Doctor's Assistant (19 page)

“All you want,” she said, “is a free hand in my affairs, so that you’ll never have anything to reproach yourself with. I’m not being horrid, Charles. I’m only trying to prove to you that I’m not as young as you think.”

“You’re not succeeding,” he said curtly. “Only someone with the stupid independence of the young would act as you’re acting.” He pushed fingers through his hair. “I came here expecting a somewhat different welcome, but I realize now that I’m a little too late. You got over the worst in Ben’s arms, and you’d just as soon I hadn’t turned up at all.”

She looked away from him and moved a pace towards the door. There was a single tremor in her voice when she said, “Shall I see you again before you go back?”

“I expect so,” he answered. And then, heavy with an acid irony, “Thanks a lot for the drink and the offer of lunch.”

“I ... I didn’t think,” she said quickly. “There is a spot of whisky, if you’d like it, and...”

“Don’t trouble. I’ll use the hotel.” His face was dark and he let out an exasperated breath. “If you didn’t look like death I’d be furious with you. I’ll go. Perhaps I’m tired.”

He didn’t say goodbye or even look her way again. He simply opened the door and went out. Involuntarily, she glanced towards the window and saw the rising dust as his car shot away. “I’m still in love with him,” she thought bleakly, “but it doesn’t matter so much as it did.” She did not pause to reflect that grief heals, while there is no cure for love.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BEN was gradually acquiring the habit of doing only necessary work on Sundays. An emergency call was likely, of course, and not infrequently he was called upon early on Sunday morning to stitch up a cut or treat abrasions collected the night before by Africans who had indulged too freely in kaffir beer. At one time the Indians, who were not Christians and therefore saw little difference between Sunday and Monday, would queue up at his back door as they did every other morning, but Mrs. Lockley had given them firmly to understand that the doctor was entitled to his day of rest, which had discouraged all but the genuinely ailing.

On this particular Sunday no Africans turned up and only three Indians sought treatment, so shortly after ten Ben was free till noon, when he had a call to make. He chatted with Mr. Lockley about the mission, which had now been placed under the control of a well-known missionary society, and then went into the lounge which, though no less drab in furnishings than previously, did appear brighter for the gleam of polish on the floor and tables. He picked up a medical journal and was about to hitch his trousers and sit down when a car pulled up at his gate. He crossed to the window and saw, with surprise, the tall striding figure of Charles Heron.

He had heard that Charles was in Port Quentin. In such a place the smallest item of news circulated quickly, and Charles had been seen dining at the hotel. But the District Commissioner from Basutoland had never before visited the doctor’s house. Come to think of it, the two of them had never exchanged a word except in the presence of others.

Ben went into his dim, cool hall and pulled open the door. “Good morning,” he said formally. “Will you come in?”

As he got out cigarettes and poured drinks, he took a
covert glance at his guest. Wide-shouldered and clean-limbed, his face angular and tanned. The tall, charming Englishman, he thought wryly, and he knew that Charles would come at once to the point.

“You’ll be wondering why I’m here,” came the crisp accents.

“I was hoping,” said Ben, “that you’d realized I’d be glad to do anything for you. Action is always the best form of sympathy, I think.”

“Thanks. But there isn’t much anyone can do. In about a month I’ll manage a week’s break and decide what shall be done with my uncle’s house. Meanwhile, there’s something else.” He took a pull at his drink, and said evenly, purposefully, “You’re a doctor, Vaughan. What do you think of Laurette?”

“Physically? Considering everything she seems to have reacted very well. She’s terribly unhappy, of course, and that does have a physical effect, but she’ll come through.”

“I don’t doubt that. I was thinking of the price she’s paying. She’s thin and strained-looking; I can’t associate the way she looks with pure grief.”

“It isn’t all grief,” said Ben, lighting his cigarette. “She works too hard and she hasn’t been really happy for a long time.”

“Why the deuce haven’t you forbidden her to work?”

“I?” Ben raised his eyebrows and blew out the match. “Do you honestly believe I could make her do anything she hadn’t a mind to do? I haven’t your gift of mastery, Charles.” His tone deepened. “I’ve racked my brains for a way to make her cry.”

Charles said, startled, “You mean she hasn’t wept—not at all since her father’s death?”

“I’m sure she hasn’t. For two or three days she was flat out with a sort of dry misery. After that she began to collect herself, but I’m positive she’s neither laughed nor cried. Probably the shock was too blinding for mere tears, but this stiff upper lip business is bad for her.” Offhandedly, he added, “If you can think of any way to rouse her, go ahead.”

Charles smoked, thoughtfully. “You say she’s been unhappy for some time. Any clues?”

“Nothing tangible. At first I thought it was money—lack of it.” He examined the tip of his cigarette. “I was never able to pay her a big salary, but living here can be cheap, and while she was earning she did feel independent. But she’s too big to let a need of money make her miserable.”

“How do you know she was miserable, if you weren’t seeing her?”

“I was still treating her father, and she was mostly there when I called. I’ve known Laurette longer and perhaps more intimately than you have, and I couldn’t help noticing she’d lost the spontaneous smile. She put up a show, naturally, but ... well, possibly I’m rather more difficult to deceive than some.”

“Before I left Port Quentin,” said Charles, his voice hard, “I got the impression you and she hadn’t much more use for each other. What brought you together again ... the wreck?”

“No.” Ben didn’t care for being inquisitioned in his own lounge, and the glance he raised was cool. “Laurette gave up assisting me through a misunderstanding. She didn’t want to leave and I certainly didn’t want her to go. When her father told me she was working a small plantation I was anxious and went along to see her there. We discovered that someone else had caused the rift between us.”

“But you didn’t take up where you left off.”

Ben ignored the other’s sharpness. “She and I are as good friends as we were before,” he said. “I haven’t even asked her to finish with the plantation, because if she does give it up there’s nothing at the moment to take its place. The manner of her father’s death was such a blow that she just has to have something demanding all her strength. Otherwise she’ll be all nerves.”

Charles thanked him for the information and the drink, and went as he had come, suavely and determinedly, as if everything he did were part of a plan. Ben watched his departure and went back to the lounge feeling annoyed and yet half admiring Charles Heron’s innate arrogance. During the brief conversation the man had evidently learned all he had set out to know. No doubt the fact that John Delaney had met his end in the
Barracuda
made Charles feel responsible for Laurette, but Ben couldn’t see her allowing him to run her life.

Ben sighed, vexedly. He wished it were afternoon, so that he could go straight out and up to the bungalow. They would think it odd if he called during the morning.

As it happened, it was just as well that Ben did not break his habit by paying a morning visit to the Delaney bungalow, because that was where Charles went after leaving the doctor’s house.

Laurette had spent the early part of the morning finishing the letter to Peter and resolutely turning out the desk. She had to be stern with herself, get everything sorted out and decide what was to be done with the various things which had been her father’s. The task hung over her like a threat, and the thought of it became more distasteful every day. Hazily, she realized that it was a fear of breaking up which had kept her from going ahead with it. Deep down, she knew that once she relaxed the composure which kept her going she would disintegrate. Therefore she must steel herself anew every day, till inflexibility was part of her nature. It was the only way to go on, if she had to be alone.

Irene was a great help, but it wouldn’t do to grow soft and confiding with her. There are some things which a sensitive girl can never discuss with anyone; it was better to try to grow out of the sensitiveness.

Such was the trend of Laurette’s thoughts that morning, as she sorted odd poems, accounts, sketches and notebooks. Without thinking, because thinking brought warning darts of pain, she carried the books from the shelves to the lounge bookcase, and arranged them. The desk was completely cleared and the couple of chairs removed to the dining-room. Tomorrow, the rugs could be brushed and aired and placed elsewhere, the prints taken down from the walls. Mr. Markham had mentioned that he might buy the desk and another local resident was in need of book-shelving. She would empty the room as soon as she could.

She was in the lounge, sliding a few oddments into a drawer of the chest, when Charles came in. The door was ajar and he entered without knocking, though when he saw her his fingernails did beat a belated tattoo on the door panel.

“Hallo,” he said, with a non-committal pleasantness which bore no relation to his manner of yesterday. “You look busy.”

“I was tying up a few loose ends, but I’ve finished now.” She pressed back a tendril and smoothed her temple with a slightly nervous finger. “Did you ... was there...”

“Sit down,” he said calmly. “Is your friend about?”

“She’s making some coffee. I’ll tell her to bring an extra cup.”

“No, don’t. I want to speak to you.”

She said at once, in a low voice, “We haven’t anything more to say to each other. I won’t go with you to Mohpeng. That’s final, Charles.”

“Yes, I know it is. Turning it over during the night I concluded it’s best that you stay here. I shall be down again very soon, and we’ll have more time together. I do mean to see you alone today, though.”

“If you’re harking back to yesterday...”

“I’m not—not in the way you mean. You were distressed and I didn’t feel too good myself. We’ll forget it. Sit down, there’s a good child.”

This was a new Charles; a gentle Charles she hardly knew. She steadied herself on the arm of a chair, moved and sank down into a cushioned seat. Without looking up she knew he had taken a cigarette from his case; she heard the tiny grating of his, lighter and smelled the first puff of smoke. Then the cigarette was held close to her own mouth.

“Would you like it?” he asked.

She wanted it badly, but some strange compulsion made her shrink from the intimacy it implied; straight from his lips, to hers. She shook her head, sensed the withdrawal of the cigarette and his straightening away from her.

“I’d like you to come back to my uncle’s house for lunch,” he said.

“I can’t do that,” she replied almost inaudibly. “There’s Irene.”

“She’s a sensible woman. She won’t mind being alone, for once.”

Laurette did not have to answer that. Irene came in and Charles took the tray from her. There were exclamations, and he insisted on going to the kitchen for his own cup. When they were settled, Irene poured the coffee and offered home-made biscuits.

Charles spoke to her kindly and seemed to be unaware of the coins of color which had sprung in her cheeks. Even in her present condition of dull stress, Laurette found herself reflecting that Irene’s fear of men was one of those groundless dreads which she couldn’t help but throw off in time. There was Ben, who had been studiously businesslike in order to set her.at ease; and now Charles, who might conceivably have scared a hardier person than Irene, being almost brotherly in an attempt to dispel her painful shyness.

Over his second cup of coffee, Charles said, “Miss Cole, do you mind my inviting Laurette to lunch with me? We have several things to talk over, but she seems to be afraid of leaving you here.”

“It isn’t that at all,” Laurette spoke up hurriedly, “I just don’t feel up to ... to going into your house. If you insist, I’ll lunch with you at the hotel.”

“You mean the house has associations? But it has fewer for you than for me.”

“You don’t feel the same about these things. You have another life, elsewhere, which is more important to you. I really don’t see...”

With astonishing reasonableness he put in, “Where we go for lunch doesn’t matter. You don’t mind, Miss Cole?”

“Of course not,” she said very softly. “Laurette needs a change.”

They talked desultorily about the garden, and he even, without the slightest vehemence, made a few comments about the plantation, the richness of the soil and the pity it was that the railway did not touch Port Quentin; road transport over the mountains would be much too expensive to make the marketing of crops up-country worthwhile; the sea-freight charges were prohibitive, too. That, he implied, was why the Port Quentin land was so cheap.

At about twelve-thirty he stood up. Looking at Laurette, he said, “Hadn’t you better change?”

The frock she was wearing was quite pretty but fairly old. Normally, she wouldn’t have chosen it for a date with Charles, but today she had felt that it would do. However, he seemingly did not share her opinion, so she went to her room and got into a flowered, sleeveless print.

He did not drive with his usual speed. As they purred down the path and out on to the main track, he nodded towards the prodigal growth on each side.

“After Mohpeng this always surprises me. Even in the rains Basutoland doesn’t produce anything very tall except a few gum trees, but you’d be amazed at the loveliness of the gardens up there just now. Mine is full of rock flowers and roses. Seymour, being a forestry and soil man, has done a bit of experimenting and he has some rare shrubs in bloom. Maris brought me some species of flowers I’d never seen before.”

Evenly, she asked, “Hasn’t Maris grown tired of Mohpeng?”

“She’s sticking it very well, considering how little we have to offer in the way of entertainment. But she has a huge capacity for enjoyment. Kevin goes on leave soon.”

“I know. He wrote to me.”

“He would. I hope you ignored him.”

“I did, but not purposely. I haven’t felt able to write to him. You’ll be seeing him tomorrow; perhaps you’ll apologize for me.”

“Perhaps I will,” he said enigmatically.

Laurette looked out of the window and said hastily, “You’ve missed the turn to the town.” Then, swiftly, with a crack in her voice, “Charles, please! Not to your house.”

“I ordered lunch,” he said with a shrug, “so we have to go there first to cancel it, though I daresay it’s ready to serve, and bound to be better than anything we’d get at the hotel.”

“You promised!”

“I did nothing of the sort, but we can still drive on to the hotel, if you’d prefer it. Seems a pity, though.”

In grief, one often shuns a particular place for no clear reason. Perhaps Laurette had kept away from the Kelsey mansion because the loss of her father had been more than enough to endure; a tangible reminder of Charles would have been shattering anti-climax. Seeing the house now as it rested amid a luxuriance of tropical trees, the flower-beds rioting with cannas and weeds, the grass high and lush, she knew regret rather than pain.

“Your uncle would have hated to see the place like this,” she said soberly.

“I hate to see it myself,” he responded. “As a matter of fact, I rather thought you’d have kept the garden boy on the job.”

“It’s hardly my business.”

“It’s mine,” ‘he said. “You might have done it for me.”

“I’ve had plenty to do in the bungalow garden and at the plantation.”

“You mean, you’ve made plenty to do. You stayed on you own land, pitying yourself, but it would have done you far more good to think of others. Didn’t it occur to you,” he ended casually, “that I might feel a bit grim about my uncle’s death and that to see the place overrun by a fortnight’s tropic growth would hardly make me feel better?”

He was right, of course. She had thought only of her own ghastly misfortune; at least, she had deliberately excluded from her thoughts the fact of Charles’ loss.

He pulled up at the steps and came round to open her door. She could have remained in her seat, have shaken her head and said she would wait for him to take her to the hotel; but she didn’t. She got out beside him and went up into the hall. Charles’ presence altered everything, stripped away the past, turned the Kelsey mansion into a house he must reluctantly inherit. There was a silence, a sternness about the rooms which had previously been informed with the old man’s genial personality.

She stood hesitantly, just inside the lounge. “Are you going to keep the house?”