LADY FOR SHANGHAI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 July 1939, Page 12

LADY FOR SHANGHAI

PUBLISHED DY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT,

COPYRIGHT.

By

KAYE FOX

CHAPTER I

“Just think of my feelings, mother instead of fussing about Christine losing her holiday,” Fay cried angrily. “What's it going to be like for me, to have my sister running about the ship in a cap and apron, emptying slops and that sort of thing? It's going to give me a fine start in Shanghai, isn't it? And after all the trouble I've taken not to let anyone at the Bold Street salon know that my sister is a stewardess.” . Mrs Lind looked up from the letter which Christine"had just handed to her across the breakfast table, the letter from the Tor Line office, telling Christine that she was transferred to the Hay Tor, sailing for China in a few days’ time. Christine’s own ship, the Brent Tor, waa not due to sail for a month, but one of the stewardesses from the Hay Tor had been rushed into hospital for an operation. “You've no right to speak like that, Fay,” Mrs Lind said, for once speaking sharply to her younger daughter. “If Christine hadn’t gone to sea, where would you be? It's her money that's kept the home together since I had to give up, as you know, and it’s because I went to sea, and Christine after me. that you’ve had a good education and an expensive training in beauty culture. You’ve no reason to be scornful about stewardesses, Fay, for you wouldn’t be going to this fine post in Shanghai, if Christine and I had been too proud to empty slops—though that’s not all we do on board.” “But it’ll be too awful to have Christine on the Hay Tor, when I’m going to be a passenger on the same ship,” Fay said sulkily. “I can’t cancel my passage at such short notice, but why can’t Christine refuse to be transferred.”

“On what grounds, Fay?” Christine asked. “They can’t get hold of anyone else on such short notice as this, for the crew had to sign on this afternoon. I’m the only stewardess from the Brent Tor who lives in Liverpool, and there’s no other Tor liner in port.”

“You can say you must have a holiday, you've only been home a week. Get a certificate from the doctor saying you need a rest.” “Christine can’t play a trick like that on the Company,” Mrs Lind insisted. “Although this transfer’s hard on her, it's what you have to face when you’re at sea. And Christine's all the more bound to do what they ask, because the Company’s been so good to us, allowing her to take my place when I could not sail again, though she was years below the right age.” “I wish I could cancel my passage,” Fay said, almost in tears. “It’s going to spoil everything—and I was so thrilled at getting .this Shanghai post, even though I did get it because none of the . others was keen to go out there.”

Christine, looking at her sister's flushed, charming little face, suddenly knew that she couldn’t bear to let Fay be unhappy for a moment longer. She had been deeply hurt by Fay's attitude, though she had known for a long time that Fay was ashamed of the way in which she earned a living for the three of them, but she couldn't hold out for long, when Fay’s blue eyes were dim with tears. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, Fay," she said with a smile, "for there's no earthly reason why anyone on board should know that we are sisters. Why, we haven't even got the same surname, thanks to being half-sisters and not whole ones.”

“Do you mean that we could keep secret?” Fay asked eagerly. “Unless we’re very unlucky. Fay I’m not going to tell the world 'that we’re related, and I’m sure you’re not —there may be someone on board who knows us both, but it's so unlikely that it’s hardly worth considering.” “And you’ll agree to say nothing?” “I certainly will,' Fay. Odd though it may seem to you, my dear, it wouldn’t add to my own popularity on board to have a sister amongst the passengers—the staff doesn't think so highly of passengers as all that. And of course I do realise that it would make things difficult for you.” "J must be off," Fay said, glancing al the clock. "It’s my last day at Jon’s, thank goodness, for how I’m going to cram all my shopping into three days . You'll come and help me choose hats tomorrow, won’t you. Christine?" “Unless you’re afraid that someone from the Hay Tor may see us together.” Christine said drily, but Fay wasn't listening to her. Now that Christine had promised that they should be strangers on board, Fay wasn’t worrying on that subject any more.

Fay rushed off, and Mrs Lind, crippled by rheumatics, hobbled into the kitchen to speak to the daily woman, who had just arrived, and who must be sent off at once to the laundry, to make sure that Christine's clean uniform would all be back by Thursday night —three blue print dresses and a blue alpaca afternoon dress for cool cl;mates, six white dresses for the tropics, twenty-four aprons, dozens of collars and belts and caps. Christine's sea outfit was very interesting, but it was very large, since she had to allow for the slowness of an overworked ship’s laundry. Christine began to make out a list of the small things which she must buy before she sailed. On the Tor lines, which carried first-class passengers only, and not more than two hundred even when the ship was full, the barber's shop was the only one on board, and prices there were high. Like most of her fellows. Christine always laid in a stock of the innumerable small necessities which she needed for the long voyage to China and back.

"Stockings toothpaste, talcum powder, collar studs, tape,” she wrote, and then paused, for her thoughts had drifted to Fay, that selfish, itrespun-

sible young sister of hers, who hurl her so often and was always forgiven.

It had been so fatally easy to spoil Fay, and Christine was as much to blame as her mother. George Lind had deserted his wife when Fay was only six months old. and Mrs Lind had gone straight back to sea, because it was .the only way she knew of earning a living—she had gone to sea first after the death of Christines father, Robert Joraan, who had been a captain on the Tor line, and her marriage to George Lind had been so brief an interlude that she continued to be known as- “Mrs Jordan” on board ship.-

Christine, five years older than Fay. had mothered her little sister even in those early days, when the two little girls were boarded out with an elderly ex-stewardess during the long months when their mother was away at sea. She had never dreamt of being jealous because Mrs Lind openly adored the exquisite, fair-haired baby whom she saw so seldom, and could never mar the happiness of their time together by scolding Fay for anything. It was Christine herself who urged her mother to let her leave school at the earliest possible moment, and to work in a big store, so that there might be more money for Fay's education. And then, just when it had been arranged that Fay was to start an expensive training in a beauty salon in Bold Street, Mrs Lind was attacked by an incurable form of rheumatism, and was told by the doctor that she could never go to sea again.

When the Company offered to allow Christine to take her mother’s place, she jumped at the chance. Her wage at the store was low. but at sea, if she saved all her tips, she could earn enough to pay for Fay’s training. The “allotment money,” which the Company deducted from her wages and paid to her mother while she was away, covered the expenses of the tiny flat. Now, at nineteen, Fay, was independent at last, and had secured a splendid post in Shanghai—splendid if you ignored the unsettled conditions, as youth is ready always to do. She no longer needed Christine and her mother —and Christine knew, in her heart, that they had done too much for Fay, made too many sacrifices, so that Fay took their devotion for granted and considered their mode of life degrading.

“Mrs Price has gone to the laundry,” Mrs Lind said, coming back into the sitting room. “It’s going to be a terrible rush, Christine, to get everything ready in three days, with Fay’s things to see to as well.”

“My things won’t be much trouble —it’s not as though I need anything now this trip. I can pack the things straight into my trunk when they come from the laundry.” “I wish you weren’t going so soon. Christine, though I’m glad, in a way, that you’ll be with Fay, even though you won’t see much of her.”

“I shall see hardly anything of her. I expect. She won’t even be in my section, for I’m sure to get the top deck, as I’m the junior, and Fay’s got one of the little rooms on the lower passenger deck.”

“But shelll turn to you if she’s in any trouble, Christine. She’s—she’s not so hard as she sounds, and she thinks the world of you still, just as she did when she was a little tning.” “Fay won’t get into any trouble, mother,” Christine said lightly. 'T’ve been a stewardess myself. Christine —don’t forget that.” Mrs Lind reminded her, with a grim little smile. “I trust Fay, but I know just how many sorts of trouble are waiting for a very pretty girl, on the China run—and I'm glad you're going to be within reach."

"I’m rather glad myself.” Christine admitted. “I suppose we're both so used to making a baby of Fay that we don’t realise she’s grown up —we’re like two old hens with one chick." "And we’re going to lose our chick, which makes her all the dearer,” Mrs Lind said, picking up the jumper which she was finishing off for Fay. and beginning to knit busily, as if she did not want Christine to notice how deeply moved she was.

It was going to be terribly lonely for Mrs Lind, with Fay in China and Christine at sea. but she had macle no protest at all when Fay applied for the Shanghai post, without even consulting her. Even to Christine she had only said how glad she was that Fay should have such a chance, at the very outset of her career, and she had never hinted that Fay ought to stay in England with her crippled mother. "Who’s Chief Steward on the Haj' Tor —do you happen to know?” she asked casually.

"Mr Perrin. I believe." The knitting fell into Mrs land's lap. and she gazed at Christine in dismay. “Perrin!" she exclaimed. "Oh. Christine. I do hope you’re wrong. I sailed with Perrin once —in the Torquay that was, on the Jamaica run —and I was glad enough to be transferred at the end of the trip, for I never had such miserable trip in all my years at sea." “Why—what’s the matter with Perrin?"

"He's one of the worst bullies on the line. Christine —spends all his time looking for a speck of dust, and bellows the ship down when he finds one.”

"I've always managed to satisfy Mr Robins, and no one can say that the Brent Tor isn’t a clean ship.”

"Robins treats his staff properly, and they work well for him. and he always has a clean ship, but Perrin has different methods. Oh. Christine. I’m afraid you’re going to have a bad time. You’ve been so lucky on the Brent Tor with that nice Mr Robins, and with Mrs Trimble and Miss Scott so ready to help you because of being old shipmates of mine. You don’t know —yet

—what a ship can be like with a bullying Chief Steward, and with half the men trying to keep on the right side of him. and the rest up against him all the time. You don’t know ” "For goodness sake, mother,” Christine laughed, “don t be such a Job's comforter. You know 1 nate leaving the Brent Tor, where I’m friendly with everyone—if you make any more dismal prophecies about Mr Perrin, you'll have me wiring to the Company to say that I’ve got scarlet fever, and can’t sign on today.” ■■l’m an old fool, Christine,” Mrs Lind said, trying to smile. "After all. you may bo wrong about Perrin being Chief on the Hay Tor, or he may have changed a lot since I knew him —it must be close on fifteen years since that trip, and a man may mellow in fifteen years. Someone told me once that even Robins was a bit of a tyrant when he was Second.” •To be i.oriifiaued )