Women and Children First Read Online Free Page A

brothers. I’ve got a girlfriend, Florence, but we’re not married.’ He wasn’t usually one for opening up to anyone about his personal affairs but Mrs Grayling was so amiable he found himself confiding in her.
    ‘Do tell me how you met Florence,’ she urged. ‘I love hearing about the beginnings of relationships.’
    Reg paused in his work and leant on the back of a chair. ‘It was just over a year ago,’ he told her. ‘I was down at the docks one afternoon because there was a German ship moored – the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm – and I’d never seen her before. Florence happened to be there with her friend Lizzie and we got talking about the ships.’
    In his head he relived the scene. He had overheard the girls wondering where the Prinz Wilhelm came from so he called over to tell them. ‘She sails out of Bremen, and comes here first, then to Cherbourg and on to New York.’
    ‘Is it a passenger or a cargo ship?’ Florence asked, moving closer, and Reg explained that the transatlantic routes made most of their money ferrying emigrants to the States, but that they also took mailbags and a few tons of cargo. He told them he worked for White Star Line on their transatlantic steamers and was just back from a voyage on the Olympic .
    ‘Is that a fast one?’ Florence asked. The friend, Lizzie, was prettier but she seemed much shyer. All the questions were coming from Florence, so he found himself focusing his answers on her. They were easy questions, ones he could respond to knowledgeably.
    ‘Did you ask her for a date?’ Mrs Grayling asked, interrupting his reverie.
    ‘I invited them both for a cup of tea in the Seaview Café, then as soon as the words were out of my mouth I remembered I wouldn’t have enough money to pay if they both wanted cake.’ He grinned. ‘Fortunately, they just asked for tea.’
    ‘What did you like about her?’
    Reg considered. ‘She was easy to talk to,’ he said. ‘She works in a stately home and we compared notes about how some upper-class folk can be a bit unreasonable. Not you, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘I told her about a lady I served on the Olympic who made a big fuss because we didn’t have strawberries in December, as if we should have altered the course of the sun to change their growing season just for her.’ Mrs Grayling laughed. ‘And then Florence told me she got so shy sometimes when serving drinks at the big parties where she worked that her hands would shake, and the posh folks would glower at her as if she had the plague. And I looked at her and felt I understood her somehow. Do you know what I mean? I thought we might be the same.’
    He remembered that was the moment when he noticed Florence had a few tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose, and thought he might like to have a chance to count them. She saw him looking and smiled back and it was a nice feeling. She was well turned out, in a blue coat with loads of tiny buttons up the front, and she wore a little hat that had a fabric flower pinned on the hatband. She held her teacup nicely, like a lady, even though her accent was similar to his own. He liked everything about her.
    ‘So what happened next?’ Mrs Grayling was lapping up the story, completely absorbed. All the other stewards had left the saloon and they were on their own in the vast room.
    ‘I asked if we could meet again on her next day off, and said I’d bring my friend John. You know – the Geordie lad I work with?’
    ‘I know exactly who you mean – the steward with the red hair. I’ve seen you chatting to him.’
    ‘Yes, that’s him. Lizzie didn’t really hit it off with John, though. I don’t think he was enough of a looker for her.’
    They’d paired off into couples and walked up to the public gardens, and Reg felt nervous at first. He wasn’t experienced at making conversation with girls and couldn’t think what to talk about apart from ships, but Florence made it easy. She chattered away, full of stories