The girls raced up and down the corridors in search of their cabin, squealing in delight. Audrey followed anxiously behind them, hating the airless smell of carpets and detergent and the claustrophobia of being in such a tight labyrinth. She was unable to share her daughters’ optimism, especially as she knew the full horror of what awaited them in England. ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy!’ Alicia shrieked with excitement when they entered their cabin. ‘Bunk beds, I’m going on top,’ she announced quickly, throwing her bag onto the mattress and scrambling up after it. ‘Let’s go on deck, Leo.’
‘Now wait . . .’ Audrey began, but Alicia was already tearing out of the door with Leonora following obediently behind her. Audrey had no option but to go after them. She had a headache and wanted nothing more than to lie down and close her eyes, but she already saw in her mind’s eye two small bodies falling like rag dolls into the water below, so she tearfully hurried up the maze of corridors, chasing the echo of their voices.
The deck was throbbing with people waving goodbye to relatives and friends, their cries rising above the low bellow that vibrated up from the bowels of the ship. Audrey discovered Alicia and Leonora at the front of the throng having pushed their way through, leaning on the railings waving with the rest of them. But their father had long since disappeared back to Hurlingham to the empty house that awaited him.
Audrey stood alone as the liner sailed out of the harbour and into the open sea. The horizon revealed nothing but grey mist as if they were heading for the end of the world. It was then that her mind drifted to Louis and to the misery of the life she had chosen. At once she felt out on a limb and detached, suddenly able to look back at the diminishing coastline of Argentina with an altered awareness. Hurlingham now seemed so small and insignificant when seen from her new perspective; a little puddle in comparison to such a vast sea. Louis had been right, she thought with a racing heart, she was afraid to dream. It was because of that fear that she had married Cecil and let Louis go. If only she had had the vision that he had, to see the world as it really was – an immense space of endless possibilities. Surrounded by strangers heading towards an unfamiliar country far away she dared imagine what her life might have been had she married Louis. They could have gone anywhere. They could have been happy. Never before had she been so aware of the power of free will. Looking about her she felt her spirit inflate with the intoxicating feeling of freedom. How had she been so ignorant of it before?
So began the two-week voyage that would take them up the coast of South America to Rio, across the ocean to Madeira then to Lisbon, finally arriving in Southampton at the beginning of September. With her change of heart Audrey was able to enjoy the trip and the company of her children without thinking too much of what lay ahead. She would lie on her deck chair in the sun reading and dreaming while the twins ran wild with the other children, splashing about in the swimming pool, trying their hands at deck tennis and watching in amusement as the grown-ups played steady games of deck quoits. Audrey didn’t have to worry about her children for the young were very quickly gathered up by the irrepressible Mrs Beetlestone-Magnus, Mrs B for short. An energetic woman in her late sixties with the round body of an amiable toad hidden beneath long flowing dresses that resembled floral tents, she organized painting competitions and singing contests, fancy dress parties and plays which proved so delightful that before the first week was over even some of the grown-ups were begging to be included. ‘My dears,’ she would say, shaking her chins good-naturedly, ‘if you don’t mind the humiliation of a small cameo role, the children really are very talented, you know.’ And the grown-ups didn’t mind at all. In fact, Mr Linton, an elderly, dignified gentleman with silver hair and a small, tidy moustache, was more than happy to stand the whole way through Wind in The Willows in the back corner of the stage as a most convincing willow tree.
Mrs B had an unfailing way of keeping the children under control by bribing them with sweets, which she bought from the little shop where they sold Audrey’s favourite Yardley scent. ‘This is what England is like,’ she would say to her daughters, pointing to the old-fashioned lady on the front of the bottle and they would swell with excitement and long for the end of the voyage.
There was great excitement crossing the equator and those, like Audrey, Alicia and Leonora, who had never crossed it before, had to partake in a ceremony that involved blindfolding the eyes and being covered in foam. The twins shrieked with pleasure while their mother did her best to pretend she didn’t mind. It was all very hearty and Audrey found it distinctly unamusing, especially when they erected a plank and told the children to walk it. Leonora then cowered behind her mother while Alicia leapt on and had to be rescued by two of the passengers who could see from the look on her face that she was fully prepared to jump.