A Wedding in December_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [67]
“If it suits,” Innes added.
Louise, who was pleased and who had possibly misread Innes’s intent, smiled in his direction. “It would suit me just fine,” she said. “Are you at all nervous? Your first day?”
The idea of being nervous had not yet occurred to Innes. Perhaps it should have. “I hope to do well,” he said.
“Oh, I know you’ll do well,” Louise said, unaware that a crumb of toast had lodged on her lower lip. “But if it were me . . . I’ve never been able to imagine cutting into someone’s eyeball.” She gave a kind of shiver to emphasize her distaste, and Innes was surprised by the remark. Surely Louise, as Dr. Fraser’s daughter, had had ample time to get used to the idea of eye surgery.
The door to the dining room swung open. Innes hoped for Hazel and was rewarded. He stood, but Hazel waved him down. Hazel’s dress was decidedly not military. She wore a pale peach silk blouse with ivory lace in the neckline. Her hair was pulled more severely off her face this morning. There was no graceful sweep across the brow. All of Innes’s senses were attuned to her presence. For her part, Hazel gave no sign of what Innes took last night to be a kind of intimacy. He forced himself to eat slowly (trying to break his medical-school habit of wolfing down his meal), though he still had to read the papers Dr. Fraser had given him. A clock on the buffet table read 8:36.
Hazel, who selected dry toast and tea only, sat near her mother with the instincts of a chess master. Did she mean only to appear to distance herself from Innes, or was it a genuinely protective gesture? Might it be a generous one, leaving Innes to Louise? (Or might it simply reflect a desire not to be seen so early in the morning?)
“Good morning, Mr. Finch,” Hazel said, inadvertently making a mockery of his earlier invitation to Louise.
“Good morning,” Innes forced back.
So there were to be no first names at breakfast.
“Mother, I left the clothes for Ellen on the bed,” Louise said from her end of what was really quite a long table.
“Perhaps today you will have had a letter, Hazel,” Mrs. Fraser said to her eldest daughter, ignoring Louise altogether.
There could be no doubt what was meant by a letter.
“We need soap in the bathroom,” Louise added.
“Ellen could fetch that,” Mrs. Fraser said. “Hazel, is this your day at the clinic?”
“Yes, I’ll be there until one o’clock,” she said.
“I can’t remember if this is your father’s day for surgery,” Mrs. Fraser said.
“I can’t find my fawn scarf,” Louise said.
“Perhaps you lost it on the way home from the shops yesterday,” Hazel offered.
“Oh, I hope not,” Louise said. “It’s a favorite of mine.”
Though the homely banter had the unintentional effect of encompassing Innes into the Frasers’ household, he didn’t think it the right moment to mention either his laundry or his need for a tailor. The door was once more pushed open, and Dr. Fraser, in high collar and bow tie, seemed to swing into the dining room. “Finch,” he said, rubbing his hands together vigorously. “Tang in the air. Stings the face. Good for the lungs.”
Dr. Fraser’s cheeks were pink, and his nose was running. Morning exercise had not occurred to Innes.
“Four miles,” Dr. Fraser announced, fingering his mustache and examining the fare on the buffet table. “You have a decent coat, I take it,” he added, as if there were no one in the room but he and Innes.
“Passable,” Innes answered.
“Good. We walk, of course, to hospital.”
Dr. Fraser took his place at the head of the table. “New wounds from France,” he added with startling relish and seemingly no memory of having uttered the phrase the evening before. The words had less power, however, in the sunshine; no low gas seeped across the table. Hazel calmly ate a bite of toast. Perhaps she was protected by the thought of a letter.
A massive plume of smoke, topped by a ball of fire, rose above the windowsill.
“There’s a fire,” Innes said, half standing.
Dr. Fraser turned in his chair. “What on earth