A Handful of Dust - Evelyn Waugh [66]
below the horizon. The man who had made friends with Tony paraded the deck with the two beagles. They strained at the end of their chains, sniffing the scuppers; the man lurched behind them unsteadily. He wore a pair of race glasses with which he occasionally surveyed the seas; he offered them to Tony whenever they passed each other. "Been talking to the wireless operator," he said. "We ought to pass quite near the Yarmouth Castle at about eleven." Few of the passengers were on their feet. Those who had come on deck lay in long chairs on the sheltered side, pensive, wrapped in tartan rugs. Dr. Messinger kept to his cabin. Tony went to see him and found him torpid, for he was taking large doses of chloral. Towards evening the wind freshened and by dinner time was blowing hard; portholes were screwed up and all destructible objects disposed on the cabin floors; a sudden roll broke a dozen coffee cups in the music and reading room. That night there was little sleep for anyone on board; the plating creaked, luggage shifted from wall to wall. Tony wedged himself firm in his bunk with the lifebelt and thought of the City. ... Carpet and canopy, tapestry and velvet, portcullis and bastion, water fowl on the moat and kingcups along its margin, peacocks trailing their finery across the lawns; high overhead in a sky of sapphire and swansdown silver bells chiming in a turret of alabaster. Days of shadow and exhaustion, salt wind and wet mist, foghorn and the constant groan and creak of straining metal. Then they were clear of it, after the Azores. Awnings were out and passengers moved their chairs to windward. High noon and an even keel; the blue water lapping against the sides of the ship, rippling away behind her to the horizon; gramophones and deck tennis; bright arcs of flying fish ("Look, Ernie, come quick, there's a shark." "That's not a shark, it's a dolphin." "Mr. Brink said it was a porpoise." "There he is again. Oh if I had my camera."), clear, tranquil water and the regular turn and tread of the screw; there were many hands to caress the beagles as they went loping by. Mr. Brink amid laughter suggested that he should exercise the race-horse, or, with a further burst of invention, the bull. Mr. Brink sat at the purser's table with the cheery crowd. Dr. Messinger left his cabin and appeared on deck and in the dining saloon. So did the wife of the archdeacon; she was very much whiter than her husband. On Tony's other side at table sat a girl named Th�se de Vitr�He had noticed her once or twice during the grey days, a forlorn figure almost lost among furs and cushions and rugs; a colourless little face with wide dark eyes. She said, "The last days have been terrible. I saw you walking about. How I envied you." "It ought to be calm all the way now," and inevitably, are you going far?" "Trinidad. That is my home... I tried to decide who you were from the passenger list." "Who was I?" "Well... someone called Colonel Strapper." "Do I look so old?" "Are colonels old? I didn't know. It's not a thing we have much in Trinidad. Now I know who you are because I asked the head steward. Do tell me about your exploring." "You'd better ask Doctor Messinger. He knows more about it than I do." "No, you tell me." She was eighteen years old; small and dark, with a face that disappeared in a soft pointed chin so that attention was drawn to the large, grave eyes and the high forehead; she had not long outgrown her schoolgirl plumpness and she moved with an air of exultance, as though she had lately shed an encumbrance and was not yet fatigued by the other burdens that would succeed it. For two years she had been at school in Paris. "... Some of us used to keep lipstick and rouge secretly in our bedrooms and try it on at night. One girl called Antoinette came to Mass on Sunday wearing it. There was a terrible row with Madame de Supplice and she left after that term. It was awfully brave. We all envied her... But she was an ugly girl, always eating chocolates... "... Now I am coming home to be married... No, I am not yet affianc�but you see there