Plantation Doctor (17 page)

“I’ll get that information for you from Akasi as soon as I can,” he said formally. “Good night.”

The rest of the week-end passed tranquilly and on Monday Adrian left unexpectedly for Freetown. According to Hazel he had heard that a specialist in tropical diseases was calling there, and he was anxious to pick up all the newest information and pass on some of his own findings. She had permission to help Johanna, the colored nurse, with the three white patients. Had Lyn heard that Roger Bailey was in the hospital with an injured foot? Nothing serious, but Adrian never let the men treat themselves for anything where the skin was broken lest tetanus should set in.

Lyn went over to the hospital with Hazel. The three
Denton
men were together in the large ward. None was very sick, and all sat up and grinned at the visitors. Two pretty girls to enliven a Monday morning! This was something which never happened with Dr. Sinclair in charge. They jested and philandered from their pillows.

About halfway through the morning another young man arrived. He walked
i
nto the ward, yellow and sweating, and, without emitting a syllable, began slowly to peel off his jacket. Hazel, seated between two beds, glanced enquiringly at Roger.

“It’s Dick Wilton,” he whispered. “He’s down with it again—the second time in a couple of months. Poor old Dick. This means home for him.”

Hazel quickly got up, and so did Lyn. They reached the young man together, but Hazel said:

“You go outside, Lyn. I’ve already broken a promise in bringing you here. If you see Johanna, send her along. She can deal with this better than we can.”

Johanna had gone off duty for an hour. Lyn could have found her but did not bother. She hastened throug
h
to the native department and begged the medical assistant to come to Dick Wilton’s aid, then she collected several clean blankets and fled back to the ward.

Nearly every woman is a nurse when she has to be; even the most squeamish will try to fight down their qualms when a sick human being is depending on them. Debating nursing as a career a couple of years ago, Lyn had had to decide against it; physically she could have stood the strain, but she felt other people’s suffering too acutely to face it day after day. It would have worn her down.

She felt Dick Wilton’s pain, but in a way which made her ache to assuage it. She stayed inside the screen with him, moistening his lips with iced water and wiping off his sweat. The African medico said that this was not malaria but a germ which was causing internal havoc. For safety he gave an injection, but before deciding on treatment of so serious a case he would like to consult the doctors at the African hospital and the plantation manager.

The whole hospital had slipped into a state of tension. Dr. Sinclair was gone for at least four days, and here was this young man sweating, vomiting and delirious as if with some frightful, fatal fever.

Fiercely, Lyn told herself that he was not going to die. She remained at his side, impatiently shook off Hazel’s entreating hand.

“Lyn, you shouldn’t be here. Leave him to Johanna and the doctor.”

“Johanna has enough to do and the native doctor can’t spend all his day here; besides, he’s new and not at his best treating white people. He’s nervous—you can see that. Between times Dick’s lucid, and it helps him to have a white person near.”

“But, Lyn
...
how
can
you?”

If Hazel didn’t comprehend instinctively, how was one to make her understand? She had spoken below her breath, but her tenseness and distaste were undisguised. She could plump up a pillow for a convalescent, light his cigarette and exchange badinage, fetch a cold drink or adjust bedclothes, but illness itself, particularly the types met with in the tropics, frightened and disgusted her. Lyn thought abstractedly that probably the boyish streak accounted for this shrinking in Hazel. Any other woman would be glad to do what Lyn was doing—not regard it as a dread form of self-sacrifice.

As the hours dragged by, Dick grew no better but no worse, and in that alone Lyn considered she had won a small victory. It was extraordinary, but in herself she felt amazingly well and able to tackle almost anything. At last she was doing something worth while instead of lounging about like a parasite.

It was dark before Hazel again came to the clinic. Lyn met her in the foyer.

“He’s had a sedative,” she said, “so I’m going to rest too. Don’t look so blue, Hazel.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve been lying my head off.”

“Lying! What on earth for?”

She shrugged dejectedly. “You know how one fib leads to a multitude. This morning Mr. Baird was rather emphatic about keeping Mrs. Denton in the dark about this case; no one could do much for the poor boy and she was not to be worried, and so on. I thought it a good idea, too, because Marceline is horrified of fevers, so I made no reference to it at the house. Then this afternoon Mrs. Denton was all for sending a boy to your house to bring you over for tea. I thought up a bad head for you and that passed it off. But it cropped up again; you must come for dinner. I said you were best left alone for the rest of the day, and Mrs. Denton got concerned and was going to see you herself.”

“But, Hazel, why
...
?”

“Hear me out,” she said moodily. “I had to stop her, and I’m not a third-rate actress for nothing. I allowed her to drag from me the news that you were spending the evening in town with Claud. It was all I could think of on the spur of the moment.”

Lyn gazed at her puzzled. “You needn’t have been reluctant about telling her. Even if I were with Claud there would be nothing wrong about it.”

Hazel sighed. “No, but Mrs. Denton wasn’t too pleased to hear it, and Marceline was furious. She regards Claud as her property while she’s here. I shall have to send him a note, so that he’s ready when she launches her onslaught.
I’m sure he’ll back me up. I made a dreadful hash
of
it, Lyn.”

Lyn pondered. “I don’t see why you can’t tell Mrs. Denton the truth. This thing of Dick’s isn’t contagious.”

“How could I, after putting on such an act? And there’s another side to it.” Hazel’s voice dropped a tone and she averted her eyes. “If Adrian got to hear the facts I’d forfeit his friendship, and I can’t face that. Through me, he’s done a lot for Claud, and I couldn’t repay him with lies and deliberate disobedience to his orders. You weren’t supposed to enter the hospital, and I promised that if Johanna needed no help I wouldn’t intrude either. As it happened, we didn’t come early enough this morning to give the nurse a hand; I’d forgotten they start work here soon after dawn. Talking to the boys there in the ward couldn’t do any harm; it was just unfortunate that Dick Wilton came in when he did.”

Lyn thought for a moment. “But Adrian couldn’t foresee that an emergency would arise. Dick had to be looked after and he really needs constant watching. Two of the supervisors have agreed to take turns at sitting with him during the night.”

Hazel was not to be put off. “You won’t let Adrian guess that you’ve been sharing in his nursing?”

“The other men and Johanna have seen me in the ward.”

“I’ll square that. Please do this for me, Lyn.” On the faintest of tremors, she ended, “I couldn’t bear to make enemies of Adrian and his aunt.”

Lyn went cold, her heart was a stone. “All right, Hazel.
I won’t let you down,” she said. “I’m going over the way to get some sleep.”

She did sleep that night, quite heavily, and when she awoke towards daylight it was not of Hazel she thought, but of Dick Wilton. She put on a linen frock, had some coffee and walked through the mist-wreathed dawn t
o
the hospital.

Probably upon Mr. Baird’s instructions, Dick had been moved into a private ward. He had awakened, but he looked at her unseeingly. It was obvious at once that he was terribly ill. For a minute Lyn’s will failed her.

Then she imagined Adrian coming back to find that one of his husky young men had died for want of his skill. It was unthinkable. Yet, apart from watching him, bathing his face, and helping him to take down the thick, pinkish medicine and other liquids, there was little she could do for the man.

The days were long and rather unreal. Once or twice, when she was feeding him with a little thin gruel, the opaqueness cleared from his eyes and he stared up
at
Lyn as if trying to remember something.
Invariably
she smiled and said softly: “That’s better, isn’t
it,
Dick, Dr. Sinclair will be here soon.”

She and Dick Wilton were not well acquainted. When she had first arrived at Denton he had been down with his initial attack of malaria. She had not met him during her weeks at the Merricks’ bungalow and he had only occasionally crossed her path since her return to the settlement. He seemed not to have the slightest knowle
d
ge of who she was, but it appeared to soothe him to see her there whenever he regained consciousness.

It did not strike Lyn as peculiar that no message came from Adrian’s house; she scarcely gave a thought to it. Melia had stated that the two young ladies drove to town every morning and that Mrs. Denton sometimes accompanied them. The “older missus” was finding the heat rather nerve-wearing, and Rollins had brought tidings that the
Golden Ray
was being overhauled; he was in charge of the repairs. He had not yet been informed of a sailing date but thought it could not be far off.

In Melia’s opinion it was a little mad of Miss Lyn to put in so much time at the hospital. That Johanna might be a trained nurse, but if she couldn’t manage three white patients and boss around those native orderlies she must be lazy. Melia had never heard of Dick Wilton, and Lyn did no explaining.

The fifth day Lyn was having lunch in her living-room when a boy stepped up onto the veranda and discreetly tapped at the wooden framework of the wire screen. She opened it and took the envelope he held out.

“There is no answer, missus,” he said and, in th
e
ma
nner of all Denton servants, he bowed and left her.

Lyn split the envelope, read Hazel’s hasty scrawl? “Adrian is back and has gone straight to the hospital. Your Dick Wilton is in safe hands. Please don’t go near him.”

Lyn knew a sharp exhilaration of relief. Dick would get through now; she was sure of it. Adrian’s expert knowledge, his healing hands and his medical conscience would work together for Dick’s recovery. Tears ran down her cheeks and were salt upon lips which curved in a smile of thankfulness that Adrian had not come back to be greeted with unforgettably tragic news.

It was natural that after the vigil of the past days Lyn’s tension should ease out into apathy. That afternoon she and Melia walked the path through the trees as far as the boundary of the rubber plantations. The early storms had clothed the growth with an elemental greenness and a white stream foamed along the rift. At a narrow point a couple of tree logs had been thrown across, spanning the chasm, and native women were using the bridge they made. Unconcernedly, bearing loads of firewood and baskets heaped with wild corn upon their heads, they swayed above the rocky cleft with its wide vein of tumbling water.

“You remember the tiny antelope, Miss Lyn?” said Melia. “How much everything has changed since we saw it!”

How much, indeed. Lyn had heard of Mrs. Latimer’s death, had met Hazel, had found herself in love with the wrong man.

She must try to overcome her own disillusionment, and to think of Hazel as the forthright person she really was. One could be certain that unless she loved Adrian she would not marry him. Did she love him as he ought to be loved? Could she unselfishly share his work, submit to his exacting code of honour, above all, make him utterly and ecstatically happy? The last would be a tall order for any woman, but Lyn was gradually yielding to a conviction that it could be accomplished so long as Adrian himself were to fall completely in love. But to dwell upon him so lost in love with Hazel was beyond Lyn. When a knife lodges in the breast you don’t take a grip of it and twist.

They followed the main path back to the house, the one which met the Pal
m
as road. Some way along it they stood aside for a
c
ar t
o
pass.

Adrian braked and put
o
ut his head. “Good afternoon,” he said conventionally. “A
re
you over the indisposition?”

Lyn hesitated, and replied cautiously, “Yes, thank you.” “Good. I’m tearingly busy. So long!”

He perfunctorily waved a hand and the car swept away. As they walked on, Melia said, thoughtfully for her, “Always I have admired the doctor, but sometimes I think he is too much like the machine.” She shrugged. “But even a machine cannot get very far without human attentions.”

To this Lyn made no reply. The more machine-like Adrian was during the coming weeks the better she would be able to tolerate life.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Melia
was making a wedding frock. She did not call it that, of course; it was her “new best,” to take the place of the white cotton. The material was crisp, pea
-
green voile dotted with small pink flowers, but the style would have followed Melia’s usual pattern of pleated skirt and tailored revers had Lyn not assisted at the cutting out. Lyn insisted on a gathered skirt and a fitting bodice daintily frilled at the square neckline. Melia was shocked, then scared and pleased, which had been exactly her reaction to Rollins’ embarrassed allusion to a honeymoon trip up the coast.

It was impossible to buy a new, civilized-looking hat in Palmas. The
re
were a few grass monstrosities which had been turned out by natives, and one store produced a heavy red felt of a bygone vintage, but apart from these only sun-helmets were readily procurable. If anything, Melia was relieved at the dearth of millinery. She got out her familiar yellowed white straw and set to work on it with lemon-juice; after noticing Mrs. Baird’s scarved topi, she experimented with a length of the dress material. Lyn went one better. She covered the whole crown and fixed a band of
ru
ching. She also managed to buy from an official’s wife in town a pair of long white gloves which would fit Melia’s bony hands, and some size seven white
gabardine
shoes that looked quite small.

Melia alternated between fearful anticipation and sad reflection. There was so much about which she was uncertain. It was all very well to control Rollins from Miss Lyn’s kitchen, but weren’t men likely to get out of hand in their own homes?

Lyn laughed. “You’ll do splendidly. Whenever you’re in doubt just smile at him, Melia. Smile at him as if he’s the only man in the world and he’ll love you for ever. The woman creates the atmosphere in the home, not the man—and you’re an incomparable housekeeper.”

“Is it so easy?”

“Wait and see!”

Melia said, “I wish you would be near, Miss Lyn. You would help me not to make mistakes.”

“Rollins won’t make you to be perfect. The mistakes are half the fun.”

Indeed, it was doubtful whether Melia would slip up at all. One morning Lyn went with her to Rollins’ bungalow on the first avenue above the waterfront. His friend had already left for England and the house, at that hour, was unoccupied. It had the usual teak and grass furniture and some cheap rugs, but Rollins had taken pride in making his own elaborate electric fittings, and his kitchen was a miracle of efficiency and cleanliness. In the small lounge Melia sniffed.

“It is musty, like the bungalow of Mr. Merrick, but here it is not the chairs. It is the books with which Rollins fills the shelves, but which he does not read
—
he has told me that he does not care to read anything but a newspaper. The books will be stuck together with mildew. I will put them out and have ornaments in their place.” And of the bedroom: “The bed-covers are threadbare
—
so soon the cottons rot in this air. I will get natives to weave strong ones with colored borders. They will cost very little and last longer.”

No, in housekeeping Melia would encounter few difficulties which her training with Mrs. Grayson and others had not equipped her to handle. And Rollins would be a grateful and affectionate husband, as nice men are who came late to marriage. For the first time in her life Melia would have neighbors no higher in the social scale than herself; on one side lived the clerk at the native trading store and his wife, and on the other a dock engineer who had originally hailed from Yorkshire. They all liked Rollins.

The wedding had been tentatively fixed for three weeks ahead, and it was to take place in the tiny, tin-roofed church which was set on the hill between the white residential quarter and the bush which hid the native village. Lyn had decided to stay on for the ceremony but to depart soon after it for Freetown and a plane home. Hazel had probably forgotten her suggestion that she and Lyn should travel to England together, and Lyn was too proud and hurt to remind her of it. In any case, Hazel had good reason to brave the rains. Lyn had none.

On Sunday, when Lyn was dressing after her four o’clock bath she heard the thud of the main door. Hair standing out in a tawny cloud, comb still poised, she came to the living-room doorway. Adrian was there, standing near
th
e table with his hands in his pockets.

“Hullo,” he said abruptly.

Lyn dropped the comb into the pocket of her tan-and
-
white dress and ineffectively pressed at her short curls. She advanced into the room.

“Did you want to speak to me?”

He nodded, but made no haste to do so. She passed close to him, indicated the lounger and herself sat in a chair. He leant back to rest on the arm of the lounger, and looked at her.

“You smell of eau de Cologne,” he said. “A change from the hospital.”

Studiously casual, she asked, “How’s the young man doing—Dick Wilton?”

“You know about Dick?”

“Only that he was very ill with some internal trouble and had everyone worried.”

“That’s odd. Baird told me it was kept a secret to avoid any kind of panic. How did you hear?”

“I
...
I’
m not sure. Through Hazel, perhaps. How is he, anyway?”

“He’ll get through, but slowly. He put up with the deuce of a lot while I was away; if he hadn’t a whale of a constitution he couldn’t have lasted. I operated on Friday evening and have scarcely left him since. That’s why I haven’t been to see you before.” He paused. “It wouldn’t have hurt you to come over to the house. After all, you have a standing invitation from my aunt
—
you could have walked in any time.”

“And I do live on your estate!” She got up quickly and moved away. “I don’t think I’m altogether welcome at your house, Adrian.”

“On the contrary,” he said curtly, “my aunt has made the error of growing fond of you. She’s upset at your spending so much time in town and entirely ignoring her invitations.”

“I didn’t ignore them!”

“It’s as good as ignoring them when you fabricate a series of headaches. I knew the moment I saw you on Friday afternoon with Melia that it wasn’t a bad head that had kept you away. Never, since the day we met in Cape Bandu, have I seen you look healthier.”

“Then no doubt you drew your own conclusions.”

“I did,” coolly, “and they didn’t flatter you. You’re the most disappointing woman I’ve ever known.”

Lyn was trembling and clasping her hands rather tightly together. “Did you come here to tell me that?”

“No, but I’m not sorry it’s said. You need to be shaken out of this stupid infatuation.” He straightened, adding sarcastically, “I suppose you’re already aware that Claud gets his cheque tomorrow? Love’s grand, viewed from the crest of the wave, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion,” she answered. It was true; her brain had ceased to function and at that moment her only sensation was a cold and sickening revulsion from his continued dislike and anger.

He dug his hands back into his pockets and took a pace or two to the window. Because he was Adrian she was already forgiving him, wishing his voice and eyes would lose their hardness. He’d had an anxious time over Dick, and it must have been more than trying to return to his home between sessions at the bedside and find his aunt disturbed over Lyn and possibly chafing against the climate.

“Adrian, I’ll apologise to Mrs. Denton,” she said.

He gave her a closed look. “That isn’t necessary. She’s sailing in about ten days. Just be accommodating till she goes.”

“Very well.”

“For a start you can stroll there with me now.”

“Will you wait while I get a handkerchief?”

“You mean powder your nose,” he said, but without humour.

Chatting conventionally, they crossed the compound to the path which wound round between shrubs and palms to the house. As they entered the lounge Mrs. Denton raised her glance from the book she was reading. Very slightly her expression changed, but her greeting was cordial, if impersonal.

“Good afternoon, Lyn. You’re in time for tea. Will you have some, Adrian?”

“One cup, then I must go.”

“You won’t forget to send a car to the jetty for the girls, will you?” To Lyn she explained, “Hazel and Marceline bathe in the yacht pool every day. They seem to prefer it to the one at the back here. I wish I were young enough to go with them.”

“Bathing only cools the skin while you’re actually immersed,” commented Adrian. “When you’re dressed again you’re hotter than ever.”

“At least you ward off prickly heat.”

“Not while you absorb quantities of tea and iced drinks. The less liquid you take in the less you perspire.”

Mrs. Denton was pouring tea into the delicate china.

“Well, there’s one undoubted benefit of a visit to West Africa and that’s the return journey to England. I wish I could be sure we’d all be together there before long.”

Adrian gave Lyn her cup and dropped a knob of sugar into it. “Don’t be impatient,” he said. “You’ve done your best.”

Lyn wondered what this was intended to convey, but apparently Mrs. Denton found nothing cryptic about it. Nor did she make an enlightening reply. Adrian drank his tea, smiled at them both and went out. Mrs. Denton poured second cups for herself and Lyn and fell to discussing the latest batch of novels and periodicals from her London bookseller.

It was nearly dark when the other two girls showed up, but neither revealed surprise that Lyn should be there, though Marceline looked her way more often than she had ever done before. Her nearly black eyes were restless and her appetite had fallen off. The heat was taking its toll of her, too, thought Lyn.

During dinner Hazel extended a guarded invitation. “That lively brother of mine seems to feel that he has cause for celebration. He wants Marceline and Lyn to go down to a party at the club tomorrow night. As a gesture I’m invited too.”

“Have you seen him today?” enquired Mrs. Denton.

Marceline broke in quickly: “He guessed we’d be on the yacht and sent a message. I’d rather like to attend the party, if you don’t mind. It’s probably the last Claud will give.”

Lyn flickered a glance at the head of the table, saw that Adrian was eating his curried fish as if the conversation had no interest for him, and considered it wise to be silent.

“Well, why shouldn’t you all three go?” observed Mrs. Denton, but something in her manner shadowed the table. Evidently Claud was not so popular with her as he once had been.

For Lyn, that evening was as uncertain and full of peril as walking a tightrope. Marceline was definitely jumpy and a trifle hostile, Mrs. Denton was gentle but somewhat remote, and Hazel was careful and kind, very careful and kind. Adrian was not there at all. Lyn got the impression that having patched up relationships he was heartily glad to have done with women for a while.

When Mrs. Denton went to bed she smiled at Lyn. “Come directly after breakfast tomorrow and I’ll show you those books we were speaking about.” But there was no real warmth in her manner.

Lyn told herself that while she and the older woman had been alone she should have mentioned the invitations she was supposed to have declined last week, though how to approach it without incriminating Hazel was a problem. Hazel had acted unfairly, even treacherously, but there was no knowing what sort of spot she had had to sidestep and Marceline was clinging too tightly for any hope of confidences tonight.

So Lyn said good night and went back to her own small, quiet abode. But after she had undressed and was standing staring out at the dark, studded night, she felt she had lost something: it could be Hazel’s comradeship, or the cautiously flowering friendship between herself and Mrs. Denton. It had nothing to do with the padlocked compartment of her mind which belonged to Adrian.

It was obvious quite early next day that Lyn would not be able to back out from Claud’s party. Hazel took her attendance for granted, and Marceline was tautly in agreement. At six she returned to her own house to dress, and at a quarter to seven the other two arrived there, with Claud between them.

His smile was that of a mischievous faun. “My sweet Lyn,” he said extravagantly, and bent to drop a kiss on her hair. “Why do I so seldom see you now? I’m a rich man. Did you know that?”

She returned the smile. “Yes, I knew it—and I believe you’re tight.”

“You hear what she says?” he appealed to Marceline. “I’m tight because I demonstrate to the woman that I love her. No other woman in the world would dare to talk to me like that. I lay my worldly goods and unfledged heart at her feet and she spurns them. Shall I tell you why? The night Mrs.
Denton
gave the yacht party we quarrelled—didn’t we, Lyn? But this evening we’re going to kiss and make up. Come along, my lovelies, into the car.”

No, he had not been drinking—no more than usual, anyway—Lyn concluded, as they drove to Palmas. He was assuming a role and revelling in it. That Hazel was contemptuous and Marceline biting her lower lip to pieces seemed to concern him not at all. Lyn had to sit beside him while the others shared the back of the car. Lyn had to be helped out first and remain by his side while his friends took charge of
hi
s sister and Marceline Greg. The very knowledge that he was now the owner of several thousands seemed sufficient intoxicant; he could do without stronger stimulants.

Dinner in the club dining-room was followed by dancing and sophisticated games. Then someone thought it would be marvellous on the beach, and about a dozen of them trooped down to lounge on the sand against the old native boats and make a little light love in the clear yellow moonlight. A man wanted to know how Claud intended to use his newly acquired shekels
.