Nora smiled vaguely and let it be. Then her skillful fingers went to work on the final touches.
There, Vida thought with satisfaction as she gazed at the girl in the vanity mirror—her eyes were bright, and the high line of her cheekbones were accented with shimmering powder so no one would notice her lack of a chin, or the wideness of her nose, or her total lack of a bust. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t the most beautiful—she had done it again, with a little makeup and some sparkly things, and the ray of confidence that shone through her when it was a big, important night, with crowds and parties and people to impress. Miss Vida Hazzard, the most remarkable girl onboard the Princess, beamed back at her. Then she remembered Nora, and took her hand. “I’m glad you came with me,” she whispered. She knew that Nora had wanted her to stay in San Francisco and marry Whit, for she had been pining after one of the footmen employed by his family. Vida knew this, but disapproved. The footman was almost thirty, and never smiled. He was not in the least good enough for her Nora.
“Well, now, how else would I see the world if you did not drag me along with you?” Nora asked with a little shimmer of melancholy in her eyes.
“Maybe you were meant to come on this journey,” Vida gushed. “Maybe you will meet your true love tonight!”
“Oh, come now.” Nora smoothed her hands over her skirt. “Do you need anything? What can I do?”
Nora’s nervous palaver was cut short by a rapping of knuckles on the door, and the sight of Vida’s father’s big head inclining inward from the hall. A little panic sped Vida’s pulse. She had a plan, and the plan was quite time-specific, and his interruption might scuttle the whole business. But, luckily, he was wearing exactly what he’d worn when he arrived on the pier. She saw an opportunity.
“Oh Papa, you aren’t dressed for an evening at all!”
“I thought this was some sort of adventure,” he replied good-naturedly. “And you mean to tell me that I have to be as dandified as ever?”
“Daddy,” she said in the exaggerated and girlish tone that he could never refuse, “have you read the first-class passenger list? It’s all kinds of fancy gentlemen and ladies who travel everywhere, from castle to villa to first-class cabin on their way to safari or grand tour or what have you; they are always on the move and always dressed correctly, and they don’t know who you are, or that they ought to be impressed.”
Her father grinned and mimed a knife entering his heart.
“I mean they don’t know yet, of course. I thought you wanted me to get myself a husband, and look at you—you’re no help at all.”
“If you insist, my dearest, I will go put on something to please these fancy types you want to be friends with. I just wanted to see how you were getting on. Come to our suite in half an hour? Your mother and I will be having cocktails before cocktails, and if you promise to be good, you can have a tipple of champagne.”
A little late, Nora moved so as to obscure the bottle of champagne on the golden tray.
“Oh Daddy, no. I have much too much to do.”
“As you wish, but promise me you won’t be dancing with these East Coast bores every dance. Save one for your old dad,” he said with a sigh, and kissed her forehead, and gave Nora a pat on her shoulder. “Tell our girl to be demure this evening,” he said in a stage whisper. “Her mother is too nervous to even leave her cabin just now. . . . She’s taking smelling salts, and wringing her hands over Vida ending up an old maid.”
“Yes, sir,” Nora replied with a very grave face, and showed him to the door.
“Oh thank God,” Vida said, and held her breath until the retreat of his footfalls confirmed he had disappeared into his own realm. “Make sure he’s gone?” she asked Nora.
While Nora leaned out of the cracked door, Vida checked her reflection once more, to assure herself that every lash and strand and bead was in place. Satisfied that she had the high gloss of a painted doll, she folded her deck plan into the invisible pocket of her gown, grabbed the bottle of champagne that Nora had procured, and moved on to the door.
Don’t do anything ridiculous, Nora’s face said as Vida crossed into the hall.
You know I will, Vida’s impish smile replied.
Then she was off through corridors and up and down little stairways, past uniformed crewmembers of every kind, and at last into a particularly masculine hallway—all dark wood from floor to ceiling and oil paintings of seascapes with brave captains and that sort of thing. At an imposing, carved door with a little brass decal above to label it The Map Room she came to a halt and blew an errant strand of hair out of her eyes.
A sudden nervousness prickled Vida’s skin. She glanced around. She was ever a creature of instinct, and this operation required the kind of flair that she’d possessed even as a child. But she had the uncharacteristic sense that she was about to do something that she could not take back. She felt so cold and so hot at once, and rather weighed down by the ponderousness of it all. And, oddly, she was afraid that she might not be able to go through with what she’d planned to do. . . .
Which was more or less to rap on Fitzhugh’s door, and hold aloft the champagne bottle, and say something rakish like “Fancy a little hair of the dog?” or maybe just “Remember me?” Both of those sounded foolish to her now, though, and she could not for the life of her summon something clever.
Was she, Vida Hazzard, nervous? Through the hurly-burly of the morning and afternoon she had told herself that she had only been going along with her parents to get Fitzhugh Farrar to be interested in her and thus dispel the rumor that she was the sort of girl who had wild nights with one boy after another. But she was taken aback by these sudden flutters at the prospect of seeing him again.
Oh damn it, just go on, before he finds you standing out here like an idiot, she told herself. Just put on a coy smile and don’t say anything—that always seems clever.
Yes, she went on to herself. Right. Go on now.
An inner light suffused her face. She stepped boldly forward, fist raised. And just then, as she was about to knock, her new high-heeled slippers lost their traction on the polished wood floor, and momentum—and then gravity—had her, and she went sailing through the air. She heard her own voice sing out in surprise, and felt the planks hit her hard on her left side as she landed. The floor was wet. There had been a puddle on the floor, and she had slipped on it, and now that puddle of wetness was seeping through her skirt. And meanwhile her champagne bottle rolled away from her, and the door under the brass map room sign swung open, and Vida could see there was nothing to stop Fitzhugh Farrar, with whom she had been so arch and charming the night before, from seeing her in this abject position.
She did her utmost to effect a smile.
But the smile did not hold.
The young man who filled the frame was not Fitzhugh. He was nobody.
Vida propped herself on her elbow, wincing at the pain spreading over her left flank, while the nobody in the doorframe did not move to help her up.
“Hello,” she said hotly when it became obvious that he was not going to say anything at all.
But he did not reply in kind. “Comfortable down there?” he asked in a tone that did not seem exactly curious about her well-being. He leaned the long whip of his body against the frame and crossed his arms, neither moving to help her nor closing the door, so the humiliation that had already begun to rise in Vida’s throat began to heat, and swirl, and become anger. Unlike nearly every other man on the boat, who, rich or poor, had chosen either their best for the occasion or a starched uniform, this man was wearing a threadbare shirt that was neither white nor brown but somewhere in between, and rolled trousers, and a wool cap. His arms, where they were not covered by his old shirt, were sun-dark, and his eyes were so black that she could not read them. He had long eyelashes, and a long face in which his big features were somewhat askew.