LADY FOR SHANGHAI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1939, Page 10

LADY FOR SHANGHAI

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

KAYE FOX

CHAPTER XI (Continued).

“And which would have been flatly denied by Royde and Mrs Smythe. ’ "Yes, but linked up with, some of Royde’s previous capers, it would have got him black-listed—there would never have been room for him on one of the Company's ships again. Perrin knows well enough that you're telling the truth, and I shouldnt wonder if the chef had a word to say about it all at the Liverpool office. He was saying to the baker ’’

"You're making me dizzy. Arthur," Christine laughed. "You'll be telling me next that the bell-boy happened to be listening at the door when the chef was talking to the baker."

"No—it was the second pantryman, not the bell-boy,” Arthur said, his eyes twinkling, "and he didn't listen at the door. He was passing through the pantry, and the chef and the baker were talking near the hatch between the pantry and the baker's shop." It was queer, Christine thought, that the very people who had been hostile to her all the voyage should now have veered round and become sympathetic. She couldn't help being glad, for though by this time she had a very poor opinion of the 10l of them, it would certainly make things easier if they were friendly—and it was still more than two months before they all got back to England.

Christine had managed to avoid Mrs Smythe and Mrs Collins all day: she was in a very awkward position with regard to those two, for though she had been perfectly justified in acting on the information which they had accidentally given her, they wore sure to be furious with her.

When duty required her to go to number eighteen Christine found Mrs Collins sitting at tne dressing table trying out a new way of doing her hair. Her’ eyes met Christine’s in the mirror and she turned round slowly. “Still waters run deep, apparently, stewardess,” she said, lifting her. .eyebrows. “I hadn’t the slightest notion, last night, that you were going to rush straight off to the rescue of Fay Lind. I thought you were hardly listening to what we said.”

“If you had known what I was going to do, wouldn't you have stopped me somehow?” Christine said quietly.

“I would not. as a matter of fact—l think you were quite right—but I admit that Mrs Smythe would have done her best to stop you." Christine looked at her,’ and she saw that there was something different about Iris Collins tonight—she looked very weary and dispirited, as if she had come face to face with her own soul, and been shocked by what she had seen.

“I simply can’t understand Mrs Smythe," Christine said. "Mr Royde is bad enough, but 1 can't understand how any woman can plan to ruin a girl like Fay Lind." “Can't you?” Iris Collins asked her. with a bitter little smile. “Other women were ruthless with us when Doria Smythe and I were as young as Fay Lind. We’re brigands, all of us, and can't afford to be scrupulous.” "But you wouldn’t have done—this thing yourself, Mrs Collins." There was tragic self-knowledge in Iris Collins's eyes as she looked at Christine.

“Who knows?" she said, shrugging her shoulders. “It's true that I'm shocked by it. and that J had a row with Doria last night about it—after I'd heard that Royde was going to make sure that you were dismissed for the part you'd played. But if I'd been in Doria's place, if a man I was depending on to back mo financially in my club was running after a girl. I might have felt towards the girl just as Doria feels towards the Lind girl—that there was nothing I wouldn't do to hurt her. Are they really going to dismiss you. stewardess?"

“I expect so. You see, I ought to have reported the matter to the Chief Steward, instead of going ashore without leave.”

“To our dear friend, Mr Perrin, who eats out of Martin Royde’s hand? What a hope! Well. I wish I could do something to help you. stewardess, but the fact is that I can’t. Although I quarrelled with Doria last night. I've got to make it up, because if I can't persuade her to give me a job at the club, I don't quite know what’s going to happen to me.*’ "It may turn out all right for me.” Christine said, moved by profound pity for Iris Collins, beautiful and expensively dressed, who must look forward with terror to the day when her beauty would be gone. Beauty passed so quickly, and they had nothing else, these women who lived precariously, spending every penny which came into their greedy hands. Christine was going to lose her own job. but. she had no terror of the future. She'd find work of some sort, even if it was scrubbing Hours —but Iris Collins had never learnt to work. "Good luck to you then, stewardess." Iris Collins said, and turned back to the mirror. Before Christine left the room. Iris seemed already absorbed in trying the effect of a tinsel butterfly poised on tier dark curls.

All that day. in spite of tier suspense over her own fate. Christine had been wondering at the back of her mind how she could see Fay. She must lind out what Fay's reaction had been to the happenings of the night before: when they got out of the ear. Fay's one anxiety seemed to be that Chrisline might reveal the fact that they were sisters, but surely, when she came to think things over. Fay must have realised that Martin- Royde had tried to trick her. In the end. Christine decided to go boldly to Fay's room after she had paid her usual visit to Mrs Carlyle at ten. After all, Pei rm had already told her

that she was going to be dismissed, so that she had nothing more to fear from him, and everyone on the stall knew that she had been ashore to fetch Fay the night before. She did not really want to bo seen visiting a passenger in Miss Crane's section, but. if the steward on watch did happen to sec her, he would think it natural enough that, she should want to speak to this particular passenger.

It was queer not io feel furtive as she walked down the main companion and along the alley-way to Fay's room. .As it happened, she met neither of the bedroom stewards on late watch, though she did not take the trouble to find out where they were before going to Fay.

Christine had only half expected that Fay would be there, for since the time when she first began to associate with Martin Royde, Fay had seldom been in her room so early as this. But if Fay wanted to talk to her. and it was likely that she did. she might arrange to be in her room at the hour at which Christine had come to see her, in the early days of the voyage. Fay was there, and she was sitting on the settee doing nothing, as if she had been waiting so impatiently for Christine that she could not occupy herself in any way, but could only s.it watching the door. "Oh, Christine. I'm so glad that you've come,” she said thankfully. “I couldn’t think of any way of getting a message to you, and I was so afraid that you wouldn't come tonight. It's been like living on a volcano all day —not knowing what was going to come out. What nas come out, Christine?” “That I went ashore last night—that’s come out,” Christine said, rather drily. "Mr Perrin is going to report that, and some other tilings, to the Liverpool office, and I’ll be dismissed at the end of the voyage."

"But you didn't tell him—that we're sisters?" Fay asked anxiously, as if the fact that Christine was going to be dismissed was no concern of hers.

“No, it wasn’t necessary to tell him that. He simply knows that I overheard a conversation between Mrs Smythe and Mrs Collins, knew that you were going to be stranded, and went ashore to warn you. He doesn’t know that I’ve ever even spoken to you in my life before.” “And I’ve been worrying all day,” Fay said, with a sigh of relief. “I've kept thinking that some of the passengers were looking at mo in an odd way, and wondering if they knew.” "Fay. have you really been worrying about a little thing like that?” Christine asked gravely. “I should have thought you had something much more important to worry about—Martin Royde’s attempt to trick you into staying in Penang with him. Doesn't, that upset you at all?” "But it was all a mistake—really it was, Christine.” Fay insisted. “Fay, it wasn't a mistake. I heard Mrs Smythe telling her friend how it had all been arranged between herself and Martin Royde." . "Martin's explained all that." Fay said quickly, “and he's furious with Mrs Smythe. You see, when she found out that he’d told me the wrong sailing time, she thought he was doing it deliberately, and so she never said a word about it to him or me. He says she's knocked about the world a lot. and met some very queer people, so she wasn’t shocked at the idea of anyone doing an awful thing like that.”

"She told Mrs Collins that it had all been fixed up beforehand that she should have a headache and leave you two together." "I’d trust Martin." Fay said, with shining eyes, "even if I'd been there myself when Doria was talking to Tris. I'm terribly grateful to you, Christine, for coming ashore last night—but I wouldn't have come to any harm if we had been stranded. Martin would have taken me to friends of his in Penang." CHAPTER XII. "What we can't understand. Miss Jordan," Mrs Parr said, as soon as Christine returned to her own cabin, "is why you didn't talk things over vith us last night—especially as MiSs Irane's passenger. We've been kept in he dark —all we knew was what everyone know this morning that you'd been ashore without leave.

Christine glanced at the empty glass which stood on the dressing table, and guessed why they were no longer in the dark: Miss Crane had been up to the bar for her favourite nightcap, gin and tonic, and George had given her the latest gossip. "You haven't exactly encouraged me :o talk things over with you, have you?" she said quietly. "We've barely oeon on speaking terms lately, and if I had asked for your advice last night, you would have told me to go to Mr Perrin."

"That s where you make a mistake, Miss Jordan." Mrs Parr assured her. with an ingratiating smile. "At least, if we had advised going to Mr Perrin, one of us would have gone with you. to back you up. for we all know, not to put too fine a point upon it. that Mr Perrin would be only too willing to turn a blind eye to anything done by that passenger, however scandalous." "No decent woman would hesitate to do what she could, in a case where i young girl was in danger," Miss Crane put in. "1 agree with Mrs PanMiss Jordan, that you should have consulted us—if you had, you would have been spared what must have been a very unpleasant interview with Mi' Perrin this afternoon, even if it is all going to come right for you in the end.”

Christine stared at them in astonishment. for she couldn't understand why these two. openly her enemies from the very beginning of the voyage. had suddenly become so genial. She simply didrr't believe that they would have backed her up if she had

taken them into her confidence before going ashore. Then it dawned on her that the ship was buzzing with the rumour that somebody—probably the chef —was going tn speak out plainly at the head office. Perrin’s toadies, whose one idea up to then had been to keep in his good graces, on any terms, were beginning to wonder whether his reign was not going to be a ver}' short one. Once an enquiry into his methods was .started, who knew where it might not end? (To be continued.)