“Nice company you keep, Miss Frazier,” he drawled, and strode off down the deck.
Claire watched him go, and then she turned to Major Lesley accusingly.
“Major, you know that’s not true! Why did you lie to him and let him believe you played crooked poker?” she demanded sharply.
Major Lesley peered up at her, and there was a childish happiness in his eyes that was reflected in his voice when he said,
“
You
don’t believe I’m a card shark, Miss Frazier?”
“Well, of course not!”
Major Lesley beamed happily.
“Why, that’s very kind of you, my dear. Very kind indeed. I’m most grateful!” he told her eagerly.
In mid-afternoon Claire discovered deck chairs tucked into a sheltered corner near the stern, and here she tucked herself in for an hour or so with a book. But she was half-asleep and the book lay neglected in her lap when she heard a footfall and then a small, startled gasp and looked up to see Nora standing there, looking down at her with obvious distaste.
The girl wore a scarf tied over her head, and a thin wool sweater, a brief skirt of denim, and knee-length stockings of white cotton. She looked awkward and plump and as nearly homely as a young girl can look. The ugly bruise on her cheek had been carefully covered with powder and make-up, but to Claire’s experienced eyes it was still apparent.
The girl turned to go away, and Claire said curtly, “Oh, why don’t you sit down, Nora? There are chairs for half a dozen of us. And I don’t bite, I promise.”
“No,” said Nora nastily, “you just go around asking snoopy questions.”
“Not any more,” Claire drawled. “Whatever happens to you, and whatever you do or don’t do, is no affair of mine. I couldn’t care less. If you want to sit down, that’s fine and dandy. If you don’t — well, that’s your business. But don’t think I’m going to retire humbly and leave you here all by yourself.”
Nora hesitated, and then she dropped, like a bundle of wet wash, into a chair as far from Claire’s as possible and stared straight ahead. Claire went back to her book, and silence settled between them.
Once or twice she glanced covertly at the girl, who sat with her head against the back rest of the chair, her eyes on the white wake of water left behind by the ship’s progress.
At last Nora pulled herself erect and glared at Claire.
“Why did you come on this foul trip?” she demanded sharply.
Claire raised her eyebrows and smiled.
“Because I wanted to, why else?” she drawled.
“Lucky you! Old enough to do what you want without somebody dragging you around making you do what you don’t want — ” Nora’s teeth set hard and a tear slid from her eye and made a path down her cheek.
“I suppose I am lucky, at that,” Claire said quietly. “But even people as old as I am have problems, you know.”
Nora turned swiftly.
“Oh, I didn’t mean you are old,” she stammered with swift, child-like contrition. “You’re not, at all! You’re just old enough to find life interesting.”
“Well, thanks.” Claire smiled at the girl. “Interesting? Nora, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Life can be other than interesting, even at my advanced age.”
“Now you’re laughing at me!” Nora was outraged.
“I’m not at all, you foolish child.”
“I’m not a child — I’m almost nineteen! Old enough to know what I want, but too young to get my way.”
“I’ll let you in on another secret, Nora. We never get old enough to have our way about everything,” Claire assured her. “This young man you were in love with — ”
Nora whirled on her in outraged surprise.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded sharply.
Claire made a little gesture of dismissal and lifted her book.
“Sorry, I’m afraid I forgot my promise not to pry into your affairs,” she said briefly.
“Who told you I was in love with somebody?” Nora insisted furiously.
Claire eyed her coolly.
“You surely must have heard your mother, the afternoon you came aboard — was that only yesterday?” she answered quietly. “She seemed to feel the young man was most unsuitable — ” She broke off, because Nora had tipped her head back and was laughing raucously, harshly.
“Unsuitable!” Nora choked on the word. “As if any man who would give me a second glance could possibly be unsuitable — ”
“That’s enough, Nora,” said Vera’s voice above them, and Claire, watching the girl, saw her shrink as though she expected a blow. “If you can’t behave yourself and control that loose tongue of yours, then I’m sure you would be much happier in our cabin. Miss Frazier will excuse you, I’m sure.”
Nora scrambled awkwardly from her chair and slid away out of sight. Claire could hear the girl’s running footsteps on the deck until they ended at the companionway door.
Vera stood quite still, studying Claire with a cool gaze in which animosity rode high.
“That was contemptible of you, Miss Frazier.” She let the words drop like small iced pebbles into the pool of silence left by Nora’s flight.
Claire met the angry, hostile eyes coolly.
“I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean, Mrs. Barclay,” she answered calmly.
“You needn’t lie — ” Vera began furiously.
“My dear Mrs. Barclay,” said Claire in a tone she had occasionally used at the hospital to an obstreperous patient or a visitor, “I am not lying. I simply do not know what you’re talking about. What have I done that was contemptible?”
“Luring my poor baby out here, to probe and pry into her private affairs and mine!” Vera’s tone was ugly as a whip-lash.
Claire looked her over with cool deliberation, and Vera, bitterly resenting the fact that Claire wasn’t going to fight, rushed on. “Last night after dinner she stumbled and struck her cheek against the head of the bed. I’m sure that the pain was intense: like the child she is, she cried. And she tells me you practically forced your way into the room — ”
“Now, that, whether you’re quoting Nora or saying it of your own accord,
is
a lie,” Claire cut in, and her own eyes were angry now. “I heard her crying and I stopped to see if there was anything I could do for her. That’s all.”
The two women eyed each other for an angry moment, and then Claire said quietly, “It’s odd, but I can’t imagine how falling against the end of the bed could cause a mark on her cheek so much like the fingers of a hand that had just dealt an ugly blow.”
For a moment Vera went rigid, and her color beneath the careful make-up faded so that for the first time she looked what she was; a woman in her late forties, not the thirties as she had hoped.
“That is an outrageous thing to say, Miss Frazier,” she blazed at last. “Are you daring to insinuate that Nora slapped her own face?”
“Of course not,” said Claire quietly.
“Then who — ” For the first time Vera’s eyes would not quite meet Claire’s.
“That’s pretty obvious, don’t you think, Mrs. Barclay?” Claire pointed out.
Vera had managed to recover somewhat from the shock, and now her manner was coldly haughty, though her eyes still held the wariness that would not quite let them meet Claire’s cool regard.
“Are you daring to suggest that I’d strike my baby?” Vera demanded, and tried to manage a laugh. “When I just about worship her? When there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her? You’re no longer insulting; now you’re just absurd, utterly ridiculous.”
“There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for her — except the one thing that would make her happy?” asked Claire, and there was a cool curiosity in her voice.
Cautiously Vera asked, “And may I ask what that is?”
“You said yourself you dragged her on this voyage to get her away from a ‘most unsuitable young man’ with whom she fancied herself in love,” Claire reminded her.
She could detect the relief that touched Vera at her words and was puzzled by it.
“Oh, that,” said Vera, and dismissed the wariness that had been for so long in her eyes. “Oh, yes, of course. That was the real reason for the voyage. But I thought that after leaving high school Nora should see something of the world, and I felt she would see a lot more of it on a freighter passenger cruise than on one of the big luxury liners.”
“No doubt you’re quite right,” said Claire politely, her tone indicating her complete weariness with the subject as she picked up her book once more. “And now if you’ll excuse me?”
The following morning before breakfast when she was walking around the deck, Claire all but collided with the steward, emerging hastily from the companionway, a first-aid kit in his hands.
“Oh, excuse me, miss,” he apologized hastily, and started past her, obviously in a hurry and very agitated.
“Is something wrong?” Claire asked, her eyes on the white box with its significant red cross.
“One of the crew, miss, has had a bad accident.”
“Perhaps I can help.” Claire joined him in his race towards the stairs that led down to the engine room, and when he slowed his step and looked at her, puzzled, she added swiftly, “I’m a registered nurse.”
“Oh, then you can help, miss. We’d all be very grateful,” the steward assured her eagerly with obvious relief.
They hurried together down the stairs to the engine room, where several of the crew had gathered about a man who huddled in a battered chair, his face white beneath the grime and the sun-tan.
He was badly burned about the arm and shoulder, and as Claire hurried to him, Curt Wayne turned, saw her and frowned.
“You’re out of bounds for passengers, Miss Frazier — ” he began.
“She’s a nurse, sir,” the steward said eagerly.
“Oh — well, in that case — ” Curt looked bewildered as she brushed past him and bent over the man.
“It hurts like the dickens, doesn’t it?” Claire’s voice was low-pitched, warm and sweet as she examined the extent of the burns, her fingers gentle as a butterfly’s wings while she probed so delicately that the man scarcely winced. “Well, we’ve got something that will ease the pain and make you a lot more comfortable.”
“The clumsy fool — ” Curt raged.
Claire turned on him, a young fury.
“Why don’t you go away?” she demanded shortly. “You’re being no help whatever here. When the man has recovered, then you can bully him, but not now. I will not permit you to speak to my patient like that.”
“Your patient?” Curt was very aware of the faces of the crew, gathered about the injured man. “He’s a member of my crew.”
“He’s a member of the human race, and he’s in great pain. Why don’t you go away some place?” Claire resumed her treatment of the man, and when she had made him comfortable, she smiled at him warmly. “You’re going to be quite all right very soon. Perhaps you’d like to be put ashore at the nearest port and go into a hospital?”
The man, a grizzled middle-aged man, grinned bashfully up at her.
“No, ma’am, thank you kindly. They couldn’t do me any more good than you have. I’m sorry to be a trouble to you,” he answered.
“Nonsense.” Claire’s smile was warmly friendly. “There’s nothing an RN likes better than to feel she’s being of service in her profession, and I’ll see you again this afternoon. If the pain comes back, you send for me, you hear?”
“Well, thank you, ma’am, that’s mighty kind of you,” said the man.
Claire stowed the articles she had used neatly in the kit and smiled pleasantly at the crew, before she turned and started back up the ladder to the upper deck.
She didn’t know that Curt had followed her until, as she stood on the deck, he spoke at her elbow.
“That was a fine job you did, Miss Frazier.”
She looked up at him swiftly and saw nothing but honest admiration in his eyes.
“It was a pretty routine emergency,” she told him curtly. “We had a lot of those in the hospital.”
“So you are a registered nurse,” said Curt thoughtfully.
“I do hope you don’t mind,” she said sweetly.
Gravely, Curt leaned forward and flicked with a thumb and finger first at her left shoulder and then at her right. When she looked at him, bewildered, hostile, he grinned boyishly.
“Getting rid of the chips you were wearing on your shoulders when you came aboard,” he explained solemnly, though there was a faint twinkle in his blue eyes. “I can’t quite imagine just why you arrived with your fighting clothes on. So far as I can remember, I’ve done absolutely nothing to justify your treatment. You have been civil enough to some of the other passengers, even to Captain Rodolfson. Me, you seem to despise. Could I dare ask what I’ve done to offend you?”
Claire had the grace to be faintly ashamed of her behavior.
“You haven’t done a thing, Mr. Wayne, and I apologize for being so unpleasant,” she said awkwardly. “It’s just that — well, somehow, I just don’t seem to like breath-takingly handsome men any more.”
Curt stared down at her, his brows caught together in a puzzled frown.
“That’s a loaded remark if I ever heard one,” he observed at last and smiled at her. “Like the old question, ‘Have you stopped beating your wife’? If I ask why you don’t like — what was the expression you used, breath-takingly handsome men? — that marks me as a conceited oaf; yet I would like very much to be friends with you, if I may.”
“That would be very nice,” said Claire without warmth.
“But not very likely, judging from your tone?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Well, no, you didn’t, but your tone implied as much,” said Curt. And suddenly, as though he found the whole conversation getting out of hand, he added briskly, “Well, whatever happened to get you down on men, he was an utter fool, I’ll say that for him.”
Claire caught her breath and stared up at him speechlessly.
“I mean, of course,” he answered the question in her eyes that she would not put into words, “whoever the man was who hurt you enough to turn you sour on the whole sex.”
He turned without another word and went briskly about his duties, and a little later Claire realized that breakfast was being served and went into the salon.
The steward greeted her like a long-lost friend and waited on her with an assiduity that made the other passengers look at her curiously. The steward had been attentive to his duties throughout the trip, but this morning his attention to Claire was almost embarrassing.