Plantation Doctor (19 page)

The disparagement in his voice brought distress in bright flags to Hazel’s cheeks. “I know how you regard it, Adrian, but Marceline loved him desperately. Lyn will confirm that.”

Lyn had to stand; there was no other way of meeting the clear, accusing eyes of Mrs. Denton. To Adrian she turned her back.

“Yes, Marceline was rather
...
sunk, but it’s news to me that Claud wanted to marry her. Only last night
...
” she interrupted herself sharply.

Last night Claud had spoken with an air of finality but he had given her the impression of being happy about the years ahead. He had talked of a holiday in France and Switzerland, the holiday that was, she now realized, to be his honeymoon with Marceline. She wanted to defend Claud, to make Mrs. Denton see him as a man who, perhaps for the first time, had made an absolute and irrevocable decision without help or coercion.

But somehow Adrian was no longer at her back. He was there, behind his aunt, gazing down upon Lyn with a smile of sardonic and bitter amusement upon his lips.

On a note of strain, Mrs. Denton said, “But why the secrecy? I couldn’t have prevented Marceline from manning. She’s over age.”

Hazel slowly shook her head. “Claud doesn’t give a reason, but I can guess at one. He thought that you and Adrian would somehow keep them apart, and that you’d get to work to convince her that he’s a cad. He’s had affairs—there aren’t many unmarried men of his age who haven’t—but he must care a lot for Marceline to take so much trouble to marry her in such circumstances.”

“I’m afraid the circumstances in which he married her don’t prove a thing,” said Adrian. “Claude has never had so much money. Besides, to rush a girl into marriage in defiance of all the proprieties would appeal to his, vanity. My aunt had befriended Marceline and while my guests they were in my care. Claud’s childish sense of humour was caught by the idea of snatching Marceline away from Denton and—as he saw it—from me.”

“That may be partly true.. He does do crazy things.” Hazel was pleading with him. “But they’re well-matched. When the first romantic flush has faded Marceline will be just the influence he needs. I’m sure of that. She’s not vulnerable, like Lyn.”

The comparison was unfortunate. Mrs. Denton
drew
herself up and turned to Adrian.

“Well go to the library. I must talk this over with you. When Marceline’s father entrusted me with the task of finding her a husband, he couldn’t have visualized a son-in-law such as Claud Merrick.”

Adrian nodded sympathetically at Hazel. “Don’t worry, my dear. You’re in no way responsible for your brother’s actions,” he said, and escorted his aunt from the room.

CHAPTER
NINETEEN

A Silence
followed their departure. Hazel lit a cigarette, threw a brief glance at Lyn and search for an ashtray.

“Claud’s the limit,” she said through her teeth. “I’m not belittling his feelings for Marceline, but to clear off with her like that, leaving only a few lines of scribble, was a filthy trick.”

“I don’t understand it at all. They must have met fairly often.”

“Mrs. Denton didn’t know, but Claud used to come and bathe with us on the yacht. He took Marceline for drives while I remained there, reading. He danced with her, complimented her. I thought it was simply a flirtation till last Monday, when he made all that show of wanting you to marry him. Then I saw what was going on.”

“I believe I see it now, as well,” put in Lyn thoughtfully. “He’d made his proposition to Marceline but she was shaky about it and refused. That night he was goading her into submission.”

“Pretty, isn’t it!” With venom she squashed out the half-smoked cigarette. “He had it all worked out. He didn’t care a hang about hurting my friends so long as his perverted strategy got results.”

“But he did make a sort of apology to me after the film show last night. Hazel, I think he really is in love with Marceline.”

Hazel paused, looking at her. “You’re surprising, and such a dear. We Merricks have treated you disgustingly but you continually make excuses for us. If I turn this over any more in my brain it will burst. Shall we go and cheer the tennis players?”

Lyn acquiesced. They walked to the court and sat in deckchairs, bandied pleasantries with the energetic men and clapped their appreciation of a good volley. But Lyn was not following the tennis match. She was out at sea on the coaster, a ghostly witness of Claud’s and Marceline’s happiness. From the coaster she retreated to Adrian’s house, recalled that contemptuous, ironic smile which had meant, “There’s your fine hero, married to someone else. Now sob your heart out and I hope it bursts!”

Strange and painful to know that Adrian could be so cruel; Adrian, whose whole life was given over to the relief of suffering humanity. From the day when she had knocked at the door of the mission house in Cape Bandu he had resented her. Out of a sense of duty he had whisked her away to Denton and given her a temporary home, pulled her through fever and extended to her a precarious sort of friendship.

Antagonism within herself had eventually been tempered by respect for his integrity and skill. The next stage was hazy; an odd leap of the heart at the sight of him
a
gladness when he smiled at her and swooning joy on the couple of occasions when they had danced together. Come to the final flash of devastating self-knowledge. She loved Adrian with every tiny cell of her being, and she ached for everything that a woman in love is entitled to: his tenderness and passion, his trust and protection, and the multitude of trifles which fill out and heighten friendship into something beautiful, richly satisfying and enduring.

Love is said to beget love; in Lyn’s case it seemed
to
have begotten love’s antithesis.

Hazel jogged her arm. “What’s the matter with you, Lyn! I’ve spoken to you three times but you’ve simply gone on staring at nothing as if drugged.”

“I’m sorry. It must have been the hypnotic effect o
f
the tennis-ball.”

Hazel’s expression was anxiously introspective. “I feel grim as death. I haven’t been able to get this marriage of Claud’s out of my head, after all. Would you mind much if I went back to the house alone? There’s more I ought to make clear to Mrs. Denton and I shan’t feel secure till I’m right with Adrian.”

“I don’t mind. Go ahead.”

“Will you be coming to dinner?”

“No.” Lyn stilled a shiver. “I’ll see them tomorrow.”

Hazel pressed her arm, passed round her chair and swung off along the path. Lyn thought, She’s an actress; she’ll win them both. This is her big chance with Adrian. He likes her, admires her loyalty in lining up on Claud’s side, and will be only too ready to meet her half-way. Meet her half-way! Hazel need but raise to him grey eyes swimming with tears, a mouth that quivered. Could Adrian resist such an invitation? Did he wish to? Wouldn’t every instinct bid him take Hazel into his arms
...
lovely, pliant Hazel!

Lyn’s fingers were clenched in upon sweating palms, her jaws were tight. This was appalling, more gruelling than any flights of imagination which had gone before.
For
an endless moment it was like an illness, a cold and clammy phase of fever.

Rosita had moved up to Hazel’s chair, was saying in her sprightly voice, “Come to us for cocktails, Lyn. We’ve got a puppy which I’m sure you’ll adore. He’s only a pie
-
dog, of course—our houseboy got him from the village
—
but he’s fat and cute. It’s such a long time since you came to our place.”

Lyn accepted quickly, like a drowning creature clutching at a spar. Anything rather than be alone yet.

Dusk came down, soft and cool to the brow. The men were indulging in Saturday expansiveness, suggesting card games for tonight and making golfing and fishing dates for tomorrow. They looked brown and healthy in their tennis whites, sitting on Rosita’s verandah and drinking luxuriously from tall glasses.

Lyn scooped up the puppy. He was faintly brindled and flop-eared, but his nose already showed the inclination to length and sharpness which was a characteristic of the leering hounds which skulked round the native quarters. Mature, and fed upon vassava meal and yam scraps thrown out by the boys, they were furtive, unattractive dogs, but puppies which grew up in a white household were astonishingly affectionate and intelligent. This one smelled strongly of the disinfectant with which Rosita had made the houseboy soak his coat.

One of the men leaned towards Lyn. “Nice little beggars as puppies, aren’t they? Would you like one?”

“Very much.” She fingered the smooth hair between the ears. “I couldn’t keep it, though.”

“Why not
...
going home?”

She nodded. “In two or three weeks.”

“Lucky you. I’ve got fourteen months to go, and a sinking feeling that if I’m given the chance of a further three-year contract I shall sign it like a lamb. Dr. Laxton is signing up for five years, with a six months’ vacation half-way.”

“Who is Dr. Laxton?”

“Dr. Sinclair’s assistant—you have his house. He’s due back in about six weeks. He’s had an
extra-long
leave to take a special course at Edinburgh, and soon
he’ll
b
e in full charge of the medical side here. Dr. Sinclair’s due for a long break too.”

He conversed easily, chiefly about Denton. He knew the length of everyone’s contract and felt sorry for the odd one here and there who could not stick the climate; after the first six months it wasn’t so bad. The foolish gyrations of Lyn’s thoughts had begun again. In six weeks, maybe slightly longer, Adrian would be free to go to England, to plan the rooms and gardens of his home ... to marry.

She stayed with the Bairds for dinner and afterwards listened to some music. Roger accompanied her home at about nine, but she could not linger outside and chat with him. He accepted her excuse of being tired, said good night and left to go into the house alone. Melia was still out, but the boy had been disturbed in the kitchen. He came to the door, very black and glistening, expressionless.

“You want food, missus?”

“No, thank you, John.”

“No drink?”

“No. You can go now.”

He departed on bare feet, ostentatiously thudded the back door. Lyn wished Melia were about, with her slow, high-pitched voice, her incredulous excitement about the future.

A quick, light step sounded in the porch; there was a tap and Hazel opened the door.

“I saw your light spring up—I’d been watching for it.” She came farther into the room, stood where the light shone over her straight fawn hair. “Mrs. Denton’s gone to bed and Adrian’s engrossed in some business or other in the library. I had to see you, Lyn. Can we have some coffee?”

“Yes, of course, but we’ll have to make it ourselves. Melia’s out.”

“So much the better. I’m all on wires.”

Lyn showed no curiosity; if bad news must come there could be no avoiding it. She put the kettle to boil, prepared the percolator and set out cups and saucers on the tray. Hazel sat on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, her glance pursuing Lyn from cupboard to refrigera
t
or, from refrigerator to table. Her forehead was unpleated, her mouth composed; all her doubts and longings, the vicious anger with Claud were washed away. She was happy.

Lyn kept her head bent above her task. “Anything to eat, or just coffee?”

“I could eat one of Melia’s biscuits. That’s what we had that night at the bungalow—remember?”

“Which night?”

“When I came in and found you clearing up the mess I’d made in Claud’s bedroom. I could tell from your perplexity that I looked like something out of a nightmare
—
I felt like it, too. We talked for a bit and then made some coffee—or rather, you made it. You were an angel, Lyn ... asked no questions, tried to be practical.” She sighed, but without a trace of bitterness. “I’ve come an awful long way since then.
”

With an effort, Lyn said, “Is Mrs. Denton more resigned to Marceline’s fate?”

“She is, thanks to Adrian. I don’t believe he’s a scrap put out about the marriage itself—only annoyed that Mrs. Denton should be upset. After he’d set it out reasonably as a marriage between two of a kind that had a fifty-fifty chance of success, she made a most amazing statement—said she’d never disliked Claud as a man; her antipathy for him had quite a different basis.” Hazel grinned. “What do you make of that?”

Lyn didn’t attempt to make anything of it. She shrugged her incapability of passing an opinion, poured water into the percolator and set it to simmer, and opened a tin of biscuits. Hazel took a biscuit by its fluted edge.

“In future, every time I come across a cookie remotely resembling one of these, I shall think of that last abominable night with Rex. He’d be enraged to hear me say that a biscuit reminded me of the first and only man in my life, but that’s how it’s going to be.”

Shock sent icy feathers along Lyn’s skin. She kept her fingers tightly over the plastic handle of the percolator, her face only half towards Hazel.

“Did you say
...
Rex?”

“Rex Harper,” Hazel elaborated, nibbling thoughtfully on the biscuit; she repeated the two words. “It used to jab like hot needles even to think his name, and now I can say it without a tremor.”

“Rex was the man you loved?” Lyn’s voice sounded distant in her own ears.

“No one else!” said Hazel on another long sigh. “Didn’t you guess?”

“I couldn’t think
...
who the man might be.”

“It was Rex, all right. The agonies and uncertainties I bore for that man! It wouldn’t have been quite so shattering if he hadn’t welcomed me so wonderfully the day I arrived in Palmas. He kissed me as if there were no other woman in the world—made me certain that I was right to come back, that everything would turn out perfectly for us. He was at the tail-end of a contract and had been offered a good post in London. We were madly happy—till he made it very plain that he had no intention of returning to England. He’d marry me but I’d have to live in West Africa with him.” Hazel shook her head reminiscently. “It was a ghastly letdown. I couldn’t believe it. We were free to love and live where we liked and he chose West Africa. I knew that he couldn’t possibly be in love with me, so I forced myself to see him as he was: going to seed in the accepted tropical manner and hatefully smug about it.”

Lyn compelled herself to twist the tap of the paraffin stove and lift the percolator. “You were braver than I could be,” she managed.

“I couldn’t have done it without Adrian’s help. He saw how things were and made me face up—not just once but several times. When Rex left Palmas for the Gold Coast, Adrian got me over that too. He was the one person I could be frank with and know that he wouldn’t despise me. Even Claud was entirely unaware of the whole affair.”

The breath had left Lyn’s body. Jerkily, she drew in more. “Neither you nor Rex was truly in love.”

Hazel regarded her with her head on one side. “Adrian put that over, too, but his phrasing was less romantic and brutally to the point. It’s taken me all this time to realize that he was right. Rex would have been glad to have a woman of his own in a spot where
woman were s
carce, and I
...
well, I was living in an atmosphere two years old. Between my first meeting with Rex and this trip both of us had changed and unwittingly we’d grown apart. Even while we were moony about each other my chief anxiety was that he should agree to settle in England, so that I could work my way into a repertory company.”

With a none too steady hand, Lyn filled the cups. “Are you back to that ambition?”

Hazel’s eyes went dreamy, her lips smiled into the distance. “It’s the only thing for me, Lyn. I know I’ll get on this time because there’ll be nothing dragging at me. My chance will come again and no one will take it from me ... no one. That sounds horribly self-centred, but when you aim high in the theatre you can’t afford to let anything stand in the way of advancement. Your job comes first every time.”