PRISONER OF LOVE
Jean S. Macleod
Laura had impulsively married brilliant surgeon Julius Behar and happily anticipated sharing his life. But Julius had other ideas—
CHAPTER ONE
Above the white mask the surgeon’s brows were drawn into a dark line. Laura could see the tiny beads of perspiration standing arrested above them and the thin, hawklike arch of the nose beneath the mask, but after two hours in the steadily increasing heat of the operating room it was still the man’s hands that fascinated her above all else. Long and almost clawlike, they were the most unerring hands she had ever seen, moving with a deliberation that was part of the man himself.
Julius Behar worked silently. There was no sense of drama in the room when he operated, only a steady, deepening assurance that defied failure or defeat. He had come to be known as a man who never failed; a confident man, an assured man, a dedicated man.
Two weeks as junior surgical nurse had been sufficient to convince Laura Elliot of that. His work was his life.
Her eyes moved back to the steady hands. It had been a long and difficult job, complicated by adhesions once they had opened up, but Julius Behar was nearly through.
The little sounds of the operating room trickled through to Laura’s consciousness at last—the click of an instrument against the tray she held; the brief, monosyllabic request for swab or scalpel; the quick breathing of the nurse at her elbow—Nurse Bryant, who was having her first experience in the operating room and loathing every minute of it—and the vague awareness of a dozen pairs of watching eyes fixed on the tall figure in the surgeon’s gown who dominated everything.
The students sitting behind their isolating glass screen reflected all her own deeply concentrated fascination. Laura felt it without looking up at them and was acutely conscious of this single emotion through the two exhausting hours.
Then, with a quickening of tempo that permeated every corner of the vast, sterile room, there was an emergency.
The anesthetist crouched on his stool, his eyes riveted with a desperate intensity on the row of dials on the apparatus before him, and Laura saw Julius Behar pause and wait. The watching students crowded forward behind the glass panel, tensed, poised, expectant, yet she did not take her eyes from the surgeon’s hands for more than a split second.
“She’s gone, I’m afraid, sir—”
The anesthetist’s words shook and quivered in the silence, but even before they had died away Julius Behar was in action. For a brief, commanding instant his curious, penetrating gaze held Laura’s.
“I have three seconds,” he said.
She had never seen it done before, but she knew what he was going to attempt. She knew, too, her own part in it. The lancet was in his hand almost as he had spoken, and she bared the patient’s chest and swabbed the area about the heart in one swift movement. The sharp little instrument came down with the skill and precision of unerring decision. Julius Behar cut into the pericardium and began to massage the unresponsive heart.
Minutes ticked away. There was no sound but the sucking and gurgling of the blood, which Laura swabbed away. She was almost afraid of the size of her own hands, of their nervous clumsiness, afraid that they might get in the way of those other hands whose long, supple fingers worked so steadily, so unerringly.
Afterwards she knew that she had never doubted the success of his efforts. There had been an elation in her that had surmounted uncertainty and fear, leaving no room for any margin of error. When the extra oxygen cylinders were wheeled into place and the heart was beating again she knew she had fully expected it.
They were talking now, the anesthetist with a nervous sort or relief. There was a deeper reverence in his small brown eyes now. He would have given his right hand to do what Julius Behar had just done, but he knew that he would never rise to anything like such heights.
Julius Behar worked steadily. The interruption had made little difference to the progress of the operation. Another ten minutes would see him through.
“That was magnificent, sir!” His assistant’s eyes were almost as awed as the anesthetist’s as he stepped into suture up.
“It’s merely a question of quick decision.” Julius Behar stepped aside, watching as the last stitches were inserted, the final swab accounted for.
Laura did not look up. She wondered if he had ever known failure and did not think so. Everything about him was assured, and reasonably so. He had reached the heights at an early age, and he had everything a surgeon could dream of—an established name, a position that many an older man might well envy, power and, presumably, wealth. His consulting rooms in Harley Street were among the busiest in the profession.
Conscious of something she had long been aware of, she watched his unhurried progress into the anteroom. He had left the last steps to his assistant, but he would still wait till the patient was safely wheeled away to the security of the wards. He would return again within the hour, too, in order to check up, since this was the final case on his list, and he would always be within call if there was an emergency.
The feeling of pride in Laura’s heart was greater now than it had ever been, she discovered. Why, she wondered, should she suddenly be thinking of it in that way? She had watched other men operate—just as brilliantly, she supposed—without analyzing her feelings to any great extent. It was just that these things mattered to her a great deal, doing a job thoroughly, rising to the heights, being above the herd, perhaps.
Whatever it was, her admiration of this man was unstinted. He had achieved so much. Half an hour ago she had seen him prolong life in a way that was next to miraculous by the very force of his own assurance.
She helped to tidy up in the theater, moving automatically once the trolley had been wheeled away, her thoughts lingering on the amazing display of skill she had just witnessed. Most surgeons had their particular, stylized approach, but Julius Behar—
“You hadn’t seen that done before, Nurse?”
She turned in the anteroom doorway, facing him across the meticulously tidy instrument trays waiting to be put back into the sterilizers.
“No.” Her breath had seemed fastened in her throat for an instant, and then all her admiration rushed to the surface.
“It was wonderful!” she exclaimed. “It was an experience I shall never forget.”
Julius Behar smiled, his face lighting for an instant, as if the flattery pleased him.
“It had to be done,” he said. “There was no other way. The heart hadn’t stood up as well as we expected to the prolonged anesthesia. We knew that the mitral valve was weakened, of course, but it was a longer job than we anticipated.” He looked at her, a hint of something that might have been mockery in his dark eyes. “You seem—dedicated to your work,” he suggested.
She flushed, baffled by this unexpected approach, yet peculiarly stimulated by the very fact that he had spoken to her at all.
“Don’t you think we all have to be dedicated, in one way or another?” she asked. “Otherwise there would be much to dishearten us.”
“Quite true,” he agreed, turning away to pick up his personal instrument case, which he had forgotten and come back to find. “A life well spent?” He paused, as if considering the question for the first time, and once again she sensed that hint of mockery in him. “What do you do with your spare time, Nurse? Study?”
Once again she felt herself flush. The dark eyes under their straight, heavy brows were full upon her, the thin, mobile lips slightly curved in a questioning smile that still hinted at doubt.
“Not always,” she answered, her pulses quickening to a sudden wild tempo of excitement. “I’m human enough to want to enjoy myself on occasion, I think.”
He smiled and said abr
uptly, “And why not? Life is very short.”
She stood waiting, as if there might be more to be said between them than just that, but he turned toward the door.
“If you decide to continue with your career, Nurse,” he said, “I think you should go far.”
That was all. She told herself that it was ridiculous to feel cheated in some way, that something else—something more intimate—might have come of the ordinary little incident. Yet he had lingered in the anteroom longer than he normally did, longer than it would have taken him to wash and change out of his gown into the immaculate jacket and waistcoat he habitually wore.
That, too, was nonsense, she decided briskly as she stacked the last of the trays into the sterilizer. Anything could have delayed him. The head nurse had come in with the following day’s list, for instance. She heard them talking beyond the double doors as the nurses swabbed out the theater floor.
She looked down at her pocket watch. It was ten minutes to seven. Vaguely she thought of food, her mind still on the rather baffling interlude in the anteroom. Why had Julius Behar decided to speak to her? Why had he troubled to single her out at all?
Suddenly she began to laugh, changing out of her soiled apron and taking down her cloak from its peg in the washroom. I’m being a fool, she thought. A romantic, idiotic fool!
Yet it was more than that. The fascination she felt was not only for the man himself. It was for all he stood for. It embraced the whole world in which she worked, the near-miracles she witnessed almost daily, the alleviation of pain, the swift healing of the surgeon’s knife. The wonder of it had never grown stale for her, even with repetition.
The first visitors were coming into the wards as she walked along the echoing corridors to the main door. Outside it was still quite light with a first sprinkling of stars in the sky. She made her way across the busy quadrangle and out into the street, walking toward the Embankment.
The river looked like ink, with the shadowy outline of barges moored along it. A tug passed, skimming through the wavering shafts of reflected lamplight. What a fascination the Thames had! People stood leaning against the parapet, watching, for hours.
Two vaguely familiar figures detached themselves from the wall at her approach.
“Going off duty, Nurse?”
She recognized one of the junior housemen and nodded. The other fell into step beside her.
She glanced up, seeing his face in the gleam of one of the lamps as they passed it. It was a young face, fine-featured, with dark, intent eyes and a pleasant, sensitive mouth.
Laura was trying to remember his name. James Calder, wasn’t it? Doctor Calder, all new and shining and eager, taking a post-graduate course in surgery.
“A man like that,” he said when they had walked on a little way in silence, “like Behar, doesn’t make mistakes. There isn’t one single flaw.”
“I don’t know!” The junior houseman had stopped at the bridge, where their ways divided. “These fellows live in a world apart. They’re born brilliant, I suppose. Makes you wonder if there’s any human element at all—if they feel and live and act like other mortals. Surely there’s bound to be a flaw somewhere?”
“Why should there be?” Laura asked sharply. “They could be above all that sort of thing.”
“Maybe they are above petty strife.” The junior houseman turned to look at her in the diffused yellow glow above their heads. “I was thinking of the bigger emotions, though—the major flaws.”
“Such as?” she asked almost coldly.
“Oh, deep-seated envy, and hatred, and—jealousy, perhaps.” He dug his hands into his pockets. “But maybe their blood isn’t even the same as ours,” he added cynically. “I’ve often thought it must be some other sort of chemical fluid, given by transfusion, that pumps its way around without a flicker or a quiver. No emotion, no anything!”
Laura couldn’t believe that of Julius Behar. But even if it were true, she thought, even if ordinary everyday things passed him by it didn’t matter. He stood apart. That was true enough. He was a being as far removed from their small, flesh-and-blood world with its thoughts of movies and dances and strolls in the park as it was possible to imagine.
“We’re on our way for something to eat," Doctor Calder mentioned tentatively. “Would you care to come?”
She would have liked to go, but there was Lance to consider.
“I have to get back to Chiswick—to the flat,” she explained.
“Don’t think too conscientiously about work—and Doctor Behar!” the junior houseman advised cynically. “St. Clement’s couldn’t afford to lose you!”
I’m far older than they are, Laura thought. Not older in years but in inclination. I don’t fall in and out of love as easily as they do.
Love? She stopped to consider the word. Had she ever really been in love? Perhaps she had never had the time. There had always been so many other things to think about, but she had known the longing of wanting one particular being out of all the world who would share her thoughts and ambitions and the tender impulses of her innermost heart. If she had already enshrined an ideal there, she was entirely unconscious of it. She only knew that men of ambition and brilliant achievement fascinated her, yet there had been no man of that type, ever, in her life.
Was it really a drab life? That was something else she had never stopped to consider. Each day was filled to capacity, and one of her own greatest ambitions had just been achieved. At twenty-six she was the youngest surgical nurse in the hospital, and that was only the beginning!
Did achievement, then, mean so much to her? It had to, she decided briskly. There was Lance still to educate.
She thought of her brother, that small, infinitely pathetic schoolboy who had taken the news of their parents' death so bravely and with such a stiff upper lip.
There was so much she had to do for Lance. More than anything, too, she would like him to become a doctor. That was what he wanted, even at this early age. He was always talking about it. When she returned to the flat in the evenings he asked her eagerly about the hospital, but he was not quite fourteen and there was a long way to go yet. More than ten years, she thought, before he could hope to graduate. Was it an impossible task for her to take on? There was a little money from the insurance policy her father had taken out before his car had crashed, killing him and her mother instantaneously, but that was all.
“Hullo!” Her brother caught up with her as she neared the flat. “You’re late, aren’t you?”
“A little. We’ve had a busy day.”
“Operating?”
“Yes,” Somehow she could not go over the events of the past few hours, even with Lance. They were still slightly detached in an aura of unreality, the personal element that had crept into them making her sensitive about repetition for the moment. “Done your homework?” she asked instead, putting a protective arm about his shoulders as they reached the low iron gate leading to the short flagged pathway to the front door.
“Ages ago,” he assured her. “I’ve been playing football in the park.”
Suddenly, unaccountably, their surroundings seemed infinitely drab. The long, seemingly endless street looked as if it stretched monotonously all the way into the future, with no hope of change for either of them, no bright prospect for Lance, and she felt suddenly far older than her years.
I’m tired, she thought. Tired with standing all day.
“Anne and Gillen have gone out,” Lance told her as they went up the narrow flight of stairs. “They’ve got a date. Gosh! you should have seen the car that came for them! An Allard! It went off—swoosh! Just like that! A hundred miles an hour!”
She smiled at the exaggeration, smacking him playfully on the seat of his pants as he climbed the last few stairs ahead of her.
“If that’s the case we ought to be picking them up at the police station at any minute now!” she laughed. “Have you had your supper?”
“No,” he said. “I waited for you.”
Th
ey shared the sitting room and a small bedroom beyond. The rest of the flat Laura had let out as bed-sitters to two of her hospital colleagues, who were rarely in for meals. Anne Meakin and Gillian Davis enjoyed life to the full. They slept at Chiswick and cooked their own breakfast when they managed to get up in time. They mended and washed their “smalls” in the bathroom one day per week, all the time they could afford from the full business of living. Anne was a good radiologist, but she would marry almost immediately, Laura supposed. Gillian was immersed in occupational therapy, “but not to the exclusion of everything else,” as she was quick to point out whenever the subject arose. She, too, would marry. They were neither of them “bachelor girls” in the true sense of the word.
Laura smiled. Life was like that for some people, a gay and irresponsible whirl, but she did not consciously envy Gill or Anne. They had proved to be bright companions in the flat, and the small weekly payments she received from them as rent allowed her to keep her home intact.
That had been the main consideration a year ago when she had set about putting her house in order. She wanted to keep her home, to make sure that Lance had the sort of background he needed. So far she had succeeded in making ends meet.
When they had finished their supper and Lance had gone to bed she sat beside the window, looking down the narrow street toward its far end where the gleam of the river showed like a strip of quicksilver in the moonlight. It was the same river, the same broad, romantic Thames that slipped past the hospital in the pulsating heart of a great city, yet here it seemed different. More ordinary, perhaps. It had not yet absorbed the full flow of life that awaited it farther on. Here it reflected only the little ways of little men.
Surprised and curiously troubled by the thought, she turned swiftly back into the room. It was madness to let her mind be colored by the fascination of these last two hours in the operating theater when the brilliance of one man had arrested time and everything else. It was more than madness to hope that she had played anything but the humblest of parts in the drama of Julius Behar’s outstanding achievement. He had seen her interest and commented upon it, but that was all. Yes, that was all.
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