For Ever and Ever (18 page)

“Oh, you never have a good word to say for him!” Claire exclaimed. But Leonie was struck by the fact that her tone was good-humored and chaffing, rather than eager and indignant.

Claire was no longer passionately on the defensive when Kingsley Stour was mentioned. And, in some indefinable way, Leonie thought this was a gain.

By the time she woke next morning, they were already in harbor, and Leonie ran eagerly to catch her first glimpse of Australia. The quay, she was bound to admit, looked very much like any other quay, and she was not quite sure at which point the waters of the harbor merged with those of the Swan River, on which Perth stands. But around her on deck were jubilant Australians, greeting their homeland once more, and everywhere there was a feeling of something like journey’s end.

To be sure, the voyage itself would last another ten or eleven days. But during that time they would be cruising round a continent, and that is not quite the same thing as crossing the great oceans of the world.

At Fremantle there were quite a number of passengers disembarking, and the first goodbyes had to be said. None of Leonie’s very special friends was among the departures—though several of them had been pleasant and well-liked travelling companions. But the snapping of even these unimportant links gave her a sudden and alarming foretaste of what it was going to be like when the real goodbyes had to be said in Sydney.

When the disembarking passengers had departed, a handful of visitors came on board, and the very first of these made straight for Leonie, who happened to be standing at the head of the main stairway, in uniform.

“Nurse, I guess you’re the person to tell me what I want.” The tall, frank-eyed, smiling young man towered over her. “I’m looking for my cousin, Claire Elstone, and I understand she’s in hospital here.”

“Why, of course! You must be Maurice Elstone,” exclaimed Leonie, noticing, even as she shook hands with him, that the red hair had toned down to a very pleasant chestnut shade by now. “Come along with me. Claire will be so happy to see you.”

“Just a moment. Let’s collect these.” He turned to a porter, who was staggering along behind with an immense basket of fruit and several parcels, on top of which was balanced a bouquet of beautiful, exotic-looking flowers.

Between them, the young man and Leonie managed to take everything, and she then led the way down to the ward, where Claire was lying in bed, looking rather wistful and as pretty as any picture.

“Here’s your cousin, Claire—” Leonie began.

But Claire uttered a delightful shriek of “
Maurice
!”
before she could say any more, and held out her arms to the newcomer.

At this the young man ungallantly thrust the rest of the parcels into Leonie’s hands and almost picked Claire up out of bed.

“Why, Claire, honey,” he said, “you look good enough to eat. Can I give you a real hug and kiss without breaking you in two?”

“Of course. I’m nearly all right by now,” declared his cousin, somewhat exaggeratedly. But at least they managed to exchange a satisfactory embrace without any harm being done.

“And to think you were a plain little tiddler when I last saw you!” He looked admiringly at her.

“I was not! I was quite a pretty child,” Claire retorted.

“No, you weren’t. You were a peaky little thing with gappy teeth,” he assured her

“Well, you thought me worth fighting over.”

“Did I?”

“Oh, Maurice, you know you did! You punched some other boy on the nose because he pulled my hair.”

“Too right I did!” A look of pleased reminiscence came over his handsome face at that. “I’d forgotten it until this moment. Bolam—that was the fellow’s name. Battling Bolam we used to call him. Hadn’t thought of him for years.”

As it was obvious that the two cousins were now most pleasurably immersed in recollections of their joint past, Leonie merely saw to it that Maurice Elstone had a comfortable chair by Claire s bed, and then she left them to their shared experiences, which were evidently being relived with the utmost satisfaction.

With Nurse Meech away, it was quite a busy day for Leonie. But whenever she looked in to see Claire, her chief patient was obviously having such a wonderful time that she at least required little attention.

During her compulsory short afternoon rest, Maurice Elstone sought out Leonie and spent the time telling her what a wonderful girl his cousin was.

“I quite agree.” Leonie smiled at him sympathetically. “Have you had a talk with Mr. Pembridge about her?”

“That’s the Senior Surgeon?

“Yes.”

“Nice fellow. He seems very satisfied with the way Claire is progressing. I don’t much care for the other one.”

“The other one?”

“The Assistant Surgeon. King or something. Bit of a bounder,” stated Maurice Elstone, with such unruffled confidence that Leonie wondered why she had sometimes been very much afraid of Kingsley Stour during that voyage.

“Did you speak much to him?” she inquired curiously.

“Oh, no. He obviously didn’t think much of me, and I have a notion he knew the feeling was reciprocal. It’s not important. Claire won’t see anything more of him once she gets to Sydney.

“What makes you think that, I wonder?” Again Leonie looked at him curiously.

“Well, why should she?” Maurice Elstone looked faintly surprised. “She’ll have her own relatives then.”

“I hope,” Leonie said slowly, “that the other relatives are as confident and efficient and as acceptable to Claire as you are.”

It was his turn to look at her curiously. But the glance was shrewd too.

“You mean—she can do with someone to protect her from herself?”

“I think what I meant was that I wished you lived in Sydney,” replied Leonie with a smile.

And her opinion of Maurice Elstone went up a hundred per cent when he asked no more questions but said thoughtfully, “I—see.”

When the call for “Visitors ashore” finally came there was a most reluctant parting between the cousins. On Claire’s side, almost tearful.

“Don’t cry, darling,” he begged anxiously. “We’ll get together while you’re here. Australia isn’t all that big. And what are aeroplanes for, anyway?”

“I know. But—but things don’t always work out as one expects them to,” Claire said sadly.

“They have a habit of working out as I want them to,” retorted her confident cousin. “Now cheer up. I’ll be seeing you.” And though he went away then, the pleasant glow of his healthy, warm-hearted presence seemed to linger.

Nothing dramatic marked the course of the four days between Fremantle and Adelaide. Claire’s health steadily improved, but she was quiet and seemed to be doing some deep thinking. And Leonie could not help thinking that her father’s appearance at Melbourne might, after all, prove a relief rather than a shock.

She was not, of course, present when Kingsley Stour and Claire had their more intimate conversations, but she dared to hope that a subtle change was taking place in their relationship, and that, provided Sir James indulged in no tactless display of paternal authority, the situation might solve itself.

There was no one to whom she could confide her hopes and fears. But once, when they had a slack surgery hour, Mr. Pembridge remarked.

“That was a nice fellow, that cousin of Miss Elstone’s, who came aboard at Fremantle.”

“Yes, wasn’t he!” Leonie looked and sounded enthusiastic.

“I understood they hadn’t met since childhood.”

“Yes. That was so.”

“It didn’t look like that.” Mr. Pembridge smiled slightly. “The young man made remarkable use of his few hours.”

Leonie laughed.

“Yes. I noticed that, too. I couldn’t help wondering—hoping—” She stopped, a trifle confused to find that she had expressed her thoughts aloud.

Mr. Pembridge gave her that faintly ironical glance. “Yes, I see what you mean,” he said elliptically. “Well, I don’t doubt he would be much more acceptable to her father than—the other fellow.”

“And so much more suitable,” declared Leonie eagerly. “It would be such a wonderful—such a happy solution, if only Claire and her nice cousin—” She stopped again.

“So you think a happy marriage with the cousin would be a good solution?”

“I suppose,” Leonie said simply, “a happy marriage is a good solution for most people.”

He stared at her moodily for a moment.

“I suppose it is,” he agreed, “if one is lucky enough to find—and keep—the right person. It just eludes some people, Leonie, and that’s all there is to it. There have to be the losers in all phases of life. One simply has to learn to be a good loser.”

But though he spoke of being a good loser, there was an indescribable touch of melancholy in his tone which struck a chill to Leonie’s very heart. For it spoke of an ever-present, ever-fresh regret, which made nonsense of Claire’s optimistic talk of people “getting over” their griefs.

This was no tender nostalgia for a past that was growing dim. This was the expression of a sharp pain felt now—today—this very minute.

Leonie was silent for a dismayed second or two. Then she said helplessly.

“Don’t you think time does—does help one to forget a little?”

“That’s what we all tell ourselves—and each other.” He smiled briefly. “I’ll believe it when I’ve proved it from practical experience.”

There was nothing much she could say in answer to that. And so she was silent again until a belated patient came in. But she felt as though something bright and lovely had gone out of the day, and although the sun shone still, for Leonie it had a false radiance.

At Adelaide they lost several more of their passengers, and for the last two days before Melbourne Leonie had very little to do. Claire was improving daily, and was even carried up on deck to enjoy the sunshine and the soft, warm breezes, which were so infinitely refreshing and delicious after the intense heat of the earlier part of the voyage.

Sometimes Leonie was severely tempted to tell her that her father would be coming on board at Melbourne. But if Sir James himself had not seen fit to inform his daughter of this, it was certainly not for anyone else to do so. And then—Mr. Pembridge had been quite emphatic in his prohibition.

Sir James, of course, imagined that he was preparing a delightful surprise for Claire, while Mr. Pembridge supposed that ignorance of the coming meeting would save her some fretting and worrying during a tricky part of her convalescence. Leonie doubted if either was entirely right in his assumption—but silence certainly seemed to be called for in any case.

But the morning they arrived in Melbourne, she was up early, unable to contain her nervous excitement and even a degree of anxiety. If only Sir James did not take too high a hand over the presence of Kingsley Stour on board. If only she herself could tactfully convey to him the value of a moderate and tolerant attitude.

To Sir James, however, she was simply one of the girls in his office—however much this luxury voyage might have made her feel otherwise—and it was unlikely that he would take any personal advice from her.

This time Leonie stood on deck, near the arrival gangway, watching the visitors and the few new passengers come aboard. And as she scanned each figure coming up the sloping gangway, her nervousness increased. So that when she finally saw the tall, impressive figure of her employer approaching, she thought distractedly that what she wanted most in the whole world at this moment was an ally in the coming crisis. Someone who would reinforce her own—”

And then her frightened heartbeats suddenly stilled. For mounting the gangway behind Sir James, with an air of casual confidence impossible to mistake, came the best ally she could possibly have where Claire was concerned. Maurice Elstone, who should by rights have been hundreds of miles away in Perth.