The Lighthearted Quest by Ann Bridge Read Free Book Online Page B

Blyth, cheerfully.
    â€œOh, splendid. What time will that be?”
    â€œSome time after midnight. Now you’d better put in your own soda, and get it right.”
    Blessing the kindly little man, warmed and comforted, Julia sat contentedly in his cabin till a fair rather sleek-haired young man entered to announce that the
Vidago
was about to get under way. Captain Blyth ignored this information till he had effected a rather formal introduction—“Miss Probyn, this is our second officer, Mr. Freeman; Freeman, this is our passenger, Miss Probyn.” After which he went leisurely into his inner cabin and emerged in an oilskin and a cap heavy with gold braid, Julia’s mackintosh over his arm.
    â€œOh, thank you. But who do I give my letter to?” Julia asked.
    â€œPut it on my desk—I’ll leave my door open, and see that it goes.”
    By now Julia felt sure that it would. She went to her cabin and scribbled a note to Geoffrey, telling him that they would be calling at Casablanca, and that he should therefore hurry up his enquiries at the Bank of England, and airmail theresults to her. Then the idea struck her—where should he write
to?
Poste Restante? A considerable experience of the difficulty attending the extraction of letters from Postes Restantes in France and the Iberian Peninsula had made Julia cautious; she decided that Geoffrey’s letter had better be sent care of Paddy Lynch—she must just risk the Lynches being away. She would have written to Paddy too, but she hadn’t enough stamps left for airmail, and the Captain and apparently everyone else was either on the bridge or for’ard ringing bells and shouting, as the
Vidago
nosed and edged her way through incredibly narrow locks and channels, gently bumping, sometimes, against the stone sides, on her way to the open river, Tying a scarf round her head Julia went on deck and watched this process for a while. Deck hands ran to and fro, slinging hempen fenders over the side when a bump seemed imminent; arc-lights fizzed above dark water, dirty with refuse of all kinds; figures in oilskins moved about on the wet cement which in this strange world represented land, shouting directions—once one of them bellowed for ‘the keys’, and some keys tied to a piece of wood were flung down to him. That small circumstance intrigued Julia very much; but it was wet and cold, and on the whole rather monotonous—she went back to her snug little cabin, turned in, and slept.
    Julia thoroughly enjoyed her voyage on the
Vidago.
Crossing the Bay of Biscay in January is not normally regarded as a pleasure-trip, but the weather was not excessively bad, and the little vessel rode well, lightly surmounting huge seas that would have dealt shuddering blows to a big liner. Indeed in every way, Julia felt, a small cargo-boat had immense advantages over the leviathans on which she had hitherto done her ocean travel. Personal relations, if slight, were genuine as far as they went; one met the officers at all meals anyhow, and chatted as human beings do over their food—what was wholly and mercifully absent was the forced and bogus heartiness obtaining on large passenger-boats, with their ghastly organiseddeck-games and evening gaieties. She spent much of her time in her cabin—since except the gloomy little dining-saloon there was nowhere else to sit—or in the pilot’s cabin next door, which she used as a study-cum-luggage room, tapping away at an article on ‘Dockside Diversions’ for
Ebb and Flow.
Now and again, for air, she went on deck; she asked Captain Blyth if he minded slacks on board—such already was her feeling for the little Skipper—when he said “No, very sensible,” she wore those, with a duffle-coat and fleece-lined rubber zip-boots to the knee superimposed for her outings. Julia had swithered about taking those boots on a journey into sunshine, it seemed so silly; but she