The sea was calm. The ship drifted with the swell, and had begun to roll a little. The voices of men, women and children echoed off the corridors and over the water. “It’s the generators,” she heard someone say. “Both generators have blown.” She began to cry.
She dried her tears and stood by the porthole, watching the sunset. She could hear the orchestra playing in the ballroom, and she wondered if people were dancing in the dark. Way below her, in the crew’s quarters, someone had put out a fishing line. They must be fishing for cod. She wished she had a line herself, but she didn’t dare ask for one, because they might then discover that she had stopped the ship.
A few minutes before dark, all the lights went on, there was a cheer from the deck, and the ship took up its course. Honora watched the white crest at the bow form and rise as they headed once more for Europe. She didn’t dare go up to the dining room, and made a supper of Saltines and port wine. Later she took a turn around the decks, and the young man in the pin-striped suit asked if he could join her. She was happy to have his company and the support of his arm. He said that he was traveling to get away from things, and she guessed that he was a successful young businessman who wanted, quite naturally, to see the world before he settled down with a wife and children. She wished, fleetingly, that she had a daughter he could marry. Then she could find him a nice position in St. Botolphs, and they could live in one of the new houses in the east end of the village and come and visit her, with their children, on Sundays. When she tired, she was quite lame. He helped her down to her cabin and said good night. He had excellent manners.
She looked for him in the dining room the next day, and she wondered if he was traveling in some other class, or belonged to the fast set that didn’t come down for lunch but instead ate sandwiches in the bar. He joined her on deck at dusk that night, when she was waiting for the dinner chimes to ring.
“I don’t see you in the dining room,” she said.
“I spend most of my time in my cabin,” he said.
“But you shouldn’t be so unsociable,” she said. “You ought to make friends—an attractive young man like you.”
“I don’t think you’d like me,” he said, “if you knew the truth.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “If you’re a member of the working class or something like that, it wouldn’t make any difference to me. I went up to Jaffrey last summer for a rest, you know, and I met this very nice lady and befriended her, and she said the same thing to me. ‘I don’t think you’d like me,’ she said, ‘if you knew who I was.’ So then I asked her who she was, and she said she was a cook. Well, she was a very nice woman, and I continued to play cards with her, and it didn’t make any difference to me that she was a cook. I’m not stuck-up. Mr. Haworth, the ashman, is one of my best friends, and often comes into the house for a cup of tea.”
“I’m a stowaway,” the young man said.
She took a deep breath of sea air. The news was a blow. Oh, why should life appear to be a series of mysteries? She had imagined him to be prosperous and successful, and he was merely a lawless outcast. “Where do you sleep?” she asked. “Where do you eat?”
“I sleep mostly in the heads,” he said. “I haven’t eaten for two days.”
“But you must eat.”
“I know,” he said wistfully. “I know. You see, what I thought I might do is to confide in someone—a passenger—and then, if they were friendly, they could order dinner in their stateroom and I could share it.”
For a second she was wary. He seemed importunate. He had moved too swiftly. Then his stomach gave a loud rumble, and the thought of the hunger pangs he must be suffering annihilated her suspicions. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Gus.”
“Well, I’m in Cabin 12 on B Deck,” she said. “You come down there in a few minutes, and I’ll see that you get some supper.”
When she got to her cabin, she rang for the waiter and ordered a six-course meal. The young man arrived and hid in the bathroom. When the table was set with covered dishes, he came out of hiding, and it did her heart good to see him eat.
