Doctor's Assistant (16 page)

“I wish I’d guessed,” he said with vehemence. “Instead, I’ve slipped deeper and deeper into her debt.” He straightened, and a small wry smile moved his lips. “It’s a relief to hear that Charles isn’t the man in your life. Your happiness is important to me, and I can’t see you finding it with the cool, soulless type.”

Unexpectedly, she said, “I can’t either. I rather think that the years will turn me into a breezy, hardworking bachelor woman.”

At this, Ben, who seldom smiled with real enjoyment, laughed outright. “When that happens I’ll believe in miracles.”

Both of them were still smiling when at last he got back into the car and started the engine. He reversed and poked out his head.

“Mind if I drop in at the bungalow for tea on Sunday?”

“We’ll be glad to have you.”

“Good. Don’t dig about too long in the sun. You may be tough, but you’re still only a girl.”

Laurette watched the car disappear and then continued with her task. The short chat with Ben had given her a feeling of elation. Without much effort on the part of either, the wall had collapsed and the way was open for a renewal of friendship between them.

It was strange, she thought as she dexterously twisted the fork to bury the grey powder, how events of varying magnitude confused the conduct of one’s existence. Emotionally, Alix Brooke meant nothing at all either to Ben or to herself, but the incidence of her arrival in Port Quentin at a particular time had affected both their lives—her own perhaps even more than Ben’s.

But for Alix she would still be “the nurse” at the doctor’s house. The letter from Peter announcing his dilemma would have been discussed with Ben; he would have advanced the money and a satisfactory arrangement whereby the amount could be repaid would have been concluded. All fair and square and friendly.

Instead, she had been forced to confide in Charles, and he, of course, had arrogantly relieved her of all responsibility—except that she now had to work like a fiend till the obligation was fulfilled.

She tipped the old hat still farther back and leaned, as all good growers do, upon the handle of her fork, to survey the Delaney acres. Across at the other side of the plot Bwazi’s boy friend, Josiah, was digging up thorn-bush roots while his recumbent wife encouraged him from the shade of a sea-willow and his one naked offspring tumbled among the furrows. Josiah’s small Fingo figure was hardy, and so long as he was left to tackle the job in his own way he didn’t slack.

When the ground was quite fit for large-scale planting Bwazi would forsake the house and pair up with Josiah. The plants were already ordered, thousands of small grey-green pineapples and pale emerald bananas to beautify the land and eventually to provide an income to supplement the Captain’s pension.

Being honest with herself, Laurette admitted that she preferred working the plantation to working with Ben; taking the long view, she was helping to provide for her father’s retirement as well as her own future. That much good, at least, had emerged from the past weeks of agony.

Briefly she thought of Charles as she had last seen him; his handsome face a mask, his bow as stiff and formal as if he were suppressing anger, yet the whole overlaid by a suave and cruel charm. She shook her head to discourage reflections and set herself to do two more rows of forking-in before lunch.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

JOHN DELANEY had almost relinquished all hope of hearing news of any sort about his book when an airmailed letter from the London agent arrived. The manuscript, he learned, had been accepted by the second publisher who had seen it, but in view of the fact that such volumes did not sell in large quantities, Mr. Delaney was offered a hundred pounds upon publication and the usual royalties.

The Captain used a pencil on the back of an envelope and gave Laurette a humorously rueful wink. “When the agent and the tax authorities have had their pickings there’ll be forty-odd pounds for me. Astounding reward for years of work, but that’s what comes of marketing a commodity for which the demand is small. You’re on a better thing in pineapples and bananas!”

“It’ll be nice to see your poems and sketches in print,” she said comfortingly, “and it’s the sort of book that might go on earning a little money for years. After all, Kipling didn’t illustrate the
Barrack Room Ballads
!”

He laughed. “Kipling fans would slay you for that comparison, but perhaps we’re lucky to get it accepted at all, in these times. Fortunately, my literary ambition has petered out. I think you and I must be farmers at heart, my dear, because I’m looking forward to the time when I can put in a daily spell at the plot.”

‘“Plantation,” she corrected him. “The salads will be ready soon. I suppose I ought to start keeping an accounts book.”

“I leave it to you,” he said, “and when the cash does start rolling in to see that you take some of it. I don’t believe you’ve bought yourself a thing since we settled in Port Quentin.”

“What would I do with new clothes?”

“Wear ‘em—go round to Durban for a weekend now and then, dance and play. There are residents here who do it regularly and you could join them.”

“Maybe I will, some time.”

It was only a few days after this that half a dozen copies of the paper-covered book in Sesuto came from Maseru. The cheque which accompanied them would pay Ben’s bill, commented John Delaney with satisfaction. He was pleased with the book, especially as the sketch which had caused him most brain-searching adorned the shiny cover; it didn’t bother him that the names of author and illustrator had been omitted; he was more concerned that the Basuto should find text and drawings helpful. The sender of the books mentioned that they were despatched at the request of the District Commissioner at Mohpeng.

“I thought Charles would write to us,” said the Captain. “Kelsey says he invariably asks if we’re both well and always sends his regards, but you’d think we’d rate a letter.”

“He’s probably waiting for us to write first.”

“But he hasn’t answered yours.” He looked at her with sudden sharpness. “You did send him a thank-you letter after we returned from Mohpeng, didn’t you?”

“No,” she said casually. “He didn’t expect one.”

“That’s not like you, Laurette. I wish you’d told me—I’d have written him a note myself.”

“Charles doesn’t want to hear from us,” she replied abruptly. “We’ve no part in his life at Mohpeng, and to him Port Quentin is merely a pleasant spot for a holiday.”

“It’s only politeness to thank a man for his hospitality.”

Laurette merely shrugged, and John Delaney left the matter there; he had no intention of being regarded as a heavy father. But at the first opportunity he did pen an apology to Charles and instruct Bwazi to post it.

Owing to Laurette’s intense occupation with the soil, the Delaneys had formed the habit of entertaining only on Sundays, at tea time. From three to six it was open house at the bungalow, and their guests often numbered as many as ten. Markham, the middle-aged novelist, mostly turned up, bringing with him holiday-makers he had made friends with while fishing on the rocks. Mr. Kelsey and a couple of his cronies sometimes dropped in, and the rest were residents from smallholdings outside the town.

That Sunday Ben came, too, and to Laurette’s relief he was without Alix. She had known that unless he was forced he would not bring his cousin, but Alix Brooke was a formidable woman to cross, and Laurette guessed that she was in the habit of spending Sunday at the doctor’s house. However, Ben looked his nearest approach to cheerful and talked away with surprising ease to a fledgling architect who was taking a short break tackling his first important commission.

At half-past five the tea party broke up, Ben hung on, and so did Mr. Kelsey.

The old man had long recovered from the malaise and testiness which had followed his nephew’s departure for Basutoland. He drove around in his grand and aged limousine; when the weather was calm he fished, played a game of bowls or canoed up the river to visit farming friends, but his great wish was to get out to sea again in the
Barracuda
.

“Know anything about steam yachts, John?” he asked now, his very blue eyes alight with his own knowledge and delight in the craft. “How would you like to go with me along the coast as far as Port Elizabeth?”

John Delaney leant forward in her veranda chair, interested. “D’you mean that? I’m not an experienced sailor, but I’d be willing to act under orders.”

“And Laurette?” demanded Mr. Kelsey.

She was seated on the wall, fingering the purple sprays of bougainvilia buds. “I haven’t time for jaunts. I’m a business woman now.”

“So you are, and I’m not sure it’s good for you.” The white brows rose and came together. “Women are supposed to be decorative—not to dig and reap.”

She smiled at him. “When were you last in England?”

“This Isn’t England, young lady—It’s the sub-tropics. Even the Africans have to go slow in hot weather. Vaughan”—he turned to Ben, who was lying, silent, in a lounger—“why don’t you impress upon this child the necessity for care?”

“I’ve tried. She doesn’t take any notice of me.”

“Make her take notice! You’re a doctor.”

Ben put his fingertips together, considering. “Laurette’s not doing herself any harm,” he said. “Her sort of ambition is healthy and likely to toughen her both mentally and physically. What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t care for tough women,” said Mr. Kelsey belligerently yet on a note of complaint. “There’s no appeal in them. Look at her—all pretty and fresh in white and blue. If she insists on doing a man’s work, how long is she going to look like that?”

“She’ll get tired of planting,” put in John Delaney , equably. “About this sea trip...”

Mr. Kelsey became verbosely absorbed in the details of a week’s voyage round the coast to Port Elizabeth, and back again. He’d tried to wait till the Captain’s leg was functioning normally, but fractured limbs seemed to take an unconscionable time mending, and he didn’t see that it would make such a heap of difference one way or the other. He wasn’t a rough-weather man; if a south-easter blew up he scurried for shelter, and there were river mouths galore the whole way. By the time he had finished John Delaney was equally enthusiastic.

Eventually, at dusk, Mr. Kelsey got into the back of his car and told the Indian driver to start moving.

Ben regretfully decided it was time he, also made his way home.

“Good-bye, Captain,” he said. “I’ll have another look at that leg support before you go sea-faring.” And to Laurette, “How about walking a little way with me?”

She cast a mischievous glance at her father. “Matey, aren’t we? I believe Ben’s had a legacy.” But she went with Ben, and even slipped a hand into the bend of his arm as they passed through the gateway into the rough, dusty road.

There was no one about. The brief twilight was a pall of darkening blue above the trees, and canaries and weaver birds dipped across from branch to branch in a final flutter before bedtime. In one particular tree a weaver colony quarrelled noisily, hanging in their upside-down nests and hurling vituperation at their neighbors. A black and white carrion crow squawked disconsolately from the topmost branch of a gum-tree, and flapped his great wings in farewell.

Ben said, “Harking back to your final remark to your father, I feel even better than if I’d been left a legacy. Alix has gone.”

“Gone!” she echoed incredulously. “When? How in the world did it happen? Did you have a row?”

“One at a time. She left yesterday, in her own car. No, we stopped short of a row. I used home truths and left her with no option but to clear out. I don’t want to talk about it—Alix has never been a savory topic—but I’d like you to know that you gave me the push which started it.”

“Ben, I’m glad!”

“So am I. It’s been a long, long time.” His look at her was teasing and almost tender. “You won’t let me love you, but I hope I shall be able to repay you some time.”

“I didn’t do a thing.” Swiftly, to change the trend of the conversation, she said, “So you’re without an assistant. How are you going to manage?”

“For the present I’ll get along on my own.” With apparent irrelevance he asked, “Did you hear about the Lockleys?”

“The mission people? I’ve heard nothing.”

“Mrs. Lockley’s nerve gave way and she made a scene with some of the girls at a class. She had to go to bed and rest for a while, and I’ve at last persuaded her husband that the mission must be handed over to a missionary society. If it comes off he’ll stay on as a worker, living in Port Quentin. I may get them to come to me; then Mrs. Lockley will be able to act as my nurse.”

“Oh, Ben,” she exclaimed in disappointed tones, “that’s not right at all; you shouldn’t have a married couple living with you. A doctor oughtn’t to permit himself to love the wrong person. He should have the sense to look around for a suitable wife and promptly get married. You know, this falling in love is a snare that you have to struggle out of for all you’re worth.”

“Is it?” In passing he pulled a leaf from a karri bush, and imperceptibly his pace had slackened. “Who told you that—Charles Heron?”

“No, his opinions are more cynical.” She wrenched her mind back to the present. “Think it over well before you invite the Lockleys to share your house.”

They reached an intersection and Ben stopped. He took her hand from his arm and held it, gazing with his crinkly smile into her small tanned face. To Laurette at that moment he was familiar and safe; it was good to have him back.

“I heard your father mention that you already have garden produce to sell,” he said. “How are you going to set about it?”

“I don’t know. Two Indians have offered to hawk it.”

“You’d make no profit that way—there’d be commission to pay and too much waste. Let me talk to the hotel proprietor for you.” He gave a smiling grimace. “During Alix’s sojourn I got friendly with him; I’ve recently been attending his small son, too. I’ll let you know how I get on.”

“Thanks, Ben.”

“It strikes me,” he said, with more deliberation than his wont, “that we may need each other, after all. That’s the test—needing each other. It’s much more important than flaring passion—more satisfying and lasting.” His smile was disarming. “Don’t mind me. I’ve thought about these things so much that some of it has to come out. Cut back home, now, before it’s quite dark.”

“I will.” She knew a suspicion of happiness which brought a liquid sparkle to her eyes. “Bless you for a darling, Ben. Good night.”

For a further second she paused there, knowing she had only to sway a fraction of an inch towards him to be held close and kissed. Then she turned and half-ran back along the road to the bungalow.

Ben watched until a bend in the road took her from sight. His heart was absurdly light; absurdly, because it was his conviction that a doctor should know better than to allow the quickening of his pulses by a girl. But Laurette, whatever she insisted to the contrary, was no ordinary girl. She was sweet and forgiving, yet withal she was amazingly strong, with a strength which made Alix appear domineering and characterless.

The trouble was, Ben admitted as he strode on, he was a man easily dominated, particularly when he felt himself under an obligation. He shuddered now at the thought of how near he had come to giving in to Alix. It had taken more nerve than Laurette had guessed to tell his cousin that there was a point beyond which his gratitude to her father could not extend; that his earlier desire to specialize in heart troubles had somehow become swamped by the fact of his being needed in Port Quentin and at the mission.

Alix had laughed, of course, the hard, angry laugh of a woman who has been set aside for something she; deems worthless. But to Ben’s immense relief she was convinced.

It was strange how events conspired first to thrust one into the depths, then to yank one out again. Alix’s prolonged visit had acted as the cathartic he had needed. Before her coming he had been dissatisfied and restless, perpetually weary and unsure whether he had acted stupidly in sinking his all in the Port Quentin practice. Her presence, besides driving Laurette from his side, had reduced him, as might a malignant drag, to seeming powerlessness, so that her withdrawal had the effect of a scouring wind. Now that she was gone he could almost like Alix, if only for the fact that she had made him aware of an unknown attachment for the practice.

As for Laurette—his mouth softened wryly—she might be strong and steadfast, but she needed a man. And he was patient.

The following Saturday Laurette sold her first crop of salads to the hotel proprietor, and she was informed that he would be willing to take a similar quantity each weekend and half the quantity mid-week. The
order, she joyfully discovered upon mental calculation, added up to about fifteen pounds a month. Two additional contracts from boarding-house keepers augmented her anticipated monthly income to twenty-three pounds. Compared with fruit-growing, the salads entailed hard and costly labor, but it would be marvellous to have some money coming in, and there would be no doubt at all about keeping up supplies; everything grew so quickly here.

Maybe within a month she would be able to withdraw her own thirty pounds from the bank, add twenty more from market garden receipts and send the fifty—in cash—to Charles. (A cheque he would rip across and consign to the waste-basket.) With luck, in three months she would be able to post him the balance.

Late each afternoon she came back to the bungalow to find her father and Mr. Kelsey submerged in the nautical details of their projected trip. Captain Delaney was as eager as a schoolboy; he planned to do river and rock fishing, to learn all there was to learn about steam-yachting and to put in his spell in the galley.

Mr. Kelsey, who knew the southern coast of Africa as a man knows his garden, looked forward with intense joy to teaching his friend the various intricacies. To him, John Delaney was a young tenderfoot, and he intended to be an apt instructor.

Laurette packed her father’s things, and went down to the yacht to inspect the cupboards full of supplies. She came out of the galley into the cabin. It was here she had first met Charles, looking like a buccaneer with his beard and hard, smiling eyes. On the whole, she told herself, she was not sorry to be staying at home while the
Barracuda
steamed along the coast and nosed into rivers. The yacht was Mr. Kelsey’s, but she would for ever associate it with Charles.

Ben found time to go with her to the jetty the morning the vessel set out. The sea was like molten blue glass and the headlands showed a lush dark green against a metallic sky. A few gulls wheeled lazily, and half a dozen Africans had stirred themselves from their usual recumbent position on the grass to lend a hand with the ropes.

On board, Laurette kissed her father and, because Mr. Kelsey beetled at her, she kissed him, too.

“Don’t let her overdo it, Ben,” said the old man. “Her father’s too casual—he lets her do as she likes—and it isn’t good for youngsters of her age. She needs bossing.”

Ben’s reply to this was a grin. “Look after yourselves, both of you,” he said, “and don’t miss your rest after lunch each day. You’re not boys off on a treasure hunt!”

“Write as soon as you can!” from Laurette.

“Don’t worry if you don’t hear much from us,” said Mr. Kelsey. “We’ll send you a card whenever we find a post-box.”