Mercedes Lackey - The Gates of Sleep

“I know that,” she replied, with a smile to soften it. “I’m Marina Roeswood, and I’m here on two accounts. I would like to speak to Dr. Pike, and I would like to enquire about the poor girl who was—”

How to put this tactfully?

“—out in the snow yesterday. Ellen, I believe is her name?”

“Ah.” The young woman seemed partially mollified. “Well, in that case, I suppose it must be all right.” She looked over her shoulder, back at the patients. “Miss, I can’t leave my charges, and there’s no one to send for to take you around. I shall tell you where to find the doctor, or at least, where to wait for him, but you’ll have to promise to go straight there and not to disturb the patients in any way. Do you understand?”

“Perfectly.” Again she smiled, and nodded. “It’s possible that one of them might approach me; would it hurt anything if I try to soothe him and put him back in a fireside chair? I think I can feign to be whomever I’m thought to be.”

“We don’t have many as is inclined to delusions, miss, but—yes, I think that would be the thing to do,” the nurse replied after a moment of thought. “There isn’t a one as is dangerous—or we couldn’t be as few of us for as many of them as there is.”

Marina thought she sounded wistful at that. Perhaps she had come from a larger establishment; Marina hoped she didn’t regret the change.

“Now, you turn right around, go back to the hall, across and to the back of the room. Go through that door, and keep going until you find the Red Saloon, what used to be the billiard room. It’s Doctor’s office now, and you wait for him there. He’ll be done with his rounds soon, and I’ll try to see he knows you’re here.”

“And Ellen?” she asked.

“Not a jot of harm done her, poor little lamb,” the nurse said sympathetically. “But that’s what happens, sometimes, when you take your eyes off these folks. Like little children, they are, and just as naughty when they’ve got a mind to it.” She looked back over her shoulder again, and Marina took the hint and turned and went back the way she had come.

Following the nurse’s instructions, she found the Red Saloon without difficulty, complete with medical books in the shelves and empty racks where billiard cues had once stood. It still boasted the red figured wallpaper that had given it its name, and the red and white marble tiles of the floor, as well as a handsome white marble fireplace and wonderful plasterwork friezes near the ceiling. It was not hard to imagine the billiard-table and other masculine furniture that must have once been here. Now there was nothing but a desk, a green-shaded paraffin lamp, and a couple of chairs. She moved toward one, then hesitated, and went over to the bookshelves to examine what was there and see if there was anything she could while away her time with.

Medical texts, yes. Bound issues of medical journals. But—tucked in a corner—a few volumes of poetry. Spencer. Ben Jonson. John Donne.

Well. She slid the last book out; the brown, tooled-leather cover was well-worn, the pages well-thumbed, the title page inscribed To Andrew, a companion for Oxford, from Father.

She took it down, and only then did she take a seat, now with a familiar voice to keep her company.

She looked up when the doctor came in, and extended her hand. “Well, we meet again, Dr. Pike,” she said, as he took it, and shook it firmly. “I won’t apologize for visiting you without invitation, although I will do so for borrowing this copy of one of my old friends.”

She held up the book of poetry, and he smiled. “No apologies necessary,” he replied, and took his seat behind his desk. “Now, why did you decide to come here?”

She took a deep breath; as she had read Donne, encountering with a little pain some of his poems on the falseness of women, she had determined to be as forthright and blunt as she dared. “You know, of course, that I’m not of age?”

He raised an eyebrow. “The thought had occurred to me. But I must say that you are extremely prepossessing for one who is—?”

She flushed. “Almost eighteen,” she said, with a touch of defensiveness.

“It is a very mature eighteen, and I am not attempting to flatter you,” he replied. “Do I take it that this has something to do with your age?”

“I have a guardian, as you may know—my father’s sister, Arachne Chamberten. My guardian would be horrified if she knew how much freedom I am accustomed to,” she said, wishing bitterly it were otherwise. “Furthermore, my guardian doesn’t know that I’m here and she isn’t going to find out. She and her son have gone to deal with a business emergency in Exeter, and they can’t be back until this evening at the earliest. Madam Arachne has very, very strict ideas about what is proper for the behavior of a girl my age.” She couldn’t help herself, she made a face. “I think she has some rather exaggerated ideas about how one has to act to be accepted in society, and the kind of people that one can and can’t know.”

“Ah?” he responded, and she felt her cheeks getting hotter.

“I mean, she thinks that if I fraternize with anyone who is absolutely on the most-desired guest-lists, I would be hurting my future.” Her blushes were cooled by her resentment. “I think she’s wrong. Lady Hastings doesn’t act anything like Madam, and I’m sure she is in the best circles.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Dr. Pike said dryly. “I don’t move in those circles myself. Oh, they may come to me when they need me, but they wouldn’t invite me to their parties.”

She felt heat rushing into her cheeks again. “The point is, I did promise to help you with that girl, and since my guardian is probably going to have my wretched cousin riding with me at any time I’m not going to church or the vicarage, this was the only time I was going to be able to arrange things with you. I think, if you can manage it, that we ought to bring her there. I think the vicar would understand, he seems a very understanding sort—”

The doctor seemed, oddly enough, to fix first on what she’d said about the odious Reggie. “Your cousin? Don’t you mean, your fiance?”

She stared at him blankly. “What fiance?”

“The gentleman who came to get you—”

Reggie. He thought she was engaged to Reggie. What an absolutely thick thing to assume!

“Good gad!” she burst out. “Whatever possessed you, to think the Odious Reggie was my fiance? I’d rather marry my horse!”

He stared at her blankly, as she stared at him, fuming. Then, maddeningly, he began to chuckle. “My apologies, Miss Roeswood. I should have known better. I should have known that you would have more sense than that.”

She drew herself up, offended that he had even given the thought a moment of credence. Not one ounce of credit to my good sense, not one. Couldn’t he see from the first words out of my mouth that I would have less than no interest in a beast like Reggie?

He probably thought that, like any silly society debutante, she would be so swayed by Reggie’s handsome face that she’d ignore everything else. “I should hope so,” she said, stiffly. “I should think anyone but the village idiot would have more sense than that. Now—”

She was irrationally pleased to see him blush.

“—perhaps we can talk about your patient, and how I am to be able to help her after today.”

“I think that you are right, if getting away from your—escort—is going to be so difficult. The vicarage is the only solution, Miss Roeswood,” the doctor replied. “And I believe that we can manufacture some sort of reason to bring you and Ellen together there on a regular basis. But first, well, I would like to see if you can do anything for her, before we make any further plans.”