The House at Mermaid's Cove(34)

“I’ll know when I get there.” He glanced up at the sky. “It seems to be easing off a bit, anyway.”

“I’ll stay here,” I said. “I won’t leave him until the doctor comes.”

“Thank you. I can’t think what would have happened if you hadn’t been here. You were so calm—even when I dropped that wretched needle.”

“I’ve had far worse things happen during operations.” I smiled. “At least you didn’t faint on me.”

He grunted. “I’d better get going.”

I watched him as he walked back up the cobblestone street. When he reached the corner, he turned and waved. It was a simple gesture—nothing out of the ordinary—and yet I suddenly felt lighthearted and curiously elated.



It was just after midday when my patient opened his eyes. He looked around, blinking, not fully awake because of the morphine. He didn’t see me sitting in the chair, and when I spoke, he looked bewildered.

“It’s all right, Mr. Badger. I’m Alice, the nurse. You had an accident—do you remember?”

Half an hour later he was sitting up in bed, smoking a clay pipe. He looked remarkably well for someone who’d been through such an agonizing ordeal, and he remembered most of what had happened, including Jack’s presence at the makeshift operating table.

“You’re ’Is Lordship’s cousin, aren’t you?” He studied me through a curl of smoke.

“That’s right. I was working in a hospital in London, but it was bombed.”

“You don’t sound like a Londoner,” he said.

“I’m from Dublin—the Irish branch of the family.”

“Oh.” He tilted his head, like someone examining a portrait. “You know, you remind me of someone. A girl ’Is Lordship used to knock about with.”

“Really?” My hand went to the scarf tied round my head. I doubted that any girl Jack had been involved with in the past could have had hair like mine.

“You’ve got the same color eyes—and that fairy look about you.” He sucked on his pipe. “’Er name was Morwenna Martin. Does ’e ever speak of ’er?”

Morwenna. It was an unusual name—but I knew it from somewhere. It came back to me in a heartbeat: Jack had written that name in the back of the tide tables, along with a date in 1938. “No,” I said, “he’s never mentioned her to me.”

“No, I don’t suppose ’e would,” the old man went on. “She were from Sithney: worked as a maid at the rectory. Not the sort of girl the old viscount would have approved of . . .” He trailed off, rubbing his beard. “Not that I blame ’Is Lordship, mind. Nothing wrong with sowin’ your wild oats.” He chuckled, spluttering as the smoke caught his throat. “’E’d squirm like a bag of eels if ’e knew that folks round here knew. Never brought ’er ’ere, of course. Used to take ’is boat round the coast to Porthleven to pick her up. But I spotted ’em more than once when I was out fishin’: saw ’em jumpin’ into the sea and frolickin’ about in the waves.”

“What happened to her?” I was thinking of what the Land Girls had said. Had Jack secretly married the girl, against his father’s wishes? Was he keeping her somewhere, at a discreet distance?

“She went away.” He shrugged. “I ’eard someone say she’d gone over the border to Devon, to work in a big ’ouse there.” He went to knock his pipe out on a saucer next to the mattress he was lying on. But he stretched too far, toppling over onto his side. He let out a cry of pain.

“Mr. Badger!” I jumped up to help him. “You mustn’t strain yourself. Those stitches in your leg won’t hold unless you keep still.”

He grunted. “I’ll have a matchin’ set, now, won’t I, Nurse? A scar on this leg, in the very same place that shark bit the other!”

For a moment I thought he was going to try to roll up the remaining leg of his trousers to show me what the shark had done. I managed to persuade him to take a second dose of morphine, and soon he was sleeping again.

I went to the door and looked out. The rain had stopped, but the cobblestones were still wet, with a miniature stream trickling down the street toward the quayside. I wondered if Jack had managed to get through the floodwater to the doctor.

I went back inside and sat down beside the mattress. I couldn’t shake the image Leo Badger had conjured, of Jack and the girl, Morwenna, together in the sea. I pictured them clinging to each other, kissing, her hair, long and sleek, snaking over her wet, naked shoulders. Was it true, what the old man had said—that my face was just like hers? Was that the reason why Jack had taken me in?





Chapter 10

The doctor arrived as I was boiling eggs to go with the freshly baked bread George Retallack’s sister, Molly, had sent round. Leo Badger was propped up on pillows, directing me to where the plates and cutlery were kept. His face fell when he saw the doctor following Jack through the door.

“You’re not goin’ to cart me off to ’ospital, I ’ope,” he said, as the bandages were peeled back.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Mr. Badger.” The doctor pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose as he straightened up. “Miss McBride seems to have done an excellent job.”