper, busy with her household duties in a well-stocked kitchen. She wore also so much jewellery that he erroneously assumed it to be paste. The daughter appeared to be not more than twenty. She was tallish, of a pale, dull complexion, with a good figure, dark hair and slate-grey eyes which, sitting erect and silent, she kept lowered sulkily during most of the meal.
Not so Holbrook. In the accents of Manchester, genially, expansively, with an air of experience, he broke the introductory ice, tactfully set conversation going, jollied the Tamil table boy until he had him grinning, started Mahratta off on a diverting account of his recent gastronomic difficulties in London that brought a smile even to the meagre lips of Mrs Hunt-hunter. When he had awakened the table to life, he casually revealed that his son was in Calcutta opening a branch of his business, that Dorrie—he looked towards his daughter, who ignored the affectionate glance—had just left Miss Wainwright’s Finishing School in Blackpool, and that their voyage to India was pleasure and business combined. It was only when he proposed ordering champagne all round that a reproving glance from his wife drew him up.
“Ah, well, Mother,” he deferred humorously, “we’ll have it at dinner tonight. That suit you, Dorrie?”
Doris gave him a pettish glance.
“You stop it, Dad. The story of your life will keep.”
“That’s my girl.” He laughed indulgently, with a note of pride. “I like to have you keep me right.”
“And about time.”
“Now, Doris,” her mother warned gently: then, looking round the table, she added, as though in extenuation: “Our daughter hasn’t been too well lately. And the night journey was real tiring for her.”
That same afternoon, as Moray came along the companionway towards his surgery, he found Holbrook standing before the notice board with his hands in his pockets, studying the sports lists.
“It looks as though you’ve got everyone pretty well booked up, doctor.”
“I’ve gone through the passenger list fairly thoroughly, sir.”
“Our Dorrie likes a game,” said the other in a reflective tone. “And she’s a dab at most of them. Surely you could find her a partner, doctor.” He paused. “How about yourself? You’re an active young fellow.”
Moray hesitated.
“I’ll be glad to, sir,” he said, adding quickly: “If it’s permitted. I’ll . . . I’ll speak to the first officer.”
“Do that, lad. I’d appreciate it.”
Moray’s impressions of Holbrook’s daughter had not been favourable; he had no wish to be let in for this job. Besides, as a ship’s officer, he doubted if he could participate in the competitions. However, when he had finished his consultations he found O’Neil on the bridge and explained the situation; the big Irishman had already been friendly and helpful, casually tipping him off on his more important duties.
“Sure ye can play, doc,” said O’Neil, in a Belfast accent you could cut with a knife. “Ye’re expected to be nice to the women. Besides, I saw this little bit come aboard. She looks as if she has something.” O’Neil’s blue eyes twinkled. “With luck ye might get a tickle.”
“I wouldn’t be interested,” Moray said flatly. His pure-minded feeling for Mary made the suggestion, however goodnatured, unutterably distasteful to him.
“Well, anyhow, be civil—it’ll do ye no harm and may do ye some good. The old boy’s rolling. Holbrook’s Pharmaceuticals. Began in a back street chemist’s shop in Bootle. Made a fortune out of pills.” He grinned. “Moving the bowels of humanity. The answer was in the purgative. Say, that reminds me. Did you ever hear this one?” O’Neil, a brave and gallant soul who had been torpedoed in the war, swimming for five hours in the Atlantic Ocean before being picked up, had a positive mania for telling off-colour stories. Submitting, Moray prepared his smile as the other went on: “A Yank was coming tearing along the street in Chicago when another Yank standing on the sidewalk stopped him. ‘Can you direct me to a good chemist?’ says he. ‘Brother,’ says the other, in a raging hurry, ‘if ye want God’s own chemist just . . .’ ” At the unprintable punch line O’Neil topped his cap to a more rakish angle and lay back on the binnacle, roaring with laughter.
Moray remained on the bridge for another half hour, pacing up and down with the first officer, watching the French coastline slip away, his cheeks whipped by the invigorating wind, which was always keener up top. Drummond had been right; there was health in the tang of the open sea. How much better he was feeling now, and how agreeable life was on board. He had forgotten his promise to Holbrook but when he went below it came to mind, and, with a shrug, he entered Miss Holbrook’s name and his own in the doubles events.
Chapter Ten
The weather continued fine, the sea calm, the sky brilliant by day, shading through violet sunsets into velvet and luminous nights through which, the Pindari traced its phosphorescent wake. This was the sea of Jason and Ulysses; at dawn the ship seemed suspended between sky and water, timeless and unreal, except that there, on the starboard bow, was Sardinia, the healthy fragrance of the island borne on a soft and fitful breeze.
Drawing deep, free breaths of this aromatic air without pain or hindrance, Moray knew that his pleurisy had gone. No need now to put his stethoscope on his chest. His skin was tanned, he had never felt better. After those years of prolonged grind, the present conditions of his life seemed altogether too good to be true. Awakened at seven by his cabin “boy”, who, padding barefoot from the galley, brought his chota hazri of tea and fresh fruit, he got up half an hour later, took a plunge in the sports deck swimming-pool, then dressed. Breakfast was at nine, after which he made his round of visits or, once a week, accompanied Captain Torrance on the official inspection of the ship. From ten-thirty till noon he was in his surgery. Lunch came at one, and thereafter, except for a nominal surgery at five o’clock, he was free for the rest of the day, expected only to make himself agreeable and obliging to the passengers. At seven-thirty the melodious dinner gong boomed up and down the alleyways—always a welcome sound, since the meals were rich, spicy and plentiful, the native curries especially delicious.
On the following Monday the tournaments began, and just before eight bells, recollecting his engagement, Moray closed the surgery and went up to the sports deck for the first round of the deck-tennis doubles. His partner was already there, wearing a short white skirt and a singlet, standing beside her parents who rather to his embarrassment, had taken deck chairs close to the court so that they might miss nothing of the game. As he apologised for keeping her waiting, although actually he was not late, she did not speak, and barely glanced at him. He scarcely knew whether she was nervous or, as he had suspected at table, merely perverse.