Plantation Doctor

PLANTATION DOCTOR

Kathryn Blair

“You don’t care for our doctor? Women never do. He’s too careless of their emotions, too much the immovable bachelor,” observed an acquaintance to Lynden Russell when Lynden found herself in unexpected circumstances at the Denton Rubber Plantation in West Africa.

The doctor in question, Dr. Adrian Sinclair, had rescued Lynden from an unfortunate predicament, but had not hesitated to let her know his opinion of her folly—“Didn’t you realize before you came that West Africa is no place for an unattached woman?”

In her anger at Dr. Sinclair’s highhanded way, Lynden told herself that she could not care less about what he thought. She would never have dreamed that a day might come when she would want his good opinion of her more than anything else.

CHAPTER ONE

The native boy
went ahead, apparently oblivious of the searing heat of the rough road beneath his bare feet and of the withering sunshine on his naked back. Lyn thought of the house to which he was leading her as she had seen it from the boat: simple, white and spacious, and set against a forest of trees. It would be cool within those walls and tonight, for the first time since leaving England, she would sleep in an ordinary bedroom
—
but beneath an African sky.

And what a sky it was at the moment! Like burnished steel arching over the tangle of casuarina, tamarind and palms through which the track had been hacked. Lyn felt as if she were cooking very thoroughly in a huge steam-oven, if such a thing existed.

It was fantastic, of course, that she should be here at all. Tropical Africa was all right for people like Mrs. Latimer
—
anthropologists, ethnologists and the rest
—
but the right place for a young woman learning the intricacies of buying and selling antiques was definitely in the shop of a dealer in such commodities. This sentiment had become stronger and stronger within Lyn since she had embarked on the coaster the day before yesterday at Freetown.

It had all come about because Mrs. Latimer was the widowed sister-in-law of Lyn’s employer. Six weeks ago Mr. Latimer had received a letter from a place called Akasi. Perturbed and excited, the little man had read bits of it to Lyn. His sister-in-law asked to have a young companion sent out to her and in his opinion she demanded the impossible. Even if one could find a typist who was interested in anthropology, a good conversationalist, adaptable and possessed of a cast-iron constitution, the odds were against her being willing or able to bury herself for many months in the jungle hinterland of West Africa. Mrs. Latimer had lived away from the civilized world too long to have much knowledge of modern women.

After a day or two Lyn had caught the dear old ma
n
looking at her apologetically, but speculatively, and that was how her troubles began. Before that she had been an ordinary girl of twenty with the modest ambition to become knowledg
e
able about mellow and lovely things. Owing to her parents’ death when she was four, her childhood and adolescence had been spent with her grand, mother in the Victorian house at Portreath, and there she had grown up with a liking for period furniture and delicate china, beaten silver and Grecian vases
.

When old Mrs. Russell had died, Mr. Latimer had come to make an offer for some of the furniture and at once had been impressed by Lyn’s affection and reverence for the Sheraton chairs and Rockingham ware. It was the most natural thing in the world that he should take her into his shop in Bournemouth to type out his lists and invoices and learn the differences between the old and the merely old-fashioned.

For two years she had a wonderful time amid the beautiful chairs and chests, the heavy Georgian silver, the crystal candelabra whose flames had once illumined the creamy shoulders of celebrated French beauties. She had even been given a delightful flat to herself
—
not the one directly over the shop; the Latimers had that
—
but the smaller one on the top floor, which had three cosy rooms and a private bathroom. She had made a few friends and joined a tennis club. And if she had ever thought about Africa it was to picture through a nebulous mist a green land teeming with animals and black people with here and there a jaded-looking white man in a sun helmet.

When Mr. Latimer had suggested, with the utmost diffidence, that Lyn was the nearest thing he could t
hink
of to his sister-in-law’s requirements and she might like the experience, she was completely aghast. Go to Darkest Africa
...
alone! She wasn’t that sort of person. Yet so strong in the young is the spirit of adventure that within twenty-four hours she had not only agreed to go to Akasi, but she would have fought a rival for the privilege of going.

From that day onwards she was steeped in a sense of exciting unreality which had held out until this very moment, when the merciless heat was beginning t
o
threaten her equilibrium. Mrs. Latimer had written that Lyn must leave the liner at Freetown and take a coastal boat to Cape Bandu, where Robert Grayson would meet her; she could rely on Mr. Grayson, who was in charge of the mission, to arrange her transport for the final phase of the journey.

Looking ahead, Lyn could see Robert Grayson’s house, not quite as white and imposing as it had appeared from the deck of the coaster, for the walls were patched with mildew, but inviting nevertheless, because now the garden was visible, a patchwork of brilliant blossom. What a relief it would be to place herself in the hands of the missionary and his wife. It had been disappointing not to be met on the shore, but one couldn’t expect them to view the sea through a telescope for hours on end in anticipation of her coming. Missionaries were busy people.

Everyone she had spoken to had known of Robert Grayson; the skipper of the vessel and the few other passengers had praised him. A sterling man, they had said, who placed his duty before everything else. Miss Russell would be completely safe under his wing.

By now, Lyn and her dark-skinned escort had arrived at the drive which led up to the mission house and buildings. The native stopped and said something unintelligible, and she realized with misgiving that he would expect a tip and had doubtless never seen English money. However, he accepted a shilling with much patent gratitude, bowed himself backwards down the path, and she passed on into the wide, stone-floored veranda.

What with the heat and foreignness, the fact that she had not yet seen a white person in Cape Bandu and the all-pe
r
vading quietness, Lyn’s nerves were beginning to squeal. Surely in a mission there should be some signs of activity at ten in the morning! She turned round and saw, over the native roofs and thick greenness of the trees, an expanse of heaving ocean upon which the outgoing steamer appeared a tiny, receding haven which would soon lose itself over the edge of the horizon. For a moment of panic she felt alone—in Africa.

With some resolution she rapped hard at the white door of the house. After a few seconds she was conscious
that the slats of the Venetian blind at the nearest window had been pulled horizontal, and for the moment before they fell back into their original flatness she caught the rather large outline of a man.

Clearly she heard him say, “Moses, bring drinks. We have a visitor.”

Then the door opened and he stood there, a tall man in shorts and a khaki shirt.

“Come in,” he said, for all the world as if this were Kensington. “The boat got in much earlier than I expected, or I’d have met you with the car. Tiring tramp up from the beach, isn’t it?”

Her shoulders squared with an involuntary bracing, she stepped into a large living-room made dim by those blinds and thickish curtains, and gratefully lifted her hat from damp coppery curls.

“Sit down,” he said, still cool and casual, though his expression, as his glance roved over her youthful slimness, showed displeasure. “You’d better have a drink before you pass out.”

She looked at him in sudden vexation. This was no way to speak to a countrywoman on strange soil. Where was that marvellous respect for white women which was supposed to be rampant in the tropics? She sat down and took the tall glass, sipped the yellow liquid and shuddered inwardly at the strong taste of whisky.

He lowered himself into another chair and crossed his legs. His eyes, sherry-brown but somewhat stony, openly and critically rested upon the smallish,
clear skinned
face which was intelligent rather than pretty. He met a gaze that was hareb
e
ll blue and fringed with thick, dark lashes, and shrugged his shoulders in sardonic disbelief.

“You
are
Miss Russell, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She was at once defensive; if he kept up that tone she would soon be hostile. “I believe Mrs. Latimer wrote to you about me.”

“She didn’t write to me. I’ve never met the lady.”

“Then you’re not Mr. Grayson!”

Thank heaven for that. Lyn loathed the cold, appraising sort, and this man, considering his environment and the fact that she was new from England, was the worst
example of it she
h
ad ever encountered. Too clever by half, she thought, with his large brow and lean good looks; and too uncannily at home in the tropics to be quite human. She could feel a trickle meandering down her spine and a pulsing in her temples.

“My name’s Sinclair,” he answered. “Adrian Sinclair. Perhaps I’d better explain. I’m the doctor at the Denton Rubber Estate a hundred miles or so down the coast. Grayson was a friend of mine and, incidentally, one of my patients. Over the past two years his health has deteriorated, and his last fever, about a fortnight ago, laid him out. He was so ill that I made immediate plans for him to be taken home to England.”

“You mean ... he isn’t here?”

“Exactly. You probably passed him on the high seas before you reached Freetown.”

To Lyn, the atmosphere of the room seemed to have become burdened with apprehension. The very desk, with its tidy heap of papers and unopened letters, spelled disaster.

“And Mrs. Grayson?” she asked.

“She’s gone home with her husband. She wanted to stay on here working alone for a couple of months till a new missionary arrived, but I couldn’t allow that. Her motives were excellent, but there are no other white people in Cape Bandu. It’s just a coastal village.”

When she had received the full impact of this remark Lyn set down her glass. “In that case, I suppose I’m lucky to find you here.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” he returned equably. “I’m not very tolerant of foolhardy young women. I came here at Grayson’s request, expressly to meet you. We both thought that Miss Russell would be middle-aged and much
-
travelled
—
the type of self-assured woman you do occasionally meet in the wilderness. I can’t see myself sending an inexperienced girl into the jungle with a dozen Africans.”

She might have known it. From the moment he had taken her measure at the door his attitude had been obstructive and patronising.

“Mr. Grayson would have got me to Akasi,” she said hardily.

“Yes,
I expect he would. He
’
d probably have g
one
with you most of the way, but I haven’t time for that. I left the plantation at five this morning, and I’m due back tonight. One of the
Denton boats will be calling here this afternoon, and I’ll arrange for it to take you back to Freetown.”

This was too much. “Why should I go all the way back to Freetown when I’m only eighty miles from Akasi? I must reach the place somehow!”

He uncrossed his legs and got out cigarettes, lifted his shoulders at her abrupt refusal to join him and took a long, maddening minute to light up. Even when the cigarette glowed he inhaled luxuriously before replying.

“The track from here to Akasi is so seldom used that boys would have to go ahead with axes to clear it. You’d have to be carried the whole way at walking-pace in a bamboo hammock, and camp each night in the forest. Women have done such journeys
—
your Mrs. Latimer, for instance
—
but they know the country and the native dialect. I suggest that you send Mrs. Latimer a letter from Freetown, and get her to fix up your transport. If she’s any sort at all, she’ll collect you herself. By the way,” he negligently flicked a cone of ash on to the rug, “what do you hope to get out of a hellish spot like Akasi?”

“Nothing. It’s merely a job of work.”

“It’ll be more than that. Supposing you pick up
a
fever or two in the process?”

“I’ve had the usual inoculations.”

“And, anyway,” he ended for her, “you’re not likely to come to me for treatment, and you’ll take what risks you like with your own health. Very well, Miss Russell, let’s leave it like that. Did you deposit your luggage at the beach shed?” After she had nodded he said, “It can stay there till you leave. I suggest that you now finish your drink and lie down in one of the bedrooms till lunch-time.”

He stood up and called the houseboy. “Moses, prepare a cool bath for the missus, and keep the house as quiet as it is now. She wishes to sleep.”

After which he picked up his helmet from a chair, gave Lyn a distant but fairly pleasant nod, and went out.

Well! Lyn resisted an impulse to hurl her glass across the room at the chair he had just vacated. It was too hot for a display of temper, anyway. But how dare he! Who did he think he was, to appoint himself arbiter of the destiny of Lyn Russell? Back to Freetown, indeed, and in a smelly rubber freighter, too! Meanwhile she was ordered to cool off in a bath and rest, in preparation for the voyage. It was beyond everything.

She jumped up and went to the window, pulled the cord which separated the slats of the blind. There he was, striding along to disappear among the trees as if the temperature were down in the seventies. It was surprising, and not too good for the vanity, to discover a man who was not even slightly affected by the presence of a young woman in such a womanless place. The heat was said to exaggerate a woman’s importance. He must be an icicle of a man.

Part of his immunity could be attributed to his being a doctor, but the few doctors Lyn had known tempered their efficiency with kindness and sympathy, and off
-
duty they had been charming companions. Dr. Adrian Sinclair was ruthless and wholly objectionable, but he was not going to get his own way. She would cover those eighty miles to Akasi on foot, if necessary.

Having decided upon the defiant course, Lyn felt much better.

Why shouldn’t she have the bath and a rest? She needed both, after tossing about in the tiny cabin of the coaster and toiling to the house from the shore, and she would have to be in first-class condition to cope with that dark-haired autocrat when he returned.

But she did not move at once. Her attention held by the utter strangeness of the scene which sloped to the grey-blue rim of the ocean. The native huts, some of mud-brick with palm-thatched roofs and others like huge reed beehives, were built in groups and buried among trees. Now, she remembered that the blend of smells as she had trudged along that baking road had included spice and rotting vegetation. Those huts must be terribly damp.