Читать книгу Captured by Moonlight - Christine Lindsay - Страница 6

There were exactly twenty-three paces from the office to the window at the end of the hallway, and back again to the office of the Principal Matron, Ada McFarlane, of the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Corp.

Matron couldn’t possibly have found out about yesterday’s abduction. It must be Geoff’s over-protective lecture that made Laine see tigers in the closet. Still, something was up, otherwise she wouldn’t feel as though a tribe of monkeys were using her stomach as a trampoline.

Laine rapped on the glass panel of Matron’s door and received the command to enter. With a quick straightening of her gray-sleeved ward dress, white bib and apron, and a twitch of her nursing veil, Laine stepped into the room. She stood ram-rod still, waiting for her superior to look up from reading a letter.

At last Matron removed her spectacles. With a nod she indicated Laine take a chair in front of her desk. “This correspondence is from the district commissioner. The Hindu population is alleging that yesterday an Englishwoman with an Indian missionary abducted a girl from the women’s quarters behind one of the Hindu temples.”

Laine kept her hands from fidgeting. Bluff it out, Laine, old girl, bluff it out, but for goodness sake don’t try the wide-eyed look of innocence you’d tried on Geoff last night.

“The description of one of the women fits you with startling accuracy, Lieutenant Harkness. This time it’s more than a rumor, such as the incident three months ago when another girl was kidnapped from the same temple and no one has seen that child since.”

Matron’s raised hand halted Laine from speaking. “I don’t have to explain to you how incidents like these create bad feeling between us and the Hindu population. I can turn a blind eye to a lot of nonsense, but I will not stand for anything that casts a bad name on the QAIMN.”

“Of course not, Matron.”

The look Ada sent across her desk would shrivel one of the younger nurses, but Laine raised her chin. Though perhaps it would be best to keep mum and listen.

Ada pushed her chair out from her desk and stood. Not a tall woman, but one whose starched confidence struck affection and a healthy dose of fear into the hearts of her staff. “Lieutenant Harkness, you are an excellent nurse. A decorated nurse. Not once have I had to lay a single fault at your door. But in reading over again the dispatches that accompanied the Royal Red Cross you were decorated with during the war, I am reminded that you are a brave woman. Not many could set up a dispensary for wounded infantrymen in a trench behind enemy lines until help arrived days later.

“It makes me ask myself—is this the same sort of insane gallantry that would sneak into the quarters of a Hindu temple and abduct not one, but two female occupants?” She quirked a brow. “Nothing to say? Well perhaps that shows wisdom on your part.”

Ada turned to look out her window to the courtyard below. “So, I ask you, Lieutenant, can you tell me where you were between the hours of two and three yesterday afternoon?”

Laine gouged the skin at her thumbnail. If she told Matron she was at the mission, this would place Ada in the difficult spot of having to pass this information along to the police. But she simply couldn’t lie. Any sort of lie would stick in her throat.

Outside the office, down the hall someone dropped a bedpan. The clock on the desk chimed half past.

Matron sat behind her desk and clasped her hands on top of her blotter. “I see.”

Laine leaned forward and started to speak.

“No, Laine, don’t. In the circumstances I wish to remain ignorant of your activities yesterday.” Matron dropped her gaze. “If this situation is not resolved to the satisfaction of the Hindu population, then you have no other option. You will have to resign from the Corp.”

Laine shifted in the chair. Matron’s disappointment in her weighed like a stone on her chest, but she wouldn’t cheapen her respect for Ada with excuses. “Yes, Matron.”

“What’s more, Lieutenant, I think it advisable you put considerable distance between you and this situation. Today. Why not go to Madras? Going home to your roots may be just the ticket.”

Laine swallowed past the lump in her throat. This grand woman who ran the hospital like a well-oiled locomotive knew she was guilty as charged and was still trying to protect her.

Matron picked up her fountain pen and began to write. “Friends of mine, a missionary doctor and his sister, are working with cholera vaccines in an out-of-the-way spot in the Madras Presidency. It’s in the jungle, a fair distance from the nearest city, and they need a nurse who isn’t afraid of rustic circumstances. It’s temporary, but if this trouble with the local Hindus doesn’t simmer down, your military career is over.”

Matron cleared the roughness from her throat. “I’m writing Rory that you’re on your way. And Laine, I understand the charity in your heart to help a child in such a horrific environment, but you must stop meddling in things you can do nothing about. That’s all for now, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

“Thank you, Matron. It has been an honor to serve with you.”

All sternness left Matron’s face. “God-speed, Laine.”

The office door and outer hallway ran awash with her blurred vision. Thank goodness the other sisters were busy on the wards, and she slipped into the office to retrieve her belongings before they noticed. One more good-bye and she’d crack. But this time she couldn’t blame the good-bye on anyone but herself.

~*~

The smell of castor oil soap along with perfumes lingered in the hallway of the nurses’ quarters. Her roommate Violet was on the wards, and Laine had the place to herself. Here in these rooms, she’d dreamed of a second chance at love with Reese, hoping he could help her forget her first love and the moonlit nights of Madras from before the war.

She shut the door behind her and leaned against it. The train for Bombay would leave soon, and if she and Eshana had really been spotted, then Eshana’s life was in more danger than her own. It wouldn’t take her long to pack, and she’d better get a move on. There was no time for regrets. Only the regret of removing her QAIMN cape for the last time.

She unclasped the scarlet cape from under her chin, drew it from her shoulders to fold and carefully place on the bed.

Half an hour later her bags were packed. All she needed were clothes to wear, a few of her medical books, and snapshots of days long gone. Lastly, she placed in her trunk the small case holding her Royal Red Cross medallion with its image of King George V engraved into the metal backing.

Her eye ran over the room and the things she was leaving behind for Violet, her gaze snagging on the leather-bound poetry journal that Adam had sent her when he studied for his First at Oxford. Next to this she had propped his copy of the Aeneid that he’d given her for her twenty-first birthday. She should have disposed of them years ago. All the same, she reached for the book. It fell open and her finger followed his favorite line from Virgil. I recognize the signs of the old flame, of old desire.

She snapped the book shut, stuffed it into her trunk and squeezed down the lid. She’d dispose of his poetry journals some day, but not today.

~*~

The narrow bazaars teemed. Someone lit a stream of firecrackers as the crowds prepared for the Hindu celebration Diwali, and the smoke teased Eshana’s nose.

She made a mental note to buy more oil for the little clay lamps to set alight for the children at the mission. And sweets. Jelabis and halva. If only she could find some coconut burfi like they had in the south of India. That would delight the little ones, and perhaps bring a smile to young Chandra’s eyes. Later she would have time for these purchases, but not now. She had to hurry back to the mission in time for Dr. Kaur’s visit.

Eshana pushed her way through the crowd. Temple bells rang, copper pots clanged, along with the joyful din of people shouting and bargaining. The colors of the wares brought a shimmer to her within, a shimmer that resembled the ripples of light on a bolt of scarlet silk that a merchant unfurled. Red, the color of joy. Did she feel this way because of her anticipation of seeing Dr. Jai Kaur? If that were the case then she must stop this foolishness straightaway. There could never be anything between them other than their mutual respect.

Only one street from the mission, a hand gripped her around the elbow. She whirled to face who accosted her in the street.

The man looking down at her took her speech away. So many years had gone by. It could not be. Her Uncle Harish, Papa’s brother. Her heart tore in two, and she dropped to the ground to touch his feet in respect. To see a member of her family after so long brought tears to her eyes.

He took a step back, and she rose to look upon his face. The last time she had seen his dark eyes, they had been filled with tears for her. Papa and Uncle had shaken her awake in the middle of the night. Uncle had removed the long string of pearls that at thirteen years old she had worn even to bed. His words from that night came back to her, “These wedding jewels must be given back to the groom’s family.”

Then Papa and Uncle had bundled her into a bullock cart and taken her from her home to another village, to abandon her like a shameful thing at an ashram for Hindu widows. She had not even been allowed to say good-bye to her mother.

Now Uncle Harish stared down at her in this busy Amritsar bazaar. Turmoil filled his gaze. What was he doing so far from their family home in Madras? His eyes widened as if he watched the dead come to life. “It is you, is it not? Eshana?”

She yearned to embrace him. “Yes, Uncle, it is I, your niece.”

“We had thought you dead all these years. The women at the ashram informed us you had left one day. We had asked them this when your mother demanded news of you.”

At the mention of her mother her heart leaped. Amma had demanded news of her?

Uncle’s gaze took in her sari, not the coarse white cotton of a widow, but the exultant shade of mimosa yellow. Her hair ran in all its glory, a thick plait down to her waist.

He dropped his manacle hold around her elbow as if the touch of her stung his hand. “What is this vile thing you are doing, not dressed as a proper widow? You should be in the temple in constant prayers for your deceased husband, not prancing about the bazaar.”

Eshana looked around her. This was not the place for such a discussion. She could not explain to him here that despair no longer shackled her, but that Christ had set her free. And Dr. Kaur would be waiting for her to discuss Chandra’s case. If the unhappy past did not lie between her uncle and herself like an abscess, she could have invited him to the mission. But something held her back from telling him where she lived.

She placed tentative fingers on his arm, but he jerked a step back, his gaze wide with fear and yet with sadness. “Uncle, I cannot speak with you now. It is my dearest wish to explain to you the wondrous joy in my life. May I come to you tomorrow and tell you all?”

He shook his head, quivering. “I cannot be having you come to my place of business. Surely you would not wish such bad luck upon me.” His face contorted with the jumble of emotions. “But for your mother’s sake, I will meet you here tomorrow and I will listen.”

His face hardened, just as it had that early dawn when she was thirteen years old and he and her father had left her at the ashram. His shoulders had heaved with his sobs then. But as he turned from her today his shoulders sat rigid as he stalked away.

She ran along the bazaar and at the corner turned to look behind. Uncle Harish stood not far off, his eyes following her. The look of his gaze did not hold the love he used to have for her, but something else, as if he held her in contempt. Or was it fear?