Authors: Mary Burchell
Claire seemed almost as pleased as Leonie at this. Which was a shame, Leonie supposed. But then, if it were all for Claire’s own good in the end ...
Leonie tried not to think of the fact that some very unfortunate things had been done in history, all for someone else’s good.
When they arrived in the ballroom they found it had been transformed, in the space of an hour or two. Masses of flowers, kept in cold storage until now, shed their beauty and fragrance everywhere, and flags and balloons added to the festive appearance of the place.
Already the band was playing a romantic-sounding waltz, and, since the doors on to the promenade deck had been thrown open, couples were dancing not only on the circular ballroom floor but along the deck as well.
Overhead, a deep blue velvety sky, pierced by a million
stars, seemed to hang low, like a great stage drapery, while the ship itself cut an almost theatrical path of light through the lazily undulating waters. Sound and sight and the soft caress of the warm night air all combined to create that atmosphere of half-languid loveliness which heralds the first contact with the East.
It was impossible not to be affected by all this, or not to feel that, in some strange way, make-believe was more logical than cold fact on such a night. When Kingsley Stour claimed Leonie for a dance, therefore—which he did quite early in the evening—she was completely in the mood to pretend to herself, or anyone else, that her identity was that of the girl Claire had so effectively implied.
Afterwards she was never quite sure whether cool calculation or mischievous impulse prompted her imagination to its amusing flights. All she did know was that the setting was perfect and that it was heady and exciting fun, transforming her somewhat humdrum office and home routine into a luxurious, slightly fairytale background, for the benefit—or otherwise—of Kingsley Stour.
He was intrigued, she could see, and he smiled at her with the utmost interest and attraction as he said,
“You never told me so much about yourself before.”
“You mean that I’m talking too much about myself now?” She too smiled.
“Of course not! One can’t ever have too much of a fascinating subject,” he replied, lightly but with some meaning. “Tell me some more. Where do you live in London? In a flat on your own?”
“No. I live with my mother and sister,” said Leonie, feeling there was something to be said for introducing an element of accuracy occasionally.
“And your father?”
“My father is dead. And as I have no brothers, it’s a purely feminine household. Does that sound dull?”
“Not in the least. I was wondering a little why your mother and sister didn’t come with you on this trip. Wouldn’t they have enjoyed it too?”
“They had other plans,” Leonie explained carelessly. “Besides, although we get on marvellously together, we rather believe in living our own lives, you know.”
She felt faintly ashamed when she thought how surprised—and probably displeased—her mother would have been to hear this conversation. But to her companion it evidently sounded very good.
“How very sensible of you all,” he said. “And, though I dare not make comparisons when I remember that you carry a torch for Sir James Elstone, you must admit that family life is a great deal more comfortable if the members decide not to interfere with each other too much.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s different for Claire.” Leonie permitted herself to look pensive. “She is his one chick, and it’s natural for a father to want to look after his daughter’s interests. I’m sure mine would have, if he had been alive.”
Silence greeted this, and she wondered very much if he were congratulating himself privately on the fact that there was indeed no father to interfere with any plans in this case.
“I don’t really want to let you go,” he said, as the music began to slow down. “But will you dance again with me later in the evening?”
“If I’m free.” She smiled carelessly at him.
“Make yourself free, Leonie. Please.” He still held one of her hands in his. “I have a feeling that you and I are only just beginning to get to know each other.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” murmured Leonie.
And then he went away to dance with Claire, and Leonie found the Senior Surgeon bowing a little ironically before her, with the request that she would dance the next dance with him.
“I really meant to—to rest for a minute or two,” she assured him hastily.
“Then will you come and sit it out with me?” There was no objection to make to that. Besides, he invariably stimulated and interested her, however much he might make her feel that, in some way, she was still the pro who needed a touch of authority to keep her from doing the things she should not do.
They found a couple of chairs in a sheltered part of the deck. And as they sat down, Leonie said—though she could not imagine why—
“Do you still think of me as a pro?”
“Certainly not.” He sounded genuinely surprised. “Do you feel like one?”
“When you’re around—yes, I do rather,” Leonie confessed.
“I’m sorry. You’re not meant to. When I think of you in hospital terms at all, I remember you as a very capable second-year nurse,” he assured her.
“Oh—I didn’t feel like that when you rescued me from the hotel in Naples the other day,” she said soberly.
He laughed at that.
“These things can happen even to a fully qualified Sister,” he told her indulgently.
“But never to a Senior Surgeon.”
“Senior Surgeons are there to save the situation when it becomes desperate,” he assured her.
It was Leonie’s turn to laugh then.
“I never was more frantically glad to see anyone,” she confessed. “And I don’t think I ever really thanked you sufficiently. Claire told me afterwards that you simply refused to let them sail without me, and insisted on going for me yourself, because you knew they couldn’t sail without the Senior Surgeon. Was that right?”
“It was not reduced to the terms of an ultimatum. Even Senior Surgeons don’t do that, you know. But I had no intention of having you left behind,” he said calmly.
“Ha-hadn’t you?” Leonie experienced the most extraordinary sensation of warmth and gratification. “Why, Mr. Pembridge?”
“
Why?
Did you want to be left behind?”
“No, of course not. But I mean—why did you feel it was your affair to see that I was brought back?”
“Oh”—he looked faintly surprised, as though he had never thought that out for himself—”I suppose the fact that you were once one of my nurses at St. Catherine’s made you in some way my responsibility.”
She was astonished to find how pleasing it was to be the responsibility of Mr. Pembridge of St. Catherine’s. And, with a rush of nostalgia for the place which gave her this unexpected claim, she exclaimed,
“I did love my days there!”
“So did I,” he said, with unexpected simplicity. “I get quite homesick for it sometimes.”
“Mr. Pembridge,” she burst out, on impulse,
“
why
did you leave there? And the other hospitals where you were a consultant? And—and everything which made you a distinguished surgeon—Or don’t you want to talk about it?” she added, with belated discretion, as she remembered that she had not meant to indicate any special interest in his affairs.
“I don’t mind talking about it to you,” he said slowly, and again she had that sense of warmth and gratification which she could not quite explain to herself. “You were a nurse. You know the life of a hospital and an operating theatre, and you will appreciate better than most people why I felt the way I did.” He paused, and Leonie held her breath suddenly, aware, though she could not have said why, that the wing of drama brushed them at that moment.
“I don’t know whether you knew, but I was engaged to a very lovely girl when I was at St. Catherine’s.” He spoke, she thought, like a man who was looking at something he had deliberately put away out of sight for a long time. “A few months before we were to be married she was taken violently ill. She was rushed to hospital—my hospital—with a ruptured appendix. But it was too late. She died on the operating table.”
“On the—But you were not—?”
“No. I didn’t do the operation. But she died in my theatre.” He looked grey and bleak and drawn suddenly. “I’m not a fanciful man, but I couldn’t bear the very look of the place afterwards. I stayed on for a few weeks. Then Trevant—you remember Sir James Trevant—?”
“Of course,” said Leonie, recalling the very handsome Senior Surgical Officer of St. Catherine’s.
“Trevant suggested I should take a few months off and go away on a sea voyage. I couldn’t face the idea of idleness. I felt I needed more work, rather than less. So I joined the
Capricorna
as acting surgeon. As I think I told you, I’ve been here for a year now. And perhaps” —he passed a hand wearily over his face—”that’s long enough.”
“I’m so terribly sorry.” Leonie spoke gently and from her heart. “I had no idea, of course, that you’d had such a dreadful experience. If I had, I—I shouldn’t have said that silly thing I did, the other evening.”
“What was that?” He smiled slightly.
“If you’ve forgotten it, I don’t know that I want to remind you,” Leonie smiled slightly in her turn. “But I meant that—that rather inquisitive bit of bantering about you and Renee Armand.”
“Oh—that?” He laughed then, and she though he must be beginning to feel better. “You don’t need to worry about that. Anyway, I’d rather invited it, hadn’t I?”
“Perhaps you had,” said Leonie, also beginning to recover. “But, anyway, as you said at the time, I expect she is lavish with her kisses. She seems a very charming and vivacious person.”
“Oh, she is. And I’m genuinely fond of her,” declared Mr. Pembridge without affectation. “But of course the only person who interests her seriously is Nicholas Edmonds.”
“You don’t say!” Leonie was intrigued and astonished beyond measure. “But I thought—I mean they’ve been married once, haven’t they? He told me he was married to her for a year.”
“Of course. And although they have temperamental clashes of the most harrowing variety, I’m inclined to think they are still deeply fond of each other. They would never live a peaceful life together. But then I’m not sure that they would ever live a happy one apart.”
“Then you think they might—make it up?” Leonie’s sense of romantic fitness made her eyes sparkle.
“Stranger things have happened on long sea voyages,” was Mr. Pembridge’s dry reply.
And then, as the music slowed for the second time since they had been sitting there, Leonie said perhaps they had better return to the ballroom.
He rose at once and gave her his hand, and, as they strolled along the deck together, she retained those strong, thin fingers few a moment, while she said, quickly and a little breathlessly,
“Thank you for telling me about your fiancée. I wish one could say something helpful. But I know there isn’t anything, when it goes as deep as that.”
“Sometimes sympathy goes very deep, too,” he replied. And he gave her a flashing, curiously friendly smile before he left her.
For the rest of that evening Leonie carried the impression of that smile with her. And—though she could not really see that the two things had anything to do with each other—she deliberately avoided Kingsley Stour, and did not give him an opportunity to pursue any further whatever interest he might, or might not, have in her.
The next day they arrived at Port Said, and even before they went ashore, Leonie and Claire were fascinated by the scene of color and movement which surrounded the ship as it lay in harbor.
Countless little native craft came skimming over the water, their owners holding up innumerable articles of infinite variety for sale, while they called out the most tempting offers to the amused passengers who crowded the deck rail to watch.
In addition, there was a tremendous coming and going of vessels of all sizes and kind—coaling, oiling or watering before the long voyage which lay between them and Colombo, on the one hand, or England on the other.
Later there was an opportunity to go ashore for a short time, and, in company with two or three other passengers, Leonie and Claire went to explore this little piece of the Arabian Nights which lies at the beginning of the Suez Canal.
Native booths, open shop-fronts, an infinite variety of Eastern costume, chatter in unrecognizable tongues, strange sights, sounds, smells—all these combined to make an unforgettable experience. And Leonie was able to relax and allow herself to enjoy it all to the full. She knew now that, whatever plans Kingsley Stour might once have entertained, he would not again either try to have her left ashore, or even try to arrange that he and Claire should escape on their own.
By the time they returned to the ship—and how careful Leonie was this time that there were no delays or mishaps—coaling and watering were complete. But it was already nightfall—that incredibly quick nightfall which comes like a stage drop-curtain in that part of the world. And the long, slow passage through the Suez Canal did not begin until the following morning.
Although Nicholas Edmonds had asserted that it was not specially interesting, the two girls were on deck from early morning, to watch the progress of the
Capricorna
through what is one of the miraculous waterways of the world.
As the day went on, it became overpoweringly hot. And long before they reached the Red Sea, at the other end of the Canal, most passengers were glad to seek any patch of shade on deck, or—if they were fortunate enough to possess an airy cabin—to rest for a while.
Some did not even turn up at dinner that night. And, to Leonie’s surprise, both surgeons were among this number.
“I don’t see Kingsley at his table,” whispered Claire.
“And Mr. Pembridge isn’t here either.” Leonie indicated the empty seat at the head of their table.
“Perhaps they’re busy with heat-stroke cases,” suggested Clive Cheriot. “I thought I was going to be laid out myself at one point during the afternoon.”
“I think,” said Nicholas Edmonds, “there was some sort of accident in the hospital quarters about an hour ago. I expect that’s what has delayed them.”
“Accident!” Claire and Leonie spoke with one breath. And Claire added fearfully, “Was anyone much hurt? And—and who was it?”
“Not Mr. Pembridge himself?” At that moment Leonie sounded almost as anxious as Claire.
But Nicholas Edmonds was reassuring on that point.