The Ultimate Egoist (15 page)

“What
is
this?” she burst out furiously. She was completely snowed under; and that was a new experience for her. There was lots more violence crowding up her slim throat, tumbling over her tongue, but it was stopped by his gesture; one long finger touched his lips and he leered at her. She subsided, and moved some two inches away from him. He moved toward her a good four. She was a little uncomfortable.

“Tonight,” he continued in his deep, quiet voice, “I came up here as usual, expecting it to be as usual. The rest—” he threw an arm up dramatically “—you know. The spell was broken. No more can I say to myself, ‘Charming, that is a fine girl. She is very pretty, and she stays out of my life.’ It will rain tonight.”

“Stop it,” she gasped. “I can’t stand any more. Go away!”

“I shall go,” he told her firmly, “because it is my duty. I must relieve the 8 to 12 ordinary, and for that reason only I shall leave you. Good night, Joye.”

“Good night,” she said before she could stop herself.

“My first name is, of course, Prince,” he said, and disappeared down the ladder forward.

Prince Charming!

She leaned weakly against a davit and tried to pull herself together. The moon was darkened suddenly by a ragged shred of cloud, and a quiet moaning began in the stays. “It will rain tonight.” She went below and turned in.

That was all, though. Turning in was simple enough, but sleep was something else again. After half an hour of restless listening to the increasing whine of the wind and the quickened slap of the waves against the rusty hull, she gave it up, turned on her bunk light and thought about things.

What things? Well, this awful trip, for one. It was Aunt Hagar’s wild idea, of course. Her anger, never quite quenched since that impossible ordinary seaman left her, turned to the memory of her frozen-faced aunt. It had happened this way:

Joye’s father had been one of those legendary figures of humble beginnings who had, by the sweat of his brow and the astuteness of his business sense, made a considerable fortune. When, at Joye’s birth, his wife died, he buried his grief in work, and the result of that work was wealth in six figures. But in throwing himself into his affairs he had had little time for his baby daughter, and had turned her over to his sister Hagar with instructions that Joye was to be given the best private education, with particular emphasis on controlling her temper.

For Joye had a terrible temper. The father she had seen only four or five times before his death three years ago when she was in college knew all about that temper, for she had inherited it from him. And the upbringing she had had under Aunt Hagar and her bevy of tutors had been carefully calculated to submerge that temper in a flood of rules and regulations. Well, it just hadn’t worked. The temper
was still there, all the more violent for being suppressed so long.

She had exploded when Aunt Hagar told her about this trip. “It was your father’s last wish, my dear, that you should be placed in some utterly new and different environment, where any vestige of that temperament which he feared for in you might be removed.” Aunt Hagar always talked that way—like the Harvard Classics.

“I
have
no temperament!” Joye said violently.

“Do not interrupt,” Aunt Hagar said primly. “I have found just the right thing for you. You will board the
S.S. Nueva
at noon tomorrow, and will sail to Port Arthur, Texas. I shall go by land and meet you there.”

“Oh! a ship? A cruise ship?”

“She is a seven-thousand-ton tanker, Joye, and I have gone to considerable trouble to get you aboard her. It was a special concession given me through a friend of your father’s.”

That was when Joye had exploded. A filthy old tanker! Her aunt had sat passively watching her while she stormed and stamped. She had said only:

“That settles it, Joye. Your father said in his will that I was to have the choice of this finishing touch to your education. If you accepted my judgment in the matter, no more was to be said. But if you objected, you were to be forced to obey me. Get ready, Joye.”

That was the last straw. But further defiance was useless; that was something she had learned through many painful scenes. Once Aunt Hagar made up her mind, nothing could move her. And on this occasion Joye found it physically impossible to avoid the trip. She was watched every second by firm and gentle servants, and by the eagle eye of Hagar herself. But what sort of a crazy game
was
this?

And when she had come aboard (she’d have dodged ashore again at the last minute had it not been for the presence of Aunt Hagar’s huge limousine at the dock, and Aunt Hagar’s chauffeur on the pier to see the lines cast off) she had found it very pleasant. She hated to admit it, but she was fundamentally honest and had to. Captain Avery and the chief engineer, with whom she dined, made everything as pleasant as they could. In about three days she had calmed down
a little, and by the fourth she was almost normal. And then she had to meet this disgustingly conceited seaman and be upset again! She wondered if she should tell the Captain about it, and then decided not to. She’d ignore him. That was good for conceited people. She told her pillow, “You’re Prince Charming.” Then she punched it with all her might, and fell asleep.

The next day she was up early, full of her plans to ignore him. She would cut him dead. She would insult him by her lack of interest. She would—but somehow nothing seemed to work out right. All morning she watched for him in vain. She’d have given anything to be able to stroll aft to the crew’s quarters and poke around to see where he was hiding. But Captain Avery had put that one injunction on her; she was to stay ’midships.

By eleven o’clock she couldn’t stand it any longer. She wandered up into the wheelhouse and asked the quartermaster what the 12 to 4 watch did in the morning. “Sleep,” he told her gruffly and returned to his steering.

Which made her feel very, very foolish.

She saw him after lunch, painting busily on the pump room hatch. She idled along the flying bridge and stood over him, staring. He said nothing. She scraped a bit of the peeling paint off the catwalk with her toe, and kicked it casually onto the back of his neck. He glanced up at her and then went on with his painting. She felt her anger choke her again. “Hello,” she said sweetly.

“Beat it,” he said. “Do you want to get me fired?”

“Yes,” she said, and strode back to her room. The colossal nerve of him! The—there were no words. She’d never speak to him again!

Which, considering that she was up on the midship boat deck at exactly 11:40 that night, was a peculiar resolve. It was calm again, though overcast, and very dark. Over on the port side the light on Tortugas winked steadily. A slight fair wind, tailing the ship, made the air aboard still and resonant, so that she heard his firm steps plainly by the time he was halfway over the catwalk. She waited rather breathlessly until his shadow loomed toward her from the ladder, and then she turned her back.

He began talking to himself. She caught the words. “Yes, Ivan,
you were right. She is here again, that stupid girl, to spoil your evening. But bear up, Ivan, my fine fellow, bear up. In two days we dock at Galveston and then she will be out of your life.”

“Ivan?” she said, her curiosity overcoming her anger for the moment. She moved closer and looked up into his face. Yes, it was the same bronzed countenance, with the same annoying smile. “I thought you said you were Prince Charming.”

“You don’t think so? Well, then, I am no longer Prince Charming. I am Ivan. I am also the center of the universe, Ugly.”

“Are you calling me Ugly?” she asked, aghast.

“Certainly. I have been thinking about you. I believe that you have been called everything imaginable but Ugly. We must be original, you know. So, to avoid being like anyone else, I call you Ugly.”

She felt her cheeks flame, and was glad of the dark. What he said was perfectly true, and could be called a tribute of sorts. She realized suddenly that he was laughing at himself too, and that was quite a revelation. Womanlike, she began to hate him less the more he harmlessly insulted her.

“So you’re the one who makes the world go round,” she said conversationally. “Do tell me about it.”

“It will not rain tonight,” he said irrelevantly. “You are a spoiled brat with an ungovernable temper. You are very inconsiderate of other people’s feeling. You are snobbish and narrow-minded and generally unproductive. Besides—”

The calm, even tone of his voice was broken by the small hand that lashed across his lips. He did not step back nor exclaim; simply reached over, took her by the scruff of the neck and slapped her cheek smartly.

They stood there in the blackness, staring at each other in silence—she with her eyes smarting with angry tears, he quite impassive but for his raised eyebrows and the tiniest quiver at the corner of his mouth.

“I am very fond of this tea-time talk,” he said after a tense moment, “but I must deprive you of myself for four hours. Good night, Joye.”

Trembling a little she said, “Good night, Mr. —er—”

“Hoe,” he said from the ladder, and was gone.

Ivan Hoe!

She leaned on the rail staring down at the rushing water, listening to the hiss of millions of bursting bubbles along the ship’s side. A flying fish popped out of the water with a brilliant phosphorescent flash, and she could see the little path of bluish light made by its drooping tail as it kicked itself over the crest of a swell. Ivan—she felt like swearing and laughed instead. She cried a little too. Then she went below and climbed wearily into her bunk.

Ivan—Prince—his names and his lips and his eyes ran a crazy merry-go-round in her bewildered brain. Never in her life had she met a franker and more inhuman and charming person—Charming …

It must have been two hours later when she suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. What was that he had said? Something about, “I must deprive you of myself for four hours.” And he was off watch in four hours! And that was his way of telling her to be there waiting for him when he came off the fo’c’sle head.

“Giving me orders,” she muttered indignantly as she slid out of the bunk. “Expects me to—” she pulled on some clothes “—be at his beck and call!” And she threw a sweater over a slender arm. “Who does he think he is?” She slipped softly out on deck and made her way to the boat deck, fuming. “Ordering me to meet him at four in the morning!”

She was early, though. Seven bells struck, and she sat down on the tub that held the boatfall. A half hour to wait.

Suddenly she asked herself, “For what?” Well, nothing. Nothing at all. It wasn’t really important to either of them to see each other again. No, this was foolish. Ridiculous. The thing to do was to go below and get some sleep. That was logic. Cold, clear logic.

So she stayed where she was, waiting for him.

After an age, one bell rang. Twenty minutes to go. She heard the A.B. on watch walking aft in the still damp air. She shuddered, looking at the moon. It was like a ghost suffocating in grey moss …

She may have dozed; eight bells frightened her. She jumped up and into the arms of the 12 to 4 ordinary, who had appeared at the sound of the bells as if he were Aladdin’s djinn. He held her and
kissed her very gently. He had been quite right. He was the center of the universe.

Quite without warning he released her and shoved her against the tub, on which she sat with an ungraceful thump. “Listen, Ugly,” he said flatly, “listen well and shut please the mouth.” She did, surprisingly.

“First place,” he began without flourishes, “I’m seventy kinds of a heel. I’ve led you astray on I don’t know how many counts. I’ve ganged up on you more than you deserve—not much more, though, come to think of it—and I even took a poke at you tonight without apologizing for it, even if I was justified.”

“Oh, Ivan—”

“Will that decorative oral orifice of yours remain closed, or must I close it? As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, I’ve been a heel. Now I’m going to tell you why.

“Your Aunt Hagar is a friend of mine and was a friend of my dad’s before he died. She is a very astute business woman in spite of the Model T silks she wears. I don’t know if you ever appreciated that in her, but you can thank her for more than that too. She has—Lord knows why—a great affection for you. It’s up to you to live up to it. I’ll help you.”

“Oh, you will!” Joye said icily, the glow of his kiss suddenly leaving her. “And who are you?”

For the first time surprise entered his voice. “Why, I’m Vince Randall. I’m the guy who’s going to marry you.” Ignoring her gasp he went right on with his speech. “Well, the part of your father’s will that you don’t know about states that when you were thrown into an environment in which it would make no difference what you broke or how furious you got—this is it, you see—then someone was to be appointed temporary guardian angel. That’s where I come in. My orders from your aunt were to keep you as furious as possible until you realized what a dope you were. The first three days you did quite well by yourself; I could tell that by looking at you. When you started enjoying yourself I stepped in and spoiled it all.”

She put a hand on his arm. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I couldn’t carry it through. I fell in love with you,” he
said matter-of-factly. “It was my fault, the whole thing. I shipped on here last month to get a vacation. I told Hagar about the ship. I promised to look after you for the trip. Now I promise to look after you forever. What say?”

“Oh, you
are
asking me, after all? Why you conceited, overbearing, cold-blooded reptile! You—you—oh, darling, of course I will! I don’t care what Aunt Hagar says.”

“She says it’s swell. She says it pleases her sense of the ridiculous. I radioed her yesterday. Let’s go down and wake up the Old Man and have him marry us.”

“Captain Avery … but will he? I mean, won’t he be furious?”

“Why should he be? He works for me. I own this company.”

So they woke up the Old Man and the mate.

G
UESS YOU
’
VE ALL
read about the radio service of the United States public health bureau. Let me tell you, it’s a great thing to feel that Uncle Sam is backing us that way. When you make a living riding one of the freighters or tankers that swarm around our coasts it sure eases your mind to have a thing like that to bank on.