Doctor's Assistant Page 14

  Maris! Laurette’s glance sped from one face to the other. Charles’ revealed nothing but an aloof coolness.

  He shrugged. “You needn’t work too hard on Miss Delaney. She’s easily impressed.” Then he nodded and went up the steps and into his office.

  His going left a chill, and a sudden impotent anger within Laurette. Why should Charles say anything so unkind? And why should his voice have that hint of dislike in its depths? Was he punishing her for that moment last night, which had been as much his fault as her own? She had noticed a difference in him at breakfast, a narrowing of his eyelids and lips which had almost the cast of cruelty.

  Kevin Seymour’s fingers closed about her elbow. “I’ll never understand why women are so intensely interested in native store, but since you are, let’s get it over. We Europeans do our main shopping for supplies every three months, and the goods are brought by pack-pony from Maseru. The store does a wonderful trade with natives, though. Here’s a bunch come in from the mountains for their mealie meal and tobacco.”

  He had a slow, easy way of speaking and an unemphatic eye for detail. Laurette saw the chattering, blanketed Africans in the store, the shelves packed with staple foods and cheap clothes, and a glass-encased stand which displayed brass ornaments and the metal chain-work collars and wristlets beloved by Basutos. All around the store horses were tethered, the sturdy Basuto ponies without which the country could never have been developed. Everyone rode at Mohpeng because, except for the grass-grown track south, there were no roads. The natives wore hand-made straw hats like inverted cones ornamented at the apex, which were secured under the chin with leather thonging. Wherever one looked up the hillsides one could see wrapped, hatted figures cantering on horseback.

  From an eminence Kevin pointed out the blood-colored layers of rock in the mountains known as the Red Beds. He talked of bushman paintings, of fossils and ancient architecture unburied by digging parties further to the west.

  When he looked at his watch it was after eleven. “Time for a refresher,” he said. “Come up to my place and meet my sister.”

  Laurette agreed. Now that he had mentioned Maris she could put a casual question. “How long has she lived here with you?”

  “A few weeks. She met Charles Heron in London, ran into him again in Paris and decided she was meant to fall in love with him. When this notion that he’s the only man in the world wears off she’ll clear out and she and I won’t see each other again for months.”

  “Supposing it’s serious?”

  He smiled. “That’ll be just too bad for Maris.”

  “Don’t you think that ... that Charles might want to marry her?”

  As they walked Kevin turned to survey the small grave face under the wide-brimmed hat. “It might work because they’re both egoists. I’m one myself, come to that. But Charles is different from us Seymours, because he’s also an idealist. If he fell in love with Maris it would be against his good judgment.”

  “Does he like her?”

  “What a persistent little thing you are. Of course he likes her. Everyone like Maris.”

  They were on a footpath below native huts, the walls of which had been patterned in white by the womenfolk of the family. A short distance ahead stood Kevin’s house, unimaginatively square and white but, like most houses in Africa, a haven of coolness inside.

  In the tiny hall Laurette took off her hat and shook out her hair. She heard light footsteps, and the next moment Maris Seymour stood in a doorway, a lively smile upon her red lips.

  “Kevin, what a daring girl you’ve found!” she exclaimed. “Laurette Delaney? I’ve heard about you from Charles. You’re just in time for coffee and hardbake—Kevin says that’s the common name of everything I cook. Come into our pocket-size lounge and I’ll be back with you in a jiffy.”

  That opening speech was typical of the Maris whom Laurette came to know in the following days. She was pretty and twenty-four, tawny-haired, pale-skinned and fairly tall. She was vivacious and inconsequential, happy to try anything once but too impatient to bother with results. Where men were concerned, Laurette discovered, Maris didn’t have to concern herself with results. In places like Mohpeng an unmarried woman draws men as flowers attract bees, and Maris knew how to keep them attentive.

  She did it naturally, instinctively, by being unafraid to reveal her various charms, not the least of which was a pair of slim and smooth shoulders. She sparkled, was never lost for, a retort, but she could listen, too, with flattering earnestness.

  In spite of a serpentine fear which was not lessened by Charles’ comradely treatment of the girl, Laurette liked Maris. Obviously Kevin’s sister was not deeply sincere, but she did possess the compelling quality of patent happiness.

  Each time Charles entertained the Seymours were invited. At the polo Maris circulated freely among players and ponies before and after the match, and at picnics she was teased and made much of. She danced indefatigably and played cards and anything else with an artless abandon.

  Laurette, too, came in for her share of attentions, but her modesty and reserve were too strong to permit an unleashing of spirits such as Maris’. She was five years younger than the other girl, yet during those days at Mohpeng she felt herself growing visibly older.

  It was Kevin Seymour who helped her though, not Charles. Kevin talked and danced with her. She rode with him into the green and rocky mountains, sat with him in the courthouse while Charles delivered judgement in native quarrels, and even, one day, went with him to the camp where his soil conservation gang were working.

  On this last occasion she reached Charles’ house just as the luncheon table was being cleared. Her father was already on the veranda, smoking, but Charles was writing something at the desk in the lounge.

  His glance up at her was cold and appraising. “Have you eaten?”

  “No, we’ve only just got back. I’ll make myself a sandwich.”

  “You don’t have to—this isn’t Seymour’s slapdash establishment. The boy will fix a tray for you.”

  “I’m sorry to be so late. We were...”

  “Don’t apologize. I’ve told you to have a good time.”

  Stung by the indifference of his tone, she said, “It doesn’t delight you much when I do enjoy myself. Don’t you like having me here?”

  “My dear child,” he said with the old, hateful hint of patronage, “you’re far too careless with your emotions. No wonder Kevin won’t leave you alone. I don’t mind having you here in the least.”

  “How extremely kind!” She paused to give the slight crack in her voice time to mend. “I believe you despise me for asking your help over Peter.”

  “Quiet. Your father’s just outside.”

  She lowered her tones a fraction but retained the husky breathlessness. “I see now that it was wrong to come to you on his behalf. I hadn’t the right—you and I mean nothing to each other. Charles, I’d rather you didn’t do anything about his debt. I’d almost rather my father knew.”

  “You’re too late,” he told her dispassionately. “I sent a pony messenger to Maseru the day after you arrived. By now the transaction is practically through.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t thought he would act so soon. “I ... we’ll pay you back as soon as we can.”

  He stood up, and the glint in his eyes was merciless. “Like most women you have a great regard for inessentials—and whether you believe it or not, the matter of Peter and his financial worries is an inessential. I refuse to discuss it again.”

  She drew in her lip and looked away. “Why do you have to make me wish I’d never come to Mohpeng? I was so glad the day we got here, but you’re not the same as you were at the coast.”

  “That’s sad for you,” he said abruptly, “but you’re fortunate in having Kevin to make up for my deficiencies. You also have a certain power of persuasion over your father if you wish to leave.”

  She stared, stunned, at his set, withdrawn expression. “Yes,” she said slowly, “you can be a
nasty brute, can’t you? You warned me of it the other night, but I didn’t think the brute would show itself without provocation. All right, Charles. I’ll get to work on my father.”

  She couldn’t hurry from the room, but she did contrive to keep her back erect and her chin well up. In her bedroom, though, she slumped as if her world had crumbled about her.

  What had happened between them? Had it, in some roundabout way, a connection with Peter, or was her friendship with Kevin Seymour in a measure responsible? But Charles himself had insisted on her knowing Kevin, and he was more capable than most men of realizing that no serious relationship could develop between the soil conservation officer and Laurette Delaney. He wouldn’t care if it did, anyway. No it was something else.

  Inevitably, her fevered thoughts moved on to Kevin’s sister. Would Maris have instilled poison? Laurette hated to contemplate it, but she had to acknowledge that the other girl was just a fraction incalculable. A woman who fancied herself in love with Charles might get the quaint notion that he had more than a brotherly affection for the girl who was his house guest and deem herself bound, in self-defence, to let fall a pungent remark or two.

  The tense situation between Charles and herself had grown so swiftly; friends one day and almost violent enemies on those which followed. She just hadn’t the experience to cope with it.

  A knock came at the door and her heart plunged. Hastily she pushed back her hair and crossed the room to turn the handle. But it was only one of the white-suited houseboys bearing a tray.

  “The master send this, please.”

  “Thank you. Put it over there, will you?”

  She closed the door behind the boy and leant back upon it with the flat of her palms against the cool panels. Thoughtful Charles, she reflected bitterly. He’d pay money to get her out of a muddle and would ensure that she did not go hungry, but he no longer had any fondness to spare. And if that were true she would rather not be near him.

  Her father had expected to stay here about a fortnight. Well, the second week was begun, and there was no reason why they should not get away by next weekend. She had to find a way of repaying that frightful sum of money, and to think coherently about means to such an end was an impossibility in Mohpeng.

  Presently, aware that Charles would have left his office, she went outside to see her father. John Delaney inserted a thumb into the thick tome he had been reading and crinkled a smile at her.

  “Mohpeng’s a Utopian sort of place, isn’t it?” he said. “Modern comforts amid a beautiful chaos of mountains, but none of the debits of civilization. No telephones, no artificial entertainment, and—in spite of scenery as good as Switzerland’s—no tourists.”

  Something hardened within Laurette. “I like Port Quentin better,” she answered. “In fact I’m looking forward to going home.”

  She did not pursue the topic just then, though; the hurt was too new. She sat down beside her father and picked a book from the pile on the floor at his side. They were Charles’ books, rather a heavy selection of biographies and essays. She read a little, but the ideas tan together. She felt stifled. It seemed that another day of living close to Charles would be more than she could bear.

  The afternoon loitered by. Charles returned, exchanged remarks with the Captain and went to his bath. The sun vanished, leaving a lilac wash over the mountain peaks which deepened with the fast approach of night. Laurette and her father parted, to change.

  When Laurette entered the lounge half an hour later every light scintillated and several people were taking drinks. Kevin was there, talking polo with one of the Mohpeng team, and Maris, in calf-length white taffeta and wearing a seed-pearl clip in her rich curls, stood with Charles and young Nealson.

  It was a merry crowd, the largest Charles had gathered since the coming of the Delaneys, and the five-course dinner was something, of a miracle in such an outpost. Laurette had no idea how Charles had managed it without fuss, but there it was: an excellent soup, grilled trout, chicken, hot and cold sweets, and several kinds of cheese with biscuits and crispbread. Since living at the house Laurette had entered the kitchen only twice. The first time it had been empty and sparklingly clean. On the second occasion, before lunch one day, she had scarcely passed through the doorway before Charles followed.

  “They need no assistance,” he had told her with a trace of sharpness. “Your presence here will only fog them.”

  As usual, he was right. Servants who could turn out a dinner like this upon instructions from a man needed no feminine supervision. In this establishment it would be superfluous.

  A woman complimented Charles on the fish. “We haven’t had trout for ages. The fish-boy insists that it’s too early for good ones, but this is delicious.”

  “Trout shouldn’t really be grilled,” Charles said. “There’s only one true way of cooking them—straight from the river into a pan of boiling vinegar. Ever eaten them like that?”

  No one had, at which Charles expressed astonishment. He sipped his light wine, before adding, “When I first came here I did it often, for breakfast. I used to take a boy with me and ride some way upstream. He made a fire and got the vinegar boiling, I sat and fished—the response was invariably good at that hour—and in no time the trout were ready to be tasted. You should try it.”

  “Why don’t we all try it?” lazily enquired Kevin. “A picnic breakfast. We could haul along a few boiled eggs in case the fish are wily.”

  The suggestion was popular.

  “You’d come, wouldn’t you, Charles?” begged Maris. “You’d have to be there to show us how to go about it. If we chose a Saturday we could take our time.”

  “You forget that Charles works on Saturday mornings,” Kevin put in, with as much sarcasm as he considered it politic to infuse into his voice, “while the rest of us slack.”

  “But he doesn’t have to.” Maris, at Charles’ right hand, looked with merry pleading into the sea-green eyes. “Please let’s have this little binge. You can supervise and do nothing, and I’ll guarantee to catch enough trout for both of us. I’m quite good with a line.”

  “Who could resist such a bribe?” said Charles mockingly. “You’re under my orders, then. All those interested can turn up here on ponies at six next Saturday morning.” His glance flickered down the table, hardly rested on Laurette before it moved round to John Delaney. “That game leg of yours puts you out, I’m afraid; Captain, but we can take Laurette.”

  Laurette steeled herself. “As a matter of fact we shan’t be here, Charles. If your car is available we’d like to leave on Friday,” she said steadily.

  Charles showed no surprise. He did not answer her, but again addressed her father. “You can hang on till Sunday, surely, John?”

  The Captain gave an accommodating shrug, and a smile.

  “It’s your car and you know best when you can spare it. We’re not in a hurry.”

  Laurette’s eyes were downcast. One couldn’t argue in front of these people, but she was fully aware that, had he wished, Charles could have agreed upon Friday as their day of departure. This was just another demonstration of his power. What a heart-breaking relief it was going to be to leave Mohpeng.

  She tried a mouthful of chicken and ate a peach, drank coffee in the garden with Kevin, and smoked through a cigarette with someone else. The others danced in the lounge and veranda, someone sang an old comic song which had a noisy chorus, and occasionally Maris’ infectious laughter rippled out into the darkness.

  At something after midnight the party broke up. When the last guest had called a final good night, Charles gave John Delaney his stick and took a firm grip on his other arm.

  Laurette kissed her father’s cheek. “Good night, darling,” she said in quiet, tired tones. And then, “Good night, Charles.”

  She undressed mechanically and got into the sharkskin wrap she had bought in England for the sea-trip to Durban. It was cream with a delicate leaf-pattern in willow-green, and, its voluminous flare made her look the s
mall, weary person she was. Weary, but not in the least sleepy.

  She opened her french window and stepped out on to the veranda. The air off the mountains came cool and penetrating; it ruthlessly cleared her brain and brought a stinging to her eyes. The most forbearing of us are apt to wonder why certain incidents must happen to us, and Laurette was no less than human. But she did possess enough common sense to realize that one doesn’t eliminate pain by dwelling upon it. People did survive emotional catastrophes, even if they hardened in the process. Perhaps the hardening was all to the good; it girded one against further blows.

  A movement at the other end of the verandah made her rigid. She saw the red point of a cigarette describe an arc into the night, and knew that it was Charles who stood back from the low wall, preparatory to going to his bed at the other side of the house.

  She stayed very still, hardly daring to breathe, but from habit Charles looked both ways, and her pale outline was stark against the blackness of night. Even then it seemed for a long moment as if he would leave her there, unmolested. But that moment passed, and he came down the veranda at a long, silent stride.

  “It’s nearly one,” he said. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “Do I have to answer that?”

  “No, I know the reason. You’d better go inside now or you’ll catch a chill.”

  Her head turned, and in the rectangular light from her room he saw her face, young and shadowed, with moisture lingering on the lashes. His hand caught and held her willow-green cuff; his tones were rough.

  “I’m not going to apologize for hurting you when you came in at lunch time today. Instead, I’ll give you some advice. When you’re dealing with a man, don’t imagine his feelings can be measured with the yardstick you’d use for your own. And when you’re dealing with me in particular it’s as well to remember that what you really know about me could be comfortably written on the back of a postage stamp.”

  “Whereas I’m completely transparent,” she said with a flat inflection. “Thanks for the tip. After the weekend I shall only have contact with ordinary mortals. Till then I’ll strive not to cross you again.”