Secret for a Nightingale (44 page)

“Yes, I do know that.”

“Those bullets were deeply embedded. They had started to fester. It was touch and go.”

I looked at him. I thought: I was right about him. He wants praise.

All the time he wants glory for Dr. Adair.

“You will remember I used unorthodox methods. It was fortunate that I did. If I had not, Miss Pleydell, William Clift would not be alive today.”

“You gave him something to drink …”

“More than that. I put him under hypnosis. That method is not always approved of by medical opinion at home. But, Miss Pleydell, my methods do not always fit in with conventional ones and therefore I am not a conventional doctor.”

“I know that.”

“I believe that pain retards recovery. A patient must be freed from pain whenever possible. When the body suffers pain, restoration is delayed. I would use any method to eliminate pain.”

“That seems to me very laudable.”

“But there are some people in the medical profession who do not agree.

Did I say some? I mean many. They believe that pain is bestowed by God or someone on High as just retribution.

“Let there be pain and there was pain!” I am very much against that. I have been in the East and I do not disdain methods which are different from ours. We have advanced a long way in some directions, but there are other ways in which we are behind a people who, by some standards, would be called primitive in comparison with us. Am I boring you. Miss Pleydell? “

“Indeed not. I am most interested.”

“You were present. You saw what happened with William Clift. I saved his life. But for me he would be dead and your Lily would be a widow, her child an orphan.”

Why must he boast? I thought. He is right, of course. He did a marvelous thing. But why must he detract from his action by this continual boasting?

“I put him to sleep so that I could perform the operation without his body resisting me. It is a method learned in Arabia. It is not to be used lightly. I only bring it into my work when it is absolutely necessary. You, Miss Pleydell, were so insistent

that I should save this man’s life. I had to show you that I could do it. And I did. “

“I cannot understand why you had to show me … just a nurse … just one of the adjuncts which can be useful at times but are on the whole a liability.”

“You are too modest, and I think that modesty is not really a part of your nature. I have come to the conclusion that this is false modesty.

Do you like the chicken? “

“Thank you, yes. I am not modest, but you have made your opinion of us very clear.”

“Then why do I bother to tell you this?”

“Perhaps you like everyone to know how clever you are?”

“True. But I have no need to stress the point with you. You already know.”

I laughed suddenly and he laughed with me.

“Let us get to the point,” he went on.

“I believe you once had a very poor opinion of me. You believed I had deserted my post to go away and revel in riotous behaviour. You were brought to me and there I was in native costume. What did you think?”

“That you were taking a respite from the hard work of the hospital.”

“I knew it. That is why I have to explain. Tell me, did you think I had a harem tucked away somewhere, that I was living a sybarite existence, indulging in all kinds of vices?”

“I had read your books, you know.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Not kind at all. They were given to me and I was fascinated by your adventures and I could see the sort of man you were. It came out in your books.”

“It was careless of me to have betrayed myself. I have lived among natives, as I described. It is only when you become one of them that you really know them. I have learned much from them. When you were brought to me, I was just about to set off on a mission. You know there was an appalling lack of materiel at the hospital. Do you remember the man with the amputated leg? Can you imagine the shock to that man’s system, with nothing to deaden the pain? What were his

chances of recovery? Very poor. And yet not to have amputated would be certain death. There was just a faint hope. With certain medicines there would have been a fair chance. That was how I was expected to perform operations. So … I went off to find means of putting people to sleep. I knew where I could get these things. Drugs. Drugs to sedate our patients, my dear Miss Pleydell; and not the drugs which are commonly used in hospitals. These drugs would only be given to one of their own kind. So I had to be one of them. It is more than a matter of dress and of speech … it is outlook. They know me as they know themselves. They trust me. If I had not gone on that little expedition when you believed me to have deserted my post and gone to revel in the delights of the harem I could not have saved the life of your William Clift.”

“Then I am sorry I misjudged you.”

“Thank you. You are forgiven. It is so easy to draw the wrong conclusions, to blame in ignorance.”

“I do realize this.”

“And you have changed your opinion of me?”

I hesitated and he looked shocked.

I said: “It is not for me to form opinions. I could only do so from ignorance, as you have pointed out.”

A waiter came to take the plates away and bring a rich cake of pastry filled with nuts and honey called baklava; a tray of sweetmeats was also laid before us.

“This is a most delicious meal,” I said.

“I agree. But I prefer to talk of ourselves rather than food.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and looked steadily at me.

“Dr. Adair,” I said, ‘you are not trying to hypnotize me, are you?

”

“You would not be a very easy subject, I fear. You would resist. Poor William Clift was in no position to do so. But you sitting there looking remarkably well, if I may say so, in spite of your sojourn in the hospital you would set your mind against me.”

“If I submitted, what would you do?”

“I would try to lure you from your conventional ways.”

“Conventional! I think I am far from that.”

“I would discover the secret of the nightingale.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just what I say. I always think of you as the nightingale. That is not surprising, I suppose.”

“What amazes me is that you think of me at all.”

“No, Miss Pleydell, my dear little nightingale, you know better than that.”

“Indeed, I don’t. I have noticed that you did not seem to be aware of the nurses.”

“I was aware of them all and you in particular.”

“Indeed!”

“You interested me. You are hiding something. I should like to know what it is. You ask what I should do if I could control your mind. I would say: Tell me everything … tell me what it is that has happened to you and which has made you as you are.”

“What do you think happened to me?”

“That is the secret. Something has … something very important to you something tragic … something for which you blame someone. I should like to know.”

I felt my lips trembling. So it was obvious. Memories of going to the Minster and finding Julian dead swept over me. And the knowledge that this man had been there . Indeed I had a secret, and it was to take my revenge. And now here he was sitting opposite me, and I was his guest, and I did not know why it was all so different from what I had imagined it would be. I was dreadfully unsure of him . and myself.

“If you would talk it might help,” he was saying.

I shook my head.

“What do you think of the baklava?” he asked.

“It’s rather sweet.”

“They like sweet things, the Turks. Try one of these sweet meats.

There again, they are sweet. It is all sweetness. “

I thought: He knows too much. How could he possibly have discovered that there was tragedy in my past? Had I betrayed it? Only Eliza and

Henrietta knew. Eliza had never had any contact with him nor would she betray a confidence. Henrietta? I felt a twinge of uneasiness. I thought of Henrietta who talked of him continually. Only this night, when he had suggested joining us, how delighted she had been.

I felt I had to change the subject quickly and I started talking about his books.

“Did someone introduce you to them?” he asked.

“Yes, it was someone who was friendly with you in England … oh, a long time ago. Stephen St. Clare.”

“Stephen, yes. He was a great friend of mine. Pleasant place they had in the country. Did you ever go there?”

“Oh yes.”

“He’s dead now, poor Stephen … and the brother too. That was a sad case.”

“The brother?” I echoed weakly.

“Yes. He died. As you knew the family, you probably knew too that Aubrey was addicted to drugs. He took it too far. Very sad. He had an unfortunate marriage.”

“Oh?”

“Yes … a nighty sort of girl who was no good to him. He met her in India, I think.”

“Did you … know her?”

“No. I heard the story, though. Poor fellow. He was weak. He got caught up in the wrong set. A good steady wife might have changed him.”

“Oh?” I was beginning to feel indignant, but I must keep a close guard on my feelings. I had been mistaken about his indifference. There was little he missed.

“You would have thought that a wife married to a man like that would have done all she could to help him. Instead, she left him … went off. He went down and down after that, and you can’t go on indulging in that sort of thing. It caught up with him in time. There was a child, too, who died.”

I gripped the table. I must keep calm. My impulse was to shout at him:

Listen to my side of the story.

“As a matter of fact,” he went on, “I happened to be there at the time. There was an inadequate nurse. The wife had left them to go to London.

The child was neglected. That gin331

sodden nurse ought not to have been left in charge of the child. A doctor should have been called in. “

“But you were called in …”

“Too late. The child was already dead when I saw him.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“Why are you so interested?” he asked.

“So he died,” I said.

“And the child died, too. What happened to the wife?”

“She left… lived in London, I believe. No doubt she liked the social life.”

I wanted to strike him. I wanted to hit the table in my grief and anger. It was devastating to have it all brought back so vividly, to hear myself blamed. But most of all to discover that my darling Julian was already dead when the demonic doctor arrived, if he was telling the truth.

He had represented me as a frivolous uncaring woman who had left her child for the sake of a trip to London and had failed to give her husband the support which might have saved him. How many believed that? How could I talk to him of those terrible orgies in the cave, the hideous rites, the shock of discovering the kind of man I had married and the reason I had gone to London and how everything had worked against me?

How dared he interpret the case so casually, so cruelly?

“Is anything wrong. Miss Pleydell?”

“No … no, of course not.”

“These heart-shaped ones are rather delicious. Do have one.”

“No, thank you.”

“Ah, here is the coffee.”

It was served on a brass tray in gold-coloured cups. I tried to steady myself as it was poured out. My emotions were in a turmoil. To be with him, talking in this intimate way, was most disturbing; and when he had discussed his version of what had happened at the Minster, he had completely unnerved me.

He was watching me steadily.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Why did you have an ambition to become a nurse?”

“I felt it was something I had to do.” I wanted to shout at him: What do you know about what happened at the Minster? How could I have stayed? It would not have been possible to save Aubrey. He was too far gone. I could not have helped him by staying. I had to get away. I could not bear the grief of losing my child. How dare you speak of me as though I were light, uncaring! I forced myself to go on: “I felt I had something within me. I suppose you would call it absurd. But when I touched people there was some response. I seemed to have some healing quality.”

He stretched his hand across the table and took mine.

“These hands,” he said.

“They are beautifully shaped hands. Pale hands … yet capable … magic hands.”

“You are laughing at me.”

He continued to hold my hand and looked into my eyes. I was afraid of those eyes. Those deep, dark eyes. I had seen their power. I had a moment of panic when I thought he was going to draw my secret from me.

“Oh no, I am not,” he said.

“I have told you that I have seen the mysticism of the East. I believe certain people are blessed with strange powers. I have seen you in the hospital. Yes, you have the healing touch. Was it that which made you want to become a nurse?”

“I think it must have been. I wanted to do something with my life.”

“Because of what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“The secret, little Nightingale.”

I tried to laugh.

“You are building up something which is not there.”

“That is not true. It is there. Tell me. Perhaps I could be of use.”

“There is nothing I wish to tell.”

“There might be something which it would be helpful to tell.”

“Helpful to whom?”

“To you? To me?”

I shook my head and withdrew my hand which he was still holding.

“You are very aloof,” he said.

“In what way?”

“I believe you are suspicious of me.”

I laughed and shrugged my shoulders.

“You don’t want me to know what you are trying to hide from me.”

“From you? Why should I hide anything from you?”

“That is what I want you to tell me. Dear Nightingale, we are not in the wards now. We are free … for one night, here we are.”

“What does that mean?”

“That there are no duties calling us from this most enjoyable encounter. I am glad we missed the others. Are you?”

I - er . “

“Oh come, tell the truth.”