For Ever and Ever

by Mary Burchell

  To Leonie, watching, the whole scene was so astounding, so utterly unexpected, that she went on observing it in dismayed amazement, with no thought that she was eavesdropping. Only the fact that she herself stood in shadow saved her from being observed. Or perhaps it was that the two people she watched were too deeply absorbed in each other to notice anyone else.

  They kissed several times, laughing and speaking at the same time, like people who meet in rapturous circumstances after a long separation. There was such delight, such amusement, and such triumph in their whole bearing that Leonie could not doubt she was seeing the reunion between Claire and the man her father believed he had put out of her life.

  Instead of half the world being set between them, they were here—together—on board the Capricorna. Happy in their shipboard intimacy, triumphant in the certainty that not a soul on board knew the connection between them.

  The weight of responsibility which dropped on Leonie at that moment was so heavy that she almost literally staggered. And then, even as she watched, the other two turned and came slowly towards her, so that she had to draw back behind a jutting corner to escape the appearance of having followed to spy upon them.

  They passed quite close to her, so that Leonie now saw them both clearly for the first time. And then it was that she received the second tremendous shock. Claire s companion was Kingsley Stour, the charming, amusing Assistant Surgeon, who had described himself as having “signed on for the voyage only.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Leonie’s first panic-stricken impulse, after the discovery of Kingsley Stour’s identity, was to cable to Sir James, asking him to collect his daughter from the first port of call and relieve herself of a situation which had suddenly grown beyond her management.

  After a few minutes, calmer counsel prevailed. But she was still trembling with anxiety and indecision when, having seen the other two leave the upper deck, she stepped from her hiding-place at last and followed them down the ladder—she believed at a safe distance.

  But when she reached the bottom of the ladder, she realized that they were still lingering in happy conversation, much too near for safety. If they happened to see her now, they might well suspect that she, too, had been on the upper deck. And so, turning quickly, she hurried in the opposite direction.

  Almost immediately she came up against the Senior Surgeon. Not quite literally. But sufficiently so to have him stop and say, with a touch of amusement, “Who’s been frightening you? You look as though you are running away from something.”

  “Oh—Mr. Pembridge—” Even now she could think of little but the need to share her responsibility with her employer, and so she asked anxiously, “When do we reach Gibraltar?”

  “Gibraltar, Miss Creighton?” The air of amusement deepened. “You surely don’t want to leave us already, do you?”

  “No-no. Of course not.”

  A little confusedly, she glanced back at the two who lingered near the ship’s rail, though she knew in a moment that this was the last thing she should have done, however great her anxiety.

  Mr. Pembridge’s glance followed hers thoughtfully. And immediately a faint touch of scornful comprehension changed the quality of his smile.

  “I shouldn’t worry,” he told her drily. “There are lots of other charming men on board besides my Assistant Surgeon. And it’s his business to be pleasant to everyone, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” Anger and astonishment raised the color in Leonie’s cheeks, and made her blue eyes flash.

  “Oh—I’m sorry.” He didn’t look at all sorry. “Did I draw the wrong conclusion? How stupid of me!”

  “It was rather stupid,” agreed Leonie coldly. “But then you tend to be over-quick and inaccurate in your judgments, don’t you?”

  And without giving him time to reply to that one, she walked off, though still with the quivering, inner feeling that he might call her back and tell her to report to Matron immediately.

  Back in the suite, she tried to dismiss Mr. Pembridge from her mind, but he refused to be pushed further than the back of her consciousness, and from time to time he intruded strangely into her anxious consideration of the Claire situation.

  “What am I to do about her?” thought Leonie. “What am I to do?”

  At first she consoled herself with the idea that Sir James might have exaggerated things. Kingsley Stour might not be the unreliable adventurer Sir James evidently chose to think him. His connection with Claire might not be the disaster it had been represented to be.

  But on this aspect Leonie felt she could not conscientiously build much hope. For, whatever the facts, she herself was here to represent her employer’s point of view. In duty bound, she must assume that it was in Claire’s best interests not to become deeply involved with the handsome young surgeon.

  On the other hand, the first idea of the cable now seemed most distasteful, and to savor unpleasantly of spy reporting.

  “It will have to be a letter, sent off at Gibraltar,” Leonie thought. “Something in which I can soften the one unwelcome fact of Kingsley Stour’s presence here. By then I may even have seen enough to modify my own view and make some sort of consoling suggestion to Sir James.”

  If, on his own initiative, he chose to fly out to join the ship at any later port of call, that would be his own affair. But certainly, Leonie decided, it was too early to send him an S.O.S. before they were out of sight of England.

  Hardly had she arrived at even this negative decision when Claire—flushed, starry-eyed and slightly out of breath—herself returned.

  “Hello!” she greeted Leonie a trifle too effusively. “It’s wonderful outside! I mean”—perhaps she remembered suddenly that it was raw and wintry—”it’s so exhilarating, in the wind, on the upper desk.” Then she caught sight of herself in the mirror and, laughing, put her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed. “My! what a color I have. It must be the wind.”

  “I hope you didn’t get too cold.” Leonie strove to make that sound natural, and not as though she in any way queried Claire’s rather artless deception.

  “Oh, no. I’m perfectly warm—feel!” And Claire’s warm hand clasped Leonie’s with disarming friendliness. “And, Leonie—I can call you Leonie, can’t I?”

  “Of course!”

  “Leonie, there’s something I want to make clear. You’re making this trip as my friend. Really my personal friend, I mean. I don’t want you even to mention anything to anyone about your being in my father’s office. Not to anyone. Just to please me.”

  “But, my dear girl”—Leonie was both amused and touched—”I don’t think that’s necessary at all, though it’s sweet of you to think of it. I am one of the girls in your father’s office, and there isn’t the least reason for me to pretend—”

  “No—please!” The other girl was both coaxing and imperious, and suddenly Leonie saw why her father found it so difficult to oppose her. “I have a special reason. And, anyway, you are my friend. Let’s just leave it at that. You haven’t mentioned any other situation to anyone, have you?”

  “Well, no.—At least—” Leonie recalled her first brief conversation with Mr. Pembridge—”Yes, I think I mentioned it to Mr. Pembridge. The Senior Surgeon, you remember. The one I—I knew in hospital.”

  “Oh, what a pity!” Claire frowned. “Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter. He isn’t likely to mention it to—”there was the faintest hesitation before she said, “anyone.” And Leonie was immediately and disquietingly sure that it was specially Kingsley Stour who was not to know that anyone in Sir James’ employment was on board.

  Possibly, she thought a little cynically, he needed reassuring. But aloud she simply said,

  “I won’t insist on going about making my position clear. But don’t expect me to make any actual misstatement if I am asked questions.”

  “Of course not. But he—I mean, no one—is likely to ask questions.—Listen, that must be the gong for dinner. Shall we go? You look lovely in that dress.”


  “So do you in yours,” Leonie replied warmly. “And I must say that I have your father’s generosity to thank for mine.”

  “Oh—yes?” For a second Claire faltered, and a shadow crossed her lovely face. “He is a generous darling, I know. Only”—she sighed—”he doesn’t always understand everything.”

  “Few people do.” Leonie smiled. “But I should usually be inclined to trust his judgment.”

  Claire did not pursue this. And so they went out of the suite together, Leonie wondering if she were being very subtle and diplomatic, or merely shamefully neglecting to give an immediate warning to the man who was footing the bill for all this luxurious pleasure.

  As they entered the great first-class dining-room, it was obvious that a good deal of sorting out and amiable direction was in progress. But almost immediately Mr. Pembridge—looking very distinguished and handsome in his dark blue uniform, Leonie was forced to admit— picked them out and came across to greet them and escort them to his table.

  Feeling dreadfully conscious of her last remark to him, Leonie made the introductions as gracefully as she could, and saw Mr. Pembridge look at Claire with that penetrating but kindly glance which, she remembered now, he usually reserved for those who came under his professional care.

  Five other passengers joined them at the table and there were further introductions, Leonie discovering that the interesting-looking man on her left was a Nicholas Edmonds, while on her right was a young man who introduced himself as Clive Cheriot, and looked as though he might have something to do with the lighter side of stage life.

  Opposite her were a Mr. and Mrs. Hedbury, palpably a honeymoon couple who, though friendly, were not likely to take any great interest in anyone but each other. And, finally, on the left of Mr. Pembridge—who had put Claire at his right hand—there was an extremely attractive-looking woman, not specially young, whose dark eyes and wide, smiling mouth suggested that she knew how to make life yield most of the things she wanted.

  Just as they sat down, Kingsley Stour came past, on the way to his table. And, though he bestowed on Claire no more than a slight conventional smile and bow, he greeted Leonie with such marked friendliness and admiration that she was both shocked and disquieted.

  Not that she could not take as much friendliness and admiration as the next girl. But, knowing what she did, she could not doubt that the young Assistant Surgeon was indulging in a clever piece of camouflage, in marked variance with his apparent candor. And no one likes to be used for such a purpose. Particularly if there is also a risk of someone observing it all with a certain ironic amusement.

  Managing not even to glance at Mr. Pembridge, Leonie turned to Nicholas Edmonds, who fortunately launched immediately into a conventional inquiry as to how far she and her companion were travelling.

  “We’re going the whole way to Sydney. Miss Elstone has relatives there,” Leonie explained. And then, remembering Claire’s earnest request, she refrained from adding anything about her own special status, though she felt faintly uncomfortable as she did so.

  “Then you’re not doing the Pacific cruise afterwards?”

  “I—don’t think so,” said Leonie, wondering whether, in view of the unlooked-for complication, she and Claire would ever reach even Sydney.

  Then, making an effort to appear carefree and interested, she asked about Mr. Edmonds’ own plans and found that he was travelling for health reasons, and that he did propose to take in the Pacific part of the rim later.

  As dinner progressed, Leonie decided that she liked him. He had a thin, keen, rather worldly face, and an unusually charming smile when anything amused him. But there was an underlying quality of melancholy about him which might, she thought, arise either from indifferent health or a certain amount of disillusionment with life.

  It was he who told her in an undertone the identity of the woman beside Mr. Pembridge, when Leonie said she had not caught the name.

  “Why, don’t you know? That’s Renee Armand, the singer. She seems,” he added reflectively, “to approve of our Senior Surgeon.”

  “Ye-es,” agreed Leonie, a trifle surprised to find that Mr. Pembridge should be to the taste of someone quite so unusual and celebrated as this woman appeared to be.

  But then, Mr. Pembridge at the head of his table on board the Capricorna, she had to concede, was rather different from Mr. Pembridge quelling pros with a glance at St. Catherine’s. With the charm of a good host, he seemed to hold all the varying strings of the conversation in his clever, rather beautiful hands, and in no way did his manner to Leonie differ from his manner to all the others.

  But, try as she would to be a carefree passenger like every other carefree passenger, Leonie still had the curious feeling that she should really be rushing around on ward duty, and not sitting at the Senior Surgeon’s table enjoying herself.

  After dinner there was informal dancing in the ballroom, and by common consent, Leonie and Claire drifted in there.

  Hardly had they entered when the Assistant Surgeon came across to them. But it was Leonie, not Claire, whom he asked to dance with him.

  Again Leonie had the uncomfortable conviction that no naturally straightforward person would even want to complicate the deception in this way. Admittedly he could not be frank about the situation. But there was surely no reason for him to elaborate the theme, almost as though he enjoyed confirming the excellence of his own powers of dissembling.

  She would have been glad of an excuse to refuse him. But unfortunately she had already mentioned to Claire how much she liked dancing, so that she had no choice but to accept his invitation. Particularly as someone else came up just then to claim Claire herself.

  So, with an outwardly good grace, she went on to the big, circular floor with Kingsley Stour. But evidently she did not hide her feelings completely, because after a moment her partner smiled down at her and said,

  “You look terribly serious. You’re not still worrying over the problem of our Senior Surgeon, are you?”

  “Of course not!” Leonie spoke quickly and with emphasis. “Though, as a matter of fact,” she added, in order to have something to say, “he did turn out to be the one who was at St. Catherine’s when I was there.”

  “The one who ticked you off?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Too bad. But you don’t have to worry about anything like that now, do you? I was talking to your friend Miss Elstone just before dinner”—he could say it as casually as that!—”and I gathered from her that you are independent of most things these days. In any case, I suppose the nursing wasn’t ever much more than a passing fancy, was it?”

  “I shouldn’t have described it as that myself,” replied Leonie rather coldly, and she wondered uneasily just what story Claire had invented, in order to explain her presence.

  “No? Well, then,” Kingsley Stour said with apparent warmth, “if I may say so, I think it was darned good of you to do two years of nursing, when there wasn’t any need for you to work at all.”

  Disquieted though she was to find herself thus cast for the role of an idle golden girl, Leonie found it quite impossible to reply. She was reluctant to expose the falseness of whatever story Claire had chosen to tell about her, but she certainly did not feel like substantiating it in any way. So she changed the subject and had to let Kingsley Stour think what he would.

  At the end of the dance he brought her skilfully to a standstill just beside Claire and her partner. It was thus perfectly simple for him then to ask Claire to dance, while Leonie went over to exchange a few words with Nicholas Edmonds, who, seated at the side of the ballroom, was surveying the gay scene with a slightly sardonic air.

  “I’m sorry I can’t ask you to dance with me.” He smiled at Leonie, as though he found her rather good to look at. “I’m afraid my dancing days are over.”

  “Oh, Mr. Edmonds, what nonsense!”

  “I didn’t mean only on the grounds of age.” He sighed impatiently. “I took a rather bad fall fr
om my horse about six months ago, and ever since then I’ve had to live a disgustingly inactive sort of life.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Leonie’s blue eyes surveyed him with friendly sympathy. “But I hope the voyage will do you a lot of good. And as for dancing with me, that isn’t necessary. May I sit and talk to you for a bit?’

  “Of course. But only for a short while. Anyone as young and pretty as you should be dancing and enjoying herself.”

  Leonie refrained from saying that she would much rather talk to Mr. Edmonds than dance with the Assistant Surgeon. She thought it might sound affected. But she did say,

  “I like talking quite as much as dancing, provided it’s with someone interesting.”

  “The implication is altogether too charming to resist,” declared Nicholas Edmonds, giving her that sidelong, amused look which was not without an element of indulgence. “Though I don’t know what leads you to class me as ‘someone interesting’.”

  “Don’t you?” Leonie regarded him thoughtfully. “Well, you look interesting, for one thing. Besides, you seem to know so much about people.”

  “Well—I’ve been about a bit,” he conceded, but with an air which suggested slight boredom with the process. “What makes you think I know about people?”

  “You seemed to know all about Renee Armand, for one thing.”

  “I should do. I was once married to her for a whole year,” he replied drily.

  “Were you?” gasped Leonie. “But how terribly awk—I mean—”

  “Awkward to find ourselves on the same ship? Oh, not really,” her companion assured her. “We are what is termed good friends still.”