Her husband made a gesture of mild irritation. “Good heavens, Janet! A man must sleep sometime,” he said. “Thompson had been on the bridge for sixty hours and was utterly played out. But that made no difference. It was his fault. He was driving her full speed in a fog and that’s where they got him—even though Suttons were driving him with their unwritten instructions—‘Be careful with your ship, Captain, but we expect you to make good passages!’ Drive your ship, but look-out if anything happens to her! That’s the English of that!”
By persistent urging, Janet’s exhortations had effect. McKenzie hounded the old Ansonia back and forth along the western ocean lanes and grew more grey hairs and deeper lines on his face with the worry and anxiety of long vigils on her bridge staring into the clammy mists through which his ship was storming. With a chief engineer who loved her wonderful old compound engines and who was willing to drive them, McKenzie commenced clipping down the Ansonia’s runs until one day she raced into Boston harbor an hour ahead of her best record twelve years before, and two days ahead of a rival company’s crack ship, which had left Glasgow at the same time.
The Boston newspapers, heralding the feat and containing a cut of Captain McKenzie and the ship, were forwarded to head office by the Boston agents. The Managing Director was delighted over the defeat of the rival company’s crack ship, for the American papers played it up strong, with two-column, heavy type head-lines and exaggerated description. After perusal, the canny Scotch manager gave some thought to McKenzie—the Yankee reporter dilated on the sub-head, ‘Scotch baronet’s nephew commands Sutton record breaker,’ (Alec had never opened his mouth about the relationship)—and he began to consider him seriously as master for the Sutton New York-Glasgow express steamship Cardonia.
A wealthy American, returning to the States after a lease of Dunsany Castle, unconsciously gave Alec the promotion which the manager had considered and postponed. The American was rich and fussy, and when booking his passage, had demanded to do so through the manager. “I want a suite amidships, sir, ’n I want tew travel in a ship that kin travel along, as I ain’t none too good a sailor. I want to sail with a skipper that’ll make her travel some. ’N bye-the-bye, I saw by a Boston paper that one of yewr skippers is related to Sir Alastair McKenzie. I leased the old boy’s castle for a while ’n a fine old bird he is. I’d like mighty fine tew cross the pond with this here McKenzie if he’s on a fast packet, but ain’t he on one of those twelve-day hookers to Boston?”
The manager had made up his mind. A man with McKenzie’s connections would bring lucrative business and be popular in the New York trade. The other masters in line for promotion would have to wait. “Captain McKenzie was in the Ansonia—one of our intermediate ships—but we have now placed him in command of our New York Express steamship Cardonia and we can fix you up splendidly in her.” The American booked passage, and McKenzie commanded the Cardonia.
With the promotion came a substantial increase in salary and Janet felt that her ambitions were realized—for a time at least. New worlds to conquer would suggest themselves bye-and-bye. The flat in the Terrace was given up, and a somewhat pretentious eight-roomed red sandstone villa in a suburban locality was rented, expensively decorated and furnished, and Mrs. McKenzie, with Donald Percival and a capable Highland “general,” moved in and laid plans for attaining the rank of first magnitude in the firmament of the local social stars.
CHAPTER THREE
Donald Percival McKenzie was eight years old when the red sandstone villa became his habitation. He was glad to leave the Terrace where they formerly lived as his life in that locality, as far as relations with lads of his own age were concerned, had been none too happy. The migration to Kensington Villa, as the red sandstone eight-roomer was called, was accompanied by a determined ultimatum from young McKenzie that his mother drop the name “Percival” altogether and call him “Donald” in future. As the ultimatum was presented with considerable howling and crying and threats of atrocious behavior, the mother felt that she would have to make the concession.