by Peggy Gaddis
Claire had visited her patient, the crewman, several times, and he had been able to return to his duties. She was held in high esteem among all the ship’s personnel and enjoyed many privileges not ordinarily accorded to any save the most VIP passengers, a fact Vera was not slow to notice.
“It’s getting to be quite a ‘thing’ between you and the Major, isn’t it?” she drawled one evening as they came back to the salon after dinner.
“I find him a very interesting and delightful man,” said Claire coolly. “I like him very much.”
“Oh, come now,” mocked Vera derisively. “Unless he’s secretly a millionaire, which I doubt, how could such a funny, weird little duck interest a beautiful girl like you?”
“By having a very fine mind and a great zest for life, and because he has planned this trip for so long and done so much reading about it that I hate to think how much of it I’d have missed without him as a guide,” Claire answered quite honestly.
Vera considered that thoughtfully.
“Oh well, Curt has a fine mind, too, and he’s made this trip so often I’m sure that there’s not much he has missed,” she said smugly.
“I’m sure of that, too,” Claire told her, and went on her way, feeling Vera’s mocking eyes upon her as she walked.
The affair between Curt and Vera had become so much a matter of course that it was now taken for granted that when there were shore parties, Vera would always wait for Curt and go ashore with him. As the youngest passengers aboard, MacEwen Russell and Nora seemed to have established a mild friendship, so that they were a frequent twosome ashore.
The Highland Queen had finished her business with the Caribbean ports and was plodding her way into the Gulf of Mexico when it happened.
Claire was about to leave her cabin for dinner when a terrific scream came from the cabin next door — Vera’s voice, high, terrible in its intensity of shock and horror. Claire ran into the corridor as Vera’s door burst open and Vera stood there, white as the dress she wore, her eyes wide with horror, babbling unintelligibly.
Claire ran past her into the room and to the tiny bath where she stopped for a moment, shocked to rigidity by what she saw.
Nora leaned against the wall, her hands extended above the wash-basin and thick spurts of blood running down her slashed wrists. She was staring at the blood with eyes that were wide and sick with horror. Beside the basin lay a bloodstained razor blade.
Claire turned as people began running into the cabin and called out sharply, “Somebody get the first aid kit, quick!”
Curt loomed in the bathroom door, wide-eyed as Claire glanced up at him. She was beside the basin now, her thumbs pressing firmly against the veins in the girl’s wrists that were emptying themselves into the basin. As Claire pressed her thumbs down, the flow became a thin trickle, and a moment later, Carl, the steward, thrust himself through the gathering crowd, drawn by Vera’s persistent thin, high screams.
Claire looked up at Curt, still pressing her thumbs on the veins, and said sharply, “Make her be quiet! Slap her hard.”
Curt looked startled as he glanced at Vera and then back at Claire.
“Slap her?” he repeated.
“Do you know a better cure for hysteria?” demanded Claire, and glanced at Carl. “Here, Carl, put your thumbs where mine are and press gently but firmly.”
Curt said swiftly, “Here, let me.”
His hands slid deftly beneath Claire’s, so that she could remove hers without lessening the pressure on the girl’s wrists, and Claire glanced over her shoulder at Vera who huddled against the wall still emitting those high, thin wails that seemed to pierce the eardrums.
Mrs. Burke was closer to her, and Claire called out, “Mrs. Burke, slap her hard! Make her stop that awful racket.”
Mrs. Burke nodded and, with a glint of pure pleasure in her eyes, delivered a loud, hard slap against Vera’s contorted face that sent Vera stumbling toward her bed, where she subsided, moaning and whimpering but no longer screaming.
Claire worked with swift, sure fingers, relieved immeasurably to see that the cuts, while they had bled freely, were superficial.
Nora was pasty-white, her eyes riveted to the wounded wrists, and when at last Claire had finished the dressing on them, Nora looked up at Claire and whispered piteously, “I didn’t mean to do it — ”
“Why did you, Nora?” demanded Claire sharply. “You’re a little fool, Nora. Don’t you know there isn’t a man in the world worth it?”
“I thought I could be brave,” Nora stammered faintly. “But it didn’t hurt — and then I saw the blood — ”
“And lucky for you that you did, Nora,” said Claire, and her voice was stern. “You silly child!”
“Now wait a minute,” protested Curt, as though he found Claire’s harshness unbearable. “The poor kid’s had a terrible shock.”
“She should have a terrible spanking,” snapped Claire. “Any girl who is fool enough to think any man is worth the paring of her fingernail deserves to be hurt!”
“Oh, my poor baby! My poor, poor baby!” wailed Vera.
“Shall I slap her again, Claire?” asked Mrs. Burke pleasantly.
“No, of course not,” answered Claire, and smiled at Nora and said gently, “You’re going to be all right, honey. But don’t you ever do anything so foolish again! Do you hear me?”
Tears were slipping down Nora’s white face, and she made a terrific effort to smile.
“I won’t, Claire — oh, I won’t. I don’t know why I ever thought I’d be brave enough to try it,” she said faintly.
“Honey, it doesn’t take bravery to destroy yourself,” Claire told her. “It takes bravery to go on living, even when you’d just as soon not. I know it hurts when you’re in love with someone and have to give him up, but this isn’t the way out of a heartache like that, Nora, and don’t you ever think it.”
“I won’t, Claire. What’s being in love got to do with it, anyway?” Nora asked like a bewildered child.
“Well, we won’t go into that now,” Claire smiled at her comfortingly. “Now we’ll get you into bed with a sedative, and tomorrow morning everything will be quite all right.”
Nora looked down at her bandaged wrists, and there was a curious expression in her eyes when she raised them to Claire’s.
“Will there be a scar, Claire?” she asked.
Puzzled, Claire repeated, “A scar? Oh, I don’t think so, honey. A very tiny one, maybe, but you can always wear a bracelet or a wristwatch to hide it.”
To her utter amazement, Nora tilted back her head and gave a small, ugly bark of bitter laughter.
“Oh, yes, a bracelet,” she mocked unsteadily. “By all means a bracelet, perhaps a pair of them — ” And suddenly she was weeping stormily again and Claire was holding her close, looking up at Curt, frowning in her bewilderment.
“She’s overwrought, and why not?” Curt answered the bewildered look. “Here, everybody clear out, and let Claire get her to bed and quiet her down. Is what you’ll need in the first aid kit, Claire? Can I get you anything else from the ship’s pharmacy?”
Claire cast a swift, expert eye over the contents of the kit and shook her head, as she picked up a small vial of white tablets.
“Two of these should be all she needs to give her a good night’s sleep,” she said quickly. “And I’ll give Vera a couple, too. They both need a good relaxing night’s sleep after this.”
The other passengers filed out, herded by Curt and Carl, and when Claire had gotten Nora into bed and given her the sleeping tablets, she turned to Vera who was sitting, wide-eyed and dazed, on the other narrow bed, staring at Nora as though she had never seen the girl before.
“Why, baby?” she whispered in a tone of the most abject grief. “Why did you want to do that?”
Nora gave her a long, level-eyed look and then turned her face away.
“You can ask me that, Mother?” Her voice was a small, bitter cry.
“But, baby, I told y
ou — ” Vera began, her voice shaking.
“I know you did, Mother, but you see, I didn’t believe you. Why should I? How could I?” Nora’s voice was thin and weary.
“But, baby — ” Vera whimpered. “I’ve never lied to you, have I?”
“Oh, haven’t you?”
Claire said swiftly, with a note of authority that had stood her in good stead throughout her profession, “I must ask you, Vera, not to question her now. Let her get to sleep. Tomorrow you can talk to her. Meanwhile, take these two tablets and get some sleep yourself.”
Vera looked up at her, and her white, tormented face made her look many years older as she docilely accepted the two tablets.
“I’ll never forget seeing her there like that — ” she shuddered and accepted the glass of water Claire held for her, spilling a little of it as Vera’s teeth chattered against it. “Why, Claire? Why did she do it?”
“That’s something she alone knows, Vera, and we’ll have to wait until she is able to tell us,” Claire said soothingly, noting with some compunction the mark on Vera’s jaw where Mrs. Burke had slapped her. “I’m sorry I had to ask Mrs. Burke to slap you, Vera, but you were hysterical, and your screaming made it worse for Nora.”
Vera put up a hand and touched the mark and seemed surprised.
“Oh, that.” She dismissed it as of no consequence whatever. “I’m glad it wasn’t Curt, anyway.”
“Oh, he wouldn’t have done it,” Claire smiled at her. “I’m afraid he’s the kind that never lifts a hand against a woman in self-defense!”
Vera allowed Claire to get her ready for bed, as docile as a child, scarcely seeming to be aware of what was being done. And when, at last, they were both drifting into sleep and she felt it was safe to leave them, Claire put out the light and slipped across to the door.
As she stepped from the cabin and drew the door shut behind her, she turned to face a man who was lounging against the opposite wall, obviously waiting for her.
She paused, startled, quite certain it was Curt, and then she recognized MacEwen Russell.
“How is she now?” he asked anxiously, his voice lowered to a sick-room tone.
“Nora? Oh, she’s going to be quite all right,” Claire answered. “The gashes were merely surface wounds, little more than that. I suppose if her mother hadn’t discovered her in time, they could have been serious. So let’s be grateful Vera found her.”
MacEwen walked along the corridor with Claire toward the dining salon, his brow furrowed in a deep scowl.
“I suppose Nora didn’t give any reason — ” he began hesitantly.
“None at all, because she was in a state of shock when I got to her,” Claire assured him firmly, and looked up at him curiously. “You and Nora have become good friends, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry for her,” said MacEwen, and there was a trace of belligerence in his voice. “That hell-hound of a mother rides her from morning till night. Did you know her mother beats her?”
Claire paused, wide-eyed.
“Oh, come now,” she protested vigorously, but there was more than a faint memory of her first night aboard ship, and the one when she had heard Nora weeping and had seen the ugly marks of a violent hand on her face.
“It’s true,” MacEwen insisted stubbornly. “It’s happened several times. I’ve seen Nora with a mark on her face and bruises on her arms so purple that she couldn’t wear a sleeveless dress. Somebody ought to kick that mother of hers overboard, somewhere where the sharks are good and hungry. They’d have to be hungry to bother with that hell-hound.”
“Look, I’m afraid you’re being too melodramatic about all this — ”
“You think a fine, sweet girl like Nora would try to kill herself just for an idle whim?” snapped MacEwen sharply.
“I don’t know why she would do such a thing, and I know her mother is devoted to her — ” Claire began, but MacEwen’s disgusted snort silenced her.
Before either of them could find words, Curt came striding down the corridor, eying MacEwen without favor and saying briskly to Claire, “Captain would like you to have dinner in his quarters, Claire. Dinner is over in the salon, and Captain wants to thank you personally.”
Relieved to be free of MacEwen’s troubling questions and thoughts, Claire smiled warmly at Curt and said, “That’s very kind, but I’ll have to change my dress.”
She glanced down with distaste at the stains that speckled it and turned back to her own room. She heard Curt and MacEwen talking in low voices as they waited. Swiftly she got out of her dress, into a brief shower and, freshly clothed, came out to meet them.
Whatever they had been discussing, MacEwen’s face was a dark storm cloud as he strode away, and Curt looked down at Claire with a wry smile.
“That young man seems to have quite a bee in his bonnet,” he admitted.
“I know. He was telling me,” Claire said as they walked toward the captain’s quarters.
“You don’t believe that bilge he was saying, do you?” demanded Curt sharply.
Claire asked quietly, “Do you mean about Vera abusing Nora?”
“It’s the most arrant nonsense. Why, Vera couldn’t possibly mistreat the girl. She’s crazy about her, devoted to her!”
“So much so that she dragged the girl away from the man she loved and wanted to marry?” asked Claire quietly.
Curt hesitated, scowling.
“Well, she said the man was no good,” he pointed out, and added in a firmer tone, “And you yourself told Nora that no man on earth was worth a girl’s destroying herself for.”
“I know I did,” Claire agreed with him firmly.
For a moment, outside the captain’s door, his hand on the knob, Curt looked down at her, scowling.
“You don’t look like a man-hater, but you sure sound like one,” he accused her. And without giving her a chance to answer, he opened the door and ushered her into the captain’s quarters.
Chapter Eleven
Captain Rodolfson welcomed her with gallantry and admiration, and when Claire had been seated at the small table where the wizened, monkey-like cabin boy was serving a delicious meal for her, she smiled up at him.
“Really, Captain, all this isn’t a bit necessary,” she assured him.
“I feel it is, Miss Frazier,” the captain answered, and gestured to Curt. “Sit down, Curt. I want you in on this.”
Claire looked from one to the other above her dinner.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she began uneasily.
“Miss Frazier, there is something going on aboard this ship that I don’t understand and I don’t like,” the captain told her firmly. “Curt agrees with me. He doesn’t understand it any more than I do, and we very much hope you can help us.”
Claire looked from one brown, intent face to the other, deeply puzzled, vaguely uneasy.
“Why, Captain, I’m not quite sure I know what you’re talking about,” she said warily.
Captain Rodolfson’s big face was touched with a friendly smile.
“We aren’t asking you to spy on the other passengers, Miss Frazier, if that’s what you are afraid of.” He dismissed the thing that was making her uncomfortable and uneasy. “We have no right to do that. But you are a nurse, taking care of our crewman, and now of this passenger. Miss Frazier, have you any idea what could have caused this girl, little more than a child, to want to destroy herself?”
“Frankly, Captain, I can’t believe that she really meant to do any such thing,” Claire told him earnestly. “I think she made the pretense in a fit of temper, to frighten her mother, perhaps. The cuts were scarcely more than surface cuts. I admit the bleeding could have been quite serious if Vera hadn’t happened to discover her in time. But I think Nora was counting on her mother doing just that.”
The captain and Curt exchanged significant glances, and then, as though Captain Rodolfson had reached a sudden decision, he leaned toward Claire, smiling.
“Please go on with y
our dinner, Miss Frazier. Curt and I will join you in a cup of coffee, though we’ve both had dinner in the salon, while we tried to calm down the other passengers,” he began. And when the monkey-like little man had served them coffee, he went on gravely, “I believe you have been seeing quite a bit of Major Lesley?”
Claire blinked in surprise, jolted by this sudden shift in his questioning.
“Why, yes, Major Lesley is a friend of mine, and I like him very much,” she answered with spirit. “You surely aren’t going to try to involve him in this escapade of Nora’s?”
“That’s what puzzles me, Miss Frazier,” the captain said quietly. “Whether or not he could be involved.”
“Well, I think — I hope! — I can set your mind at rest on that subject,” Claire answered vigorously. “Major Lesley barely knows the girl. Very few of the passengers have more than a nodding acquaintance with her. She’s been sulking ever since I came aboard; the only passenger who seems to have made any impression at all on her is MacEwen Russell.”
Once more significant glances passed between Curt and the captain and once more it was the captain who spoke.
“Oh, yes, they’ve made a few shore trips together, I believe,” he said smoothly.
“Well, that seems logical enough, don’t you think, considering that they are the only two young people aboard?” Claire pointed out.
“Oh, yes, of course.” The captain accepted and dismissed that in a single phrase; obviously his interest was not deeply taken. “Curt tells me that Mrs. Barclay seems to be afraid of this Major Lesley.”
“Afraid of him? I’d hardly call it that.” Claire hesitated, frowning thoughtfully. “She seems a bit — well, bothered is the word I would have used, because she has the feeling she has met him before and can’t remember where. Women are sometimes like that, Captain. For no reason at all, if they see someone who looks vaguely familiar, they fret themselves trying to remember where and under what circumstances.”
“Under what circumstances,” the captain murmured thoughtfully.
