Ship's Surgeon (3 page)

“Yes, Doctor. I’ll tell Mrs. Lai.”

His dark blue stare raked her brocade dress before resting impersonally on the vulnerable hollow of her throat. “You ready for dinner?”

Why did he look like that? “More or less,” she answered.

“I have a table to myself—Number Three. I want a talk with you tonight, so you’d better dine there with me. Seven-thirty.”

“Very well, Doctor.”

Deva, watching them with her big dark eyes, gave her merry giggle. “This is one who barks, Pattie. Like Dr. Brownfield at the nursing home, but worse, much worse.”

Pat smiled faintly. “I don’t think Dr. Norton will bark at you, Deva. He’s pleased with you.”

“But not with you? Because you are not wearing uniform?”

“Perhaps. Are you sleepy?”

“Only a little.” The girl looked straight up at the doctor. “You should be good to Pattie. She is much more brave than I.”

“Hush, Deva...”

“So Miss Fenley’s brave, is she?” said Bill Norton. “To me, she looks wilted.”

“No, she is sad, and it is my fault.”

Pat threw out a hand and said brightly, “Deva has too kind a heart, Dr. Norton. She thinks I’m depressed at leaving England. She’s talked enough for one day.”

“Talking won’t hurt her.” He leaned back on his heels, regarding Pat, before shifting the glance towards the dark girl in the bed. “What makes you think Miss Fenley is so much braver than you are?”

Pat said hurriedly, “Deva likes to know all about the people who look after her. She’s questioned md about my background and decided my life is not all it should be.”

“It’s the little brothers, you see,” said Deva earnestly. “Pattie is unhappy at leaving them.”

“Oh, little brothers,” Dr. Norton snapped his fingers, as if he had no patience with a woman who was depressed for such a reason. “Don’t question me about
my
background, child, or I may tell you the shattering truth. Have your supper and sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He left abruptly. Deva turned a large surprised stare upon Pat. “He is a strange man. His hands are gentle and he is kind. But his voice was different when you came in. Much harder.”

“Doctors are always professional towards the staff.” In front of patients, Pat might have added. “Would you like me to stay until you’ve had supper?”

“Please. And, Pattie, please don’t wear the uniform except when we are having exercises. I’ve never seen you look sweet like this. I like it very much.”

Soon after seven Deva was settled for the night. Pat took a brisk walk round the deck, collected a stole from her cabin and went into the dining-room. Tables shone whitely under a modern artistic ceiling, soft music was being played by a five-piece orchestra which was half hidden by potted palms, and most of the tables were already occupied. Number Three was to the left, close to a pink wall which was scrolled in gilt, and the doctor was already there, smoking and talking to an officer who was seated at the next table. Bill Norton rose and saw her seated, sat down again and gave her another of those cool, clinical looks; this time Pat kept her own gaze quite steady.

“You’ll certainly know me next time,” she murmured.

“Have you had a shock?” he asked bluntly.

Hesitating for only a second, she answered, “Yes, but I’m over it now, and getting hungry.” Purposefully, she lifted the attractively painted menu which lay in front of her. “What would you recommend, Doctor?”

“For one of your figure, the whole works and a bottle of wine. Know anything about wines?”

“I prefer something light and sparkling.”

“You need it, too.” He ordered from the steward who hovered, jabbed out his cigarette and had the ashtray emptied. The thick brown brows came forward as he looked down at her hands. “You must be stronger in the limbs than you look. How old are you?”

“Just twenty-three.”

“That’s what I guessed. Where did you train?”

“At Pethington. We lived close by at that time.”

“And when you were through?”

“I finished my training at St. Cedric’s, and then went on staff. Mr. Breiner, the open-heart surgeon, asked me to specialize, so I joined his department. I loved it, because our patients were mostly children. Deva Wadia is the oldest open-heart patient I’ve treated, though I’ve had a few elderly cardiacs. Deva’s a charming girl, isn’t she?”

“Quite grown-up in her thoughts, I imagine, but she has the very young look of the heart case. She’ll probably mature quickly within the next couple of years.”

He was silent while Pat helped herself from the trolley of hors d’oeuvres, and he took a selection for himself. “I suppose you’re hoping to get her walking normally before we arrive at Ceylon? Are you staying there?”

“I’m not sure. Deva’s father cabled that he was engaging a physiotherapist from India, but Mr. Breiner thought he’d have difficulty. I’m booked right through to Melbourne, but I may have to break my journey and go on later.”

“Got friends in Melbourne?”

“An uncle,” she said with reserve.

“Cagey, aren’t you?” he commented, but seemed not to care very much. “That girl said you were sad at leaving someone. Can’t remember whether it was a brother or a lover.”

A warmth crept into Pat’s pale cheeks. “I think you do remember, Doctor.” She forked up a sardine and ate it, changed the topic. “Do you enjoy being a ship’s surgeon?”

“It’s refreshing, in a way. Between the crew, the tourist deck and the various layers here in the first-class you get a good cross-section and plenty of interest. It’s restricting, though—can’t do any fancy surgery in a tilting theatre. This is my third and last trip, and it’s been just enough.”

“You sign off in Australia?”

“That’s right. I’ll do a bit of sightseeing for a month and then make my way to Suva, in the Fijis. I’m going to put in a spell as a plantation doctor.”

“Tropical medicine? Is that your speciality?”

“Bugs,” he nodded. “In three years I’ll either be back in England or settled down into one of those canny, drink-sodden pill-dispensers you sometimes read about. You know the sort of thing—decaying hut, grease candles and a sweat-rag tucked in my cummerbund.”

She sat back and looked at him; the line of scarlet among the gold braid at his cuff, the smart squareness of his shoulders in navy blue, his proud, almost leonine head, his angular rugged face, the look of strength and tolerance about his well-defined mouth—and suddenly she laughed.

“That’s better,” he said. “Laughter suits the shape of your face. Eat up, and tell me about your family.”

Carelessly, she mentioned that she had two brothers but no parents. Yes, both brothers were younger than herself, she said in response to a question, but they weren’t a burden because their boarding school ran a summer camp for the holidays.

“Last year I took my two weeks in August and went down there to help. It was great fun.”

“A physiotherapist,” he stated firmly, “should spend her holiday in complete idleness.”

He ceased speaking rather abruptly, and Pat looked up to find him staring past her, over her head, at someone who had just entered the dining-room. Involuntarily, she half turned. It was Kristin, in close-fitting black with a gold fleck, the huge Vernon Carey just behind her. Pat felt her appetite ebbing, and placed her knife and fork beside the half eaten
filet mignon.

“That big buffalo,” said the doctor conversationally, “is Corey, the cattle millionaire. Forty-three and still a bachelor, but not for long. It was inevitable that he’d be hooked by a widow. Lovely dish, though, isn’t she?”

But he didn’t look for long at Kristin Fenley. His eyes focused more keenly upon the woman who was following the other two towards the Captain’s table. All Pat saw of her was a swathe of ash-blonde hair and slim shoulders in pale green as she took her place at a table for four. When Pat looked back at the doctor he was smiling slightly but unconcernedly eating.

Involuntarily she asked, “Do you know the blonde?”

“No, but she’s limping slightly, so I shall probably be making her acquaintance. Steak not so good?”

“It’s fine, but I’ve really had enough. No more wine, thanks. Will you excuse me?”

“Queasy?”

“No,” quickly. “No, it’s not that. I was going to leave you to finish your dinner in peace.”

His expression was calculating, his tone sarcastic. “You don’t threaten my peace, Miss Fenley.”

“I imagine no woman would ever do that.”

“One did—just once. I had to toss up whether to practise in Mayfair or concentrate on the pestilential jungle of West Africa. I took the wiser course, thank heaven.”

“The other might have been more personally satisfying, if less exciting.”

“I doubt it. Ever been in love, Miss Fenley?”

“Yes.”

He lifted thick brown eyebrows. “More than once?”

“No.”

“Still smarting? Or is he waiting for you?”

Pat felt too raw about many things to begin a discussion that would add Alan to her imaginings. She took a cigarette from the case he offered and lifted a smiling mask.

“When you get out to that plantation you’re going to miss probing into other people’s affairs.”

“Maybe,” he said indifferently as he stabbed his lighter into life and held it to her cigarette before fighting his own. “Let’s go and have coffee.”

“No coffee for me, thanks. I’ll go to bed early.”

“Get a coat and take a walk. Make a habit of it every night.” He went from the dining-room behind her, waved a perfunctory hand as she murmured something and left him, to descend to B Deck. Pat took his advice and slipped into her black coat. As she emerged into the half lit promenade deck she wondered why her chest felt a little tight. Was it because the man had made her recall Alan? She didn’t think so. Thinking about Alan wasn’t really painful; it only reminded her that she had to do something about the boys before ... well, before he’d propose. You couldn’t blame Alan; he had no income yet and the twins weren’t
his
brothers.

Pat walked quickly past the windows of the lounge, out on to the gaily illumined sun-deck, down towards amidships. A steward stepped from a companion way.

“Miss Fenley?”

“Yes.”

“A letter for you. It was left at the purser’s office by one of the passengers.”

Her name was written on a ship’s envelope in neat italicized writing—nothing like Kristin’s. She ran a thumb under the flap, slipped fingers inside the envelope and found it ... empty. How very odd. A passenger, the steward had said. She would have to ask the purser to identify whoever it was. Pat pushed the envelope into her pocket and raised her collar against the cold breeze. She stood at the rail, watching the black sea and the white angle of foam left by the speeding ship. The Channel; they were really on their way. Ceylon first, and little Deva delivered to her parents. Then Melbourne, and Uncle Dan. He wanted the boys, and Alan thought it right that Uncle Dan should have them. Thinking about it, Pat felt cold and small; twelve thousand miles between herself and the twins. If only there were someone she could consult, someone who could advise and...

The doctor came beside her. “I told you to walk,” he said tersely. “You’re too important to go down with a cold on the chest!”

“I’ve had my walk. Please leave me alone.”

Words and tone apparently shook the doctor. He took a firm hold on her chin and lifted her face, looked down at the pale oval. “Trouble?” he shot out. “I thought so. Tell me about it.”

For just a moment she was tempted. Then it came to her that Dr. Bill Norton was no more able to help her than anyone else. All she wanted was freedom from money worries, so that she could ignore Uncle Dan and keep the boys at the school where they were happy and doing well. It was no use confiding in a stranger, particularly this one, who was interested in the people he met simply because the relationship was likely to be brief.

She averted her head from his touch. “I’m just too tired for words. It’s been a long and rather gruelling day.”

Instead of his gripping her arm and marching her inside, as she had half expected, he leaned beside her on the rail, without speaking. Pat was acutely aware of him, his protective strength, his self-sufficiency, his loneness. For a pulsating minute she thought, “This man could be everything a girl might need; lover, brother, protector.” No more groping desperation...

Lord, how low she’d sunk, and all because Kristin was here on the ship, threatening her. Come to that, threats could backfire. Pat might threaten to tell the Corey man about the boys ... and get some money for them out of their mother. It was a cheering thought, and came so suddenly that she had to quell a tiny sob of relief. Tomorrow she might think of an even easier way out of the muddle.

She stole a glance at the man at her side. He was looking aft, and Pat did the same. She saw a couple standing away there in the dimness, saw them cling and kiss, endlessly. She must have been holding her breath, for she had to inhale quickly and audibly. The doctor turned his head. She saw that his mouth was cynical as he said,

“Honeymooners. They’ll probably leave us at Gib. Do you envy them?”