Surgeon of Distinction

by Mary Burchell

  And then she was immediately conscious of an overwhelming desire to go out and walk the decks—to court an encounter with Max, however embarrassing. Inaction had suddenly become insupportable. More than almost anything else in the world, she wanted to escape from the confines of her stateroom and to go out and walk—anywhere.

  She threw on a coat and went out on deck.

  It was dusk now, and the coastline was already lost to view. But, from distant lighthouses, occasional beams winked and glimmered, in that curious rhythm and counter-rhythm which has a lonely fascination all its own, while overhead a few stars pricked their way through a cloudy night sky.

  There were rather few people about. Probably, Alma thought, most of the passengers were unpacking or, in spite of what her stepmother had said, changing for dinner. And, as she walked along the deck, she encountered only the occasional couple or single figure.

  With each one she experienced, first a quiver of anxiety and hope, then a reaction of relief and disappointment. And this, she supposed, was more or less how it was going to be for the whole of the voyage.

  Presently she came to a flight of steps which led up to an even higher deck. And, since there seemed nothing to prevent her, she climbed these to what she guessed would be even safer solitude.

  They were steep, and as she reached the top step she stumbled and would have fallen. But a figure stepped forward and caught her by the arm, and Max’s voice said,

  “Careful. You want to look out with these steps. Some of them are rather tricky.”

  “Max!” She could not possibly disguise the mingled fear and rapture which assailed her.

  “I know. It’s a bit of a shock for you, finding me on board, isn’t it?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, the surprise came earlier. My stepmother saw you and told me you were on board. I—I couldn’t believe it. I thought there must be a mistake. That she was mistaken, I mean”—her words came tumbling out, breathlessly and nervously. “Then I thought you must have made a mistake.”

  “What sort of a mistake?” he asked, and though she did not look at him, she knew from his voice that he was smiling slightly.

  “Why, I thought you asked me the particulars of my—my departure so that you could avoid that ship, you know. And I wondered if I could possibly have given you the wrong information—or if you had got it wrong—or—”

  Her voice trailed away, because she could think of no other reason at all which could have brought her and Max here together, on the top deck of a liner heading for the United States.

  “There was no mistake,” he told her, “on anyone’s part. I am here because I intended to be here.” That sounded so exactly like him that she looked up and smiled timidly.

  “Of course. I might have known. You aren’t the kind of man to find yourself somewhere by mistake. When did you decide to come?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” She stared at him incredulously, as they leaned on the ship’s rail, rather close together.

  “Yes. I was lucky enough to get a last-minute cancellation.”

  “But—why? You didn’t give the slightest hint of it when I spoke to you, that last afternoon in the theatre.”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t have the slightest intention of coming then.”

  “Then what changed your mind? I don’t understand. Why did you suddenly have the—the impulse to come after me?”

  “It wasn’t an impulse of my own, Alma, I’m sorry to say. I wish I had had the sense to find the solution myself. But the suggestion was made to me, and at least I found it a good one.”

  “The suggestion?” Her eyes opened wide again. “You mean—someone suggested to you that you should travel to America on the same ship with me? Who suggested it?”

  “Jeremy did.”

  “Jeremy?” She could hardly believe her ears.

  “And I suppose Geraldine also had her part in it.”

  “Geraldine? And Jeremy?” Suddenly Alma felt the tears come into her eyes. For she had thought some pretty hard things of both Jeremy and Geraldine in the past weeks. And now it seemed that—incredibly, inexplicably—they were at any rate partly responsible for the fact that Max now stood beside her.

  “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t expect you do. There’s a good deal to explain.”

  And then, as though perhaps he thought this was a more comfortable way of making explanations, he put out his hand and drew her gently against him. “First of all, I must tell you that Geraldine and Jeremy are now officially engaged—”

  “Oh, I’m so glad!”

  “Complete with the ill-fated ring which seems to have found its right destination at last. She went to the convalescent home on Sunday—”

  “I knew she was going.”

  “And came back engaged. I was a good deal surprised, I admit, as it didn’t fit in with anything I thought I knew.” Max smiled faintly and reminiscently. “But when I asked her where you came in all this, she told me, more or less in so many words, that I was a fool.”

  “Oh, Max—” She pressed against him suddenly, in an access of affection and a relief she hardly dared to acknowledge.

  “I never thought much of Geraldine’s judgment,” Max went on reflectively. “But I’m bound to say that, on this occasion, I had the uncomfortable conviction that she was right. I argued with her, however, possibly because I was indeed a fool, and she told me impatiently that if I really knew so little about the issues, I had better go down and see Jeremy for myself.”

  “And you went?”

  “I thought about it half the night. I told myself that I’d already heard all I wanted to from Jeremy. But, since he had become engaged to Geraldine, I had to know what your situation was.”

  “Oh, Max—why had you to know? Did it still matter to you what was happening to me?”

  “It always mattered,” he said almost sombrely. “And it will, until the day I die. And after that, for all I know.”

  “Oh, my dear”—she reached up, and kissed his cheek, timidly but as though she couldn’t help it. And at that he caught her close against him and kissed her in return, but on her mouth, and as he had kissed her that first time in the staff waiting room.

  “Never mind the explanations!” he exclaimed. “They’re taking too long. And there’s only one thing that matters. I was a fool not to tell you in the beginning, but I was afraid of frightening you in that early stage. I adore you, my darling—I love every single thing about you. Your hair and your eyes and your adorable mouth. And the touch of your hands—I’m aware of it sometimes even in the theatre. And the calm, sweet way you look at me, and—”

  “Max! Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you send me away?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. When I asked you to marry me, you were still more than half in love with another fellow. I had to talk of respect and liking, and tame, dull things like that. I had to pretend I was asking you to marry me because I wanted a wife—almost any wife—and a home—”

  “You didn’t give me that impression at all,” Alma interrupted, smiling. “I may not have thought you were wildly in love with me, but—”

  “I was wildly in love with you,” he said simply. “I am still. That was why, when I found you kissing Jeremy, as I thought, I was nearly mad with jealousy.”

  “Darling”—she put up her hand and stroked his cheek—“I can’t quite imagine you like that. One doesn’t associate you with anything so primitive.”

  “I know! I’m the calm, self-possessed, imperturbable surgeon! The tailor’s dummy—”

  “Max, no one ever thought of you in such terms!” He laughed and kissed her again, and looked less resentful and boyish, and more like himself.

  “I’m not really imperturbable, my darling. Not if you take my scalpel out of my hand and regard me as man, instead of a figurehead in a mask and gown. I feel exactly the same as other men, and that’s why I hated Truscott’s guts when I thought he�
�d taken you away from me.”

  “But you know now that he didn’t?—that it was all a mistake?”

  “Oh, yes. Perhaps I’d better go back to the explanations and complete them.” He drew her head against his shoulder and put his cheek down against her hair.

  “I went to see Jeremy, as Geraldine suggested. I went”—he sounded surprised—“yesterday morning, I suppose, though it seems like a week ago. I didn’t even have to question him. He volunteered the information that he’d given me quite a wrong impression on that Saturday afternoon.”

  “Oh, dear Jeremy! Did he really?”

  “Don’t praise him too affectionately. It puts a frightful strain on my regard for him. And, anyway, it was the least he could do, considering he’d made so much mischief,” Max pointed out.

  “I suppose so, yes. But go on,” Alma said, smiling.

  “He told me that you’d returned to his room after I’d gone, and more or less told him you hated the sight of him.”

  “I wasn’t as emphatic as that,” she murmured. “But I was pretty wild with him.”

  “And then he added the only thing that mattered. He said you’d flung at him that I was the man you really loved.”

  “Oh, Max, did you have to have Jeremy tell you, before you would believe it?” she said, in half smiling reproach.

  “No one else had ever told me,” he pointed out. “Least of all you, my dearest. We hadn’t got further than liking and respect, if you remember. And on that Saturday morning you weren’t even sure you could go as far as that.”

  “It’s true—it’s true,” she agreed wonderingly. “I can’t believe it now. I can’t believe there was a time when I didn’t love you and want to be with you.”

  He kissed her again for that, before he went on—

  “I didn’t take much convincing, once he had made the statement. All I cared about was finding you and straightening things out. And then it was that he made the friendly, if slightly scornful, suggestion that anyone really in earnest would join the ship on which you were sailing. It would, as he pointed out, give me five days in which to bring you to my way of thinking.”

  “What a wonderful idea!”

  “Yes. I wish I’d thought of it myself,” Max admitted, with a slight grimace.

  “But you acted on it marvellously, darling,” Alma told him soothingly. “And you didn’t waste a moment. With five days to go”—she smiled up at him mischievously—“you’ve brought me round to your way of thinking on the very first evening.”

  “Oh, Alma—”

  “It wasn’t difficult, was it?” She rubbed her cheek against his.

  “Not once I’d found you. I’ve been pacing around this confounded deck, trying to decide what was the best way to approach you. Whether I should be humble and contrite, or masterful and compelling, or tactful and understanding. And then, long before I’d come to any decision, you arrived at the top of the steps—”

  “And more or less fell into your arms,” she concluded.

  “There’s no better place for you to be,” he told her. “Is there? Is there, Alma?” he repeated anxiously.

  “No. And there’s no place I’d rather be. Which is something a little different, but just as important. Oh, Max”—she flung out her arms towards the limitless space of sea and sky—“what a heavenly night it is!”

  “Some rather heavy cloud about,” he replied practically, “but I know what you mean.”

  “The clouds are wonderful too.” She looked up at them, scudding across the sky. “Everything’s wonderful. Crazy, but wonderful. We’re on our way to America, for no other reason at all but that we couldn’t get together any other way.”

  “You were going to visit your parents, anyway,” he pointed out.

  “Oh, yes. But I shouldn’t have done, if I hadn’t been so miserable about losing you.”

  “Wouldn’t you really?” He looked at her fondly. “Of course not. I couldn’t have borne to go away from you, for even some weeks, if everything had been all right.”

  “Well, it is all right now.”

  “Yes, of course. That’s why you had to come too,” she said. And then they laughed and laughed, as only people who love and understand each other laugh together.

  They walked round the deck for a little while after that, telling each other how happy they were, and stopping occasionally to prove the fact with a kiss. Then Alma said,

  “I suppose we’d better go down now and tell my father and Juliet.”

  “Will they mind?” he enquired, anxious lest the slightest opposition should prejudice the completeness of her decision.

  “No, of course not. They’ll love you. They may be a little disappointed at first that I’m not going to be able to stay with them as long as we anticipated. But you’ll stay too for as long as you can, Max, won’t you? And then we can fly back together.”

  “You didn’t think of staying on for a while, after I have to go?” he suggested.

  “Without you, you mean?” She turned her head and looked at him incredulously.

  “I meant that,” he conceded, with an amused and tender glance at her. “But I see now how silly it was of me even to suggest it.”

  “No, it wasn’t silly. Only—I just couldn’t, you know.”

  “I understand,” he agreed. “You just couldn’t. And nor could I let you, now I come to think of it.”

  They had come to the end of the steep steps by now, and he started to go down ahead of her and then turned to give her his hand. She had paused, however, and was standing looking round the upper deck, as though she wanted a moment in which to imprint the scene of her happiness upon her mind for ever and ever.

  He gave her a few moments, smiling indulgently as he watched her. Then he held out his hand and said,

  “Coming, Sister?”

  And, smiling too, she turned and, putting her hand into his, said, “Yes, sir,” and followed him down the steps.