The Passing Bells (41 page)

“What would you like to talk about?”

“You . . . good food . . . barges and barge horses. In roughly that order.”

“Food then,” she said a little too brightly. “All I've eaten for weeks is lentil soup and something gray and stringy boiled with turnips. Matron said there are some fine restaurants in Chartres.”

“So they say. Did you tell Matron that I was taking you to supper?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why ‘of course not'? Would she have disapproved?”

“I . . . I don't know,” she said, flustered. “I just didn't think it was anyone's business.”

That was a lie. Had Major Mackendric been one of those merry-eyed dashing young Royal Flying Corps officers who came to visit his brother, she would probably have told quite a few people that she was being taken out to supper. Her socializing with such a man would have been understandable—and enviable. Major Mackendric was not so easily explained.

There were several elegant restaurants in the town, all of them with staff cars and limousines parked in front. He took her to an inn that had a garden in back which sloped down to the river. There were tables in the garden under the trees, Japanese lanterns suspended from the lower branches, their soft lights glowing yellow on the placid waters of the Eure. He ordered roast duckling, a bottle of Montrachet, and fresh fruit. He ate little, toying with his food as he watched her eat. He drank some wine, then picked absently at a dish of strawberries.

“You don't eat very much, do you, Major Mackendric?”

“Sometimes. Right now I prefer looking at you to staring down at roast duck. It's a matter of momentary preference. You're a remarkably beautiful young woman, Miss Greville. So vibrantly alive. Are you always so buoyant?”

“I'm usually accused of being too talkative . . . too . . . ‘bubbly.' I'm not sure if those are desirable qualities in a woman.”

“It reveals an enthusiasm for life that I find captivating.”

He had an
interesting
face, she decided—certainly far from handsome, or at least far from her concept of what constituted male beauty. It was the face of a man who had seen much and had suffered a good deal.

“Have you always been an army surgeon, Major Mackendric?”

“No. I had a practice in Liverpool and was a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Still am, I suppose.”

“Do you come from a medical family?”

“My uncle's a professor of anatomy at Edinburgh. That's as far as it goes. My father was a shipbuilder. Dennis shows no inclination to medicine, or anything that takes studying, if it comes to that.”

“I'm sure he's a fine aviator, though.”

“I hardly think a fine aviator would fly into a tree. Dennis's problem is that he has no patience with minor details—like petrol gauges.”

They walked back toward the hospital along the river, where the barges were still moving, their cabin lights twinkling in the darkness.

“Thank you so much, Major Mackendric,” she said when they reached the lane that led up to the château. “I enjoyed the meal thoroughly.”

“And I enjoyed your company . . . thoroughly.”

“Perhaps we can do it again, sometime.”

He stepped closer to her and placed a hand on her upper arm, his fingers firm and sure.

“Miss Greville . . . Alexandra . . . I believe in being candid with people. I know no other way of behaving. I've become rather obsessed by you . . . from the moment I saw you rolling bandages in that sepulchral entrance hall. I lost an entire night's sleep just thinking about you . . . conjuring up your face.”

“Major Mackendric . . .” she said haltingly. “I'm sure I—”

God knows she had been kissed before, any number of times, the last occasion a hearty peck on the cheek by Carveth Saunders, Bart., on the platform of Victoria Station the morning she left London for France. Altogether too brotherly a kiss, she had thought at the time, when one considered the fact that she had practically promised to be engaged to the man. There was nothing brotherly about the way she was being kissed now. Major Robin Mackendric's lips were firm against her own, and the hand that had been on her arm was now centered in the small of her back and pressing her body against his. She was acutely aware of her breasts against his chest, but made no move to pull away. A warmth she had never felt before swept through her veins and her legs felt waxen. Her lips, which had been rigid and unresponsive, parted slightly and remained parted for some seconds after his lips had withdrawn from them.

“I'm leaving for Paris in the morning. Will you come with me?”

“Impossible,” she said weakly. “You must be mad, Major Mackendric.”

He bent his head slightly and kissed her throat. “Mad as a March hare . . . as a hatter. All right, not tomorrow morning, then. Wait a day. Come up on the Friday train . . . the one that leaves at noon. I'll meet you at the Gare Montparnasse. You can take the evening train back on Sunday.”

She tried to laugh, but only an odd husky sound emerged.

“Really . . . quite impossible, Major . . . really . . .”

“Dr. Jary encourages leaves now and then. He told me. All work and no play. I agreed with him wholeheartedly.” He took hold of her arm again—a brief taut-fingered squeeze. “I ask only that you think about it. Will you do that much?”

“His eyes burned with lust.” She had read that line in a novel, and it ran crazily through her head as she stared at Major Mackendric. But she saw no lustful burning in his eyes—only the pain she had noticed before.

“I . . . I'll think about it.”

He let go of her arm reluctantly. “Thank you, Alexandra. The noon train Friday. I shall be at the Gare Montparnasse when it arrives. I hope very much that you'll be on it.”

The train was an express, covering the eighty kilometers to Paris in less than three hours, but it seemed like an endless journey to Alexandra. She felt feverish and light-headed. The train made an unscheduled stop at Rambouillet for a few minutes and she thought of rushing from the compartment, but was so hemmed in by
poilus
returning from leave, jamming the corridor, standing and sitting everywhere, loaded down with packs, rifles, and greatcoats, that getting past them in a hurry would have been impossible. So she remained, feeling sicker, her heart pounding and her throat constricted.
Clickety-click . . . clickety-click.
The wheels rattled over the rails, drawing the train closer to Paris, closer to Major Robin Mackendric, who loomed in her thoughts in a mosaic of conflicting emotions.

She had tried as discreetly as possible to find out all she could about him, asking his brother oblique questions and receiving answers that had only left her in a deeper quandary and confusion.

“Robbie and I were never very close . . . too much difference in our ages for that. He was at university when I was in prep school . . . more like an uncle than a brother. . . . But after he got married—”

“Married?”

“Oh, yes,” Dennis Mackendric had said, not noticing the note of dismay in her voice. “The poor sod . . . a bluidy laird's daughter. Doesn't take kindly to Robbie's view on medicine . . . didn't like him workin' down in Liverpool in a charity hospital, not a bit she didn't. I was in Liverpool, too, then . . . got expelled from St. Andrew's and was thinking of running off to sea. Old Robbie took me under his wing and tried to knock some sense in my skull . . . wanted me to go back to school . . . try for university. Got sick to death of his naggin' at me, so I crammed for Glasgow and managed to get in. They had an aero club there which I joined, so it wasn't a total waste. No . . . I'll never have Robbie's brains, but I've got more raw sense. I'll never marry some blue-nosed, thin-lipped Aberdeen woman, and I'll never let this bluidy war get the best of me.”

“Meaning?”

“Why, the man's half round the bend. Coiled up like a steel spring about to snap. I was at Ypres in May . . . with number sixteen squadron. . . . Dropped by to see Robbie one day and he looked like death warmed up. Told him to chuck it in and go back for a month. But no, wouldn't think of it. Figured it might be the thought of spendin' time with Catherine. . . .”

“Is that her name? His wife's name?”

“Yes. Catherine the bluidy great. But, no, it wasn't that, it was the idea of leavin' the wards. I said, Man, you're not the only sawbones in Flanders, you know, but he said . . . Oh, what's the bluidy use! Robbie is Robbie. It took breaking my legs for him to act human . . . an' then he only stays for a day and a night. Any normal person would try to grab as much time as possible. Only common sense. He won't do anybody any bluidy good if he goes stark raving bonkers!”

Clickety-click . . . clickety-click.
The wheels sang to the rails . . . the whistle blew sharply . . . the outskirts of Paris whipped past the window, the scattered fields and dingy houses of Vanves and Malakoff. And then the great sprawling city itself. She had been to Paris many times as a girl—to visit the Louvre, the Luxembourg, the shops on the rue St. Honoré with Mama. Now she was coming to Paris alone to confront a man—a
married
man thirteen years older than she! Her heart sank and a fine dew of icy sweat formed on her upper lip.

She felt like a sleepwalker as the crowd of passengers propelled her along the platform. And then she saw him. He stood with his back to a kiosk, anxiously watching the flow of people, and she knew, watching him, that she had been right in coming. What would he have done if she had not been on the train? If he had stood there until the last passenger had walked down the platform, leaving nothing in view but open carriage doors and bits of scuffed newspaper drifting in the wind?

“Good afternoon, Major Mackendric.”

He had not seen her approach. He looked at her, startled, and then let out a sigh and pushed his cap to the back of his head.

“And a very good afternoon to you. I was starting to give you up.”

“I was a bit wedged in. The train was terribly crowded.”

“Yes, I could see that.”

She was wearing a pale blue uniform with a short, darker blue cape trimmed in red. One of the gowns made for her by Ferris. It made her look like a stage actress playing the role of a nurse.

“How nice you look,” he said. “May I carry your suitcase?”

She handed him her small leather overnight bag. “Are you somewhat surprised that I came?”

“A bit . . . yes. But delighted.”

“I debated about it, but then I had a long talk with your brother.”

“Ah. And what did Dennis tell you about me?”

“That you're married . . . among other things.”

His eyes had a vacant look. “Yes. Been married for several years.”

“Dennis is quite concerned about you. He has the feeling that you're . . . well, reaching the end of your rope, so to speak. That was the impression I had when we first met. You made me think of a man clinging to a cliff by his fingertips.”

“What picturesque imagery.”

“I think you're just horribly lonely and need companionship . . . someone to talk to, to share a good meal with.”

“A chum, in other words.”

“Yes . . . something like that.”

“That's very kind of you.”

“It's really no trouble at all. We can be together until Sunday evening . . . visit the Louvre . . . go out to Versailles. I can stay at the YWCA.”

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully, “I suppose you could, at that.”

She had been rehearsing what she would say all the way up from Chartres, going over and over her lines and trying to anticipate his response. She had expected a more volatile reaction—disappointment at least, possibly even anger. His bland acceptance threw her a little off balance. She felt vaguely nauseated.

“Is it terribly hot? Or do I have a fever?”

He placed a hand on her brow, then sought her wrist, his fingers pressing softly against the pulse.

“A bit rapid, but you're not feverish. It's very humid today . . . chance of rain.”

“Perhaps if I walk for a bit . . . get some fresh air.”

“Just the ticket. Hold on to my arm if you feel the least bit faint. You need a cold glass of Chablis with a splash of soda in it. I know just the place.”

She went with him meekly, holding his arm lightly. He seemed taller than she remembered. Slightly stoop-shouldered. Surgeon's stoop, Matron called it. All doctors seemed to have it. It came from bending over things for years—books, cadavers, patients in operating theaters. His uniform hung loosely on his thin frame, and his Sam Browne belt was unpolished, his cap visor slightly cracked. An officer in name only, but two English sergeants striding briskly along the boulevard Pasteur snapped him stiff-handed salutes, their eyes fixed not on the crown emblems of his rank but on the RAMC badges of his worth.

There was a sidewalk café on the rue de Vaugirard, with green-painted iron tables and chairs under brightly striped umbrellas. The place was crowded, but three young men wearing soiled white jackets over their shirts stood up with their glasses of beer and empty saucers.

“Kindly take our table, Docteur,” one of them said in halting English.

“Merci.”
He watched them stroll off into the crowd, table hopping. “Students. There's a first-rate training hospital around the corner on the rue de Sèvres. I attended a seminar there. Your Dr. Jary conducted it.”

“How interesting.”

“He was a professor of orthopedics. That would have been in the spring of nineteen ten.”

That comment made her painfully aware of the difference in their ages. She had been a plump schoolgirl in the spring of 1910, struggling with Latin verbs. He had been a doctor attending a seminar.

“Did you visit this café then?” she asked.