Plantation Doctor (6 page)

The men in tennis shorts drank thirstily from tall glasses, and one of them selected a Viennese waltz record for the gramophone and pretended to dance with a chair. Without searching through the cabinet of records, Lyn knew that all the masters were represented there as well as the light classical composers and a few modern melody
-
makers. About Adrian, whom she could not help but regard as something of a blight, she was gradually and instinctively learning a good deal.

He circulated among the guests, ensuring that they were supplied with snacks and drinks. Tall, with those straight, lean features and brown skin, there was a masterfulness in him, an air of command which reminded Lyn of all that Claud had said about him last night. Adrian was the boss of Denton Rubber Estates Ltd., and wealthy. He lived in this filthy climate from choice, without even the boon of a wife. His nature was cold and rational, his work among the handful of white men and whole villages of natives had killed off his emotions. To be angry with such a man could do no good, yet the very sight of him tightened her nerves in defiance. Lyn quickly finished her drink and disposed of her glass.

Mrs. Baird was saying, “If we’re going down to the club for dinner it’s time we thought about dressing. The first arrivals always get the best food. I’m afraid we’ll have to go, doctor.”

He joined the group. “Very well, if you must. You and John will dine with me tomorrow?”

“Thanks so very much
—
we’d love it of course,” with a hint of coyness. She addressed Lyn: “Are you coming with us tonight?”

“D’you mind if I don’t? Melia’s cooking for me, and I intended to have an early night.”

Apparently Rosita understood and had no regrets. There was a sigh of disappointment from Roger, but he drifted off with the Bairds and several of his colleagues. The only remaining guests were four older men who were playing cards at the other end of the lounge.

Lyn was leaving too, turning in the porch to murmur a word of thanks to Adrian. Lightly he touched her arm to detain her.

“I’d like a word with you. Come over here and sit comfortably.” He pulled forward an upholstered rattan chair, saw her seated and dropped into another near by with his legs stretched out in front of him. He indicated the lounge. “Those card fiends in there are staying for the evening. We shan’t be interrupted.”

Matching his expressionlessness she said, “Would it matter a lot if we were?”

“Yes, it would. I’m the sort who prefers to be certain his viewpoint won’t be misunderstood, particularly when I’m dealing with someone like you. It’s not my habit to say or do things in a hurry.”

“You intrigue me,” she said in a steady little tone and with a steady little smile.

He smiled too, but enigmatically, and he leaned back in his chair, apparently in no hurry to begin. In fact his expression went remote, as though the main part of his mind were occupied elsewhere.

Lyn looked out at the still green trees. Distinctly came the shrill chirping of crickets, the high-pitched whirr of the singing beetles. Abruptly, night had fallen, unveiling a glittering array of stars presided over by the Southern Cross. Tonight, the friendly radiance of the waning mean was absent and the atmosphere was at
o
nce calm and stringent and merciless. Like the man at her side.

“When did you first meet Claud Merrick?” he asked.

The unexpectedness of his query made her pause and consider, but she kept her tone level as she replied, “The other evening
—
the one before last. Roger Bailey and I met him as we were coming from the club, and he invited us to dinner last night.”

“You also lunched with him today, didn’t you? I discovered that by mistake, not by spying. I went over to your place at about three to make sure that Melia Ducros was regularly serving the necessary mepacrine or quinine tablet with your breakfast and taking one herself; women are often slack about such things, and slackness can prove fatal. She told me where you’d gone.” A shrug. “Claud was never one to let the grass grow
—
except in his plantation.”

“As a matter of fact,” she stated, her gaze still upon the impenetrable trees, “I enjoyed lunching with Claud. I’m seeing him again tomorrow.”

“To be taken in by his type is nothing to boast about. I thought you had more intelligence than to squander your time on a wastrel. That’s all he is.” Before she could retort he went on, “I know the hours are long for women in these outposts but it’s safer to be bored than to plunge into a friendship which will ultimately make you unhappy. He’s not your kind.”

“You can hardly be the judge of that.”

“On the contrary!” he answered sharply. “I’ve known Merrick for a number of years, and he’s never been any different. I’ve seen him run through his father’s money and neglect the plantation which his father left him. He’s the wrong type for the tropics
—
too easily swayed, too willing to give in.”

“Surely the weak need friends more than the strong?” she countered, adding at once, “Not that I’ll admit Claud is weak. I don’t believe he is in the way you mean. I found him a splendid companion.”

“I don’t doubt that,” he conceded drily. “He can be charming and complimentary, he can also be tenacious when he’s engrossed with a woman. He has all the
obstinacy of the inherent philanderer. If he had the moral backbone of his sister he’d be a
man in a thousand.”

“You know his sister?”

“Quite well. She came to Palmas for three months some two or three years ago.” Not to be sidetracked, he said deliberately, “I brought you from Cape Bandu. While you’re at Denton I am, in a measure, responsible for you. I’d rather you confined your friendships to the people here, at the settlement.”

A minute elapsed.

“Is that all you had to say?” enquired Lyn politely.

“Pretty well.” He sounded exasperated. “I guessed you’d take it like this. I suppose you’re annoyed because I got the tennis match over before you came. You probably won’t believe that I did it for your sake.”

“For my sake? Really?” in the same tone of restrained politeness.

“Yes, really!” he returned tersely. “Everyone here had spent the afternoon sensibly in their bedrooms. After passing the hottest part of the day in the company of Claud Merrick you’d have made a poor show and felt like hell into the bargain.” He stood up and looked coldly down at her, took a further moment to light a cigarette and toss away the match. “If you’d make a determined effort to get along with Rosita you wouldn’t need the attentions of a man like Claud.”

“Why should I bother to placate Mrs. Baird? She doesn’t want me around and you know it.”

“You’re a guest at Denton, and Rosita is always the perfect hostess.”

“I’m not remotely connected with the growing of your rubber and she resents me as an interloper. You see so much that I’m sure her attitude to me hasn’t passed you by. Besides,” her voice lowered and she took an interest in her finger-tips, “I remind her of everything she’s missed by marrying a man who was already married to his job in the jungle.”

There was a silence. The persistent noise of the crickets came suddenly loud and harsh and the whining of a pie dog shivered over the air. One of the card
-
players laughed. The cards clicked as they were shuffled and re-dealt.

“Do you blame
Baird for marrying?” said Adrian.

“No. Rosita knew what she was doing, and I’m sure she doesn’t regret it.”

“But in your opinion she made a mistake, or perhaps was misled by Baird himself? You wouldn’t compete with a man’s profession for his affections?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She raised her head, met his eyes challengingly. “And I doubt if the man exists who would willingly tolerate his wife having equal fondness for her career as for him.” She thought of something and qualified the assertion. “Doctors are different, aren’t they? They mostly marry nurses.”

“I believe they do,” he said, and took a pace or two to the low wall to scan the heavens. For an expanding moment he stood there, with his back to her.

Undecidedly, Lyn remained seated for a further few seconds before she, also rose, and made a movement towards the steps. “If the interview is ended I’ll return to my lair.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

They crossed the compound without speaking, but at Lyn’s house he gave her a laconic little bow.

“Don’t take Merrick too seriously. He’s not entirely past reclamation, but he has no real desire for it, and even if he began to reform it wouldn’t last. Good night, Lynden.”

Very clearly she answered, “Good night, Dr. Sinclair,” and she turned to run up the steps.

In the living-room lingered the smell of fly-spray; the flowers were drooping with the vapor and the insect corpses were many. With a gesture of irritation Lyn dropped Roger’s racquet upon a chair. “Lynden,” indeed
—
and with a sarcastic inflection which reduced her once more to nuisance proportions. How she loathed the man!

Perhaps “loathed” was not exactly the word. She disliked him and was irritated by his offhandedness about the purpose of her presence in West Africa. It seemed that he could attach no significance at all either to Mrs. Latimer’s research work in the field of anthropology or to Lyn’s potential importance as the woman’s companion and helper. Carelessly, this afternoon, he had informed her that his letter to Mrs. Latimer would be delayed, and left her to infer that she might be held at Denton for three or four weeks. No word of apology for having inveigled her here from Cape Bandu, which was only four days or so away from her destination.

Lyn thought about the route which had been chosen for her by Mrs. Latimer with definite, longing. But even Claud had said that it could not be accomplished without a male companion; the missionary, Robert Grayson, could have been trusted, but Claud couldn’t think of one man in Palmas whom he would care to appoint her guide and guardian. He was no good at bush-tre
k
king himself, “And, candidly,” he had assured her with a grin, I wouldn’t trust myself either. Don’t tempt me, my pigeon.”

Once or twice Lyn had thought of asking one of the Denton supervisors to drive her back to Cape Bandu and select a dozen bearers. She was aware, though, that there was not a man among them who would flout Adrian Sinclair, not one who would even want to.
She sighed, decided not to change before her meal, and went through to see what was doing in the kitchen.

CHAPTER
SIX

By
degrees,
during the next few days, she realized that Claud could do nothing to help her reach Akasi. Blithely he described his efforts to bribe various officials to arrange the trip for her, by road and sea. Finally, in the middle of the next week, he told her easily,

“It’s hopeless, Lyn. Everyone insists that you’re better off here than inland, and I must agree with them. After all, this extraordinary woman brought you out from England and it’s her duty to come for you. I’ve done my utmost but I’m not sorry to have drawn blank. You’re the sweetest thing that’s happened to me in years. I can’t lose you yet.”

Lyn did not permit herself to suspect Claud. In this country, which was no place for a white woman, one must be governed by man-made regulations and submit to circumstances. But it was sickening to be compelled to go on living in a Denton house, at Adrian’s expense.

To stave off the devitalizing effects of monotony, she spent some time in the kitchen. She learned how to make short pastry from maize flour and tinned vegetable fat, and what went to the concoction of the famous West African curry. About the preparation of chicken she could conjure no enthusiasm, for here there were no plump cockerels to cover with strips of bacon and roast a golden brown; the fowls
—
and they were legion
—
were tough and sinewy, fit only for the stewpot and tasteless as rag unless spiced with peppers and served with highly seasoned vegetables. Sweet puddings were a luxury, but there were plenty of tropical fruits and occasionally one opened a tin of cream or whipped and chilled some evaporated milk. The refrigerator was useful.

Lyn experimented. Sweating profusely, she baked coconut biscuits and macaroons with success, but both small buns and large cakes drooped depressingly in the middle.

Melia offered a consoling comment: “Mrs. Grayson made cakes and always this happened
—
the hollow top. She said it was the raising agent could never be kept dry—she meant baking powder.”

“What sort of oven had she?”

“Paraffin like this
—
but not so new. It would always smoke. This one is good. There is what is called a maintenance man who comes to look at it once a week. Also, he tests the lights and switches. He is clever, that man, but always he talks too much.”

One day Lyn made the acquaintance of the maintenance man. She entered the kitchen, found Melia sitting primly at one end of the white table with her knitting, and a rather stout man of jovial expression and wearing an overall over his shorts busily repairing the electric iron at the other end of the same table. The man greeted Lyn politely, in an unmistakable Cockney accent.

Interested, she smiled at him. “You’re from London, aren’t you?”

“Islington,” he admitted modestly, “but that was a while ago. I’ve had twelve years on the Coast and they’ve just shot by. I first came out on a railway contract and I’ve never been back.”

“Twelve years in West Africa! Do you like it here?” she asked wonderingly.

“
I
t’s not so bad,”
h
e said, as if persuading her. “There’s lots worse places, and someone’s got to do these piffling jobs, ain’t they?”

“When did you first come to Denton?”

“
Four
years ago, and I hope to stay. It’s not so bad,” he said again, in those reasoning tones. “Surprising what you can get used to.”

“I haven’t seen you about.”

“I don’t live here because I’m not really on the staff. They’re engaged in England and I just blew in from Freetown. I share a bungalow with a chap in Palmas
—
old friend of mine who gets a lot of fever. Dr. Sinclair’s good to him.
”

“Are you happy on the Coast?”

He lifted one brow comically. “Not
happy
—
that’s a position condition and most conditions out here are negative. I’m contented, though. I don’t often get seedy, and good health is what counts.”

His name, Melia told Lyn later, was Rollins, and Mr. Rollins liked very much to gossip. Obviously, Melia Ducros had never before met a white man of his type and garrulousness. Her experience was of government officials, planters and missionaries, and she was not sure that she approved of the artisan Rollins; he made too many jokes that she could not follow.

Very slightly, Melia was expanding, losing the scared manner and reluctance to speak. Dimly, Lyn comprehended the repressions of her character, the strange upbringing which was at the root of them. Melia had no country, no people. She had grown up as an orphan in a tropical convent, had worked as needlewoman and housekeeper in a land where Africans are usually the servants. She had never had a white woman for a friend; even Mrs. Grayson had no time for Melia
—
the Africans had come first. Lyn’s acceptance of her as an equal, though at first considered by Melia to be reprehensible and not to be encouraged, was tending to make her conscious of herself as a person.

There was the day when Lyn rather fancied a walk into the fore
s
t and invited Melia to accompany her. They took a wide path which writhed among tree ferns and was sometimes lost beneath an accumulation of rubbery vines which bloomed pink and mauve. The brazen sky was shut out but hot needles of sunshine drove through here and there, showering gold dust over the thick dark vegetation and the fat, wax-like flowers.

They emerged at the edge of a palmy ravine and saw a tiny antelope, no more than eighteen inches high, leap from a crag only two yards away into the depth of the bush.

“How lovely!” exclaimed Lyn.

“That is funny,” said Melia, “to see it like that, with no trouble at all. Men have tried patiently for hours with field-glasses. But this is the best way. When he jumped he looked like a streak of light.”

Her shy enjoyment of the incident impressed Lyn. Melia, who was getting on for forty, was youthful in many ways and had much to discover.

They made their way along the rim of the ravine and up on to an eminence which was dominated by a huge kapok tree. From its shade they viewed a vast area of rubber trees intersected by a red clay road. On the horizon carriers with their head-burdens were strung out like a frieze of silhouettes. Near by, canaries twittered and fussed among the leaves.

The sullen beauty of this scene they shared in silence, but on the way back to the house the hitherto inarticulate Melia emitted a surprised, if somewhat stilted, remark.

“It is unbelievable. The goodness has always been there but I have never before seen it.”

Lyn made a light rejoinder; but she felt oddly uplifted and glad that Melia lived with her and could share her delight in new sights and scenes.

Saturday came again. Lyn played tennis, but this week Adrian had chosen golf. Sundowners were served at the Bairds’ house, and afterwards Lyn went with them to the club.

It was after dinner, when she was taking the air on the terrace before dancing, that Claud Merrick strode to her side. He slipped a hand round one of hers and led her away from the others towards a bench. His grip was warm, the smile he bent upon her was eager and young.

“I’ve got some news,” he said. “Great news. My sister’s coming to Palmas by private plane. One of those
t
heat
r
ical johnnies she knows is landing her here on his way to the Cape. She’s arriving on Monday afternoon.”

“But that’s wonderful. How long will she stay?”

“I can’t say. I think she’s had a professional disappointment
—
which means that she’ll hang on here till her courage oozes back. I’m inviting several friends to dinner on Monday
—
men who knew Hazel when she was here before. Will you come, too? I’m afraid you’ll be the only two women, but I’m keen for you and Hazel to know each other.”

Lyn accepted, of course. It might be refreshing to meet Claud’s sister, straight from England and only four years older than herself. But when she was in bed that night wondering why her sleepiness always vanished as soon as she lay within the stifling white net, Lyn recalled a comment of Adrian’s which had implied that Hazel Merrick was “a woman in a thousand.”

It would be interesting, one might almost say educational, to meet a woman so wholeheartedly approved of by the aloof and distinguished doctor. There couldn’t be many such women in the world.

Hazel Merrick possessed a pale, still beauty. She was grey-eyed and fawn-haired; it was short, straight hair which curved into her nape and round her ears. Her face had the pointed chin and high cheekbones of a medieval page in a painting, and her figure, though tall, was slender and boyish. About her speech there was a paradoxical gaiety. She was obviously determined not to brood upon the professional disappointment, or whatever it was that had driven her from London.

In fact, it struck Lyn, after half an hour with Claud’s
s
ister, that Hazel was overjoyed to be back in West Africa. She rallied the men and was bantered by them, flung out a passage from Ibsen and sobered to ask about their various jobs. She had remembered every item of news about them in Claud’s letters; Ben’s eye trouble and Jimmy’s adventure up the river in a canoe; the uncanny fever which had laid out Rex Harper for six weeks.

Harper, a big and rather fleshy man, kindled to her sympathy, but Claud said firmly,

“Hazel is here to rest, not to shoulder all your worries, you brutes. I’d kill the man who asked her to marry him without offering her something better than a damned bungalow, in the tropics.”

“Don’t fret, darling,” Hazel soothed him. “You won’t have to risk your neck for me. I’m a career girl, remember.”

“See that they remember!” he said.

After dinner Lyn went with Hazel to her bedroom which, even allowing for unpacking, was amazingly untidy; for Hazel had brought only one large grip. Magazines were scattered over the bed and the dressing-table, and a portfolio of photographs was open on the floor.

“Look as if the room had been swept by a hurricane, doesn’t it? My bedroom is always like that.” Hazel scooped up the portfolio. “Claud insisted on seeing all the pictures of me
—
even those in which I’m merely a small blur in a large crowd.”

“I’d love to see them, too.”

“You shall, but not tonight. Come down tomorrow.” Nevertheless, she drew one from the cover. “This is my favorite. Portia
...
but only at the Academy, not the Old Vic!”

“It’s marvellous. You make a handsome young man.” Lyn smiled at her and looked back at the photograph. “You’re very like Claud, you know.”

“Yes, I do know. Claud won’t have it, though. We argued about it when he and I were in this room a few hours ago, soon after I’d arrived. We stood side by side, looking in the mirror, and he called us Beauty and the Beast.” She smiled, but sighed. “He’s only six years older than I but the tropics have lined him dreadfully, and I suppose he drinks too much.”

“He doesn’t drink any more than his friends do.”

“It’s a habit they’ve all got; there’s so little else for them here. I wish he’d sell the plantation and come home to England. He should marry; he needs to be responsible for someone he loves.” With apparent irrelevance, she added, “Claud told me that he drove you out to the plantation last week. How did it appear to you?”

“I’m hardly competent to state an opinion. I’m not a rubber expert.”

“But you live at Denton. You’ve seen how rubber should be.”

Lyn hesitated. Hazel would find out soon enough for herself how sadly neglected was the Merrick plantation: the trunks of the fine trees laced together by vines, the latex cups battered and leaking, the triangular scars dried up for want of frequent attention, the hampering elephant grass. Even to Lyn’s inexperienced eye both trees and coagulation plant had presented a picture of decay, of blanketing by the crude, greedy jungle.

Hazel nodded
,
as if she had been answered. “It’s not Claud’s fault, not really. He isn’t cut out for this sort of life. He was training as an architect and I’m certain he’d have done well at it if Father hadn’t died. When that happened Claud was at the adventurous age
—
twenty-two
—
and he was jaded with studying, so he had to come out and inspect his inheritance. Africa captured his imagination and he stayed.”

“Does he really enjoy living here?”

“He says he does. You see, it’s so simple for him. Rubber prices are good, and in a masculine way he has fun. I wish Denton would renew their offer while I’m at Palmas, so that I could work on him to accept it. I may even screw up my courage to ask Adrian about it.” She bent over the bed to push the magazine together. “What do you think of him
—
Adrian Sinclair?”

Lyn paused. “I don’t get along too well with the super
c
ilious type.”

Hazel laughed. “Adrian’s not supercilious! He’s about the grandest man out here
—
so balanced and thoughtful, and exceptionally good company.” She looked up, still laughing. “I remember now! Claud explained how you got to Denton. Frankly, I think you were lucky to be kidnapped by Adrian. I’m sure he managed it beautifully.”

“So well that I was halfway there before I realized his treachery.”

Hazel, one arm full of periodicals, stood back and eyed Lyn critically. “I expect you’re tired of being told that this is the last place on earth for a lone girl. You’re so young.”

“Not much younger than you are.”

“I’ve lived in London and moved with a sophisticated crowd, and I’ve been to West Africa before. I’m not an innocent
—
I wish I were.” Faint shadows darkened her eyes. “Sometimes I feel I’ve nothing left to learn
—
except on the stage.” She brightened swiftly. “Well, whether you ought to be here or not, I’m certainly going to be grateful for your friendship. Let’s go back to the men or they’ll start card-playing.”

Lyn found that it was easy to be friendly with Hazel. In spite of her slim beauty, her long white hands and the straight, shining hair, she was not particularly feminine. She stayed away from the kitchen, would eat any mess the chocolate-skinned houseboy cared to serve rather than take the cooking in hand, or even give him a few culinary tips. True, Claud’s lounge now displayed a few flowers, but they looked as though they had been yanked from a flower-bed in a bunch and dropped directly into the vase. And Hazel was not averse from stuffing a pair of stockings down the side of a chair, or flicking cigarette ash anywhere except into an ashtray.

Whenever Lyn entered the Merrick home she found herself rearranging the blossoms and giving the poor things fresh water, or thumping up cushions which appeared to have been slept on.

“You’re the type who should marry one of these men,” Hazel chided her, with a wink at her brother. “They dote on the woman who brings all her housewifely customs into the wilderness.”

“Lyn has a quiet, chilling technique with the hunting male,” put in Claud lazily. “I believe it’s instinctive, but it’s very effective. One of these days I’ll demand point
-
blank that she marry me and I’ll accept nothing but a direct answer.”

“You’ll get one,” Lyn promised him.

Hazel looked from one to the other. “I wish you two didn’t sound so cool,” she complained. “I’d love to have a sister-in-law.”

“You’ve the persuasive, poetic command,” Claud said. “Why not propose for me?”