Romance Classics (97 page)

Suddenly he straightened and his eyes widened.

“Well, what do you know?” he marveled softly.

Puzzled, Claire looked a question at him, and suddenly he grinned, that small-boy grin that added to his charm.

“You and I are standing here talking, without verbal daggers flashing between us! Why, you are almost friendly! I can’t believe it!” He frankly admitted his amazement, and Claire had the grace to blush.

“I have been a bit unpleasant, haven’t I?” she agreed reluctantly.

“You have indeed,” he assured her firmly.

She stared at him for a moment, scarlet and embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “I — well, I
am
sorry — ”

“Don’t be,” said Curt quietly, all hint of teasing raillery gone. “You’ve been deeply troubled and very unhappy.”

Claire caught her breath and stared up at him.

“How could you possibly know that?” she stammered faintly.

“By just looking at you when you didn’t think anyone was,” he answered with a simplicity that she found somehow painful. “Whatever it was, I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“You and Nora both have bothered me quite a bit,” he said slowly, as they leaned on the railing, not looking at each other. “But of course Vera explained that Nora is going through the agonies of a frustrated love affair and is not really responsible. After all, she’s only a kid.”

“And I am twenty-four and a woman grown who is supposed to have more sense than to grieve about a frustrated love affair?” she cut in swiftly.

Curt straightened and eyed her.

“Oh, boy! Here we go again!” he said half under his breath. “I should have known that flag of truce business was just a come-on.”

“That was what you meant, wasn’t it?” Claire pursued him relentlessly.

“Well, no,” said Curt grimly. “It hadn’t occurred to me you could be sharing Nora’s mental attitude, because I couldn’t imagine any man you could care about not being your slave, and you don’t have a mother to drag you away from him. So why should I take it for granted that you were, like Nora, a fugitive from a love affair?”

Claire set her teeth and turned her eyes away from him. And when she looked back again, he was gone! He had simply turned and marched away.

She stood for a moment watching him as he strode down the deck, and then she turned back once more to contemplate the ocean, her mouth thinning a little. After all, what difference did it make to her whether he liked her or not? She didn’t like him, or any other tall, devastatingly handsome man. She’d been in love with one such charmer, and for a girl with any sense at all, one such experience was surely more than enough!

The days slid by like blue and gold beads on a chain. As Major Lesley had warned her happily, the
Highland Queen
poked in and out of various Caribbean ports taking on or discharging cargo, and the passengers went ashore for a few hours at each port, returning in the evening to chatter across the dinner table about their experiences and their discoveries.

Major Lesley proved to be a fascinating guide, and Claire was happy to accompany him on these shore trips. He always seemed to know which was the most interesting sight; which the most famous historical point of interest. And once he was convinced that she did not consider his carefully acquired guide-book tours a bore, he expanded visibly in the sun of her approval and was obviously delighted and proud of her companionship.

Claire had visited her patient, the crewman, several times, and he had been able to return to his duties. She was held in high esteem among all the ship’s personnel and enjoyed many privileges not ordinarily accorded to any save the most VIP passengers, a fact Vera was not slow to notice.

“It’s getting to be quite a ‘thing’ between you and the Major, isn’t it?” she drawled one evening as they came back to the salon after dinner.

“I find him a very interesting and delightful man,” said Claire coolly. “I like him very much.”

“Oh, come now,” mocked Vera derisively. “Unless he’s secretly a millionaire, which I doubt, how could such a funny, weird little duck interest a beautiful girl like you?”

“By having a very fine mind and a great zest for life, and because he has planned this trip for so long and done so much reading about it that I hate to think how much of it I’d have missed without him as a guide,” Claire answered quite honestly.

Vera considered that thoughtfully.

“Oh well, Curt has a fine mind, too, and he’s made this trip so often I’m sure that there’s not much he has missed,” she said smugly.

“I’m sure of that, too,” Claire told her, and went on her way, feeling Vera’s mocking eyes upon her as she walked.

The affair between Curt and Vera had become so much a matter of course that it was now taken for granted that when there were shore parties, Vera would always wait for Curt and go ashore with him. As the youngest passengers aboard, MacEwen Russell and Nora seemed to have established a mild friendship, so that they were a frequent twosome ashore.

The
Highland Queen
had finished her business with the Caribbean ports and was plodding her way into the Gulf of Mexico when it happened.

Claire was about to leave her cabin for dinner when a terrific scream came from the cabin next door — Vera’s voice, high, terrible in its intensity of shock and horror. Claire ran into the corridor as Vera’s door burst open and Vera stood there, white as the dress she wore, her eyes wide with horror, babbling unintelligibly.

Claire ran past her into the room and to the tiny bath where she stopped for a moment, shocked to rigidity by what she saw.

Nora leaned against the wall, her hands extended above the wash-basin and thick spurts of blood running down her slashed wrists. She was staring at the blood with eyes that were wide and sick with horror. Beside the basin lay a bloodstained razor blade.

Claire turned as people began running into the cabin and called out sharply, “Somebody get the first aid kit,
quick!
”

Curt loomed in the bathroom door, wide-eyed as Claire glanced up at him. She was beside the basin now, her thumbs pressing firmly against the veins in the girl’s wrists that were emptying themselves into the basin. As Claire pressed her thumbs down, the flow became a thin trickle, and a moment later, Carl, the steward, thrust himself through the gathering crowd, drawn by Vera’s persistent thin, high screams.

Claire looked up at Curt, still pressing her thumbs on the veins, and said sharply, “Make her be quiet! Slap her hard.”

Curt looked startled as he glanced at Vera and then back at Claire.

“Slap her?” he repeated.

“Do you know a better cure for hysteria?” demanded Claire, and glanced at Carl. “Here, Carl, put your thumbs where mine are and press gently but firmly.”

Curt said swiftly, “Here, let me.”

His hands slid deftly beneath Claire’s, so that she could remove hers without lessening the pressure on the girl’s wrists, and Claire glanced over her shoulder at Vera who huddled against the wall still emitting those high, thin wails that seemed to pierce the eardrums.

Mrs. Burke was closer to her, and Claire called out, “Mrs. Burke, slap her hard! Make her stop that awful racket.”

Mrs. Burke nodded and, with a glint of pure pleasure in her eyes, delivered a loud, hard slap against Vera’s contorted face that sent Vera stumbling toward her bed, where she subsided, moaning and whimpering but no longer screaming.

Claire worked with swift, sure fingers, relieved immeasurably to see that the cuts, while they had bled freely, were superficial.

Nora was pasty-white, her eyes riveted to the wounded wrists, and when at last Claire had finished the dressing on them, Nora looked up at Claire and whispered piteously, “I didn’t mean to do it — ”

“Why did you, Nora?” demanded Claire sharply. “You’re a little fool, Nora. Don’t you know there isn’t a man in the world worth it?”

“I thought I could be brave,” Nora stammered faintly. “But it didn’t hurt — and then I saw the blood — ”

“And lucky for you that you did, Nora,” said Claire, and her voice was stern. “You silly child!”

“Now wait a minute,” protested Curt, as though he found Claire’s harshness unbearable. “The poor kid’s had a terrible shock.”

“She should have a terrible spanking,” snapped Claire. “Any girl who is fool enough to think any man is worth the paring of her fingernail deserves to be hurt!”

“Oh, my poor baby! My poor, poor baby!” wailed Vera.

“Shall I slap her again, Claire?” asked Mrs. Burke pleasantly.

“No, of course not,” answered Claire, and smiled at Nora and said gently, “You’re going to be all right, honey. But don’t you ever do anything so foolish again! Do you hear me?”

Tears were slipping down Nora’s white face, and she made a terrific effort to smile.

“I won’t, Claire — oh, I won’t. I don’t know why I ever thought I’d be brave enough to try it,” she said faintly.

“Honey, it doesn’t take bravery to destroy yourself,” Claire told her. “It takes bravery to go on living, even when you’d just as soon not. I know it hurts when you’re in love with someone and have to give him up, but this isn’t the way out of a heartache like that, Nora, and don’t you ever think it.”

“I won’t, Claire. What’s being in love got to do with it, anyway?” Nora asked like a bewildered child.

“Well, we won’t go into that now,” Claire smiled at her comfortingly. “Now we’ll get you into bed with a sedative, and tomorrow morning everything will be quite all right.”

Nora looked down at her bandaged wrists, and there was a curious expression in her eyes when she raised them to Claire’s.

“Will there be a scar, Claire?” she asked.

Puzzled, Claire repeated, “A scar? Oh, I don’t think so, honey. A very tiny one, maybe, but you can always wear a bracelet or a wristwatch to hide it.”

To her utter amazement, Nora tilted back her head and gave a small, ugly bark of bitter laughter.

“Oh, yes, a bracelet,” she mocked unsteadily. “By all means a bracelet, perhaps a pair of them — ” And suddenly she was weeping stormily again and Claire was holding her close, looking up at Curt, frowning in her bewilderment.

“She’s overwrought, and why not?” Curt answered the bewildered look. “Here, everybody clear out, and let Claire get her to bed and quiet her down. Is what you’ll need in the first aid kit, Claire? Can I get you anything else from the ship’s pharmacy?”

Claire cast a swift, expert eye over the contents of the kit and shook her head, as she picked up a small vial of white tablets.

“Two of these should be all she needs to give her a good night’s sleep,” she said quickly. “And I’ll give Vera a couple, too. They both need a good relaxing night’s sleep after this.”

The other passengers filed out, herded by Curt and Carl, and when Claire had gotten Nora into bed and given her the sleeping tablets, she turned to Vera who was sitting, wide-eyed and dazed, on the other narrow bed, staring at Nora as though she had never seen the girl before.

“Why, baby?” she whispered in a tone of the most abject grief. “Why did you want to do that?”

Nora gave her a long, level-eyed look and then turned her face away.

“You can ask me that, Mother?” Her voice was a small, bitter cry.

“But, baby, I told you — ” Vera began, her voice shaking.

“I know you did, Mother, but you see, I didn’t believe you. Why should I? How could I?” Nora’s voice was thin and weary.

“But, baby — ” Vera whimpered. “I’ve never lied to you, have I?”

“Oh, haven’t you?”

Claire said swiftly, with a note of authority that had stood her in good stead throughout her profession, “I must ask you, Vera, not to question her now. Let her get to sleep. Tomorrow you can talk to her. Meanwhile, take these two tablets and get some sleep yourself.”

Vera looked up at her, and her white, tormented face made her look many years older as she docilely accepted the two tablets.

“I’ll never forget seeing her there like that — ” she shuddered and accepted the glass of water Claire held for her, spilling a little of it as Vera’s teeth chattered against it. “Why, Claire? Why did she do it?”

“That’s something she alone knows, Vera, and we’ll have to wait until she is able to tell us,” Claire said soothingly, noting with some compunction the mark on Vera’s jaw where Mrs. Burke had slapped her. “I’m sorry I had to ask Mrs. Burke to slap you, Vera, but you were hysterical, and your screaming made it worse for Nora.”

Vera put up a hand and touched the mark and seemed surprised.

“Oh, that.” She dismissed it as of no consequence whatever. “I’m glad it wasn’t Curt, anyway.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t have done it,” Claire smiled at her. “I’m afraid he’s the kind that never lifts a hand against a woman in self-defense!”

Vera allowed Claire to get her ready for bed, as docile as a child, scarcely seeming to be aware of what was being done. And when, at last, they were both drifting into sleep and she felt it was safe to leave them, Claire put out the light and slipped across to the door.

As she stepped from the cabin and drew the door shut behind her, she turned to face a man who was lounging against the opposite wall, obviously waiting for her.

She paused, startled, quite certain it was Curt, and then she recognized MacEwen Russell.

“How is she now?” he asked anxiously, his voice lowered to a sick-room tone.

“Nora? Oh, she’s going to be quite all right,” Claire answered. “The gashes were merely surface wounds, little more than that. I suppose if her mother hadn’t discovered her in time, they could have been serious. So let’s be grateful Vera found her.”

MacEwen walked along the corridor with Claire toward the dining salon, his brow furrowed in a deep scowl.

“I suppose Nora didn’t give any reason — ” he began hesitantly.

“None at all, because she was in a state of shock when I got to her,” Claire assured him firmly, and looked up at him curiously. “You and Nora have become good friends, haven’t you?”

“I’m sorry for her,” said MacEwen, and there was a trace of belligerence in his voice. “That hell-hound of a mother rides her from morning till night. Did you know her mother beats her?”