I don't know where we are. I expect Ushant has slammed the door on us
long ago. Our little world is bounded by the four walls of the cabin.
All day we lie and listen to the swish of the waves as they tumble
past, and watch our dressing-gowns hanging on the door swing backwards
and forwards with the motion. At intervals the stewardess comes in, a
nice Scotswoman,--Corrie, she tells me, is her home-place,--and brings
the menu of breakfast--luncheon--dinner, and we turn away our heads
and say, "Nothing--nothing!" Our steward is a funny little man, very
small and thin, with pale yellow hair; he reminds me of a moulting
canary, and his voice cheeps and is rather canary-like too. He is
really a very kind little steward and trots about most diligently on
our errands, and tries to cheer us by tales of the people he has known
who have died of sea-sickness: "Strained their 'earts, Miss, that's
wot they done!" It isn't very cheerful lying here, looking out through
the port-hole, now at the sky, next at the sea, but what it would have
been without G. I dare not think. We have certainly helped each other
through this time of trial. It is a wonderful blessing, a companion in
misfortune.
But where, you may ask, is the third occupant of the cabin? Would it
not have been fearful if she, too, had been stretched on a couch of
languishing? Happily she is a good sailor, though she doesn't look it.
She is a little woman with a pale green complexion and a lot of sleek
black hair, and somehow gives one the impression of having a great
many more teeth than is usual. Her name is Mrs. Murray, and she is
going to India to rejoin her husband, who rejoices in the name of
Albert. Sometimes I feel a little sorry for Albert, but perhaps, after
all, he deserves what he has got. She has very assertive manners. I
think she regards G. and me as two young women who want keeping in
their places, though I am sure we are humble enough now whatever we
may be in a state of rude health. Happily she has friends on board,
so she rarely comes to the cabin except to tidy up before meals, and
afterwards to tell us exactly everything she has eaten. She seems to
have a good appetite and to choose the things that sound nastiest when
one is seedy.
No--I don't like Mrs. Murray much; but I dislike her hat-box more. It
is large and square and black, and it has no business in the cabin,
it ought to be in the baggage-room. Lying up here I am freed from its
tyranny, but on Saturday, when I was unpacking, it made my life a
burden. It blocks up the floor under my hooks, and when I hang things
up I fall over it backwards, when I sit on the floor, which I have to
do every time I pull out my trunk, it hits me savagely on the spine,
and once, when I tried balancing it on a small chest of drawers, it
promptly fell down on my head and I have still a large and painful
bump as a memento.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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