For Ever and Ever (12 page)
Authors: Mary Burchell
“We take it in turns, of course—just as you and Nurse Meech will,” he explained. “And the same with evening surgery. Prescriptions, of course, are made up by Mr. Morley, and you will find that both Roberts and Plane are excellent hospital orderlies. If you need me, I am usually in my office during most of the morning, except when I am visiting the few patients we have in their own staterooms.”
“Very well, sir. Thank you.”
“Thank
you,
he said, and gave her a very brilliant smile. Then he got up to go, as Kingsley Stour came in.
“So our new nurse is already on duty. How’s she shaping, sir?” inquired the Assistant Surgeon with a grin, as though Leonie’s temporary appointment was all rather a joke.
“Very well, or I shouldn’t have dreamed of having her,” replied Mr. Pembridge drily. “I knew Nurse Creighton’s work already and felt sure I could rely on her.”
“That’s fine.” The other man tempered his amusement slightly with an air of appreciation. “We’re very lucky to have her assistance.”
“Very lucky,” agreed the Senior Surgeon, still in that dry tone. Then he went away, leaving Leonie to deal with his assistant as best she could.
“Sit down and relax.” Grinning again, Kingsley Stour indicated one of the really comfortable chairs in the room. But Leonie chose to sit on a surgery chair, with an air of being ready for work.
“You don’t have to give the impression of expecting an inspection by Matron at any minute,” the Assistant Surgeon told her carelessly. “Pembridge may insist on that sort of attitude, but I don’t.”
“I suppose the first patients might be here any time now,” Leonie replied coolly. “I’d rather look a little over-professional than be mistaken for a casual visitor.”
“No one’s going to mistake you for a casual visitor in that fetching cap,” he assured her.
“It’s just the same cap as the other two nurses wear,” Leonie pointed out.
“Is it? Looks quite different on you,” Kingsley Stour declared, and Leonie was feminine enough not to find that exactly displeasing.
There was silence for a moment. Then he looked full at her and said,
“What really made you decide to take this on?”
“Why, you know, surely! Mr. Pembridge told me that you were dreadfully short-handed here, after Nurse Dornley’s accident. And he himself suggested that as—”
“Oh, yes, I know all that,” Kingsley Stour assured her. “But you could have refused pleasantly and regretfully. Most people would have done.”
“But I didn’t want to refuse. I guess Mr. Pembridge knew that, and that’s probably why he asked me.”
“Which brings us back to my original question. What made you
want
to come down here and slog at nursing, when you might just as well be up on deck enjoying yourself?”
“I happen to like nursing—”
“Oh, come, Leonie!”
“It had better be Nurse Creighton when we’re on duty,” Leonie said coolly. “It is with Mr. Pembridge.”
““And aren’t things a little bit different for me?” inquired Kingsley Stour with a smile.
She was just going to tell him very curtly they were not when she recalled that she was supposed to find him dangerously attractive, and had planned to use the present situation to further her intention of tripping him up in his own scheming.
“I can’t go into that now,” she said. And to her great relief, their first patient arrived at that moment.
For a while there was very little chance of private conversation. But, in the quarter of an hour which elapsed between Cabin and First-class surgery, there was a breathing space, during which cold drinks were brought by one of the hospital orderlies.
“Take it easy,” said Kingsley Stour, as Leonie was about to take some prescriptions along to the dispensary. “Morley will come and fetch those himself. This isn’t St. Catherine’s, you know, even if we have got the flower of the nursing staff here.”
“Meaning me?” inquired Leonie, permitting herself a reluctant smile. But she went and stood by the porthole, looking out, so that he could not engage her in too earnest conversation.
“Meaning you, sweetheart.”
Leonie did not answer that. She was not prepared to argue every departure from professional behavior with him. And, in any case, she could hardly encourage him to lose his head about her if she insisted on being called Nurse Creighton all the time.
“I was sorry Mrs. Murdoch came in when she did.” He got up from his chair and came over and stood close behind her.
“Mrs. Murdoch?”
“Our first caller. She’s hardly a patient. She only comes to talk about her interesting symptoms to someone who can’t get away.”
“Oh—yes. I gathered that. But if she comes at all, she might as well come first and get her visit over.”
“But she came just as we’d reached a very interesting point in our conversation,” the Assistant Surgeon said. “Don’t you remember? Or are you determined to be the most obstinate and evasive little devil?”
“If you talk to me like that, I shall call you ‘sir’, and behave exactly as though you are an elderly consultant whom I hardly know,” Leonie told him, without even looking at him.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Kingsley Stour assured her, and, putting his arm round her waist, he kissed her.
“Leave me alone!” exclaimed Leonie, disliking the scene even more than she had expected.
“Don’t be silly. You know you meant me to do that. And if you were a real sport, you’d admit it and kiss me in return.”
“Then I can’t be a real sport,” she said curtly.
“Leonie—please. Why are you so obstinate?” He sounded angry and affronted suddenly and, looking at him, she saw doubt in his face, and realized that, whether she liked it or not, the moment had come for a little encouragement, rather than continued rebuff, if she wished to hold him.
So she smiled unexpectedly and said, “You choose such awkward settings for this sort of thing.”
“No setting is awkward for kissing you,” he declared, recovering himself immediately, and he leaned towards her again.
This time she made herself respond, so that though she laughed somewhat provokingly, she did kiss him in return, and when he held her close for a moment she did not resist.
And then suddenly—by that pricking of instinct more subtle than any sight or sound—she was aware that they were not alone, and, thrusting him from her, she turned, expecting to face the mortifying amusement of their next patient.
What she saw was far more terrifying than any such minor embarrassment. Mr. Pembridge stood in the doorway, not at all amused, and, as she stared at him in wordless dismay, he came forward into the room and said coldly,
“Do you two mind keeping that sort of thing for the upper deck? It isn’t exactly suitable for the surgery.” Kingsley Stour laughed, flushed and straightened his collar and tie unnecessarily.
“I’m afraid you came in at the wrong moment, sir,” he said, not entirely abashed.
“I’m afraid I did,” agreed the Senior Surgeon drily. “I’ll take the last hour’s surgery this morning.”
“But it’s my turn, sir, and I don’t at all mind—”
“I’m sure you don’t.” Mr. Pembridge’s tone would have cooled the room if it had not already been air-conditioned. “But I choose to take the rest of the surgery duty this morning. I’d be glad if you’d look round the wards and see if Nurse Meech has everything under control.”
“Very well, sir.”
There was nothing else the Assistant Surgeon could say. But as he left the room, he gave Leonie a smile which was meant to remind her of her passenger status and her virtual independence of Mr. Pembridge.
Leonie, however, did not feel at all like a passenger at that moment. She felt guilty and mortified and wildly anxious to defend herself—though what she could say, she could not imagine.
There was silence for a few moments, while Leonie prayed—fruitlessly—for a rush of First-class patients requiring medical or surgical attention. Then Mr. Pembridge said quietly,
“As a private passenger, you are of course at liberty to behave as you please. But, if you work for me, I’m afraid I expect your behavior to be of the standard demanded at St. Catherine’s.”
“I’m sorry.” Leonie was mortified afresh to find that her voice came out as little more than a whisper. “It wasn’t quite—my fault.”
“I’m aware that it takes two people to stage that sort of scene.” A slight, and by no means reassuring, smile touched the Senior Surgeon’s lips. “And I have no illusions about my assistant’s weakness where pretty girls are concerned. But if you stay here as my nurse, I must be able to rely on you to see that proper professional standards are maintained.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Almost anyone might have come in just now. It was fortunate that it was only I.”
“Yes, sir,” said Leonie, feeling it was not fortunate at all.
“And, in any case—” suddenly the Senior Surgeon’s manner changed completely and he said, “Look here, you silly little idiot, you know he isn’t even two per cent serious, don’t you? I’m being thoroughly unprofessional myself now—but he’s only my colleague for a month, whereas you—”
He stopped—just as he was getting to the most interesting part of the tirade, Leonie thought.
“Yes, sir?” She looked expectant, but Mr. Pembridge did not pursue the line of thought about herself.
“That young man’s devotion won’t be given for love alone, you know,” he said grimly. “There will have to be gilt-edged securities as well.”
“Yes, I know,” said Leonie, before she could stop herself.
“Well then, if he knows you are Sir James Elstone’s
secretary, travelling with—”
“But he doesn’t,” cried Leonie.
“He doesn’t?”
“No, of course not. And he mustn’t either,” she added in great alarm, suddenly realizing that Mr. Pembridge’s knowledge of her real status might upset everything, since he was so closely connected with Kingsley Stour.
For an astonished moment the Senior Surgeon said nothing. Then a look of surprised distaste came into his eyes.
“Do you mean that Stour has been led to believe you are a rich girl, travelling for pleasure?”
“Well—something like that. You see—you see—” Leonie floundered helplessly, trying to think of a way to explain herself, without disclosing either Claire’s romancing or her own obstinate intentions.
“I see perfectly well,” Mr. Pembridge said drily. “It’s quite an old trick. I hadn’t thought of you as practising it—that’s all.”
And he turned away from her with an air of casual contempt which stung her to the quick.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In
all her life Leonie had never more passionately wanted to explain herself than at this moment, when she saw a look of scorn in Mr. Pembridge’s eyes.
If they had been left alone together only five minutes longer, no doubt she would have found some way of clarifying the position between herself and Kingsley Stour. She might even, if all else failed, have told Mr. Pembridge the whole truth—though she could not imagine his approving her course of action, even in Claire’s very best interests.
But, as it was, even as she struggled to find some tactful and telling phrases in which to rebuke and confound him, the First-class yielded a visitor at last— though in the shape of Renee Armand and, looking so fresh and full of vitality that it was hard to suppose that she had come as a patient.
“Oh, Simon—” She paused inside the doorway on seeing Leonie, which gave Leonie time to get over the pleasant shock of discovering that to some people Mr. Pembridge really was Simon—“I wanted to have a word with you.”
“Then please come in, if it’s a professional matter.” With a smile, Mr. Pembridge set a chair for her. “Though you look much too blooming to be in need of medical advice.”
“Oh, it’s not for myself.” She came forward into the room then and sat down. “It’s about—Nicholas.”
She stopped again, and her wide, attractive glance went once more to Leonie.
“Nurse Creighton is here in a purely professional capacity,” said Mr. Pembridge, which made Nurse Creighton feel more than ever that the scene with the Assistant Surgeon was quite inexcusable.
“But if you would prefer me to go into the other surgery, Madame Armand—” Leonie began.
“N-no. I don’t think so. It doesn’t really matter, so long as you don’t let Nicholas know that I came and spoke about him.”
“Of course not!”
“Anything said here is completely confidential,” Mr. Pembridge assured their visitor. And again Leonie had the uncomfortable feeling that he was thinking of what had happened less than ten minutes ago.
“Well, then, it’s just that I’m worried about him. I think he’s very ill. And—and someone must do something about it. I wouldn’t want him to think I—I was unduly interested, or had said anything. I can’t urge him to come and see you. So I thought, perhaps, if I told you, you could arrange to go and see him in his cabin.”
Mr. Pembridge rubbed his chin meditatively.
“It’s a bit difficult to force one’s professional services on someone, Renee.”
“Oh, but not for you! You’re such old friends. You can say you don’t feel quite satisfied about him—that you feel—”
“But I have, my dear. I have already done that.”
“You have?” The singer looked extremely startled. “Then you mean that you, too, felt anxious about him?” she said quickly.
“To a certain extent—yes.”
“But we must do something about it!”
Leonie noticed that the usually self-possessed Frenchwoman was agitated. And for the first time there was a faintly foreign intonation to her otherwise perfect English.
“What do you suggest doing, Renee?”
“I—I thought
you
would do something. After all, you are a doctor—you are his friend. If you think he is very ill—”
“I wouldn’t say very ill. I don’t know enough about his case to offer a snap judgment, without any sort of consultation. He has undoubtedly
been
very ill, and my own feeling is that he is not making anything like a satisfactory recovery.”
“Then he must need some sort of treatment.”
“Medical treatment, you mean?”
“Yes, I suppose so. That’s for you, or his own doctor, to say. Don’t you think that’s what he needs?”
“I don’t know, my dear. In view of the particular injuries he received, he may need manipulation he may even need further surgical treatment. But not, I imagine, as a matter of urgency. What I would say Nicholas most needs at the moment is a purpose in life and someone to care what happens to him.”
“T-to care what happens to him?” Renee Armand faltered a little over the words. “But that isn’t exactly a health question, is it?”
“Probably—yes. Recovery from the kind of shock and injuries he received depends to quite a marked extent on the mental and emotional condition of the patient.”
“But there was never any trouble with Nicholas in
that
respect.” She rushed into hasty, almost resentful reassurance. “Mentally he’s almost too clear and well-balanced, and emotionally—oh, emotionally, Nicholas is cold and—and completely self-sufficient.”
“I’m glad you feel so confident about him.” Mr. Pembridge smiled and looked as though he were bringing the interview to a close.
“But I’m not! I mean—I still feel there is something to be done. Something that would help him and make him more like—like the old Nicholas.”
“My dear Renee”—Mr. Pembridge stood up and took the singer by the hand—”the best possible thing that could happen to Nicholas would be for him to fall in love with one of the dozens of charming girls on board. It would give him a purpose in life, without which every man is sick in a greater or lesser degree. And, if she obligingly returned his affection, it would give him the feeling that someone cared whether he lived or died. Nothing does more than that for one’s will to live and get better, you know.”
And if Leonie had not been feeling sorry for Renee Armand, she would have been tempted to laugh at the look of consternation which came over her face at this diagnosis.
“I don’t think Nicholas is at all likely to fall in love with one of the charming girls on board, as you put it,” she said crisply.
“
Jeunes filles
were never in his line. He liked a woman to be intelligent and stimulating.
“Then we must hope that someone who stimulates him will materialize,” Mr. Pembridge replied pleasantly. “And fortunately almost anything can happen on board ship. During my year afloat I have seen all manner of romances blossom.”
“And is
that
all you can prescribe for Nicholas?” The singer’s voice actually trembled with annoyance.
“No I will see what I can do in the way of professional advice. Whether or not he takes it is another thing,” Mr. Pembridge said. “There again we must hope that the intelligent and stimulating companion helps.”
He smiled at her as he said that, and for a moment the Frenchwoman blinked her lashes and looked as though some unfamiliar thought had struck her. Then she, too, smiled—but reluctantly.
“
Touché
,” she said. And, reaching up, she kissed him lightly on the cheek, and made an exit as effective as her entry.
For a moment Leonie was tempted to point out that she did not appear to be the only one who could not avoid kisses in the surgery. But she remembered, just in time, how poorly that line had paid off before. Besides, she must accept the fact that she was Nurse Creighton now, and there are certain things which no nurse says to the Senior Surgeon, however unusual the circumstances.
She did, however, find enough courage to revert to the unfortunate incident and say,
“Mr. Pembridge, I think I should say something in explanation of my attitude to Mr. Stour. You see—”
“Please don’t bother, Nurse. I find it inexpressibly boring to discuss intimate affairs which don’t concern me in the least,” Mr. Pembridge assured her crushingly. “So long as you conduct yourself properly in my surgery, I am not at all interested in what you do elsewhere.”
There was really nothing to add to this, particularly as the next patient now made an appearance. A busy half-hour followed, in which the nurse-and-doctor relationship was maintained at its politest and most formal. And then Leonie was free to go and have lunch, before helping with the lunches in the hospital quarters.
It was too early for any passengers in the big dining room, and as Leonie sat there eating her solitary meal— served to her by a friendly steward who seemed to think, like everyone else, that she was something of a heroine to have donned uniform in the emergency—she began to wonder, after all, why she had let herself in for all this.
Her social life—the life she had been enjoying so much—was inevitably now cut to a minimum. And, in exchange, she had a situation in which Kingsley Stour would probably be increasingly difficult to deal with, while Mr. Pembridge was already presuming to exercise a degree of cool disapproval very lowering to her morale and joy of living.
It was hard not to think that perhaps Claire had been right when she declared that Leonie had accepted her position much too impulsively.
Later, in the glow of satisfaction engendered by a spell of duty among grateful and comfortable patients, Leonie felt better. But the knowledge of duty well done, though gratifying, was not, she decided, complete compensation for the scorn and disapproval of someone one liked.
It was at this point that she made the astonishing discovery that she did indeed like Mr. Pembridge.
For years she had thought of him—when she thought about him at all—as a sarcastic, unreasonable person who had treated her with undue severity in her early hospital experience. If anyone had asked if she liked him, she would have replied with an unequivocal “no”.
But now, though she still thought him sarcastic and sometimes unreasonable, and though he was undoubtedly treating her with undue severity, she could not say that she disliked him. In fact—since that was rather negative praise—she had to admit that she liked him.
She liked his cool, appraising glance, his unexpected smile, his special sense of humor, and above all the unaffected way he gave praise on the occasions when he thought praise was due. This was something worth waiting for, worth working for, and it was something she found she missed sadly when she stood in the shadow of his disapproval.
In thinking of all this, Leonie suddenly decided that she would have no more nonsense with Kingsley Stour. However well-intentioned her plan might have been, it could not fail to put her in a doubtful and unrealistic position. And she did not want Mr. Pembridge to see her in that light, she decided. She wanted him to see her as a responsible, likeable girl. The sort one chose for a nurse one could trust or a friend whom one could value.
So determined was she to carry this new line of conduct into effect that she contrived to make her encounters with the Assistant Surgeon in the next twenty-four hours brief, cool and almost entirely in the presence of a third person.
She was helped in this by an unusually busy surgery. But she also had to do some quick thinking and a certain degree of manoeuvring—which he immediately detected, she was sure, and resented far more than his careless smiling air might have suggested.
Faintly alarmed, Leonie adopted an even more aloof manner when on duty, and, in consequence, knew she would have to face some sort of showdown in her off-duty hours.
The moment came during their third evening out from Port Said, when most of the passengers were in the air-conditioned ballroom, watching a film show. Leonie had a few hours to herself as Nurse Meech was on duty in the hospital quarters, and, availing herself of her semi-official status, she changed to a cool frock and sought out a corner of the upper deck where a breath of breeze was stirring.
Overhead arched a star-spangled sky, while, far out in the Indian Ocean, it seemed as though the waves were edged with an almost phosphorescent glow which gave back an answering glitter. Free from her duties, Leonie relaxed contentedly, glad to be alone and peacefully unoccupied.
But before she had had much opportunity of enjoying her peace, it was abruptly broken by the Assistant Surgeon, who, coming along the deck with an air of purpose, dropped into the chair beside her and said, without preamble,
“Isn’t it about time you and I had a talk?”
“Is it?” She smiled at him, with a laziness she was far from feeling. “I thought we’d had almost too much time to talk to each other in the last few days.”
“But always with someone else present,” he reminded her grimly.
“That’s true.”
“By your special arrangement, if I’m not much mistaken.”
Leonie did not choose to answer that, and after a moment he asked,
“Why was that, Leonie? Why have you been avoiding every chance of our being alone together?”
“I didn’t very much care for what happened when we
were
alone together,” she replied coolly. “You don’t seem to have any sort of idea of taking my professional position seriously, and you let me in for a particularly unpleasant type of rebuke.”
“From Pembridge?”
“Of course.”
“Damned impudence on his part!”
“Not at all.” She was still quite cool. “I didn’t like it, and I felt it was certainly not my own fault. But, thanks to your attitude, I was made to appear cheap and frivolous and without much sense of fitness. As my immediate boss, he was perfectly entitled to rebuke me.”
“Don’t be absurd! You know, and he knows, that you’re a private passenger, right outside his authority and—”
“No. That’s where you make a mistake. I have accepted the position of nurse under him and, with it, I’ve accepted the usual conditions and responsibilities. I’m not playing at this thing, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner we shall work harmoniously together.”
“Leonie”—he looked half amused, half astonished— “you talk like a junior matron who’s taking her position too seriously,” he protested.
“I’m sorry. If you don’t like my way of taking things, you don’t have to come and talk to me about it. In fact, I’d be just as pleased if you didn’t.”
Even to her own ears that sounded rather harsh from one who had previously shown some degree of interest in the handsome young Assistant Surgeon. To him it acted like a match to gun-powder.
