“Joe, please,” I entreated, rising from my chair to kneel beside the scrambling servant. “Let’s all calm down. It’s fine, it’s fine.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Davies, Mr. Davies,” the poor young man gasped, looking as if he would cry. “The ship, I wasn’t expecting—”
“Please, don’t worry another minute,” I interjected, pressing my hand to his shoulder. “Why don’t you run and fetch a mop? And then tell Cook to send up another tray. It’s no bother at all.”
The boy nodded and then scurried off to dispatch these orders, without a look backward toward either Joe or me. My husband, meanwhile, sat in his chair, fuming as he stared down at the spilled purée. “Damned reckless,” he said, his lips thin and white.
“Joe, please,” I said, my voice measured, even though my heart raced. “It was hardly intentional. And the poor kid felt terrible.”
“That’s right! Take his side. Put your hands all over him as if he has been wronged.”
It was too ridiculous to acknowledge. I drew in a quiet breath, trying to remain calm, hoping that if I did so, he might cool off as well. “We’ll just have Cook send up another tray. No need to—”
“Oh, stay out of it, Marjorie. It’s none of your goddamned business.” He swatted at his trousers with a napkin, only making the stain worse, but I certainly was not going to say that to him. I sat back down in my seat in silence. But Joe went on: “You always go sticking your nose into things that aren’t your concern.”
I glanced toward the doorway to ensure that none of the staff were nearby before I leaned over the table and spoke to my husband very quietly: “It is my concern, when you speak like that to one of my staff.”
“Your staff?” Joe turned his glower toward me. “Oh, so it’s your name on the boat now? Last I checked, this boat was my property.”
I sat back in my chair, my mouth falling open in a stunned gape. What was there to say in such a situation? “This anger looks ugly on you, Joe,” was all I offered in reply.
Joe’s dark eyebrows lifted as he laughed, a hoarse, mirthless sound. “Oh. So now you’re going to tell me not only how I should speak, but also how I should look? Anything else you want to add to the list, Marjorie? Want to castrate me while you’re at it? Serve up my balls with some Birds Eye frozen peas? Maybe it’ll make you millions, dearest.”
I turned from him toward the water, where the waves shifted in and out of sharp white peaks. I needed to stay calm because when he was like this, there was no matching him, no reasoning on the summit of his rage. So I shrugged, taking a sip of my drink.
He tossed his napkin onto the table, waving his hands in dismissal. “Maybe if my wife wasn’t constantly rubbing my face in shit, I wouldn’t think everything looked so goddamned shitty.”
I resisted the urge to wince, instead pulling my eyes from the water and fixing my gaze squarely on him. “I know you’re not feeling well, Joe, and that you’re not yourself, so I’m going to excuse myself from the table. I hope that by the time we reach port, you’ll be ready to apologize for this inexcusable behavior.”
Just then the servant reappeared, a fresh tray in his hands, a contrite expression plastered to his features. “Thank you,” I said, rising from the table and offering the young man a reassuring smile. “I’ll take mine to my stateroom with me. I seem to have lost my appetite for the moment.”
* * *
—
I’d told Joe I understood, and that I’d give him a pass on account of his stomach pains, but inwardly I knew that it was more than simply a case of his not feeling well. And it was not a single episode of bad behavior, either. Joe’s vitriol was becoming so regular that the servants had started to stutter and flee from his presence. But even more troubling, it wasn’t just our staff who had felt his temper and foul mood—it was my daughters as well.
I’d invited the girls to meet us in Cuba for the second leg of this cruise. It had been years since they’d enjoyed the Sea Cloud, and they had always loved any opportunity to come aboard. And yet, all three of them had declined. “Why would you pass up the chance for a cruise through the Caribbean?” I’d asked, stunned, when I telephoned Adelaide from the captain’s room.
I could hear Adelaide sigh on the other end of the line. Eventually, after a pause, she said: “It’s not the cruise we are passing up.”