For Ever and Ever

by Mary Burchell

  Arrived at the ship almost an hour before Claire and her father Leonie walked up the steeply sloping gangway, trying to look as used to all this as the mink-clad lady in front, while all the time she could hardly contain her joy and her excitement at the beauty of the scene before her.

  In all the world there are few more wonderful, more heart-warming sights than that of a great white-painted liner—fresh, gleaming, graceful and trim, in spite of its immensity—ready to set sail for the ends of the earth.

  In some curious way there clings to it something of the beauty and the glory and the mystery of the strange places it has visited. Proud, secure, the embodiment of every would-be traveller’s dreams, it is the symbol of the adventure for which all of us long, from the moment we dream our childish dreams until our hearts are still.

  To Leonie, who had never even stepped aboard a great ship before, every detail was fascinating. The white, scrubbed decks, the towering funnels, the gleaming brass. She almost tripped over the high door-sill as she gazed around, trying not to miss a thing.

  A friendly stewardess showed her to the enchantingly luxurious suite which she was to share with Claire, and not Ali Baba in his magic cave, not Monte Cristo on his island, ever inspected the surroundings with more fascinated delight than Leonie on this occasion.

  Identical staterooms were joined by a charming sitting-room, and everywhere the scheme was maple inlaid with tulip-wood, with curtains and covers of green-and-white glazed chintz. The beds, the built-in wardrobes, the luxurious armchairs in the sitting-room, the glass-fronted cupboards for books and personal belongings, were all suggestive of a luxury suite in a country house, rather than something on a ship which was to sail the seven seas.

  “I can’t believe it!” Leonie said to the stewardess. “I never imagined that anything so—so permanent and luxurious could float on the water.”

  “There’s a good deal more floating on the water besides your suite,” the stewardess told her, with good-humored amusement. “This is one of the biggest ships of the line. We’re carrying close on two thousand people on this run.”

  “Two thousand!”

  “Counting the crew. There are about six hundred of them, about the same number of first-class passengers, and close on eight hundred in the tourist class. You ought to walk around a bit and see the public rooms and make yourself at home.”

  And so that was how Leonie came to be walking round the ship-pacing the beautiful promenade deck, glancing into the palatial dining-room and the glittering ballroom, where she noted there was also a screen for cinema shows, peeping into the semi-circular bar, with its beautiful curved sweep of windows around two sides.

  It was as she turned away from this last sight that she cannoned unexpectedly into someone who was coming rapidly from the other direction.

  “I say—I am sorry!” The dark-haired young man in uniform caught her by the arm to keep her from stumbling. “Did I hurt you?”

  “Oh, no.” Leonie shook her head and smiled. “It was my own fault, in any case.”

  “I don’t know about that. But certainly we don’t want to start making our own casualties, before we’ve even put to sea.” Intelligent dark eyes looked down at her in amused friendliness. “I’m Kingsley Stour, the Assistant Surgeon.”

  No one who has once been a nurse ever quite loses respect for the name of surgeon, and, instinctively straightening up, Leonie said, “Mr. Stour, I’m even more sorry for my clumsiness. I used to be a nurse, and I feel I should be calling you ‘sir’ and grovelling.”

  “I’m not that sort of surgeon.” He grinned, taking her point immediately. “You’re thinking of the Senior Surgeon. I’m just the Assistant, signed on for the voyage only. Pembridge is the big white chief in this outfit.”

  “Pembridge?” Leonie repeated the name reflectively, and, unexpectedly, from the days of her early training, a faint breath of discomfiture and apprehension blew upon her. “There was a surgeon called Pembridge in the hospital where I did my training. But it couldn’t be he—No, of course it couldn’t.” She laughed on a note of genuine relief. “Although he was only in his thirties I suppose, he was very important and aloof. I can’t imagine his taking a shipboard appointment. Why should he?”

  “Why, indeed?” agreed her companion lightly. “Especially if he has the power to cast such a shadow over you. Tell me what the villain did, and then let’s dismiss him for ever.”

  “Oh, well—” Leonie laughed again, amused and a little taken aback to find herself on such gay and friendly terms with this young man immediately—”it was just that I associate him with the most dreadful incident in all my hospital training. The sort of thing that only happens when you are first a rebel against hospital routine. I find it hard to describe how silly I was at eighteen—”

  “You’ll scarcely believe it, but most of us have been young once,” the Assistant Surgeon assured her. “But do go on.”

  “I’m afraid,” Leonie confessed ruefully, “I was carrying on a promising flirtation with one of the junior house-physicians—”

  “Lucky fellow!”

  “—And unfortunately Mr. Pembridge came along at exactly the wrong moment. He ticked us both off in just about the most mortifying way possible, and though I suppose we deserved it, I still think he was unnecessarily horrid about it. Anyway, I was silly enough to answer back.”

  The Assistant Surgeon whistled.

  “I say! You were a seeker after thunderbolts, weren’t you?”

  “Just so.” Reminiscently, Leonie made a slight grimace. “Anyway, the thunderbolt fell. Only it was the coldest thing in thunderbolts that’s ever been known. I crept away feeling like a pin-head, and that house-physician never looked at me again.”

  “Coward!”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Leonie smiled. “Mr. Pembridge’s wrath was not the kind of thing you invited a second time. For days I went around expecting to be hauled up before Matron. But he must have relented or something, for I never heard any more about it. But till the day I left I used to turn off another way if I saw him coming.”

  “Well, that was his loss.” The Assistant Surgeon, who seemed to be taking his duties very lightly, leaned against the wall and laughed down admiringly at Leonie. “You know, I hate to tell you so”—he looked teasing—”but from what I’ve seen of our Senior Surgeon, he could be just that sort.”

  “Please don’t! I couldn’t bear it.” Leonie laughed too. “What’s the name of your man? I mean the Christian name. I remember ours was Simon Pembridge. He was really a very good-looking fellow, and half the nurses had a crush on him. But he was quite deadly when he was angry. I hope I never see him again.”

  “I hope you don’t either. He sounds the kind who might distract a girl’s attention.”

  “Whose?—Mine? No, thank you.” Leonie shook her head and laughed again. “If my Mr. Pembridge were to come along at this moment—”

  And then she stopped. For, as though in some dreadful way her all-too-careless words had raised an apparition out of the past, a cool, authoritative, incredibly well remembered voice said behind her.

  “Oh, there you are, Stour. Did you attend to that matter for me?”

  “I was just going to, sir.” Leonie’s companion straightened up with miraculous promptness, all his casual, teasing air deserting him, and departed forthwith.

  “I’m just imagining things,” thought Leonie. But it was with a genuine effort that she turned to look at the man who had addressed Kingsley Stour. And, as she did so, it seemed to her that the years slid away, the leaves turned backwards, and—history repeating itself with monumental unfairness—she was once more just the silly little junior pro, caught in the act of unbecoming behavior.

  For, in spite of the uniform, there was no mistaking Mr. Pembridge of St. Catherine’s. The same tall, arresting figure, the same smooth fair hair, the same bright, cool glance, and, above all, the same handsome but firmly set mouth which would curve in a rather frightening little smile if anyone
excited its owner’s sarcastic censure.

  She recognized him so unhesitatingly that she nearly called him “Sir”. Oh, much, much more instinctively than she would have applied it to that nice, amusing, easy-going Kingsley Stour.

  But she retained just sufficient presence of mind to remember that she was a passenger now, and doubtless no more than a forgotten nonentity in Mr. Pembridge’s past. She smiled briefly and coolly, and even tried to look as though she thought he had broken in a little unceremoniously. Until he eyed her with that dry, penetrating air of his and said,

  “How do you do, Nurse?” Let me see—it’s Nurse—” He appeared to search what she felt was probably a card-index memory—”Nurse Creighton, isn’t it?”

  “Why, yes, sir!”

  There—it had slipped out, even before she could explain that she was no longer a nurse, and certainly no longer subject to his authority.

  “How on earth did you remember me?” She groped eagerly after her identity as a passenger and strove to sound merely social and amused. “I—I thought I had changed a good deal and—”

  “The general impression was unmistakable,” he told her drily, and his unusually brilliant blue eyes surveyed her so coolly that she found herself blushing crimson, in mortified recognition of the circumstances in which he had found her.

  “Are you travelling with a private patient?” he inquired, perhaps feeling it was not for him nowadays to adopt even the implication of criticism.

  “No. I’m not a nurse any longer,” she explained hastily. “I—I’m travelling with my employer’s daughter. Miss Elstone. She is going out to visit cousins in Australia, and I am going out to the Sydney office of the firm.”

  “Miss Elstone?” He repeated the name reflectively. “Then I think you will be sitting at my table. I believe I was asked to keep an eye on her, as she was recovering from an illness.”

  “Th-that could be,” agreed Leonie, hardly able to disguise her dismay at the prospect.

  “Then we shall see something of each other later,” the Senior Surgeon said. And then, with a little nod, he left her—though not, somehow, with the impression that he would specially enjoy seeing something of her later.

  As for Leonie, she could have sat down and cried with anger and mortification.

  “Of all people in the world!” she thought. “Of all people—Mr. Pembridge. To turn up at this point, and in such circumstances!”

  If anything could have spoiled her pleasurable anticipation in the voyage, this would have done so. But, as it was, she tried to tell herself that she need not see much of him except at mealtimes. And then, with a glance at her watch, she started to find her way back to her stateroom, so that she might be there to welcome Claire when she arrived.

  In her own quarters once more, Leonie felt her spirits rise again. And by the time Claire arrived, with her father, Leonie was able to be pleasant and friendly, and to contribute what cheerfulness a virtual stranger could to the moment of parting.

  In not much more than quarter of an hour, the call came for visitors to go ashore. And in very little time Claire and Leonie were standing on deck, watching the water widen between the ship and the shore, while they waved to the ever-diminishing figure of Sir James.

  When, in the gathering twilight, it became impossible to distinguish anyone any longer, Claire turned to Leonie and said,

  “Let’s go below now. It’s too cold and dark to stay up here.”

  So they went below, and, in the warm intimacy of their charming suite, they began to get to know each other.

  Leaving the doors of their cabins open, they talked across the sitting-room while they unpacked, and from time to time Claire came to the door of Leonie’s cabin to elaborate some point in the friendliest way.

  “No one will really dress for dinner the first night out,” she declared. “Cocktail dresses will do this evening. I hear we’re to sit at the Senior Surgeon’s table. I wonder what he’s like.”

  “Rather forbidding,” Leonie said, before she could stop herself. “I used to work in the same hospital as he in the days when I was a nurse.”

  “No! Not really. How amusing! Didn’t you like him?”

  “One doesn’t like or dislike surgeons when one’s a nurse,” said Leonie, recovering her discretion. “One just stands in awe of them.”

  “But you needn’t stand in awe of him now. You aren’t a nurse any longer. You’re my friend and you’re with me.”

  Claire tossed her head slightly as she said that, but there was something so infinitely engaging and friendly about the way she evidently considered that she flung the mantle of her protection round Leonie that one could only be disarmed and touched.

  “You’re sweet.” Leonie smiled across at the other girl. “I expect we’ll all get on remarkably well after the first day or two. But I rather wish we’d been put at the Assistant Surgeon’s table. I have an idea he would be more fun.”

  “The Assistant Surgeon? Do you know him too?” Claire came further into the cabin and stood looking at Leonie with much keener interest, as the older girl went on with her unpacking.

  “Not really—no. I happened to run into him when I was looking round the ship, just before you arrived. I thought he seemed extremely nice, and we got on well during the few minutes we talked.”

  “You did?” Claire laughed and for some reason seemed to find that rather entertaining. “Well, I daresay, if you wanted it very much, we could get ourselves changed over to his table.”

  “By no means!” exclaimed Leonie, straightening up from her suitcases and speaking with energy. “Mr. Pembridge would think I was behind the change and imagine that I was afraid to sit at his table.”

  “And are you—just a little?” inquired Claire curiously.

  “Not enough to matter,” Leonie declared, smiling. “Shall I help you now with your unpacking?”

  But it seemed that Claire could complete that herself. At any rate, she returned to her cabin, and when she emerged again she was ready for dinner, wearing a black tulle cocktail dress, infinitely becoming to her fair hair, beautiful skin and dark eyes.

  “It’s quite a while before dinner still. I’m going to have a look round the ship,” she told Leonie.

  She did not suggest that Leonie should accompany her. But then she knew the other girl had already done her tour of inspection, and perhaps she was, in any case, anxious to make it clear that they were both free to go their own ways.

  This also suited Leonie admirably. And so she only said,

  “Put on something really warm over that dress. You don’t want to catch cold at the very beginning of the voyage.”

  With charming docility Claire fetched a beautiful mink jacket, and thus protected against the cold, she went off on her own devices.

  Left alone, and with her unpacking now completed, Leonie relaxed for ten minutes in one of the armchairs, looking round with infinite contentment and telling herself for the hundredth time that this was like living in a book. Then presently she had a leisurely bath and changed also into a cocktail dress.

  Her dress was of midnight-blue lace, with a beautifully moulded bodice and a softly flaring skirt. The sort of dress she could never have hoped to possess without Sir James’ generosity. Her pleasure in it was all the more acute, and once more she reflected that anything which she could do for him in connection with his daughter would be less than enough to express her gratitude.

  Not that there was very much one could do for Claire at the moment. On board ship she could hardly get into much mischief—beyond a shipboard flirtation or two. And those might well have their value in curing her of the unfortunate attachment which had given Sir James such anxiety.

  “I still wonder if he judged correctly,” thought Leonie. “But without knowing the man myself, I can only accept Sir James’ verdict. Well—she seems gay and high-spirited enough now. No signs of a broken heart.”

  Indeed, for anyone used to all the luxurious details which afforded Leonie herself so muc
h pleasure, Claire was displaying a degree of excitement and bubbling enjoyment which was rather surprising.

  When Leonie was ready, it was still not time for dinner. And so—not tiring of her beautiful cabin, but yielding to the call of unknown attractions outside—she slipped on a warm coat and, stepping out into the corridor, made her way up the brass-bound stairway to the promenade deck.

  All around her were people who seemed to be enjoying themselves, passing and re-passing, talking, inquiring, demanding or just, like Leonie herself, looking round.

  The barely perceptible roll of the ship did not trouble her. She was—though she had not proved it yet—an excellent sailor, and she rather liked the sensation of balancing herself lightly against the slight sway as she walked along the deck.

  Outside the air was raw and chill, so that it was difficult to believe that in a week or so one would be basking in the warm night air of a kinder climate. But to Leonie there was fascination even in the cold, hard twinkle of the stars overhead, and certainly in the intermittent beam which flashed from a lone, distant lighthouse, sole contact now with the England they had left behind them.

  Presently, urged on by a delicious curiosity which embraced almost everything on the ship, she climbed the outside stairway to an even higher level, and found herself almost alone now on an open deck, with the great funnels towering away in front of her, and lifeboats swung high at the sides of the deck.

  At first she thought she had only the screaming sea-birds for company. But then she saw, a little way ahead of her, a familiar figure. Claire, in her graceful dress and snug fur jacket, was moving along, rather slowly, almost as though she were looking for someone or something.

  Leonie started forward to overtake her, when suddenly, without warning, someone stepped from the shadow cast by part of the superstructure and, with a little cry, Claire ran into his arms.