The Moon by Night (7 page)

“Is Dev here?” Cheney asked Victoria, idly looking at some of the papers on the littered desk. One was an invoice for a hundred syringes, another was a purchase order for plaster of paris. Victoria insisted on
everything
being done in writing.

“We came together, but right behind us a messenger boy came from Dr. Banckert at Bellevue,” Victoria answered. “They just had a brain come in—that was exactly how he worded it—from a man who'd had epileptic fits, and would Dev like to come and dissect with Dr. Banckert? I said he most certainly would not like to, but of course he went anyway.”

“But I have a brain too!” Cheney objected. “Dev promised to dissect mine with me!”

Dr. Pettijohn and Victoria exchanged small amused glances. “Cheney, my dear, unless your brain has some exotic disease or malformation or is the brain of something interesting like a mermaid or a dragon, you have been trumped, I'm afraid,” Victoria said.

“Mine is just a plain brain,” Cheney said rather sulkily. “But I still wanted Dev to help me. I'm so ignorant of neurosurgery. Er—Dr. Pettijohn, I do have an interesting case in the morgue. I did most of the dissection last night, but I saved the brain and the feet for today. You're welcome to join me if you'd like.”

“The feet?” he said hastily, gulping a little. Recovering, he said, “Thank you, Dr. Duvall, but Mrs. Buchanan and I still have much to do, and then I must be going. I'm going to a small party with some friends this evening, and afterward we are attending a lecture.”

“Oh?” Cheney asked brightly. She was a little unsure of herself with Dr. Pettijohn. His expression generally was one of attentiveness and interest with, perhaps, a little extra warmth when he looked at Victoria Buchanan, but when he was speaking with Cheney, he seemed to block himself off from square eye-to-eye communication. He just always looked completely blank to Cheney. No animosity, no interest, no good nor bad, but Cheney always found herself wondering what he was thinking behind the empty expression and bland blue eyes. “What is the lecture about?” she went on politely.

“Er—the stars. Astronomy. Constellations and so on,” he answered rather shortly.

“I see,” Cheney said uncomfortably. “Sounds very interesting.”

Victoria asked eagerly, “Are we still having the board meeting tonight at Duvall Court? And then to the opera?”

“Yes, as long as my new patient, Mr. Melbourne, is doing well,” Cheney answered cautiously.

“I checked him thoroughly this morning and then every hour,” Dr. Pettijohn said smoothly. “He seems to be doing fairly well, considering the traumatic nature of the injury.”

“Thank you,” Cheney said. “I've been very concerned about him, naturally. Anyway, Victoria, Mother did send word this morning warning me to make certain I didn't let an interesting dissection or exotic new case keep me from coming. I asked Dr. White to stay this evening, and I've alerted Mr. Roe to keep James and John on call all night just in case they need to come fetch one of us.”

Dr. Pettijohn cleared his throat delicately. “But, Dr. Duvall, Dr. White is just a student doctor. Perhaps it's not such a good idea for all of the staff physicians to be out of pocket at once? I would be happy to—”

“No, no,” Cheney said hastily. “There's no reason for you to stay, Dr. Pettijohn, especially since you are the on-call physician this weekend. If there is some pressing emergency before I leave, then of course I'll stay to attend to it. And if one comes up tonight, I'm certain Dr. White and Miss Nilsson can manage until one of us can get here.” She turned back to Victoria. “And so, barring any emergencies, Shiloh and I will be there. What about Dev? Can you corral him, do you think?”

“I certainly can,” Victoria answered with determination. “We haven't been to the opera or theater since we bought this hospital, and we haven't seen your parents for ages. We'll be there. What are you wearing?”

“I don't have time to discuss it right now, Victoria dear,” Cheney said with amusement. “I hear my brain and my feet calling. I'll see you later. Good day, Dr. Pettijohn. I hope you enjoy your lecture.”

“Thank you, Dr. Duvall,” he said politely.

She turned as she shut the door of the office behind her and caught a glimpse of Dr. Pettijohn's face as he watched her leave. There was nothing in his expression that Cheney could describe as objectionable. He nodded politely at Cheney and leaned back over Victoria to say something in a low, respectful voice.

It's funny. I don't know a single thing about him,
Cheney reflected uncomfortably.
I'll have to try and remember to ask Victoria about him tonight
.

But she didn't remember to ask about him.

Until it was too late.

“What I simply cannot understand,” Minerva Evelyn Wilcott said plaintively, “is why lady-gentleman-lady-gentleman seating doesn't work out when you have the same number of ladies and gentlemen.”

The rest of the guests at Richard and Irene Duvall's table first looked incredulous, then struggled to put on polite faces. The seating was, of course, assigned on the basis of Richard at the head of the table and Irene at the foot of the table. The first order of seating would be to have a lady at Richard's right, which was Minerva, and then a gentleman, which was Dr. Cleve Batson, then Cheney, and then Irene. On Irene's right was a gentleman—Shiloh—then Victoria, then Dev, and Richard at the head.

Minerva went on, “It just seems that with four gentlemen and four ladies there would be some way to have lady-gentleman four times. But look, there is Dr. Buchanan by Mr. Duvall, and there is Dr. Duvall by Mrs. Duvall. Why is that, I wonder?” She batted impossibly big round blue eyes with the longest, thickest, curliest dark lashes ever bestowed upon a woman. With her blond hair and Snow White complexion, her eyes were quite striking.

Gallantly her escort Cleve Batson said, “It's because of geometry, Minerva, and you know how you hate geometry. Don't worry about it, my dear. By the time you are assigning seating at your own dinner parties, I'm certain geometry will be out of vogue.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Minerva declared.

Victoria smiled at her cousin. “Minerva, dearest, I think you must sing for us tonight. Your gifts are certainly more in the musical line than in the mathematics.”

She spoke with clear affection. Minerva had always been rather scatterbrained, but she was lovely enough to complement any table and was a docile, complaisant child. Actually, she was twenty-one years old, but because of her naïveté she seemed much younger. She had attended Rutgers, whose courses, along with the usual women's studies of home management, etiquette, music, dancing, and elocution, also included
belles lettres,
history, mathematics, and philosophy. Minerva had managed to graduate, but none of it seemed to have in the least changed her affable laziness. She simply couldn't be bothered with boring intellectual pursuits.

But she was a pleasing companion and was Victoria's favorite cousin. Minerva had come to stay with the Buchanans in their palatial Fifth Avenue Italianate mansion for the season after her graduation in May. She seemed to have no interest in returning home any time soon. Dev had told Cheney that it was perfectly all right with him for Minerva to stay as long as she wished; the house was so big that he didn't see her for days on end. He had also remarked that once he had gotten off of the elevator on the fourth floor instead of the third, where his and Victoria's and Dart's private family rooms were, and found there were four couples staying in four of the bedrooms—there were eight on the fourth floor—that he had never seen before. He was amazed to learn that they had been visiting for almost a week.

“Vic loves it,” he had confessed to Cheney. “And I'm glad she doesn't sit at home basing her entire life around me. That would be hard for both of us.”

Now, as Cheney listened to Minerva's foolishness with the same amused indulgence as did the others at the table, she reflected that Minerva and Cleve were particularly suited. Both of them were so even-tempered and obliging that they would never have fights. Neither of them would consider single-minded passionate intensity as something to be desired in a companion.

Idly Cheney's thoughts wandered as she considered her own husband's carefree, amiable exterior that masked deep, fervent desires and emotions—matched by her own, she reflected. This self-discovery had been something of a surprise after her marriage.

Cheney felt herself blush deeply as she realized that Shiloh was gazing across the table at her with an all-too-familiar knowing look in his eyes. With the merest hint of a wink he said, “Well, I happen to know the doc's passion—”

“Who was talking about passion?” Cheney interrupted rudely, her cheeks flaming. “I wasn't!”

“No, you weren't, dear,” Irene said in her silvery-satin voice. “Nor were you listening, were you, darling? Mrs. Buchanan had just suggested that Miss Wilcott might sing for us tonight. She was expressing that Miss Wilcott has a true passion for Mozart.”

“And I observed that I had a passion for surgical technique,” Dev added, “and how odd are the things that kindle one's interest.”

“And as I was saying, I know the doc's true passion,” Shiloh said innocently. “Today, at least. Brains and feet. From her dissection. It's all she's been talking about all day.”

“Oooh, I just knew we were going to get around to talking about some dreadful organs or body pieces,” Minerva said, pouting, to Richard. “There are just too many doctors here. Cleve and Dr. Buchanan are forever talking about spleens and bones and phlegms and things. It's just disgusting, isn't it, Mr. Duvall?”

“Disgusting,” Richard agreed sonorously.

“You didn't tell me about the feet,” Dev said to Cheney, splendidly ignoring everyone else at the table. “Were they clubfooted? Malformed? Polydactyl?”

“They were
dinosaur
feet?” Minerva blurted.

“No, little Cousin. Polydactyl means many digits,” Dev explained gently.

“They were a mathematician's feet?” Minerva asked, puzzled.

Cleve smiled at her. “Never mind, Minerva, it's just more of that geometry you don't need to worry about.”

“They were just plain feet,” Cheney said clearly. “But you see, Dev, it's difficult to visualize the structure. Feet are so complex, with twenty-six bones and thirty-three joints and more than a hundred ligaments—”

“In each foot?” Shiloh asked with surprise. “Or counting both?”

“Each,” Cheney answered. “Can you believe it?”

“I certainly can,” Irene said firmly. “Miss Wilcott is looking pale, Cheney. I think that will be quite enough information about the foot just now. Mrs. Buchanan was just telling me that you checked Mevrouw de Sille into the hospital today. I hope she isn't seriously ill?”

“No, not at all,” Cheney answered vaguely.

“Mevrouw de Sille? We are acquainted with her, are we not, Victoria?” Minerva asked. “Is she that poor plain little woman whose eyes are so often red-rimmed? I've wondered if it was because she had been weeping over that awful old Mr. de Sille, or if she had something wrong with her eyes. Does she have something wrong with her eyes, Dr. Duvall? Is that why she's in the hospital?”

“No, not at all,” Cheney said again, even more vaguely. She looked down with determination and concentrated on her braised shoulder of lamb.

“Give it up, darling,” Victoria said to her cousin. “She won't gossip with you. She won't even tell you what's wrong with Mrs. de Sille. Doctors are like that.”

“Even Dr. Duvall? And she being a woman? A lady, I mean?” Minerva asked, round-eyed.

“Yes, she is being a lady, and she won't tell you one solitary thing about her patients,” Victoria replied. “Dev will never tell me a thing about a patient. I'm sure Dr. Batson never tells you anything either.”

“Why, no, he doesn't, but then I've never asked anything,” Minerva said. Looking up at him with a heart-melting smile, she asked softly, “But you would, wouldn't you, Cleve?”

“No, Minerva, I would not,” Cleve answered. “Begging your pardon, of course.”

“But why, if we're just concerned?” Minerva asked with a hint of a pout.

“Let us say,” Cleve said in a funereal drone, “that you come to me, Dr. Cleve Batson, and you are addicted to the devil drug opium. You have been wasting away in opium dreams, in dark smoky evil drug dens for thirty years—”

“I'm only twenty-one,” Minerva scoffed.

“For twenty-one years and now you are so ill you are on the verge of death,” Cleve continued with relish. “Now, suppose Nettie Drew Johnson—”

“Ooh, that woman who writes those scandalous columns with all the gossip in the
New York Review
?”

“Yes, that Nettie Drew Johnson comes to me and tells me that she is concerned about you and she would very much like to know what the diagnosis of your illness is. Am I going to tell her?”

“Oh no, Cleve, you would never do that,” Minerva answered solemnly.

“Now you see,” Cleve said with satisfaction.

Minerva turned to Cheney with polite inquiry. “So, Dr. Duvall, Mevrouw de Sille is an opium addict?”

Cheney, Cleve, and Dev went on to try to inform Minerva about the Hippocratic oath, but Minerva thought they were saying hypocrite-ic oaf, and so the conversation continued at cross purposes, though with much amusement.

Idly Shiloh looked around the Duvalls' dining room, once more appreciating the gracious appointments and understated elegance, as he had done so often in the past years. Creamy white cloths spanned the long expanse of the table, with a centerpiece of fresh pine and cedar boughs, red berries, and white taper candles. The spicy scent of the evergreens was like a breath of winter's night. The gleaming Sheraton sideboard and the gas lamps, a mere glimmer with candles providing the light, made the room look as warm and intimate as if you were reading a book by your own home fireside.