The Serpent's Shadow (38 page)

“When was there ever a question between us of
debt
and
repayment?”
he asked, not releasing her hands, and noting that she did not try to pull them away either, noting the flush in her cheeks. “I told you before; what I've done in the way of instructing you is the duty of a Master to someone who has the power to become another. And, in your turn, you will teach the ones you find—or who find you. There is no repayment, there is only duty to the future.” He smiled at her; with her hair down, she looked so vulnerable. What a change from the controlled and subdued Doctor Witherspoon he had first seen! “I should think that you would be familiar with that as a doctor.”

“I suppose—but—” She took a deep breath. “Parkening is a sneak. Worse than that, he is a
wealthy
sneak. He'll never forgive me, and if you get involved, he'll never forgive you; he'll do his best to ruin us both and he's rich enough to succeed.”

“He may be rich, but I'll bet my last shilling that old Peter is richer,” Peter replied. “Almsley may owe you nothing, but he owes me a very great deal. Or perhaps it would be safer to say that we've helped each other out so often that there's no point in reckoning favors owed.” He pursed his lips in thought a moment. “Actually, he might well consider that he
does
owe you something of a favor. That young man you put in his path—Paul Jenner—is proving to be worth his weight in gold, according to my lord. You've no idea what a relief it is for someone with his fingers in as many pies as Almsley has to have a secretary he can trust with even the oddest of correspondence. And the fellow began working the moment he arrived at Heartwood House; he didn't even allow his invalid status to keep him from working. You don't think Almsley's likely to forget that, do you?”

“I ... suppose not.” Peter noted that the despair had left Maya's tear-reddened eyes, to be replaced by hope. “Do you really think he would be willing to—go so far out of his way as to—”

“Oh, my dear!” Peter laughed, squeezing both her hands. “All you have to do is look appealingly up into his eyes, and you shan't be able to stop him! There is a very great deal of the repressed knight-errant in Peter Almsley.”

“And in another Peter as well,” she retorted, squeezing his hands back. “But I'm serious; Simon Parkening is a mean-spirited creature, and he
will
try to ruin you! I can't let you take that risk.”

“Which is why I won't be on the scene—visibly,” Peter told her. “Now listen; I've dealt with cads like this fellow before. I am much older than he, and old age and hard-won experience—and just a wee touch of treachery—will trump even the cleverest of callow young sneaks.”

“You
aren't
old!” she interrupted.

It was his turn to flush, with pleasure. That had been a spontaneous protest.
If she thinks me something less than old enough to be her father—I think I just became happier.
“The point is, my dearest, that I am older than he is by a good many years, and I know how to handle him and use his weaknesses against him. Now, what do you think the first thing that he will expect out of you will be, come the morrow?”

She frowned. “I suppose—I don't know. I can't think—that I'll go to his uncle? No, he knows I won‘t, because I didn't when he made that scene in the operating theater. Besides, there is no question of whom Clayton-Smythe would believe in a choice between his word and mine. Then he must suppose that I'll run to
some
male for help.” She flushed a painful-looking scarlet, and made a tentative attempt to remove her hands from his. “And now I have—”

“Oh, no, you haven't. I came to you, remember?” He let her hands go immediately, sensing that an impression that he was trying to keep “control” of her was the wrong one to give at this moment. “But do go on—that wasn't the whole thought. You're much wiser than he is. I suspect you can calculate exactly what he'll think and do long before he knows his own mind, so long as you distance yourself and look at it as an intellectual problem.”

Her brow furrowed deeply, but this time it was in thought. “Yes, he thinks any woman in trouble must run to a male, I'm sure, since he can't imagine a woman depending on herself—I don't have a father to run to—so I'll run to a lover!” She flushed again, but this time there was triumph mixed with the embarrassment. “And when I do that, he'll know who that lover is! He'll want revenge, and revenge not just on me!”

“My thought precisely.” Peter nodded. “So what you need to do is to throw him off guard entirely. You don't want to avoid him. That will give him a taste of satisfaction, which will only make things worse for you. Now, you know him better than I, so what possible way could you act toward him that would confuse him, rather than angering him?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in puzzlement.

“You aren't going to hide from him, so how will you act when you have to greet him?” he replied. “For instance—oh, you could treat him with the same kind of gentle condescension you would a naughty, but feeble-minded child.”

“That would puzzle him then, but it would infuriate him later,” she objected. “But I.do see what you mean. Oh, I wish I knew more about him—I think the reason he's about the hospital so much is because he's up to
something,
but I don't know what it is.”

Peter laughed. “Never mind, you don't have to! That's the jolly thing about having to outwit someone like him, with things to hide. All you have to do is throw out a vague hint and his own mind will fill it all in. He'll be certain you know what he's been up to! And that's our key, and the place where Almsley can help us out, because Almsley is welcome in every sort of social circle, and he knows exactly the kind of person we need to help us out. A high-ranking churchman.”

“A what?” she asked, now completely lost.

“A high-ranking churchman. Someone important, as high as a bishop by preference.” The plan all fell into place now, and Peter was as delighted with it as a child with a new toy, and just as eager to share it with his chosen playmate. “Firstly, we need to establish you in Doctor Clayton-Smythe's eyes as not only completely above reproach, but as someone to whom Clayton-Smythe is indebted. Now what does a hospital need above all else?”

“Money,” she replied instantly. “Always money. And I think I can see where you are taking this; high-ranking churchmen are in charge of a great deal of charitable money and have access to people who can supply a great deal more if pressed. I already know that Clayton-Smythe wants money for a larger charity ward; it will make him look so very admirable and high-minded. Having a bigger hospital makes him look more important. He might even get that knighthood he's been hoping for.”

“For that matter, being able to refer to a bishop familiarly will appeal to his vanity as well,” Peter pointed out. “So Almsley will find us one of his tame churchmen who is currently feeling the need to feed the sheep. You'll have tea with the dear old gent, talk about your experiences in India with your father, charm him, then point out that the need right here in London is just as great, if not greater, than in India. You will be the one to take the gentleman around the hospital, then turn him over to Clayton-Smythe like a good little girl.
I
will arrange for Parkening to be there at the same time.”

She shook her head a little, but only in puzzlement. “I don't know how you'll manage that.”

“Well, I won‘t, Almsley will,” Peter amended. “Don't worry, he'll do it. Your job will then be to stay with Clayton-Smythe and the padre until you run into him. Then you go to work on Parkening with your hints.”

Puzzlement became understanding, then matured to what was definitely a variety of unholy glee. “Yes,” she said simply. “I think I can do that.”

The bishop was a much wiser and kinder man than Maya had expected; she had the feeling from the twinkling in his eyes that Peter Almsley had told him something of the truth about the situation, and also that he wouldn't have betrayed her for the world. And what was completely unexpected and delightful, he and her father had been at both the same public school and at Oxford. Not in the same college; that would have been too much to expect—but the bishop knew her father at a distance at least, and was able to tell her one or two anecdotes about Roger Witherspoon's misspent youth among Oxford's hearty gamesmen. By the time they went off to the hospital, he felt like an old family friend.

Clayton-Smythe had tried to be rid of her twice, but the bishop had managed to somehow dismiss the effort without Clayton-Smythe noticing—and now the Head was convinced that having her along on the tour was his idea.

“Doctor Witherspoon is an immense asset to the Poor Children's ward,” he was saying, with a kind of too-hearty condescension that made her grit her teeth. “The woman's touch, don't you know. Little b—babies aren't afraid of a strange woman the way they are of a strange
man,
of course. And the young woman that's her protegée is a positive genius with ‘em; she'll be a fine children's doctor in time.”

“That would be my friend Miss Amelia Drew,” Maya said helpfully. “She's studying at the London School of Medicine for Women. Her teachers all expect her to earn her medical degree within the coming year.” She looked earnestly up at the bishop and the Head, clasping her hands together as if in entreaty as she noticed Simon Parkening approaching from behind his uncle.
Yes, I think now is the time.
“It would be so good for sick children if someone like Amelia was in charge of them; she could devote herself entirely to them and their ailments! If only this hospital had a new Poor Children's ward by then, there could be a place for her in it.”

The bishop recognized his cue and came in on it like the seasoned professional he was. “Well, there are some Royal grants at my disposal—or perhaps I should say, my
direction,”
he said. “Their Majesties—Queen Alexandra in particular—are very keen on improving the lot of our poor children, and if you not only have the services of a fine physician like my young friend here, but the prospects of obtaining a second lady doctor like her, I cannot think of a better place in which to bestow the Queen's grant.”

The Bishop beamed, Clayton-Smythe beamed, and Simon Parkening looked as if he'd been struck. At just that moment, his uncle noticed he was there.

“Ah, Simon!” Clayton-Smythe boomed expansively, prepared at this moment to be pleased with anyone who came within his purview, and feeling generous enough to share the reflected glory of his exalted new acquaintance. “Bishop Mannering, this is my sister's son, Simon Parkening. Not a doctor, I'm afraid, but we can't all be physicians, or there wouldn't be enough patients to go around!” He laughed at his own witticism, and Maya and the bishop joined in politely.

Simon did not. He was looking rather pale, in fact.

A little difficult to accuse someone of immorality who happens to be the “young friend” of a bishop isn't it, you filthy swine?
she thought triumphantly. But she wasn't done with him yet, as he was about to discover.

“Oh, Mr. Parkening is in and out of the hospital quite as much as if he
was
a doctor,” Maya said, with a light laugh and a penetrating glance at Parkening.
“Some
of the staff can't quite understand what he finds so fascinating, but I think there are one or two of us who've penetrated his secret!”

Parkening actually blanched; he went so white even his uncle noticed. “I say, nephew,” the Head began.

But Maya was already offering a solicitous hand to help Parkening to a nearby chair. “Goodness, Mr. Parkening,” she said, in tones of false sympathy. “Didn't your physician tell you that after a heat stroke like the one you suffered yesterday, you should never exert yourself? You really should not have come here today—the wards may not be as dreadful now that the heat has broken, but you should still be taking cooling drinks on a breezy veranda, not tottering about here! I'm sure your business here could bear your absence for a day or two!”

“Heat stroke?” Clayton-Smythe exclaimed in surprise. “Simon? You suffered a heat stroke here?”

Maya prevented Parkening from explaining by answering before he could. “Oh, my, yes, Doctor! I found him on the floor of the linen closet in the Women's Charity Ward and had him taken straight up to the Men's Private Ward where he could be properly cooled down with ice and alcohol rubs.” She dropped her gaze modestly—so that Clayton-Smythe would not see the malicious glitter in them. Let the uncle make what he would of his nephew being found in one of the women's wards—and in a storage closet, no less!