Doctor's Assistant (15 page)

“But he doesn’t have to.” Maris, at Charles’ right hand, looked with merry pleading into the sea-green eyes. “Please let’s have this little binge. You can supervise and do nothing, and I’ll guarantee to catch enough trout for both of us. I’m quite good with a line.”

“Who could resist such a bribe?” said Charles mockingly. “You’re under my orders, then. All those interested can turn up here on ponies at six next Saturday morning.” His glance flickered down the table, hardly rested on Laurette before it moved round to John Delaney. “That game leg of yours puts you out, I’m afraid; Captain, but we can take Laurette.”

Laurette steeled herself. “As a matter of fact we shan’t be here, Charles. If your car is available we’d like to leave on Friday,” she said steadily.

Charles showed no surprise. He did not answer her, but again addressed her father. “You can hang on till Sunday, surely, John?”

The Captain gave an accommodating shrug, and a smile.

“It’s your car and you know best when you can spare it. We’re not in a hurry.”

Laurette’s eyes were downcast. One couldn’t argue in front of these people, but she was fully aware that, had he wished, Charles could have agreed upon Friday as their day of departure. This was just another demonstration of his power. What a heart-breaking relief it was going to be to leave Mohpeng.

She tried a mouthful of chicken and ate a peach, drank coffee in the garden with Kevin, and smoked through a cigarette with someone else. The others danced in the lounge and veranda, someone sang an old comic song which had a noisy chorus, and occasionally Maris’ infectious laughter rippled out into the darkness.

At something after midnight the party broke up. When the last guest had called a final good night, Charles gave John Delaney his stick and took a firm grip on his other arm.

Laurette kissed her father’s cheek. “Good night, darling,” she said in quiet, tired tones. And then, “Good night, Charles.”

She undressed mechanically and got into the sharkskin wrap she had bought in England for the sea-trip to Durban. It was cream with a delicate leaf-pattern in willow-green, and, its voluminous flare made her look the small, weary person she was. Weary, but not in the least sleepy.

She opened her french window and stepped out on to the veranda. The air off the mountains came cool and penetrating; it ruthlessly cleared her brain and brought a stinging to her eyes. The most forbearing of us are apt to wonder why certain incidents must happen to us, and Laurette was no less than human. But she did possess enough common sense to realize that one doesn’t eliminate pain by dwelling upon it. People did survive emotional catastrophes, even if they hardened in the process. Perhaps the hardening was all to the good; it girded one against further blows.

A movement at the other end of the verandah made her rigid. She saw the red point of a cigarette describe an arc into the night, and knew that it was Charles who stood back from the low wall, preparatory to going to his bed at the other side of the house.

She stayed very still, hardly daring to breathe, but from habit Charles looked both ways, and her pale outline was stark against the blackness of night. Even then it seemed for a long moment as if he would leave her there, unmolested. But that moment passed, and he came down the veranda at a long, silent stride.

“It’s nearly one,” he said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“Do I have to answer that?”

“No, I know the reason. You’d better go inside now or you’ll catch a chill.”

Her head turned, and in the rectangular light from her room he saw her face, young and shadowed, with moisture lingering on the lashes. His hand caught and held her willow-green cuff; his tones were rough.

“I’m not going to apologize for hurting you when you came in at lunch time today. Instead, I’ll give you some advice. When you’re dealing with a man, don’t imagine his feelings can be measured with the yardstick you’d use for your own. And when you’re dealing with me in particular it’s as well to remember that what you really know about me could be comfortably written on the back of a postage stamp.”

“Whereas I’m completely transparent,” she said with a flat inflection. “Thanks for the tip. After the weekend I shall only have contact with ordinary mortals. Till then I’ll strive not to cross you again.”

His mouth thinned. “If you’re trying to annoy me again you won’t succeed...”

He had been going to say more. But her mouth quivered and her fingers came up to her face in a curious, childlike gesture, as if to hide the quivering. His hand slipped inside her elbow, compelled her to the french door.

“Go to bed,” he said. “Let yourself relax, and sleep. Tomorrow morning even I won’t look so black as your thoughts have painted me. Good night.”

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

THE Delaneys were back in Port Quentin. Nothing momentous had happened during their two weeks’ absence, yet for Laurette the whole town and their own few acres in particular had a sharper meaning.

The last few days at Mohpeng had passed without incident. Charles had been carefully suave and charming, and thoughtful for the continued comfort of his guests. The trout breakfast-party at the edge of a mountain stream had passed off to the participants’ satisfaction, and Maris Seymour had been especially joyous both with the half-dozen fish she had caught and with Charles’ flattering banter.

Kevin had whispered to Laurette, “You were right, by Jove. They draw together like steel and a magnet. What price the District Commissioner as a brother-in-law!”

Singularly unmoved, Laurette had made an appropriate rejoinder. In the same spirit she had joined with her father, at dawn on Sunday, in thanking Charles for his hospitality. There had been no mention of a future visit, nor had Charles any notion when he would next see Port Quentin. He had sent his regards to his uncle, hoped they would have a pleasant, rainless trip, and waved them off.

Mohpeng was behind them. Laurette walked through the little Delaney plantation and made plans of a type which would have scared her a few weeks ago. But heartache had somehow immunized her against the more everyday dangers, and she had to have money. In Port Quentin there was no hope of earning any in an orthodox job, and she could not face leaving her father before his leg became quite normal; In any case, to acquire an adequate salary she would be compelled to live in Durban or some other large town distant from the home she loved and the friends she had made. And it wasn’t really necessary; the more she thought about it the more she was sure of that.

The third evening after their return she tackled her father. The evening meal was over and Bwazi gone to his quarters. Having spent the day weeding in the garden Laurette and the Captain had decided to have an early night, but she knew that hers would be a wakeful one unless they came to a decision.

She put on a cigarette and blew out the match, crossed the room to get an ashtray and spoke while her back was still turned to her father.

“Remember the idea you had about taking on one of the twenty-acre plots outside the town boundary? Have you given it much thought since?”

“No, though I’d still say it was worth trying—when I can get around without any sort of support.”

“That may take another couple of months.” A pause, during which she emitted enough smoke to create a thin veil. “I want us to get started on it at once. You can be the overseer and I’ll do the foreman’s duties. Bwazi knows a boy who will come three days a week for the heavy work, and we have our experience on the small plantation as a guide. The sooner we get going the quicker the results.”

The Captain let his head rest against the back of his chair, and regarded her thoughtfully. “Why the hurry? In two months the hottest part of the summer will be over and the whole proposition will sound much more comfortable.”

“I don’t mind the heat.” She paced restlessly to the window, lifted the chintz curtain and dropped it into position again. She came back to face him. “I can’t go on for ever without a job, and this is one I’m convinced I can handle. You yourself were keen about it a little while ago.”

“I’m still keen. As soon as I can take an active part we’ll go into it.”

“But why should we waste time? Once our plot is decided upon I can go ahead with the clearing. Two-thirds of it can eventually be planted with bananas and pineapples and the rest we’ll put down at once to catch crops—quick-growing vegetables and salads that we can sell locally in Umtopo.”

“The Indians have the local vegetable market.”

“For a year or two—until the bananas and pines begin to yield—we’ll compete with them. Maybe our experiment will push up the quality of their produce; it needs it.”

“Quite fierce about this, aren’t you? I’m beginning to believe you could do it.”

Almost with impatience she pressed out the half-smoked cigarette. “I’m determined to do it,” she said. “The land is cheap and will pay for itself in less than four years. Growth and fruiting here are pretty well continuous, so you can’t lose.”

“What about the marketing?”

“When we’re ready to sell our staff I’ll have a talk with the skipper of the freighter. Maybe he’ll ship it along to Durban for us.”

There was an answer to that: the freighter had given up as uneconomical the plying half-empty backwards and forwards along the coast. But John Delaney forbode to remind his daughter of the fact. Her anxiety puzzled him, but he saw in it a need to get busy on her own behalf, to earn her living in the only way presented itself now that she could no longer help Ben Vaughan. Small-scale planting might entail a tremendous amount of work for modest results, but the Delaneys were anything but avaricious, and he did want Laurette to be happier than she appeared at the moment.

The brittleness of her smile had not escaped him, but he was still too hazy about her inner personality to dare a comment or an enquiry. He blamed himself for their loving each other blindly, without either really knowing the other. His years in the Army had got him out of the way of personal relationships, and actually bereft him of the power to form anything closer than ordinary friendship. There was a gap between the comradeship he, shared with Laurette and their love for each other. It could have been filled by a sympathetic intimacy, but it wasn’t; it remained void because Laurette had grown up virtually without a father and contrived to do without parental guidance and understanding. He intended to make a better thing of being a grandfather!

“You can have your piece of land,” he said now. “If you like, you may drive me down to the council office tomorrow morning.”

A small tension snapped within Laurette. “Thanks,” she said. “You won’t regret it, darling.”

They chose their plot the following afternoon, a strip which had about five hundred yards’ frontage on an overgrown wagon track. They picked on that particular plot because it had few trees except along the edge, and would be comparatively easy to clear. The group of ancient cycads, that queer palm which bore the breadfruit of pioneering days, would be left standing, for no one willingly destroyed a cycad, These, her father guessed, were many hundreds of years old, and Laurette recalled being told by a ninety-year-old inhabitant of Port Quentin that the cycad at the bottom of his garden had gained neither height nor girth since his childhood; the house had disintegrated and been rebuilt, but the breadfruit tree had changed hardly a fraction.

A deposit was paid to the council and arrangements made for the rest of the purchase money to be remitted by half-yearly instalments. The Delaneys were landowners.

“We’ll splash a bit extra and hire the tractor from the garage for the clearing,” said John Delaney. “Meanwhile you can order your seed and implements. Take your time—we don’t suffer from soil erosion in this corner of Africa.”

From then on the tempo of Laurette’s existence accelerated considerably. Every day she dressed in slacks and a shirt and drove out to the plot. Hampered by the lack of laborers, she had to put in some manual work herself, but she turned to it gladly and with zest. All she had was given to this new project, for there must be no doubt about its success. It wasn’t only those all-important one hundred and forty pounds which forced her on. Equally compelling was the knowledge that planting, for a woman, was an exacting career; to make good at it one needed to be strong, both mentally and physically, and Laurette had resolved to prove she possessed that strength.

She would never marry; Charles had spoiled her for other men. But she would always have a home, and a job which was full of interest and out of the rut. She had no intention of subsiding with despair.

At the end of a fortnight part of the rich brown soil was clean enough to be set with South African salads and varieties of vegetables, and the first day’s planting was blessed with a beneficient rain.

It was on that day, too, that both John Delaney and Laurette received a letter from Peter. To his father, of course, Peter had written in his usual airy style, but the Captain was nevertheless perturbed to read that the post of welfare officer had turned out a flop, while, fortunately, a really good opening with a London firm of stockbrokers coincided with Peter’s release from the tropics.

“A pity the boy can’t stick it out,” was the Captain’s observation. “Still, he must have saved a fair portion of his salary and that will help him to get established in London. I’m afraid we can’t do much more for him.” He slid the letter back into its envelope. “What has he to say to you?”

“It’s on the same lines as yours.” Slowly, as if what Peter had penned were negligible, she tore the letter across, twice, and crumpled it into her palm. “I expect he’s exuberant at leaving the tropics.”

John Delaney went quiet and pensive. His son’s blithe thoughtfulness always made him uneasy and a trifle sad; yet there was little one could do now that Peter had reached manhood. He must shape his own life.

Laurette had so often talked with her father about Peter that she could not help but guess what was in his mind at this moment. She hated to see him so disturbed but was thankful he had learned nothing of the truth about the matter. He was distressed by Peter’s instability, but how much more deeply he would have been wounded to hear about the gambling and debts.

She had read her own brief letter only once, but its contents were imprinted in her memory. Peter had received the money (“for which many, many thanks, my sweet Laurette”), but who the dickens had she borrowed it from? Who was this chap in Basutoland who had the nerve to follow up the loan with a simply scorching letter? Did Laurette know the man had actually stated that Peter Delaney was a blight on the face of the earth, that in future he had better leave his sister alone and wriggle out if his morasses without aid, like the insect he was?

“Honestly, Laurette,” he finished, “this Charles Heron doesn’t deserve a penny of the money back. How you ever got him to pay out I can’t imagine!”

The information that Charles had slated Peter by post further hardened Laurette’s decision that the whole of the loan should be repaid. That evening she replied to Peter telling him that as soon as he began his duties in England he must send her whatever he could afford; once her own letter was posted she put the subject from her for a while. The new plantation kept her completely occupied.

About once a week Ben came to see John Delaney. Laurette heard about his calls from her father, but her three acres of market garden were covered with the pale green of new growth before she herself saw Ben.

He came down to the plot in his car, bumped along the track and pulled up close to where she was forking in a powdered pest-killer. He got out on to the soil, raked his hair back in the familiar, harassed manner, and gave her a restrained smile.

“Hello,” she said with deserved cheerfulness. “Have you come to see if it’s true?”

“No, I knew It was. I believe you could do anything you really set your mind to.” He looked down at the golden-brown face under the old straw hat. “How does a thing of your age and size manage to own such a strong will?”

“Most of us can manage to be strong-willed in one direction,” she said. “It’s what drives you that counts.”

“You must have an extraordinarily powerful stimulus.”

He turned to survey the expanse of freshly-ploughed earth and added musingly, “Growing things is clean, vital work, isn’t it? You can’t imagine it getting mixed up with intrigue and hatred.”

Laurette shifted her small sack of powder and pushed her hat to the back of her head, revealing damp, clinging curls. “Doctoring shouldn’t, either,” she said. And then, tentatively, “Is there anything in the rumor that you’re selling up?”

“I haven’t done anything positive about it. Alix wants me to go north and specialize, but I can’t make up my mind.”

“That’s the answer, surely?”

He gave her an odd, swift glance. “You mean that I should be driven in the way you’re driven to create a plantation. If I’m not, then I ought to stay. My case is less simple than yours. I have reason to be grateful to Alix, and to her father. I’m not even certain that I’d do more good by remaining here than by going.”

Frankly she enquired, “Aren’t you in love with her?”

He replied at once, offhandedly, “No. You shouldn’t need to ask that. But she’s done so much for me that occasionally I feel almost bound to marry her.”

She twisted the handle of the fork she had been using, and watched the soil churning about the tines. “It would be a bitter sort of marriage, because she’s probably not in love with you, either.”

There followed a very long silence. Ben leant back upon the bonnet of his car and stared into the blue and green distance. Laurette noticed that the fawn hair was losing color at the temples and the lines were etched even deeper at the corners of his eyes. She also noticed a yellow bird on a branch behind him and envied its freedom.

She was freer than Ben, though; he was hemmed in by the indomitable Alix.

He spoke suddenly. “Laurette, if I told Alix to go, would you work with me again?”

“I couldn’t.” Her hand went out in an embracing gesture. “I’m committed to this, now.” She hesitated, and her newly-found courage prompted her next statement. “I used to be furious and hurt about the way you let me go without a word. I longed for a showdown, so that I could tell you what I thought of a man who allowed his cousin to sack his assistant. Well, I’ve become less belligerent about it...”

“But, Laurette!” He was electrified, and gazing at her in perplexity. “It was you who told Alix—that was why I never mentioned it to you.”

“Then you didn’t ever say you couldn’t afford a nurse?”

“I may have said I couldn’t afford a trained one. Neither can I. But you...”

“What else did your cousin tell you?”

He met her eyes and his were alight with anger. “That you were not only tired of the practice and the mission, but were in love with someone who refused to let you continue helping me.”

“In love?” she echoed, her head slightly averted. “You knew that wasn’t so.”

“How could I be sure? There was Charles.”

Half-prepared for this, she said, “Even if I’d been in love with Charles, it would have been most unlikely that I’d stir
his
emotions. Alix Brooke was clearing the way for her own ends.”