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LADY FOR SHANGHAI

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

CHAPTER 11 (Continued).

KAYE FOX

. Setting lotion spilling into the eyeblack when the ship begins to rock —” "One slipper under the pillow on the top bunk and the other under the smears of cold cream on the mirror—”

"Never mind," he said sympathetically. "You’ve got a dear old lady in number ten, and a mother with two sweet little children in four.”

Christine laughed and ran down to her own cabin, where Mrs Parr and Miss Crane were drinking strong black tea. Mrs Parr poured out a cup for Christine .but went on telling Crane a story about a passenger. Before long, it was time for Christine to go the round of her state-rooms to introduce herself to her own passengers, and to find out what they wanted in the early mornings—tea. fruit, or plain hot water. People did not want to be bothered with these questions as soon as they came on board, but in the quiet interval before dinner, when they had done some of their unpacking, but were still in their staterooms. Christine was likely to be welcome.

She had half hoped that she would have time to slip down and try to see Fay before dinner, out the passenger in number four kept her for a good ten minutes, making arrangements for her young baby to have a special patent food made five times a day, and for Christine to look after the baby and his four-year-old brother during meal times.

Number eighteen was the last door at which she knocked. Someone called, "Come in.” and she went in to exactly the scene which she had ex-pected-clothes flung all over the place, the settee piled with half-un-packed boxes, and the wardrobe already •so full that the door swung open.

The woman whom Martin Royde had called Doria was sitting on a stool in the midst of the confusion, idly polishing her nails, and she looked up as Christine came in.

“You’ve come about teas and so on, t suppose,” she said to Christine, in the slightly insolent tone which a few passengers used to those who served them. “Well, I can tell you this, stewardess—it’s no good your trying to get us out of our room early, for it can’t be done. Put me down for tea at 8 o’clock. That goes for you. too, L suppose, Iris?”

"And your baths?" Christine asked quietly.

“You can tell the bath steward eight thirty, but he’ll be lucky if he sees either of us before nine. We don’t mind, missing breakfast—unless we can have it in bed?”

"You will have to apply to the Chief Steward if you want breakfast in bed regularly, ’■ Christine told her, confident that Perrin would never listen to such a request. Of course passengers could have meals in bed if they were ill, but not just because they were too lazy to get up. Christine slipped out of the room again, having noticed the initials D.S. on one of the trunks —so Doria was Mrs Smythe, and Iris was Mrs Collins. She knew that she was going to have a good deal of trouble with those two, and she was thankful that they were in Grant's section, for Grant would remain good tempered even if the room had to be done in a tearing hurry just before inspection at eleven. As she carried out the routine tasks which were so familiar to her, Christins was trying to plan how she could possibly get to Fay’s room unseen. Until now, when for the first time she wanted to do something which must be kept secret, she had not realised how seldom the alleyways were entirely deserted, and how difficult it was to avoid prying eyes. CHAPTER 111. It was Mrs Carlyle, the dear old lady in number ten, who made it possible for Christine to visit Fay. She rang | foi Christine soon after dinner, ex- ■ plained that she was a very poor j sleeper, and asked whether it would I be possible for her to have a glass of J hot milk ’brought to her room at ten I o’clock every night. As a rule, this was the sort of request which Christine hated, since it I meant that she would never be able to go to bed until after that glass of milk was cairied up and she would have to get up at five-thirty, for number four wanted her morning tea at six. But she jumped at the excuse for being out ol her own cabin at ten, an hour when there were few people about, and only two bedroom stewards “on watch” on the two passenger decks.

Mrs Parr and Miss Crane began to get icady tor bed at about nine, for it happened that none of their passengers wanted anything after that time. “Aren’t yon finished yet, Miss Jordan?’’ Miss Crane asked, as Christine settled down on the settee with a book. ’’l've got milk to take up at ten.,’ Christine explained.

"Take it up at half-past nine. Miss Jordan."

"She’d bettor take it up at the hour its asked for," Mrs Parr said, grudgingly. “H’s Mi- Perrin’s rule that the passenger is always right, and if there’s a complaint about the milk being cold. Mr Perrin will have something to say about it."

Christine simply rushed down the companion to the pantry at ten o’clock, got the milk previously ordered from the pantry-man, and hurried up to number four with it. Cator. and a steward whom she did not know, were on watch, and they were both at the bar. talking to the bar steward: there seemed to be no one else about except for a few passengers, and of course passengers did not matter.

It was absurd, really, to feel so guilty as she walked along the star-

(To l,>e continued.)

board alleyway, looking for Fay’s room, but of all the unwritten laws which ruled the ship, that one which forbade poaching in another stewardess’s section was perhaps the most stringent. Of course, if this had been the Bren Tor, Christine could have explained that Fay was a friend of hers —she need not even say she was her sister —but she knew already that on the Hay Tor the worst possible construction would be put upon anything that she did. "Oh. Christine, I thought you’d forgotten all about me,’ Fay exclaimed, as Christine opened the door. "I couldn’t get away before. Fay.” Christine said, closing the door very carefully behind her, “and I can only stay for a few minutes now.” She sat down on Fay’s bed —there was not settee in these little singleberth rooms —and Fay snuggled up against her. more like a rather scared child than the very self-confident girl whom Christine had seen at home, only the night before. "I’ve never felt so lonely in my life. Christine,” Fay said. "They've put me at a table with a whole lot of awfully stuffy people, who looked down their noses at me all through dinner—and I don’t think I shall ever get to know anyone on board.” "Oh, yes, you will," Christine assured her. "They all get friendly in a few days. There’s always someone on board who starts organising deck games and things on the very first day, and there'll be dancing on the promenade deck as soon at it’s warm enough—you won’t be lonely for long. Fay.”

"And my clothes are all right,” Fay said, cheering up a little. “Christine, 1 must show yo tithe frock I bought as a sort of last minute inspiration this morning. I hadn’t time to try it on, except in the shop, and I want you to tell me whether it ought to be shortened, just an inch or so.’” "Hurry up, then.’ “But you’ve only just come Christine,” Fay protested, “and I’m sure you can’t have anything else to do tonight.”

I share a cabin with two others.

Fay, and they are probably counting

the minutes till my return—l’m no supposed to wander round the ship a night, you know."

But Fay, rummaging through the wardrobe for the new frock, took no notice —she wanted Christine's company, and she didn't care in the least for the rules and regulations of the ship. Christine stayed for a good ten minutes longer, admiring the applegreen frock which suited Fay's fair beauty so exactly. Cator came round the corner of the alley-wqy when she was on her way Irom Fay s room to her own. He gave her a rather shrewd glance, but though this was not the shortest way from the upper deck to the stewardesses’ cabin, there was no real reason why she should not have come down the main companion and along the lower starboard alley-way, instead of down the narrow companion amidships. As a rule, the stewardesses did not use the mam companion, but they sometimes did so at night. She said good-night to Cator, and hoped that her voice sounded natural.

Mrs Parr and Miss Crane were already asleep, and Christine went to bed in the dark, making as little noise as she could.

She had no time even to think of Fay th enext day, for the ship was pitching just enough to send all the bad sailors to bed. No one in Christine’s section was really ill, but half-a-dozen of them stayed in bed for breakfast as a precaution, though they were able to eat quite substantial meals, which Christine had to carry up on trays from the pantry.

It was in the pantry that morning that Christine had her first encounter with Perrin since coming on board.

He was standing at the hot press, and in all the rush and turmoil of the pantry at breakfast time he seemed to miss nothing. Christine heard him swearing at Grant because a tray-cloth was crooked, and at the second pantry man for burning a slice of toast on the electric toaster.

"Fish, please," Christine said to the chief, putting down the tray which she had ready for Mrs Carlyle. The white-capped chef, standing beside Perrin, was serving portions of fish with a perfectly blank expression, as if he wanted to emphasise his complete lack of interest in anything which the Chief Stewart might say to the staff— Christine made a mental note that the chef wasn’t one of Perrin's toadies. "Bey you—Miss Jordan," Perrin shouted suddenly. "Did they teach you on the Brent to take trays up without salt?"

"Mi-s Carlyle doesn’t lake salt," Christine said quietly. “Put the salt on al once, and don’t argue with me,"

Her hands were shaking a little as she picked up the tray. Perrin’s bullying tone took some getting used to—and Mrs Carlyle had definitely told her not to bother to bring salt. She hoped against hope that there would not be any inspection that morning, for she’d have to hurry to get finished before eleven, with five travs

to carry up. and the baby in number four to look after while his mother was at breakfast. Of course there would bo no inspection of the rooms in which passengers were still in bed,

but they would have to be made reasonably tidy, and Christine had several other rooms as well.

"Is there going to be inspection today?" she asked Grant, as he joined her outside the door of eighteen. "I m afraid so —the Old Man hardly ever drops inspection, except in really bad weather.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19390727.2.107

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1939, Page 12

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,920

LADY FOR SHANGHAI Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1939, Page 12

LADY FOR SHANGHAI Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1939, Page 12

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