Plantation Doctor (2 page)

Village and mission appeared to be cradled in an arm of dense jungle. Lyn thought of
t
he journey to Akasi.
Presumably this Dr. Sinclair had already chosen guides and bearers for the stalwart Miss Russell he had expected. All she had to do was to endure heat and discomfort for a few days; it wouldn’t do to think about the nights till they had to be faced. Mrs. Latimer had done this sort of thing dozens of times, so there could be nothing really terrifying about it. On the boat Lyn had taken the precaution of reading an autobiographical book by the intrepid woman, and she had been impressed by the total absence of fear in her dealings with natives. Wet heat seemed to be the greatest evil, and Lyn knew herself capable of standing that for a while. So long as she could obtain food supplies there was nothing to be afraid of.

Pleased with such calming reflections she decided to explore the house.

It was towards noon that Melia Ducros appeared. Melia was a thin woman, nearing forty. She had straight black hair pulled back into a bun, an olive complexion and a high-pitched, sing-song voice. Obviously she was dressed in her best
—
a white cotton frock, a cheap straw hat which had once been white but was now yellowed by the sun and many washings with soapy water, and large black patent shoes of a bygone vintage. With much embarrassment she obeyed Lyn’s invitation to enter the living
-
room. In a manner both simpering and nervous she gave her name.

“I am wanting work,” she said. “I have been housekeeper for Mrs. Grayson for some years, and now since she and the master have gone I am without a proper home. Moses told me there was a new missus in the mission, so I come to offer myself.”

Lyn did not know that Melia was a rare by-product of West Africa, but she judged her honest and painstaking.

Regretfully she shook her head. “I’d like to help you, but I shall be leaving in a day or two. I’m going to Akasi.”

“But wherever you go you must have a servant. I will go with you.”

This would have suited Lyn very well, but to accept it seemed unfair to Melia. Mrs. Latimer might be capable of sending the woman back to Cape Bandu alone.

“Where I’m going there are already servants,” she answered.

The thin face drooped and the bony hands were clasped together. “I am white. I cannot much longer stand this place, and I have nowhere else to go. I shall not want much money
—
only a home and to work.”

“Have you spoken to Dr. Sinclair?”

The large dark eyes widened. “The doctor from Denton? I would not dare.”

Impulsively Lyn said, “I’ll speak to him about it as soon as he comes back, and afterwards I’ll give Moses a message for you. Will that do?”

Melia’s gratitude was pathetic; she smiled and dipped her head several times and murmured “Thank you” over and over again. After she had gone Lyn laughed at herself. What an idiot she was. As if she hadn’t a whale-size problem of her own on her hands, she’d taken on another’s! She wished the doctor would show up so that something could be settled.

But the house remained tranquil. The boy served lunch on a tray
—
revolting brown beans splitting from their skins and tinned crayfish, both lukewarm and undisguised, and an uneatable substitute for bread. Lyn gave it up and went out to the veranda.

CHAPTER
TWO

The outdoor
heat at this hour of the day was concentrated and appalling. The whole vista shimmered and the sun’s glare upon the exotic garden hurt the eyes. The sea had withdrawn behind a thick milky mist; there was no caressing coastal breeze. To her ears came the muted roar of waves, the incessant humming of insects and the lazy chatter of unseen natives.

Lyn stood there, conscious of all that was alien around her. Africa was untamed and magnetic. Her imagination began to paint frightening pictures. She would set out for that “hellish spot,” Akasi, and arrive to find Mrs. Latimer departed for somewhere even more sinister. She would travel on and get lost in the steaming swamps; no one would ever find her. One foolish fear crowded up
on
another like scenes from a jarring nightmare. S
h
e should never have consented to come to Africa. She wasn’t the type to look a lion in the eye and send him cowering to his lair. And darkness among those thick, vine-laced trees must be terrifying.

Then suddenly the bad dream disintegrated. For the imperturbable Adrian Sinclair was advancing up the path, transforming Africa into a mere land with medical and social problems.

“Come inside,” he said, barely looking at her. “I’ve been longer than I intended. The people had got to know I’d arrived, and they besi
e
ged the dispensary
—
the African loves med
i
cines and adhesive plaster, and a few of them were in bad shape. But I’ll fix your papers before I have lunch.”

“What papers?”

He tossed his helmet into a chair, went over to the plain wooden desk and bent over a notepad, pencil poised.

“What are your Christian names?”

“I’ve only one. Lynden.”

He raised his head, glanced at her as if briefly weighing up the suitability of such a name. “Lynden Russell,” he stated.

“That’s right. What are these papers?”

“Just a formality. The Denton boats are equipped to accommodate a couple of passengers; the plantation employees use them for short-leave trips up the coast. The skipper can’t take you aboard without the completed forms.”

Lyn firmed her lips. “He doesn’t have to take me. I’m not going back to Freetown.”

“Yes, you are,” he said abstractedly, but writing quickly.

“I’m staying here tonight and setting out for Akasi tomorrow.”

“You’re setting out for Akasi this afternoon
—
the long way round. The boat is in, and waiting.”

“It needn’t wait any longer,” she said tartly. “I’m not going!”

He straightened. “Get this. You’re not making the inland
tr
ip to Akasi alone. Even if you’d done it before I’d advise against it. For a girl who is setting foot in Africa for the first time it’s out of the question
—
so don’t argue.”

Desperately, she twisted to confront him. “If I were to do as you suggest I might be stuck in Freetown for weeks. I can’t cable Mrs. Latimer, and letters take an impossibly long time from the coast into the bush. From Cape Bandu I’m only three or four days away.”

“It’s all true enough, but I’ve told you I haven’t time to arrange anything else.”

“I’m not asking you to. What makes you think I’d be safe in Freetown? I don’t know anyone there.”

He paused, then said with exasperation. “What the deuce are you doing so far from England, anyway? Didn’t you realize before you came that West Africa is no place for an unattached woman
!
”

“Of course I did, but I didn’t see myself floating around anchorless in a tropical city. That’s what you’re trying to make me do.”

The following silence was rather brittle, as if Adrian’s irritation might be developing into something stronger and less governable. Lyn gathered the impression that he was visualizing two sets of dangers and spinning a mental coin.

He slipped the pencil into his pocket. “It’s the hell of a situation. I’ll have to think it over,” he said, and went along the corridor to wash his hands.

Lyn gave a cautious little sigh of victory, though she could not yet relax entirely; the man was incalculable. But it did look as though she might anticipate a night between cool sheets in one of those austere bedrooms, and she still had a card up her sleeve.

She picked up a couple of magazines and hastily dropped them again. Those beastly silver-fish moths were everywhere in their hundreds, darting about on their hair-like legs and chewing over the surface of paper so that the print was undecipherable. The whole house needed DDT treatment; here, where pests thrived in myri
a
ds, spraying was probably necessary every few days.

Adrian came back and sat down to his lunch-tray. Lyn politely wandered to the open door and took an
i
nterest in the garden. She heard
hi
m moving papers while he ate. Presently she turned about.

“Mind if I share your coffee? I didn’t get any.”

“Help yourself. I’ll call for another cup.”

He pushed cigarettes across the table and felt for his lighter. Lyn leaned over to his flame and inhaled gently as she withdrew.

“Have you made your choice?” she asked.

“Practically.” He blew a cloud of smoke and got to his feet. “I have to write a couple of urgent letters. Excuse me.”

Tenaciously, she said, “Do you know a woman named Melia Ducros?”

He raised his eyebrows. “She used to take care of the house for Mrs. Grayson. Has she been here?”

“Yes, looking for work. She seems a reliable type and she’s willing to go with me to Akasi.”

“What are you trying to convey
—
that two frightened women are better than one? I’ll never believe that Melia Ducros wouldn’t be of the least help on that sort of jaunt. She’s a good servant, but nothing more.”

“She’s white, and you told me there were no white women.”

“I’d forgotten her.” His shoulders shrugged impatiently. “Out here you occasionally come across her type; they’re bits of driftwood washed up by the tide of civilization, and they don’t actually belong anywhere. I believe Mrs. Grayson told her that if the new missionary had a wife she might be allowed to resume her position in the house. What did you say to her?”

“Not much. But I’ve since thought it might be a good idea to have her keep me company in the house tonight. If she’s willing to take the risk of being sent away by Mrs. Latimer, I don’t see why she shouldn’t travel to Akasi with me.”

“Sounds feasible,” he agreed, almost indifferently. “We’ll get her over later on. And now I really must get down to those letters.”

He sat at the desk and pulled the notepad towards him. Without meaning to, Lyn watched his long brown fingers holding the pen, and the large, fleshless knuckles: The thick dark hair had one deep wave across the top, and
hi
s nose, at that angle, was very straight. His mouth was very straight too; enigmatically so. Perhaps he wasn’t so dictatorial, after all; only annoyed at finding himself faced with what he chose to regard as an unusual problem. Any man might have bristled against an unfledged explorer plunging blithely and solitarily into the jungle, but it so happened that he had no option but to let her go. To his mind, the perils of Freetown for a woman alone were greater
—
and he ought to know.

She found herself putting his age at about thirty-two, and wondering how long he had been in the tropics, and how he lived. He might be married, of course, but she hardly thought so. Married men were more understanding, more willing to talk and put questions. She wished she were not so abysmally ignorant about the country, and that she looked more sophisticated and efficient. She felt sure that this man regarded her as someone young and altogether negligible; a bit of a letdown, in fact. A hard-headed woman of middle age would have been left to her own devices.

In a soulless way, guessed Lyn, Adrian Sinclair resented her. He had neither the time nor the inclination to bother with her, yet that chivalry which is innate in most men protested against leaving her here unprotected. She was a darned nuisance.

He finished the letters, pushed each into an envelope and wrote the addresses, after which they were dropped into his jacket pocket.

“I’m going down to the boat,” he said. “I may be some time, but when I get back I shall have to shove off, back to the estate. You might stir the boy into preparing a packet of food for me. The flask in the kitchen is mine. He can fill it with coffee.”

He appeared about to walk out. Hurriedly, Lyn made an enquiry.

“But, Dr. Sinclair, what about my supplies for the trip to Akasi?”

“Oh yes.” He waved a casual hand towards the door. “There’s tinned stuff in the pantry.
Look around. Make mine a good-sized packet of food, will you?
I
have to
go
a hundred and forty miles by rough road, and It takes all of four hours.”

She wouldn’t be sorry to see the last of Dr. Sinclair, thought Lyn, as she made her way to the kitchen. He had a lot of ego himself and was terribly bad for other people’s self-esteem.

The houseboy seemed to have vanished, but Lyn did not mind. She would make up the picnic parcel for the doctor herself; it would be something to do. Impossible to cut sandwiches from that dreadful bread, but there were some cartons of rye biscuits which smelled fairly fresh, even if they did bend like rubber.

Rubber, she mused, as she snicked the metal band from a glass jar of pressed meat. Someone on the boat had mentioned the Denton estate.

“Healthiest place on the Coast,” they’d said, “but that doesn’t mean much; there’s fever everywhere. Fine rubber plantations, though, and it’s always cooler where trees are thick and well cared-for.”

Lyn hoped it would be cooler at Akasi. She was scarcely moving, yet her palms ran with sweat and her frock clung where it touched. And this was the dry season. But if the climate became unbearable she didn’t have to stay; Mr. Latimer had been adamant about that. He hadn’t the least conception of what it was like, though, and Lyn had an ominous conviction that there were many unpleasant things which she herself had yet to learn. Oh, well, she was young and healthy.

She slipped the slices of meat between the biscuits and packed the two piles into a box. Those ought to be plenty for a hungry man. There was no fruit of any kind, but she found a tin of grapefruit juice at the back of a shelf. On the floor of the pantry, canisters which had held dried fruits were alive with huge red ants; the walls were damp-stained and crumbly to the touch. The kitchen ceiling sagged and the cement floor was as cracked and wobbly as if there had been an earthquake in the vicinity. Yet in many respects the house seemed to be fairly new. The climate again, she supposed, undermining the foundations on this side of the building.

She made coffee, poured it into the flask and dropped in a generous helping of sugar. There was no milk, not even canned. It was an age since she had last tasted cow’s milk and fresh vegetables. No use thinking about such things; she had a long way to go before tasting them again. More important were the supplies necessary for the four days in the bush. Though she did not intend to admit as much to Dr. Sinclair, she would be glad of the company of Melia Ducros. Another woman, particularly one who belonged to the country, reduced the venture to normal and reasonable proportions. Melia would handle the food side of the business and she could probably talk to Africans in their own tongue. What a boon that was going to be
!
As soon as the doctor had cleared off to his plantations she and Melia would get down to the preparations.

The afternoon sun was sliding like a great bronze disc into the haze that shrouded the sea; a brutal, sated sun for which Lyn had already acquired an immense respect. Green and yellow canaries twittered up from the flowers into the branches of dark-leaved trees covered with wax blossoms which resembled magnolias; and egrets, white and slender-necked with bright yellow beaks, floated down in numbers to rest near the swamp which Lyn had noticed from the track on her way up to the house.

With the lessening of the heat she felt restless and anxious for something decisive to happen. She seemed to have been caged in this place for days.

At about four-thirty Adrian Sinclair came back in businesslike mood. He packed his few things into a brief-case and drank a cup of strong, milkless tea. Methodically, and without offering comment, he went through the pile of papers on the desk, destroying most of them and placing others with his own belongings.

He went out, and in a few minutes drove round to the front of the house in a large tourer. He deposited his case and the picnic box on the back seat, called Moses and conversed with him in dialect, had the radiator filled and some cans of petrol tipped into the tank. Then he came up the steps and into the living-room.

“You’ll be needing your luggage,” he said. “We’ll go down and collect it now.”

Very slightly, Lyn warmed towards him. He wasn’t really so forbidding. “It was good of you to remember. Do I have to go with you?”

“It would be as well. Bring your hat.
”

L
yn could easily have done without it; the air was almost balmy after the lethal heat of the day. But she obeyed him without question because he had given in very gracefully in other directions and she wanted to show gratitude without saying too much. Adrian Sinclair was difficult to assess; possibly he was also unpredictable in his actions.

He drove down the bumpy, rutted trail. The shore came into view, a dark gold sea fro
m
which the mist was lifting, and a deserted strip of pinkish sand backed by dense bush, and at one end a lopsided wooden jetty with a thatched shed at the back of it.

No one was guarding Lyn’s trunk and suitcase. They were just as the native boy had left them this morning, forlornly occupying the centre of the almost empty shed. Adrian stacked them securely in the luggage carrier, locked it up and got back into his seat.

“I
a
lways think the sea smells good with the night wind coming up,” he said. “It blows away the staleness of the day.”

She looked at him with an access of interest. “You like West Africa, don’t you?”

“Not a great deal, but I like my work.”

“Doctors mostly do, and I suppose it’s amply rewarding in places like this.”

He laughed a little. Surprised
—
she had grown used to him unsmiling
—
she awaited his remark. But his voice held sarcasm.

“You sound sweet and propitiating. What are you afraid of
—
that I’ll conjure a boat from the dusk and hurry you aboard for Freetown? Don’t worry. That isn’t my intention at all.”

She quelled a sharp rejoinder. She didn’t know what to make of him, helpful one minute and satirical the next. He backed the car and took the shoe path slowly, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

“Might as well pick up that woman, Melia Ducros,” he observed. “I found out earlier that she’s staying in a small house about a hundred yards off the track. She seems to be living quite alone.”

Lyn said nothing. From now en she would be silently thankful for whatever he might do for her good.

They turned off at a grotesque palm and came to a tiny log dwelling which apparently had no connection with the rest of the village. Outside it, in washed-out blue now but wearing the same hat, stood Melia, and beside her, on the grass, rested a bulging wicker basket.

“She’s ready,” commented Adrian in that cool, careless voice of his. “That’ll save us time.”

Lyn said swiftly, “You must have spoken to her already. Why are you doing all this for me?”

But his reply had to wait, for Melia, too shy of causing him trouble to be patient, was endeavouring unsuccessfully to bundle herself and her goods into the back of the car. Adrian got out and put her right. He looked at the small dwelling which, like everything else wooden in this place, was being eaten away by termites from the ground up.

“Sure you’ve got everything?” he asked. “Would you like me to go in and look round?”

“Isn’t nothing more in the house that belongs to me, Doctor,” she answered in those high, scared tones.

Lyn glanced at her reassuringly over her shoulder. Melia’s bony face had a pleased, nervous smile. She sat very upright in the centre of the back seat, an old black leather handbag clutched tightly in her lap. She looked like the caricature of a Victorian housemaid.