Secret for a Nightingale (45 page)

“It has been very interesting. I dare say it would have been pleasant with the others.”

“Two is so much more comfortable than four. Two can talk so much more intimately. With four there are often two conversations going on at the same time. No, I prefer this, and I am glad it happened the way it did. I believe in time I could persuade you to unfreeze.”

“I am not frozen.”

“Yes, you are. You are frozen in that secret from the past. You are letting it rule your life. You are trying to sublimate your natural impulses by becoming a nurse. What shall you do when you go back? Will you join Miss Florence Nightingale? I hear she is doing great things in London. Or will you marry Charles Fenwick? That is what you plan to do, perhaps.”

“How do you know so much about my affairs?”

“I told you I keep my eyes open, and as Charles was a doctor in the hospital, naturally I know a little about him. Are you going to marry him?”

“I don’t know. I am not sure. Here everything is so different from at home. I think I should wait before making a decision … until I am back home among the familiar things, the familiar way of life. I will always want to use my gift for nursing in some way.”

“What a cautious lady you are! Do you never act on impulse?”

“I think I do frequently.”

His eyes held mine.

“I am glad of that.”

“Why?”

“Because it is often very stimulating. So you will marry Dr. Fenwick.

He will have a nice little practice in the country . not too big to take him away from his wife and family. The life of a doctor in the country in England can be very pleasant. “

“How could you know?”

“From observation. I don’t think you would become addicted to the cosy life somehow. There is that in you which reaches out for something more … new experiences, adventure … Of course, you might settle down in your pleasant country house in your pleasant country town with your pleasant family and never know anything of other things. There is a saying that what you never have you never miss. But you. Miss Pleydell… Oh, I wonder. You see, there was that something in the past which has made you not quite the conventional young lady you are striving to be.”

“Is there? Is this the result of your acute observations? I should rather call it a lurid imagination. But I am nattered that you have given so much thought to my affairs.”

“You would be even more flattered if you knew how much thought I give to them.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“You are not surprised really,” he said.

“You know, do you not, that I have a very special interest in you.”

I imagine you are indulging in what is called polite dinnertime conversation with a companion who does not warrant serious discourse.

”

“Surely that is not the impression I have given you this evening?”

I was silent.

He went on: “Soon we shall leave this place. It has been a most pleasant evening for me. I do not want it to end.”

“It has been kind of you to give me dinner. I had no idea that you were to be my host.”

“Would you have refused the invitation if you had known?”

“Having already accepted Monsieur Lablanche’s …”

“That’s not what I meant. Are you afraid of me?”

“Afraid of you! Why should I be?”

“For a reason … perhaps.”

“Now you are being mysterious.”

“Dear Nightingale, am I not always mysterious? But not so much now because I believe you know what is in my mind. I believe that you and I should get to know each other better. After all, we have worked together in the hospital.”

“Together! You flatter me. I have just been there obeying commands.”

“Still… together.” He put his hand across the table.

“Don’t shut yourself in with that secret past. Bring it out. Let’s talk about it.

Let me prove to you that you are not meant merely to be a nurse. You are a woman as well. and an attractive one. “

I felt the colour rush into my cheeks.

“What are you suggesting?”

“That you look at life as it is, that you do not deny yourself what should be yours.”

“I have been unaware of any self-denial.”

“Let me tell you this: I know you well. You are a woman like other women, and in this Victorian age of restrictions and repressions, so many women do not allow themselves to be themselves. They try to become some cold-blooded ideal which has been set up for them. Do you not see that it suits the community of men to have such women in society … as long as there is another kind of woman to whom they look for their satisfaction? Such women are expected to suppress what is natural to them their emotions and the gratification of their senses, which I assure you should bring no shame. I have watched you.

You are a normal, healthy, full-blooded woman, capable, I know, of deep emotions. You are suppressing them in this vocation for nursing.

I have seen you working as though there is nothing else in life. You are fighting something, holding it at bay. If you would tell me that secret, if we could discuss it together, if you and I could become . true friends . “

I looked at him steadily.

“True friends!” I repeated.

“The truest of friends … the best of friends … between whom there are no barriers. We will go from here. You will come with me .. “

I knew what he was suggesting and the colour flooded into my cheeks.

He saw my embarrassment and was amused by it.

He was thinking I was repressed. This was a most unexpected turn of events.

He was evil. Of course he was evil. I had allowed myself to forget because he had saved William Clift’s life. And why had he done that?

Not for humanity’s sake, but to show himself as omnipotent.

I half-rose from my chair.

“Dr. Adair,” I said, “I wish to go back to the hospital.”

He lifted his shoulders and looked at me quizzically.

“I was indeed right,” he said.

“But I did not realize how strongly you had built that prison round yourself.”

“Your metaphor is somewhat obscure. I am perfectly free and in command of my own life, and I know that I do not want to continue with this conversation. Thank you for the dinner. And now, please, if you will show me how to get back, I will say goodbye.”

“You cannot be out alone in the streets of Constantinople at this hour of the night.”

“I shall be safer …”

“Than with me? I think not. I would not force my company upon you. I might coerce but that is a different matter. Come, we will go, for I see you are becoming agitated. You have marked me as the villain, the seducer, have you not? I have always sensed the antagonism you have felt for me. It intrigues me. I have tried to change it… clumsily. I have such regard for you. Miss Pleydell, but now I have failed … for tonight. The first battle is lost, but first battles do not decide the outcome.”

“You talk as though there is a war between us.”

“It is really quite an apt description. But you will find I am a benign conqueror and the peace terms will be agreeable to you.”

“This is nonsense.”

He looked at me steadily and I knew I had not misjudged his intentions.

I wanted to get away, to be alone, to think of all that had been said at the table, to discover the meaning behind it.

He rose with me, and the gorgeously liveried man bowed us out of the restaurant. Soon we were crossing the bridge into Christian Constantinople.

“If you will take me to the caiques that will be enough,” I said.

“Indeed it will not. I shall take you right back to the hospital.”

“It is unnecessary.”

“I shall do it.”

I said nothing, but I was aware of his eyes on me. There was amusement in them, something sardonic. I felt uneasy, unclean in a way. I was very disturbed. I could not believe that I had interpreted his meaning correctly. But he was such an evil man that I was sure I was right.

We came up the slope to the hospital. There I thanked him again for his hospitality as formally as I could.

“The ending to an evening which could have been so different,” he said.

“A conventional evening which must be expected with one as conventional as yourself.”

“There could be only one possible ending,” I said.

“Thank you.”

He held my hand firmly.

“Not the only possible ending, Miss Pleydell.”

“The only possible as far as I am concerned.”

“Never mind,” he said.

“This is a beginning.”

I turned and left him.

I hurried to the bedroom. I regretted that it was not possible to be alone. We were much depleted now and there was considerably more room, but still privacy was impossible.

Eliza was already on her divan. She opened her eyes as I came in.

“Where’s Henrietta? I saw you go off together.”

“Hasn’t she returned yet?”

“No.”

“We were split up. Dr. Adair joined us and we lost Henrietta and Philippe Lablanche.”

She lifted her head and, leaning on her elbow, stared at me.

“So you were alone … with Dr. Adair.”

I nodded.

“I’m so tired, Eliza.”

“H’m,” she grunted, and lay down. She said nothing more and as we lay there I knew she was not sleeping.

I kept thinking of the evening, what he had said about my deserting Aubrey. It was so unfair. Who had given him that impression? And his veiled suggestion . I supposed that was how he was with all women. He regarded us all as slaves. Hadn’t he lived in the East?

Hadn’t he learned their ways? I had seen the women, their bodies covered by long robes, their faces hidden to be seen only by their masters. He had lived as they had. He shared their views of women. We were here on Earth to pander to the wishes of men and especially men like Damien Adair. By chance he and I had been thrown together. But was it chance or had he arranged to lose the others? He had thought I would be easy. Repressed! Sublimating my natural physical desires by nursing. What impudence! And he had hinted at some sort of relationship between us. If I had hated him before, I did so doubly now.

I felt bruised and shaken. He had wounded me deeply by what he had said about my marriage.

Henrietta came in much later.

She bent over me to see if I was asleep. I pretended I was. I knew she would ask questions about the evening and I wanted to have a greater command of my thoughts before I answered her.

I could not escape the barrage of questions next day. Henrietta was avid for information “What happened? You were there one minute and gone the next.”

“I don’t know how it happened. We just found you were gone.”

“Philippe was getting me through the crowd. I thought you were following.”

“We did stop to look back, I remember.”

“That must have been it. Oh, Anna, what happened?”

“Well, Dr. Adair thought you might have gone to a certain place. He said it was a favourite place of Philippe’s … or something like that. So we went there and dined alone.”

“Alone with Dr. Adair! Oh, Anna, how exciting!”

I was silent.

“He is so fascinating. Of course Philippe is very nice, but … What happened?”

I said: “We just dined, talked and came home. I was in well before you were.”

“Yes. You were fast asleep. What on earth did you talk about?”

“Oh … about the hospital.”

“I should have thought you would have been glad to get away from all that.”

“Well, he’s a doctor and it is very important to him.”

“It must have been wonderful for you.”

Silence again.

She said: “If I had been the one I should have been most thrilled. I mean … all those adventures of his … living in a harem and all that. I should have had so much to talk to him about.”

“You always have so much to talk to everyone about.”

She laughed.

“Well, especially him. I think he is the most amazing man .”

I could not bear to hear her rhapsodizing over him, so I said I really must go to the wards.

It was about a week later when we heard we were to go home. Most of the wounded were to be taken back to England, and very few would remain.

As the departure grew nearer, I noticed Henrietta’s abstraction. I again had a feeling that she did not want to go.

Eliza noticed and commented on it to me.

I think she was anxious about me. She was convinced that I must marry Dr. Fenwick because that would be best for me.

“I’ve said many times,” she said, ‘that you are one of them women that want a family. You want children, and that’s how you’ll get ‘em. Oh, I know you don’t see Dr. Fenwick as some dashing chap who’s going to be worth going to hell for. It’s not like that. Life’s not like that, believe me. I know. And when a girl sees a good thing, she ought to take it and not go dithering about too long, in case it’s snatched away. Chances like that don’t grow on trees. “

I never minded her interfering in my affairs. I liked to feel that big Eliza had taken me under her wing.

I did wonder what she would do when she returned to England, and I asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I might get into one of these hospitals they talk about. I reckon I could say I’d had enough experience now.

That or the old game. Who knows? It’s a tossup. “

“But where will you live when you get back?”

“I’ll find a room somewhere. Rooms is always going.”

“Eliza, come back with Henrietta and me. I’ve got room to spare in the house I rent.”

“What! Stay in your house! You must be stark raving mad. You can’t have the likes of me in your house!”

“My dear Eliza, I choose my guests and I have the likes of whom I like.”

She laughed at me.

“No. It’ll be different when you get home, you see.

Friends here won’t be friends there. Here, we’re all the same. We’re all together. But it will be different when we get home. “

“It will be what we make it, Eliza, and I want you to come and stay until you decide what you want to do. We might go into one of the hospitals together.”

“You don’t want to be doing that sort of work. You’re going to marry that nice Dr. Fenwick.”