EIGHT

Three times a day, all passengers sat down to meals in the dining saloon. They took up the same places, on the same turning chairs, at breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. Harriet’s was at the end farthest from the captain’s table, an isolated spot but with the advantage that she could see the whole saloon.

The painter sat a few tables away. More than once, Harriet had seen him staring in their direction with a brooding look, his sketch pad open on the white cloth, chin resting on his knuckles. At first, Harriet believed that the man looked at her. He regretted having tried to kick her dog on the weather deck, she told herself, and was wondering how to make amends. Quickly, though, and reluctantly, she formed the impression that it was not herself who attracted his attention. It was Louisa.

On the evening of Mrs. Cox’s soothsaying, the painter entered the dining saloon late. He stood in the doorway as his eyes roamed the room and came to rest on their table. Louisa was in a good mood. As they’d sat down, Captain Ablewhite had complimented her on keeping her sea legs, then sent two glasses of sherry to the table. Aunt Yael took only a small glass of wine once a year, on Christmas Day. Louisa had finished her own and begun on the other.

In her dark satin evening dress, with the necklace of marcasite around her throat sparkling by the light of scores of candles in the crystal chandeliers, reflecting off the mirrors, she looked elegant and assured, like the subject of one of the paintings she admired. Louisa loved to walk to the National Gallery on a Sunday afternoon and stand in front of the great portraits in oil, identifying the fabric of the women’s costumes, speculating as to the meaning of the look in their eyes, the significance of the items in the background. Sometimes she ventured to recognize the tints and pigments used in the paintings, murmuring their names to herself in a private incantation that, when she was a child, Harriet had mistaken for prayer.

Louisa chinked her schooner against Yael’s water glass and Harriet’s tumbler of Indian tonic.

“I do believe you’re looking brighter already, Harriet,” she said.

Aunt Yael put down her soup spoon.

“Louisa, dear,” she said. “Do you know that man?”

Louisa glanced up and Harriet followed her eyes. The painter was heading toward them with an air of purpose. Harriet felt the start of a blush.

“I can’t say that I do,” Louisa said.

Before Yael could continue, the man arrived at the table. He bowed.

“Good evening, ladies. May I join you?”

“Why not?” Louisa said, smiling at him as he eased himself into the chair next to Harriet’s. “We are all travelers together.”

“Indeed.”

He picked up the menu and began reading the courses aloud. “ ‘Barley broth. Steak pie. Mutton chops. Spaghetti in cream. Cabbage. Apple tart with sauce anglaise.’ ” The usual muck,” he said, putting down the card, looking around for the steward.

“There are plenty who would be glad of such fare,” said Yael, pleasantly.

The captain rose to his feet, ringing on his glass with a knife, and the dining saloon quieted to a churchlike hush as the passengers turned their faces toward him.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A few announcements. The Reverend . . .” The captain consulted a piece of paper. “Ernest Griffinshawe conducts divine service at eight each morning in the grand saloon. He would appreciate the attendance of a greater number of fellow worshippers.

“We have in our midst a pair of honeymooners. I extend my congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Zebedee Cox.”

A murmur of approval went up and there was a general lifting of glasses. Zebedee Cox got to his feet, looking flustered.

“On behalf of my wife and myself, thank you, Captain Ablewhite,” he said.

The male passengers banged their tankards on the tables and the women looked at each other, resettling themselves on their chairs like a twittering flock of jeweled, powdered birds. Harriet caught a drift of recent cigar smoke, mixed with a sweet, woody scent, and took a sideways glance at the painter. Even dressed in a black tie and tailcoat, his dark hair greased, he looked different from the other men. The clothes failed to tame him and in place of a starched handkerchief a small sketchbook protruded from his breast pocket. He’d turned his eyes back to Louisa and was watching her, his expression intent.

Captain Ablewhite cleared his throat.

“Enjoy your dinner, ladies and gentlemen. The Star of the East makes good speed. We traversed the Bay of Biscay without encountering any storms but we anticipate strong winds in the Mediterranean.”

He sat down and the voices rose quickly to their previous pitch. The painter summoned the steward and ordered a bottle of red wine.

“I suppose you are traveling to Egypt?” he said, addressing Louisa.

“Yes. Alexandria.” Louisa’s face was flushed and her eyes bright. “We are so looking forward to seeing the River Nile.”

“Alex isn’t the place to see the river.”

“Where should one see it?” Yael said, raising her head from her soup bowl.

“It is at its best at Aswan in Upper Egypt, where it flows over the cataracts. But that is a thousand miles away.”

“Upper Egypt?” said Yael. “I would have thought it was Lower Egypt, farther down.”

“Yes. But it isn’t.”

“Imagine seeing where Moses was put in his basket among the bulrushes,” Louisa said.

She took the last of the second glass of sherry, tipping back her head, her white throat exposed and swanlike under the delicate necklace. Yael’s napkin was tucked under her double chin like a baby’s bib; she began sawing into a bread roll with a great, blunt knife.

The man leaned forward and seized his soup spoon. He ate silently, tipping the dish away from him. Harriet pushed away her own empty bowl. Printed around the rim, in a loopy flourish, was the name of a ship, but it was the wrong ship. SS Tanjore.

Putting down his spoon, the painter wiped his mouth and turned to Harriet.

“You’re the girl with the dog, aren’t you?”

Under the table, Harriet felt Dash’s back with her toe.

“I have a dog, yes. The one you feared would kill your rag.”

She dropped the remains of her roll off her lap and pushed it in the dog’s direction as the steward returned with a large, high-sided tray, the floor rolling under his feet. He pulled the cork from a bottle and splashed red wine into a glass.

“Good health,” the painter said, raising it.

“We haven’t been introduced,” Louisa said. “I am Mrs. Heron, this is my sister-in-law, Miss Heron, and my daughter, Miss Harriet Heron.”

“Heron.” He rolled his wine around the inside of his glass. “I don’t know the name.”

“Why should you?” Louisa said gaily.

He turned to Harriet again. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

Harriet pulled strands of meat from a chop with the large knife and fork. She’d never tasted wine. Throughout her childhood, Louisa had said she was too young. Later, when other girls her age were marrying, giving birth, running households, Louisa had insisted that wine might bring on an attack.

“I believe I would,” Harriet said. “Yes.”

“She doesn’t take it,” Louisa said. “My daughter is an invalid.”

“Mother, I—”

“I see. And Miss Heron, being the mainstay of the Reverend’s congregation, will most likely be a teetotaler. But Mrs. Heron”— he carried on looking at Louisa—“will join me.”

He reached out and poured another glass. Putting down the bottle with a bump, he held out the wine to Louisa. There were streaks of oil paint on the back of his hand, bronze and sage and dark mustard, raised spots of it on his nails thrown into relief by the light from the chandelier. Louisa’s eyes were fixed on the man’s hand. She hesitated as she took the glass.

“You must be a painter,” she said.

“I am. Why, Mrs. Heron? Are you interested in painting?”

Louisa shook her head. “Not especially.”

Her voice was flat. Harriet shifted on her chair and glanced at her aunt.

“Do you intend staying long in Egypt?” Yael asked, peering at the man through the spectacles that magnified her eyes and made her appear as if she were capable of clairvoyance.

“Until it becomes tedious,” he said. “Which I expect will be soon. I’ve been a half-dozen times before.”

Louisa interrupted the silence that followed.

“I don’t believe you told us your name, Mr. . . .?”

The air of giddiness and elation had leached away from her and her voice was clipped.

The man leaned back in the revolving chair. “I don’t believe I did. It’s Soane. Eyre Soane.”

It seemed to Harriet that Louisa flinched. “You have an unusual name,” she said.

“You are not familiar with it, Mrs. Heron?”

“There are so many names, these days,” said Yael.

Louisa had barely touched the slice of steak pie, the mound of tinned peas, before she laid down her knife and fork, declared herself unable to eat another morsel, and asked Mr. Soane to excuse her. Picking up her fan, she began ushering her skirts out from under the table.

“Will you take some water, Mother?” Harriet said. “Oh . . .”

Louisa, half out of her seat, had knocked over her wineglass. A ruby sea was seeping over the white damask.

“Come, Harriet. It’s time we retired,” she said. “If you would excuse us, Mr. . . .”

“Soane.” He raised his glass to her again. “Not an easy name to forget.”

“Come, Harriet,” Louisa repeated.

Calling the dog out from under the table, concealing her chop bone in her napkin, Harriet had no choice but to follow Louisa out of the saloon.

As she reached the sliding doors, Harriet glanced back at their table. The steward who had poured the wine now dabbed at the spilled wine with a napkin. Yael was eating pudding as if she were alone, her head bent over her dish. Eyre Soane sat upright in his chair, an unlit cigar between his lips, one ankle crossed over his knee. Mrs. Cox’s prediction made its way unbidden into Harriet’s mind and, as if he could read her thoughts, the painter turned and looked straight at her, his dark eyes fixing on her own gray ones. There was no doubt this time that it was she who attracted his attention.

Feeling her face begin to burn, Harriet hurried after her mother.