Doctor's Assistant (6 page)

They reached the deodar and the white stone garden seat. He gave her a gentle push that compelled her to sit down, and hitched his trousers to lower himself beside her. His arm lay along the back of the seat, but he was not looking her way.

He nodded in the direction of the sea. “I like the sound of it at night. I like nights on board, too. Which way did you come to South Africa—west coast?”

“Yes. The east is best, isn’t it?”

“It’s more spectacular. I went home that way—spent a week in Madagascar and another in Zanzibar. You can smell the cloves of Zanzibar fifty miles away.”

“I’ll go there one day.”

Teasingly, he tugged a curl at the back of her head. “You’ve plenty of time; plenty of time for everything—and that includes falling in love.”

“Falling in love must be rather nice,” she said musingly, “so long as one doesn’t hurry it. Have you ever been in love, Charles?”

“My dear child,” he said tersely, “there are some topics which are only permissible if handled with adult sophistication. One doesn’t blandly ask a man of thirty-four if he’s ever been in love.”

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I ought to have taken it for granted.”

“And don’t tell yourself that this love business is the prerogative of adolescents. The real sort requires much more knowledge and experience than you young things can possibly possess.”

“I’ve put myself in the infant class again,” she said ruefully. “I do think you might help me to learn all these subtleties.”

“Why should I teach you how to respond to some other man? In any case, when the time comes you’ll do it naturally.” Lightly, his fingers brushed her shoulder. “You’re getting cold. We’d better go in.”

As they strolled back down the path Laurette was smiling into the night. The scents were intoxicating and her brain was like blown feathers. The stars scintillated, but her eyes were brighter. She was conscious of Charles at her side, of a delightful chill where his warm fingers had touched her shoulder. What a miraculous, glorious world it was!

CHAPTER SIX

ELATION which works up to a climax for no apparent reason inevitably dims quite soon, but what it has touched it leaves mellow; for a while. At the Kelsey house a quiet serenity reigned. Charles, in preparation for the polo which was an important feature of
_;
life at Mohpeng, had persuaded others of the Port Quentin men to form a couple of teams, and practice matches were arranged nearly every day. They played on the town’s only piece of flat ground, beyond the beach and behind a small headland, and, needless to say, Charles’ pace easily outstripped that of the rest. He was a seasoned and formidable player.

Laurette did not go along with the other women of Port Quentin to watch the matches. She was back in her cap and apron, massaging the leg of the piccanin, dressing wounds, keeping records and sending out accounts.

After her week or so away from it, Ben’s house seemed darker and rather depressing. He had bought it with the practice from an old doctor, and the furniture was out-of-date, the upholstery incredibly drab. Never a flower lent color to his lounge, and even the landscapes on the walls were dull and lifeless. Laurette often wondered how he could bear the place as it was, for its contrast to the vivid and lovely town was shattering; and it wasn’t as if Ben had not had ample opportunity for comparing his own abode with others. He’d been inside almost every one of the hundred or so houses in Port Quentin.

He never entertained, nor had he any particular bachelor friend, but he occasionally accepted invitations to other people’s houses, and he had always enjoyed calling at the Delaney bungalow.

John Delaney had once said that Ben Vaughan was a bit of a failure. “It’s nothing positive—just his attitude. I think he must have had a few knocks and now he’s for ever on the defensive. Inside himself, I mean. He doesn’t expect the best from life, so of course he doesn’t get it. It’s strange, in a doctor.”

Ben’s practice was not a lucrative one. The white people of Port Quentin were a healthy, outdoor crowd; he had a few regular patients among them otherwise his services were needed chiefly in emergencies. In the course of a year perhaps two white babies would be born.

The small Indian section were less robust and they paid their bills regularly, sometimes even in advance. But the bulk of Ben’s patients were natives, a large proportion of whom took advantage of the fact that Dr. Vaughan never withheld treatment because one was penniless. He doctored them, pulled their teeth, advised them about their babies and often gave them free medicine. His services to the native mission were voluntary, so that in the aggregate his monthly income was small. It was sufficient for his needs, however; no one in Port Quentin lived more modestly than Ben.

Occasionally, when he had inadvertently shown a clean but frayed cuff or admitted that the breakfast had been so badly cooked that he had gone without, Laurette had felt for him an uneasy compassion, because, knowing that he was not the helpless type of male, she could be fairly sure that he simply did not care enough to bother with himself.

She hadn’t asked him why he had not come to dinner last Saturday. Ben had forestalled her by remarking offhandedly, “Sorry I didn’t get along to the party. I don’t suppose you missed me.”

“That’s not very kind,” she’d said.

“No, it isn’t. You’ll have to forgive me.” And he’d walked out.

Since then their contacts had been businesslike. Because their earlier comradeship was apparently gone she felt bound to make extra effort to please him. She rearranged the waiting-room and had the rugs cleaned, and in the “Casualty” veranda she had the wicker tables and chairs painted cream by a couple of ex-patients. Ben noticed the changes but his only acknowledgment of them was a lifted brow.

At last, on the Monday of her second week back at work, she tackled him point-bank. She folded away her apron and cap, tidied her hair and walked into the surgery to tell him she was going. He looked up from his case book.

“Finished? Did you leave out the Belton card? Thanks.”

“Ben.” She tried to keep her voice absolutely even. “Would you rather I didn’t work for you any more?”

He laid down his pen on the desk and sat back in his chair. The lines in his face were suddenly very deep, yet his whole expression was of concern for something outside himself.

“Good Lord, no. I don’t know what I’d do without you. What made you think that?”

“Well, you haven’t been too cordial lately, and I came to the conclusion that if you’d feel better without me around. I’d try to find someone else for you.”

“But I won’t have anyone else!” For Ben, the retort was extraordinarily emphatic, but he waited a moment before adding more quietly, “If I’ve been bearish it’s because I’ve hit a patch where nothing seems to come right. There’s that boy, for one thing; our massage won’t do him any good. He must have electrical treatment and I’ve no means of giving it to him. The clinic can’t handle his sort of case and his parents won’t agree to his going away to a hospital.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Ben.”

He shrugged despondently. “It was a mistake to bring him here. His people are expecting a miracle but he’ll go back to them as he came, a cripple.”

“It isn’t your fault. You tried.”

He stood up and pushed back his chair. “In medicine, trying isn’t enough. You’ve got to show results, particularly to Africans.” He came round the desk and gave her shoulder a pat. “No more talk of walking out on me. I need you.”

Oh an impulse she said, “May I go with you to the mission tomorrow? You did promise to take me some time.”

“All right. Get your father’s consent, though. He may not care for the idea.”

Laurette walked home that afternoon feeling vaguely relieved. She understood Ben’s situation. Among the African community in particular he was presented with a tremendous variety of cases. He was a conscientious general practitioner, and as such would have given a good deal, on occasions, for a specialist’s opinion. But there was no one with whom he could consult, not even another G.P. nearer than Umtopo.

The old doctor had been the sort to get through with the least possible trouble; calomel had been his unfailing remedy for the natives’ ailments. But Ben’s ideas were modern and he was something of an idealist. If he lacked the drive necessary to make good his ideals he was not to be blamed. He worked against odds.

John Delaney did not object to his daughter’s visiting the native mission. “Don’t go getting notions, though,” he warned her. “You’re not the missionary type. And stay with Ben. I don’t trust those hills since they swallowed us that night.”

“I’ll be careful.” She paused. “Charles hadn’t better know. He’d disapprove.”

“If you’re late back he may ask.”

“It won’t matter then. I’m quite looking forward to going.”

At eleven next morning they set out. Oddly, it was the first time Laurette had ever sat with Ben in his car, and seemingly he found it refreshing, for as they threaded along the river road he often looked her way and smiled.

“What a difference companionship makes,” he said. “I anticipate a sticky day in the clinic, but I can’t get irritable over it, as I usually do. You’re a wonderful influence, Laurette.”

“You should use me more often. I could do a lot more work than you give me.”

“Who’s talking about work? I like it better when you’re just looking sweet and doing nothing. That’s what I used to enjoy about having tea at your bungalow. I miss those treats.”

“They’ll start again as soon as we get back there.”

“You could go back soon,” he said. “If the long chair were put on wheels Bwazi could manage it.” He was silent for some seconds. Then: “What’s the arrangement—that you stay at Kelsey’s till Charles leaves for Basutoland?”

“I think so.”

“You don’t mind him so much now, do you?”

“No. He can be charming.”

“And ruthless.” Ben swung the car from the rough road on to the rougher track to the mission. They bumped on for a bit before he said, “To a woman he must be an unsettling sort of man. He has everything they most admire, yet he remains aloof and tantalizing.”

She smiled and looked out at the familiar kraals dotted about the miles of little mountains. “Being an overlord in the untamed hinterland has made him a law unto himself. One has to accept it.”

Ben drew up on the beaten earth forecourt to the mission. Under the extended thatch of the roof sat many natives awaiting his coming. They had trekked in as they always did on his visiting day, and were passing the time in gossip. They murmured a greeting in dialect and the women turned curious glances upon Laurette’s blue tailored frock and white sandals; blanketed as they were, they loved European clothes.

The mission building was not imposing. Its grey mud walls were relieved by a few high windows and the immense thatch was beautifully finished, but the place had an atmosphere of poverty, possibly because it was undenominational. Mr. and Mrs. Lockley had felt an urge to start the work on their small capital and, outside of Port Quentin, they had been unable to attract contributors. There were thousands of natives in the district but only a handful of white people to pay for the mission’s upkeep.

Inside the building was divided into two. Two-thirds of it formed a hall furnished with native-made chairs for simple religious services and social affairs, and the remaining space, beyond a partition, was equipped as a clinic. Most of the medical apparatus had been donated by Mr. Kelsey; the trouble was, said Ben, that two or three doctors were required for its employment.

Laurette met the thin missionary and his amazingly enthusiastic wife. She was introduced to a large African midwife and two smaller African nurses, and made the acquaintance of a coffee-skinned young man whose burning ambition was to become a doctor to his own people. The place was filled with fervour, yet it could not help but arouse one’s pity. The mission fought against colossal barriers: lack of money and European workers, the natives’ apathy and unwillingness to be taught. Mrs. Lockley admitted that more than half the
people came only for free meals and medical attention, but while even a few were keen to learn carpentry and leatherwork, needlework and baby care, the
classes would continue.

At twelve-thirty the children turned up in hundreds and made an orderly queue from a trestle table in the forecourt. Each was given a bowl of soup, a piece of bread and a section of papaw or watermelon, and they sat down in groups in the hot sun to eat. Many were nearly naked and a few wore tidy print frocks or khaki shorts, but when they had eaten they all lay about replete and smiling. This kind of scene was the Lockleys’ reward, thought Laurette; it kept them going.

In the afternoon Mrs. Lockley demonstrated the prowess of one of her pupils on an old sewing machine.

“You see how clever she is,” she said in her high, purposely-bright tones. “Turning the corners, keeping a straight seam. She has made many frocks for the schoolchildren.”

The girl went on stolidly working the handle, but another girl, sitting nearby, giggled into her embroidery. Mrs. Lockley’s lips tightened, and she moved Laurette away.

“One needs patience,” she said in a loud and vibrant whisper. “They’re like children.”

“The whole mission is a credit to you,” Laurette replied sincerely.

But by the end of that day she felt desperately sorry for the Lockleys. Both lived on their nerves. They slept in a tiny separate hut and spent all their waking hours in the mission. There were no flowers about them, no shrubs; only beaten, sun-drenched earth, worn grass and a line of skinny blue gums about two hundred yards away.

Ben was hard at it the whole of that day. He broke off for twenty minutes at lunch-time, but Laurette did not see him again till the sun was going down and Africans could be seen plodding away down the footpaths in all directions.

He washed his hands, they both said good-bye to the Lockleys and the car moved off along the track.

“No wonder you’re always tired out after your days there,” Laurette commented. “It’s too much, Ben. Is there really a lot of sickness among those people?”

“A fair amount, but half the patients are spurious—they love the importance attaching to a sick person and to display a bottle of medicine. But among the others you find serious cases. I did three hernia ops. today.”

“Poor Ben.” And he was going home to the loneliness of that dim old house. “Let’s stop above the river and watch the last of the sun.”

He threw her a quick, pleased glance. “That sounds like the prescription for a tonic. Say when.”

She chose a ledge which overlooked a green valley and a curving stretch of river. With the engine switched off they could hear the cicadas tuning up for their night-songs and the distant throbbing of a motor-boat. Across the river a mountain rose sheer from the water’s edge, its side densely packed with tree-ferns and wild fruit and nut trees. Branches moved, indicating the presence of monkeys, but the creatures were too small to be seen at this distance.

Ben sat sideways, his arms crossed on the wheel. The attention he gave to the view was perfunctory, for Laurette’s head was in the way; golden-brown curls and a little ear, her small clear profile against the dark greenness framed by the window.

Ben was not a man to hoard illusions. He knew himself fairly well, and he also knew Laurette rather better than she thought he did. Sometimes he was amazed at his having allowed himself to fall in love with her; he couldn’t possibly give her any of the things she wanted, because in buying the Port Quentin practice he had carved for himself a hard and precarious future. To sell it again would take years, and he was not the sort to cut his losses and start elsewhere from scratch. Nor would his conscience permit him to move out and leave the place without a doctor. Yet he loathed the practice. Nobody suspected that, of course, not even Laurette; but being frank with himself was his only means of survival. He had to admit to being embittered by the frustrations of the practice, and to loving someone totally outside his reach. The sane, medical man in him was then able cynically to retort, “Well ... so what?”

Laurette said softly, “We’re looking east, aren’t we? Don’t you think the first darkness is a heavenly color? Dark hyacinth shading to a rich purple. I love that purple tint in the night sky, don’t you?”

“I seldom notice it. This is my country, you know. My parents emigrated from England when they married, and I’ve lived in the south-east of Africa most of my life, though before taking over the practice I’d never been to Port Quentin. I’m afraid I’ve always accepted purple night skies.” He shifted to make himself more comfortable. “Are you doing the things you want to do, Laurette?”

She puckered a smile at him. “What do you mean—living here with my father, working for you?”

He nodded. “Do those things satisfy you?”

“Of course,” she answered readily, then hesitated and added a qualification, “I’m happy now, but I shouldn’t care to go on this way for ever.”

‘That’s fair enough. None of us would. In time you’ll find Port Quentin too small and restricting, too full of middle-aged and old people—not to mention the cranks who shun a wider life! You’ll want gaiety and young friends.”

“Perhaps,” she admitted, “but Port Quentin will always be a marvellous place to come home to.”

They were silent, while darkness suddenly fell. Ben drew a breath.

“These moments are too rare,” he said quietly, “yet everyone has a right to them. I’m glad I shared this with you, Laurette.”

“So am I.”

Presently, they slipped back on to the road and he drove down from the hillside into the little town of winking lights. He slowed at the Kelsey gates.

“Shall I run you up to the house, or would you rather I didn’t?”

“I’ll walk, thanks, Ben. And thank you for taking me to the mission. I’ll work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for what I haven’t done today.”

He smiled. “You’ve done more today than you’ll ever know. So long, Laurette.”

She stepped from the car and flitted away round the drive. Ben moved on, thinking of her, much to his own surprise, as a flower about to be exposed to a merciless floodlight. Now why should he imagine a thing like that?