by Peggy Gaddis
“I have seldom,” he told her grimly, “known two people in love who had so much trouble finding a moment of privacy.”
She slid her hand to him beneath the edge of the table, and her eyes were warm and sweet as she whispered, “Two more months, darling, and then — ”
He nodded above his cooling coffee, and beneath the edge of the table his hand caressed hers, lingering over the ring finger, his thumb brushing it.
“And I haven’t even given you a ring.” He seemed to feel a real shame at that.
“Well, of course not.” Claire laughed softly. “Don’t you remember? You wanted to and I dared you to spend the money! We’re going to need every cent we can rake and scrape together, darling, for the equipment we’ll need. Since you don’t want to be assigned to a town where all the equipment and a house and office and such will be furnished — ”
“If we’re going to set up shop on our own, darling, let’s see to it that we are on our own!” he cut in swiftly, and she knew how much this meant to him. “If there’s one thing a young doctor setting up practice on his own needs, it’s freedom, not to be beholden to some town board to do as he’s told.”
Claire, eager to rouse him from his bitter mood, managed a small smile, a teasing light in her eyes.
“Is that really the most important thing a young doctor needs?”
Momentarily puzzled, Dr. Massey scowled at her.
“Can you think of anything he needs more?” he demanded.
“Well, I’ve heard that a good office nurse is important, too,” she mocked lightly.
Beneath the edge of the table his hand closed so tightly on hers that she barely managed not to wince with the pain; yet not for anything in the world would she have had that pain lessened by the loosening of that grip.
“It’s going to be a long, hard pull, honey,” he told her huskily.
“You aren’t by any chance trying to jilt me, are you?”
“What a stupid thing to say!” There was an edge of anger in his voice as though he considered the question an insult.
“Then stop trying to scare me off,” she answered briskly. “As if I didn’t know how long it takes to get a practice established, or how little money a general practitioner in a small town can hope for. Don’t you suppose I know? Have you forgotten my father and mother started out just the way you and I are going to start?”
He was silent for a moment, and once again his hand held hers in that achingly close grip.
“Funny,” he said very softly, “how a girl can make a man feel like the most humble creature that ever cluttered the face of the earth — and in the same breath make him feel like a king! Thanks, Precious.”
Radiant, bright-eyed, a lovely smile touching, her soft mouth, Claire murmured, “You’re welcome, darling.”
A week later, the local newspapers gave front page space to the elopement of Elaine Crossett, prominent young socialite, with Dr. Richard Massey, credited with having saved her life from a recent overdose of barbiturates.
Chapter Three
Claire, huddled in her nurse’s cape, ran from the nurse’s dormitory in the bitter cold of that winter morning into the main building of the big hospital. As she crossed the big lobby, there was a small group of nurses with their heads bent above the morning newspaper, but she only smiled at them and tossed a gay greeting as she hurried into the elevator.
“Cold outside.” She laughed at Pete, the elderly operator who always had a cheerful greeting for her but who, this morning, merely nodded as he sent the elevator aloft to the Women’s Wing.
She glanced along the corridor as she left the elevator and her heart sank a little. There was no sign of Rick, and she went on to her patient.
Amanda looked at her keenly as she and the night-duty nurse conferred for a moment over the chart, and then the night-duty nurse, with only a brusque word, hurried out of the room closing the door behind her.
Claire said gaily, “You’re looking fine this morning, Miss Dawson. You must have had a comfortable night, and I’m so glad.”
“You look pretty fresh and beamish yourself, my girl,” said Amanda grumpily, and eyed her curiously. “I take it you haven’t seen the morning paper?”
“I’m afraid not,” Claire said. “I overslept — ”
Amanda took up the paper, held it for a moment and then said reluctantly, “I wish there was an easier way for you to learn this, Claire. But I suppose there isn’t. Here.”
Puzzled, Claire took the paper folded to show a story on the front page and read it, the color seeping from her face, her eyes going wide as her heart died agonizingly within her.
Amanda watched her, pity and anger striving for ascendancy in her eyes as she saw Claire sway a little and then slide into a chair and raise her face to meet Amanda’s face.
“Oh, but — why — this can’t be true. There’s some sort of hideous mistake — ” she whispered piteously.
“I’m afraid not, Claire.”
Claire’s shaking hands crumpled the newspaper, and she caught her lip between her teeth and bit down until a tiny drop of blood showed there.
“Oh — but Rick — he couldn’t — ” she stammered faintly, even while she was thrusting back the ugly conviction that he could, that he had. Elaine, with her fragile blonde beauty, most of all, Elaine with her great wealth — and Rick had so hated being poor —
For a little while she sat in silence, fighting the deadly wave of nausea that threatened her, fighting off the threat of fainting because nurses were trained to cope with emergencies, even such emergencies as this! Only there couldn’t be another like this! When everything a girl has dreamed of died a lingering death in her heart, when the man on whom she had centered all her hopes and dreams, the man to whom she had given all her heart, threw the gift back in her face and went off with some other woman.
Amanda waited, sick with pity for the girl. And at last Claire drew a deep, hard breath and squared her shoulders.
“That’s the girl,” said Amanda hearteningly. “It hurts, I know. It happened to me. Not quite so brutally, but just as devastatingly. So you have to make up your mind that you were in love with the man you thought he was, not the man he turned out to be.”
“I don’t know how to do that — ” It was a small frantic wail.
“It takes time,” Amanda told her heavily, “a lot of time. And every step of the way hurts.”
Claire sat very still, and Amanda studied her.
“You didn’t have any warning that it was going to happen?”
Claire made a little restrained gesture of dismissal.
“But how could I? She wasn’t my patient — I only saw her once — ”
“He didn’t say anything?”
Claire shook her head. She felt as though she were smothering in a thick, foul darkness that she could not escape. Amanda went on watching her, and her eyes showed her sympathy with Claire’s pain and bewilderment.
And then Amanda swore: a loud, round oath.
“Oh, but you mustn’t say that,” Claire replied miserably. “I — well, he isn’t altogether to blame. He so hated being poor; and she is very rich and very beautiful — ”
“And if you want to wait around for him,” Amanda said brutally, “he’ll probably come sneaking back to you with his tail between his legs as soon as she gets tired of him, and you can have him back if you want him.”
Claire shrank from the brutality of the words and put her hands over her face.
“Elaine never stays married to a man more than six months,” Amanda went on, trying to cauterize the bitter wound dealt to Claire. “If he’s smart — and it looks as though he has an eye to the main chance for himself — he’ll insist she make a substantial settlement on him before he agrees to a divorce — ”
“Oh, don’t!” Claire could not endure the ugliness of the picture.
“You may as well face it, my dear, because that’s what will happen.” Amanda pursued her relentlessly. “So if you have the pat
ience — and the lack of pride — to wait for him and take him back — ”
“I don’t! At least — I don’t think I do — ”
“Good girl!” said Amanda approvingly. “Then what are you going to do?”
Claire looked at her with wide, dazed eyes.
“Do?” she repeated helplessly.
“Of course you have the entire sympathy of everybody in the hospital — ”
“I don’t want to be pitied!”
“Of course you don’t,” Amanda answered. “But you will be. Everybody will hate him and feel sorry for you, so the thing for you to do is go away from the hospital — ”
Claire stared at her, and Amanda nodded.
“It takes time to heal a wound like this,” she went on quietly. “It helps if there is a change of scene. New people, new places — away from people who know about what’s happened. Do you have any ideas in mind?”
“I’m too stunned even to think — ”
Amanda nodded. “Of course you are. But I have something in mind that might interest you. Ever thought of taking a cruise around the world?”
Claire managed a threadbare, completely unconvincing laugh.
“On what?” she asked wryly.
“On a freighter,” answered Amanda briskly. “They carry cargo, but also a small passenger list.”
“Sounds delightful.” Claire’s training was giving her some small measure of control, though the bitter ache in her heart would not be eased. “But I’m a nurse, remember? Not a millionaire.”
Amanda’s mouth twisted with a sly grin, though above it her eyes were anxious and troubled.
“Well, contrary to what people like to believe about me, neither am I,” she said quietly. “However, I can manage the cruise for you, and it would give me a vast deal of pleasure after your kindness to me — ”
“Thanks, but I couldn’t possibly accept — ”
“Will you be quiet and listen to me?” Amanda snapped. “I’ve planned a cruise like this for a long time. I made reservations, paid for transportation and have been waiting for a notice that a ship had been found with a single vacancy. That notification came yesterday — with me piled up like this — and by the time this wretched leg is well, I’ll have passed my sixty-fifth birthday and no longer be eligible. The freighter cruises are open only to people between twelve and sixty-five: and only twelve passengers are carried, because if they take more, they have to carry an RN also. Since I can’t use this reservation, and since it’s already been paid for, I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go in my place, do you?”
Claire put her shaking hands to her face and sat still for a long moment while Amanda went on telling her about the cruise. At last Amanda broke off to ask, “Didn’t you tell me your mother and father were living in Hawaii?”
“Why, yes. Imagine you remembering that — ”
“You’d be surprised what a memory I’ve got, my girl, as some of my competitors on the local stock market will agree,” said Amanda dryly. “You can leave the ship anywhere you like. Why not in Honolulu for a visit to your parents? That ought to take your mind off this — this unmentionable doctor — ”
Claire was staring at her wide-eyed.
“Well?” Amanda’s voice cut into Claire’s thoughts. “Wouldn’t you like to see them again? You told me you hadn’t seen them in four years, not since they went out there. And I’m told it’s beautiful country.”
“I don’t know what to say — ” Claire stammered, and some of the anguish in her heart faded slightly at the thought of seeing her mother and father again.
“Well, say yes, for goodness sake, so I can call my travel agent and arrange for you to take my place. Then you’ll have a lot of packing to do; a physical examination, because the ship’s owners want to be sure nobody goes aboard in anything but perfect health. The hospital can take care of that — ”
Claire listened in a daze of confusion while Amanda made the necessary telephone calls and then insisted Claire dismiss herself from the case, send in another nurse, and get busy with her packing.
The superintendent of nursing was very kind when Claire came in and offered her resignation and asked that it become effective at once. She, too, of course had known of Claire’s love for Dr. Massey, and the pity in her eyes made Claire realize that she could not stay here and face that in the eyes of all her friends and associates.
“I hate to lose you, Claire,” said Mrs. Webb gently. “You are a fine nurse, and if ever you want to come back, we’ll be glad to have you.”
Claire murmured her thanks hastily and was glad to escape.
Chapter Four
The next twenty-four hours were so crowded that when Claire went aboard the big freighter at Jacksonville, she had the dazed feeling that she was living in a dream from which she must surely awake soon and find that she and Rick were still members of the staff of Chatworth Memorial. The hours had been little more than a blur, and when she climbed the gangplank of the ship and followed the short, chunky steward down the companionway to a tiny cabin, she felt that all she wanted to do was crawl into the narrow but comfortable-looking bed and sleep for days.
Other passengers, who had sailed with the freighter from its home port of Boston, had gone ashore for the few hours of loading and unloading cargo, and as Claire leaned against the deck railing, looking down at the wharf, they began to straggle back, smiling tentatively at her as they passed on their way to their own quarters.
A man came striding down the deck with an air of authority that told Claire, new to ocean-going as she was, that he was probably the captain. She turned, managing a faint smile, as he paused beside her.
“Well, hello,” he greeted her, his very good-looking face, bronzed by sea and sun, making his teeth look even whiter as he smiled at her. “You must be the new passenger. I knew we were picking one up here, but I didn’t dare hope she’d be young and beautiful.”
The man’s good looks were spectacular, his charm so obvious that Claire felt herself freeze up. After the stunning good looks and charm of Rick Massey she felt she never wanted to see another handsome man as long as she lived.
“I’m Claire Frazier,” she told him coldly. “Miss Dawson had booked passage, but she is ill and sent me along in her place.”
“I’m Curt Wayne, second officer.” The man smiled at her. “I haven’t met Miss Dawson, but I feel sure the Highland Queen is in luck, with you to replace her.”
Claire’s head went up and her eyes were cold.
“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Wayne,” she said.
For a moment, obviously puzzled by her hostility, he studied her and then, frowning, turned to the gangplank as two women hurried up it, the one in front scolding the one who followed.
“Oh, there you are, Curt dear,” said the woman who led the way, and gave him an enchanting smile. “Nora dawdled, so I was afraid you’d sail without us. I think the wretched girl would have been pleased if you had.”
Curt laughed and offered his hand to help the woman down to the deck.
“Oh, we’d never have sailed without you, Mrs. Barclay, or your charming daughter,” he said. And Claire wondered if it was only in her ears that the mockery sounded, as he held his hand out to the younger woman, who carefully avoided it and jumped down to the deck unaided.
“Aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Barclay cooed, and glanced at Claire with blue eyes that chilled. “Oh, do we have a new passenger?”
“Mrs. Barclay, may I present Miss Frazier, who has just come aboard? And Miss Barclay, Miss Frazier.” Curt’s manner was as gracious and pleasant as though they stood in some formal drawing room.
“How do you do, Mrs. Barclay?” said Claire formally.
Mrs. Barclay made a gay little gesture of disclaimer.
“Oh, dear, not ‘Mrs. Barclay’ — shipboard is so informal,” she protested. “Since we are all going to be together so long, why shouldn’t we just begin by using first names? Mine’s Vera, and my spoiled, naughty girl is N
ora.”
Clara managed a smile and said, “And I’m Claire.”
If Curt Wayne had been an unpleasant reminder of Rick Massey’s spectacular good looks, then Vera Barclay was a most unpleasant reminder of Elaine Crossett. She had the same carefully tended beauty, though Vera’s hair was ruddy-gold and she was obviously older than Elaine; the same gaily coquettish air. A born man-hunter, Claire told herself grimly while they all chatted politely for a few minutes, and heaven help the man who didn’t want to be hunted!
Nora was about eighteen, Claire decided as the girl stood sullenly aside, taking no part in the bright chit-chat between Curt and Vera. Her eyes were more gray than blue and her hair was plain carrot-red; she was plump and awkward-looking and her thin cotton dress clung in all the wrong places. Vera was smartly dressed, beautifully and deftly made-up, not quite as tall as Nora and with curves in all the right places.
Nora said suddenly, her tone sullen, “I’m going downstairs, Mother.”
Without waiting for a word from Vera, she turned and strode down the deck, and Vera looked after her, sighing and shaking her head.
“My poor, poor baby,” she mourned, and fluttered her eyelashes at Curt appealingly. “She didn’t want to come on this trip, but I simply had to get her away from that awful boy! A mere nobody — an oaf! But I’m afraid the baby hates her poor Mommie for insisting on this trip!”
Claire studied her curiously, wondering if any man could be simple enough to admire her. Looking up at Curt, she saw that he definitely did, and excused herself for a turn about the deck. As she walked away she heard Vera’s light, musical laugh and set her teeth hard, walking faster to escape the sound.
As she turned along the deck, past the bridge, she collided violently with a small, slight man whose thin white hair was ruffled by the breeze and who was buttoned snugly inside a coat that seemed much too large for him and too heavy for the mildness of the day, even on the water.
She reached out swiftly, caught the slight figure and steadied it as she smiled with warm apology.
“I’m terribly sorry. That was very clumsy of me!”