The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [7]
And what a tremendous vehicle for his escape, this grand steamship, an opulent juggernaut cutting through the swell, nearly immune to the vicissitudes of wind and weather; a refined, dignified experience in contrast to the cramped frigates and sloops he'd sailed during his tours as a young ship's doctor. Fifteen years ago now; those long months afloat felt like a dream he'd had a century ago.
He rested a foot up on the rail and watched England recede, telescoped his new spyglass and trained it on the promenade that hugged the Southampton shore below the harbor. Tourists parading on the boardwalk fronting the seaside resorts, taking the air. He pulled focus on the glass, saw the blankets in their laps, the black cloths stretched across the mouths of the consumptives in their rolling chairs....
A stab pierced his chest. Not three months ago, wheeling his wife, Louise, in one of those rollers along a walkway in Switzerland. Cold blue sky. Mountains looming overhead; how he'd resented the majestic indifference of those stolid rocks. Hated how the sanitarium staff treated Louise with their standardized, patronizing cheeriness ...
Finally, he'd grabbed one of them by the arm, a shovel-faced Austrian nurse, shook her, hard: You're talking to the disease! Talk toher, there's a person in this chair! Louise embarrassed, the woman backing away, pale hands fluttering. He hated them all! They didn't know his wife, made no attempt to engage her, not a moment's appreciation for what she'd already endured, this gallant, brave, good-hearted woman.
Why did people turn away from suffering? The ravages of disease were cruel, hard to witness; how many times had he himself been guilty of retreating behind the mask of a doctor's authority, when what the person before him needed more than medicine was a steadying gaze that looked past their affliction to the heart, where a soul cried out for comfort. His anger at that nurse's indifference had been inspired, in equal part, by his own failings. None greater than his inability to save his wife from a wasting disease for which there was no cure, that carried her farther and farther away from him by imperceptible degrees. How long now since they had truly been man and wife? Three months? Four?
The shipyards of the Portsmouth Naval Base came into view to the southeast. Lord; so many lazy afternoons passed there during his medical apprenticeship, gazing down from his office window to watch the gunboats maneuver in the harbor. When you treat one patient in six months there's not much else to do but sit and watch the gunboats. Nearly ten years since he'd moved there after that business with the Seven. Was it possible?
A flood of memories released: little Innes—only twelve then—working that summer as his hallboy; fresh-faced in his stiff blue suit, eagerly waiting to greet the clients who never arrived. Warm morning sunlight inching lazily across the kitchen wall of their Southsea cottage. The sharp tang of the kerosene lamp on his red maple desk where he sat up nights, writing, writing endlessly, dreaming of the new life his work might bring them. The tiny bedroom where their firstborn, Mary, was conceived and came into the world. Laughing as he carried Louise over that threshold, their marriage just beginning in a bubble of youthful ignorance, sentiment, and blind faith.
The horizon went blurry, his eyes misting over—mustn't think of her now, come on, old boy, put some backbone in it.
Passengers filled the decks below him. Excited chatter. Ship seemed at capacity. Germans mostly. Well-heeled. Only two dozen English had come on at Southampton. The Elbe, out of Bremen, a German steamer; the Nordeutscher Lloyd line, an entirely new breed of ship. Nine thousand tons. Twin screws; with a top speed of seventeen knots she cut a fast line through the hard gray chop of the Channel. First-class accommodations for 275, only 50 second-class cabins. An impeccable, disciplined crew. German lines nearly monopolized the North American commercial routes;