Somewhere in that vague region where the Strait of Dover merges with the North Sea, so that you cannot tell which is which, appeared the lights of a dumpy old freighter. By her course they judged her to be London bound, and they waited for her, and when she was near laid their course alongside. There was just enough light so that the two masters could vaguely see each other’s form. The sea was so smooth that they could talk without the need of a megaphone and a conversation ensued:
“Ahoy there! This is the motor yacht Bessie Budd, German registry, out of Bremen. Who are you?”
“British passenger freighter Plymouth Girl, Copenhagen to London.”
“I’ve a couple of passengers who want to go ashore at London.”
“All passenger accommodations full, I can’t afford to stop.”
“What do you want to heave to?”
“Ten pounds.”
“We’ll pay you twenty pounds. The young couple want to get married on the high seas. Will you oblige them?”
“Are they British?”
“Both Americans, of legal age. They want to avoid the delays of getting married on shore.”
“Will they pay cash?”
“As soon as they come aboard.”
“I’ll take them.”
The dark shape came to a stop and the yacht slowed up accordingly; when they lay still they weren’t more than a cable’s length apart. A dinghy was lowered from the Bessie Budd, also the gangway, and Irma and Lanny went down; when they reached the old vessel they were helped up a rope ladder, not so clean, and welcomed by a burly son of the sea whose job was transporting butter and eggs from a land of dairies to one of factories. Several members of the crew and a couple of passengers stood staring by the dim light of lanterns. What they thought of the adventure was not revealed.
Lanny presented two indubitable ten-pound notes and, after examining them, the captain said: “I never done this before, but I’ll chance it. Can you tell me what I have to say?”
“Sure,” said Lanny, who had attended many fashionable ceremonies. “You ask me if I take this woman for my lawful wedded wife, and you ask this woman if she takes me for her lawful wedded husband. We answer yes, and then you say that by the authority vested in you under the Maritime Act of 1894 you pronounce us man and wife. You give us a certificate that you have married us, and you enter it in the ship’s log, and maybe you have to report it to the Registrar ashore—I don’t know about that, but you can find out.”
“Well, I hope there’s nothing bogus about this that would get me into trouble.”
“Not at all,” said Lanny, promptly. “We are of legal age, and we wish to be properly married. We’re yachting, and it seems that it takes a lot of time to get married ashore.” He said nothing about the publicity, because that might have meant risking some.
VI
The freighter had started her engines, and so had the Bessie Budd, and they were running side by side, a safe distance apart, but not so far that you couldn’t hear the music distinctly. Hansi and Bess were playing the “Wedding March” from Lohengrin, to which irreverent persons chant: “Here comes the bride; get onto her stride.” But there was nowhere to march to. After clearing his throat several times, and repeating the names to make sure that he had them right, Captain Rugby of the Plymouth Girl asked the crucial questions and said the crucial formula. Then he took them to his cabin, and wrote out a certificate. He offered them the use of his cabin, for it was a long time before they would dock in London, but Lanny said no, they would sit on deck that pleasant summer evening and listen to the music.
The Bessie Budd was still alongside, and Hansi and Bess were playing the Queen Titania music. When it was over they had a gay long-distance chat, and Lanny introduced the new Mrs. Budd, and the crews of both vessels listened and acquired information as to the ways of the idle rich. There was more music, and presently refreshments were brought up oh the yacht. They offered to send some over, but Captain Rugby wasn’t willing to stop again; he produced some sherry and biscuits, which they ate with a good young appetite. The celebration went on until the freighter was at the Nore lightship, when the passengers of both vessels stood by the rail and sang: “Goodnight, ladies, we’re going to leave you now.”
So the two vessels parted company and faded out of hearing. It made them feel lonely, and Irma said: “Do you think we’re really married?”
“Don’t worry about it too much,” he replied. “When we get to the States we can have it done again. I’m told they don’t make so much fuss about it over there.”
At the mouth of the Thames great numbers of vessels lay waiting for the tide. When it was right, a pilot came aboard, and a ghostly procession started: every kind and size of steamer that could be imagined on the high seas, great passenger liners down to tugs with barges. It resembled what you saw when a school bell rang and the children came trooping in from all the homes in the village; a few hours later another bell rang, and they came rushing out—only in the case of the Port of London it would be a different lot each time. They glided up the river under their own power, and in the dim moonlight Irma and Lanny could see great mud-flats, and then, standing up bare and stark, factories, many of them brightly lighted, working at night, and piers with ships being loaded or unloaded by arclights. Presently the river narrowed, and there were entrances to great basins, and the fleet of vessels began to dissolve to right or left, the big ones first and the smaller ones higher up the river.
When the Plymouth Girl came to her berth, there was a sleepy official to inspect her papers and interview her passengers. Going off on a friend’s yacht and coming back on a dingy old freighter was a sufficiently unusual procedure to attract attention; but money can do a lot at any port in the world, and it quickly brought a couple of messenger boys, one to go to Lanny’s hotel and one to Irma’s, to fetch their passports. These being in order, the delay was brief and they stepped ashore. By the same magic of the Bank of England’s notes Lanny arranged at a garage for a car to be driven to Ramsgate, and a man in the back seat to take the car back.
They found the Bessie Budd safely reposing against the street, but all the passengers had already left for London. Lanny got his own car, and he and his bride set out to explore England in the lovely month of brides and roses. “Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Budd” attracted no attention on the registers of country inns, so they had a quiet time. Up in London the Robin family kept the secret, and so did the mothers. The formula “gone to visit friends” left the newspapers baffled. Beauty, being so much the poorer woman, took it as her duty to call on the haughty Mrs. Fanny Barnes. Fate had thrown them together, and they would have to make friends; fortunately they both played a good game of bridge. Lanny had been anxious as to the possibility that his new mother-in-law might expect to be taken on the yachting trip, but Irma said she was an especially poor sailor and was planning to go to Deauville with friends.
So everything was “jake,” as they said in America. The bride made the discovery that she had found an ardent lover; it was easier to forget Italy and the Fascists than she had expected. Also it seemed possible just then to get away from her money with all its claims and obligations. She hadn’t brought much with her, and Lanny was paying the bills and making jokes about keeping her in the style to which she was accustomed. He pointed out the features of English landscapes and told stories out of English history; delightful indeed to have a combination of husband and tutor! In the parlor of an establishment called the Duck and Turtle he seated himself at a not too badly cracked piano and played Schumann’s Widmung. Ich liebe dich in Zeit und Ewigkeit! It would have been a “give-away” if anybody in the place had known German music, but no one did.
VII
In short, they had a jolly time, and the only reason they returned to London was the exhibition. If Lanny stayed away from this event, some clever person like Sophie or Margy might connect him with the missing heiress. They came back and amused themselves playing a game of hide-and-seek with the smart world. La
nny resumed receiving guests at the show, and among them were Mrs. J. Paramount Barnes and her daughter. He greeted them casually, and introduced them to Zoltan, who, knowing how rich they were, produced his best “spiel” about a French painter who was forging so rapidly to the front. Word spread that this was the famed heiress, and people watched her discreetly, and it surely did no harm to the reputation of Detaze that she expressed lively admiration for his work.
It pleased her to return and continue her art studies, and to bring other Americans whom she knew. She introduced these friends to the charming Hungarian gentleman who presided over the show, and left it for him to present them to the widow of the painter and his gay and eager little daughter. If now and then the painter’s stepson was included in the introductions, that amiable young man would give intelligent answers to questions about the paintings. Irma showed no special interest in his remarks, but told the alert Mr. Kertezsi that she had decided to have several of these paintings in her Long Island home. He helped her to make a selection, received her check with many bows, and made note of her address and shipping instructions. Once more Zoltan was vindicated in his theory that it was better to price works of art too high than too law!
Then, when the show closed for the night, Lanny would drive his car to an appointed place, and Irma would arrive in a taxicab and transfer herself, and they would do a little winding about the winding old streets to make sure they were not being followed. Irma would be “visiting friends” again, and Lanny amused her by taking her to that second-class hotel where he had kept two rendezvous with Rosemary Codwilliger, pronounced Culliver, some twelve years previously. The building was still there—all buildings always stayed in London, they were permanent as the pyramids, he declared. He told her how a shrapnel splinter had crashed through the window of their room in the night, and Irma exclaimed: “Oh, how exciting! Do you suppose that will ever happen again?”
VIII
The Bessie Budd set sail with her five honeymoon couples; at least, Johannes said that he and Mama had been on a honeymoon ever since their wedding day, and the same was true of Mr. and Mrs. Dingle and of Mr. and Mrs. Hansi. Nobody needed to say anything about Mr. and Mrs. Lanny, or Mr. and Mrs. Freddi; their state of bliss was written all over them, and made them very pretty to watch.
The yacht sailed north, past the Faeroe Islands, and toward the land of the midnight sun. They saw some whales, but no icebergs in July and August. They came to a great island set in a lonely sea; they nosed into fiords much like those of Norway, and found a lovely little city scattered over the hills of a good harbor. The name Iceland sounded forbidding, and they were surprised to encounter a cultivated people who managed to have books and newspapers in their strange tongue, yet to escape most of the evils from which the Bessie Budd had fled. Surprising too to see hot springs and geysers bursting out of ground which was frozen most of the year; to see active volcanoes surrounded by glaciers. Beauty, who had grown soft in the warmth of Provence, shuddered at the thought of winter on these barren, storm-swept hills; but Lanny thought the people fared better than the dwellers in the slums of Riviera “old towns.”
They went on toward the west. The glowing sun went down into the water while they slept, and soon afterward it came up out of a near-by place in the water, and it was broad daylight most of the time; apparently the globe on which they lived had got tipped out of place and didn’t behave as they were used to seeing it. Unexpectedly, when the sun shone in an unclouded sky it became quite hot on deck, and you might imagine you were off the coast of Africa. You had to learn to sleep in the light, or tie a bandage over your eyes.
Great lonely wastes of water—Beauty said, what on earth had it all been made for! Only the seabirds and the porpoises for company. The birds could sleep on the water, but you never saw them doing it, nor did the porpoises ever seem to rest. When fogs settled down, the yacht barely crept along; when storms came, she headed into them, with just enough speed for steerage way. The voyagers were in no hurry; they had an abundance of food and water and fuel, and had left all cares in Berlin and London, places which had so many that a few extra would hardly count. They did not dress for dinner, as they had done on the previous cruise, the fashionable one. They wore yachting togs and sports clothes, and were comfortable and free; they agreed with the one-eyed calender in The Arabian Nights: “This indeed is life; pity ’tis, ’tis fleeting!”
There were five musicians on board, not including Mr. Dingle, who could play the mouth-organ, or Beauty and Irma, who had learned a few pieces after the fashion of society ladies. They had great quantities of scores, so many that the handling of them was a problem, and Freddi’s wife constituted herself librarian. Hansi, who would never stop improving while he lived, practiced every day. Following a custom which they had inaugurated on their first cruise, Hansi and Freddi went frequently into the forecastle and played for such of the crew as were not on duty. On this trip, having no snobbish folk on board, they went farther, and every Sunday evening invited the crew into the saloon and gave them a regular concert.
This, of course, in the name of the brotherhood of man. Mr. Dingle, exponent of the fatherhood of God, made an even wider breach in the class lines, which are nowhere stronger than on board ship. When one of the men fell ill he went and prayed for him; and thereafter he would go frequently into the forecastle and explain his ideas, and also play the mouth-organ with members of the crew who had mastered that humble instrument.
Mr. Dingle said that it made no difference what instrument you played, any more than it mattered where you traveled; God was with you on the loneliest ocean, the rockiest, fogbound shore. He was the same God in whatever aspect you found Him. In His guise as Orpheus, maker of melodious sounds, He brought to the Bessie Budd all climes of the earth and all ages of history; He peopled her deck with mythological creatures born in the fancy of the various tribes of mankind; He made her guests acquainted with the moods which had possessed the souls of men since first they opened their eyes and discovered themselves struggling and aspiring, loving and hating, fighting and dying, on a great ball of matter whirling at unthinkable speeds through an incomprehensible universe. All that men had felt and suffered had been recorded and preserved in musical sound, a heritage for those who had ears to hear and minds to understand.
IX
Through long, peaceful days and too abbreviated nights Lanny Budd studied that private and special gift which his complicated fates had awarded him. After no end of uncertainty and many mischances, he had got himself a wife; in a hurry, and half by accident, as happens to many two-legged creatures, as to those which have four, six, eight, or a hundred legs! Now that all barriers were down and all veils dropped, what was this woman who was his?
For one thing, she had a naturally cheerful disposition, an excellent thing in crowded quarters. She had a normal enjoyment of her food, and of being made love to. It wasn’t necessary to her happiness to talk all the time; she would give him a chance to think, even when she was in the same cabin with him. She liked to walk on deck, and enjoyed any sort of game; she was still very young, and seemed in no special hurry to grow up. She had married him in a fit of pique, but she was loyal, and expected to make the best of her bargain. He couldn’t guess how they’d get along in the midst of that crazy world of money and fashion which sooner or later would come clamoring after her; but in this floating playground, with only a few kind friends, and little reason for dressing up—he had persuaded her to ship her maid back to New York with the rest of her staff—here things were peaceful and pleasant enough.
He investigated her mind. Ideas didn’t mean much to her; she saw no special reason for getting excited about them. Perhaps she might later on, when she discovered that they affected herself and her life and fortune; meanwhile, it was all right, because Lanny had enough ideas for two. He discovered that she didn’t understand music; its structure meant nothing to her, but she liked to listen to harmonious sounds, they threw her into a pleasantly excited state. Pe
rhaps her subconscious forces were being stimulated to their task, the miracle that was beginning within her. Irma wasn’t going to master the piano like Bess; she was content to be a wife and let nature have its way. That suited Lanny, and still more it suited Beauty, who was in the seventh heaven of mothers-in-law; she lavished her affection upon the girl, watching for the symptoms, telling her own varied experiences. Women, who have to nurse babies and change their wrappings, learn to employ explicit language, and the things that Irma said to Beauty about Lanny would have caused embarrassment even to that son of the warm south if he had heard them.
The other young wife was in the same state of mind and body, and she too had a future grandmother in a state of rapture not to be repressed. Presently the four of them got together, Beauty Budd and Mama Robin, Irma and Rahel, and after that a section of the yacht might have been called the maternity ward. Four females whispering to one another, and Johannes, proprietor of the vessel, fain to listen in but not allowed to! And aft on the deck, under a gay-striped awning, four musicians pounding and thumping, tootling and tinkling and scraping, trying in vain to create or imagine anything more strange and romantic, more terrifying and delightful than the possibility of having a baby!
BOOK EIGHT
Lead But to the Grave
36
Prince Consort
I
Early in the month of September the Bessie Budd appeared off the mouth of the Newcastle River. Lanny had telephoned from Boston, and Robbie had a pilot waiting for them in a launch; he blew on a little tin horn, and the two drawbridges swung open, first the road bridge and then the railroad bridge, and the trim white yacht glided slowly through and was brought neatly alongside one of the wharves of the Budd plant. Robbie was there with three cars, and all ten passengers stepped ashore: the family of his former wife—so called in the interest of public decency—and the family of his business associate, including Robbie’s daughter. Also, there was his new daughter-in-law, whom he had never met, so it was an important occasion for him.