Plantation Doctor (10 page)

Somewhat shaken, Lyn went off to the rest room. She stood beneath the light and flexed the joints of the hand he had held. It was quite painful
—
and he a doctor, expert in the art of self-control. Then she examined her reflection and found it white and strained. A queer depression filled her heart and throat, a depression that could not be swept away.

But why weep? She was happy enough in Palmas with the Merricks
...
wasn’t she?

CHAPTER
TEN

Towards the end
of that week there was a sudden unseasonable storm. It swept in from the sea on purple wings, thundered over the hill above the port and roared inland, leaving a steaming copperish vapor and wide muddy pools in the gardens. The dark hours became noisy with the hoarse barking of bullfrogs, and lizards hatched out in vast numbers. No one knowingly killed a lizard, that devourer of mosquitoes, but half-hearted attempts were made to exterminate the great yellow frogs.

The vegetation in which the houses were embedded became even more lush and dank-smelling; walls came, out in a rash of green mildew, and Lyn remembered all the darkly ominous warnings she had received about the disintegrating effect of West Africa upon the mentality. It occurred to her that Hazel, whose temper seemed ruffled by the sudden appalling wet heat, might soon decide that she had had enough of Palmas.

Claud, to his own intense disgruntlement, was forced by labor and mechanical troubles to spend several days at the rat-infested house on his plantation. It was Hazel who persuaded him that it was his duty to handle his difficulties promptly, and she who insisted that the two women remain behind at the bungalow. Claud would have had them share his hardships.

The first day of his absence passed quietly. As the evening darkened Hazel mentioned that she had been invited out to dinner; Lyn could come if she wished. But Lyn was content to revel in having the house to herself; she had always enjoyed evenings alone in the
Bournemouth flat, eating a scratch mea
l
and doing s
o
me sewing or lounging with a book. She felt sorry for people who missed the quiet beauties of life because they were afraid of solitude. Claud was one of them, and, unless she was memorizing or practising elocution, Hazel couldn’t stand much more of her own company, either.

Lyn went sleepily to bed at eleven and was well into her first sleep when the other girl came in. Next morning at breakfast she asked if Hazel had had a good time at the dinner-party.

“It was grim,” came the reply. “The heat and humidity seem to have got into everyone’s bones. Hardly a soul could fetch a smile. I’d have left early if Adrian hadn’t turned up and saved the evening for me.”

“Adrian.” Lyn spoke the name firmly, to suppress a strange and urgent pang. So he had been there, too. “He comes down more often now.”

Hazel gave up all pretence of eating tinned orange slices and pushed away her plate. Watching her, Lyn saw that she looked older and dark under the eyes. In swift dismay, she said.

“Don’t you feel well?”

Hazel laughed, without amusement. “Does anyone feel well in this hell upon earth? Adrian’s the only one who doesn’t complain.” With unwonted bitterness she added, “He ought to marry and give some keyed-up woman the benefit of his imperturbabil
i
ty. With him one could be normal and an asset to the community.” She shrugged. “Don’t mind me. I got in late and didn’t sleep last night.”

But Lyn could not leave it there. “I’m sure it isn’t only the heat that’s bothering you. Are you hankering for the stage again?”

“I wish it were just that. I’d know what to do.” She flipped her napkin on to the table. “Do you ever think about marriage, Lyn?”

“Sometimes. I’d be un
n
atural if I didn’t think about it now and then.”

“I suppose so. You’re the type that’s bound to marry. Would you marry a man who had no intention of leaving West Africa?”

Lyn hesitated. This was a fundamental sort of query, one that struck down fairly deep and roused an uncanny fierceness. She spoke carefully, but rather flatly. “If I loved him and he wanted me to marry him, I wouldn’t make any conditions. I couldn’t.”

Hazel lit a cigarette and blew out the match. Pensively and slowly, she puffed a cloud of smoke. “That’s the sort of reply I expected from you. It’s odd how we all live our own lives inside ourselves, and most of us yearn for the unattainable. Even Adrian can’t be particularly happy underneath.”

Adrian again; Lyn wished she would leave him out of it. “I think you’re wrong. He’s wholly satisfied with things as they are.”

Hazel shook her head. “You don’t know much about men, Lyn. A man who’s an idealist about his work is inevitably an idealist in his notions about women. Perhaps in medicine he can come near to achieving his aims, but the perfect woman doesn’t exist.”

“Why should he expect perfection? A doctor should know enough about human nature to realize some of the beauties of imperfection.”

“Perfection’s the wrong word. Possibly he’s merely looking for something different, something that’s permanently hidden behind the moon. Where his own emotions are concerned Adrian’s a clam.” She sighed. “You’d choose marriage in preference to a career, wouldn’t you, Lyn? I want both, but at the moment it looks as if I shan’t get either.” Pushing up from the table she finished with tart flippancy, “I’m going into Claud’s bedroom to learn a passage from a German play. If that doesn’t give me a sound sleep after lunch, nothing will.”

With muddled feelings, Lyn put on a sun-helmet and strolled down in the dense shade of the casuarinas towards the shops. She had no right to mind that Adrian found pleasure in the company of Hazel, yet she did mind, dreadfully. It stabbed deep and went on hurting.

He had not been to the bungalow since the night he had taken them all out to dinner, but she had seen him several times at local functions. He had smiled agreeably, discussed books, old china and French tapestries, and expressed a conventional astonishment at the first-hand knowledge she
h
ad displayed of Florentine carvings and Renaissance furniture. They had communicated distantly and very politely. His approval of her knowledge had the flavor of sarcasm and condescension.

With Hazel he was more gentle, as if he knew her heart was turning towards him but could not bring himself to accept
it
...
not yet.

By the time she was dawdling past the odorous stores with the piles of assorted junk and tinned foods stacked tightly in windowless compartments, Lyn was thoroughly wretched. She passed round to the waterfront with its leaning shabby buildings and scattered native vendors sitting cross-legged beside heaps of pa
l
ms, fish, manioc meal, minute tomatoes and gourds of peppers and spices. She stared unseeing at the wares.

The sea curled over the white beach, tossed the small boats and slapped at the sides of a freighter which was being loaded. The square bales of rubber, pallid with fresh chalk, were swung aboard by crane and lowered into the hold. The dock boys fed occasionally from a stem of fat, orange-colored bananas and between times smoked strong tobacco in long-stemmed, home-made pipes.

Women waded in the surf, fishing with wide, flat baskets made of reeds, and shouting merrily to each other, while naked piccaninnies played at the water’s edge or galloped up and down the beach.

In spite of the many curious glances cast her way
,
Lyn walked the length of the waterfront and back again. Her body burned, she had a consuming thirst, and her eyes were heavy from the glare. There was nothing for it but to trudge to the house, take a drink and rest.

During the next three days most of the callers at the house were repulsed by Hazel; while Claud was away they must settle on someone else, she said. She dressed carefully each evening and went to this or that house for dinner. Lyn was taken to the club by one or other of Claud’s friends, but she never saw Hazel there and each time she was the first one home. Hazel would come in at midnight or after, looking colorless and strained, and her manner gave a clear indication that she had no desire to talk. In the daytime she continued to use Claud’s bedroom as a studio, and often gave orders that her lunch be served there too. She was touchy over trifles, and once had remained on edge all day long.

Lyn pondered anxiously. She recollected that ever since she had first met Hazel there had been something
—
or someone
—
making her unhappy. In her mind she had blamed the disappointing result of the audition and been angry with the producer who had withheld praise. Now she realized that a more complex problem was threatening the naturally nonchalant tenor of Hazel’s existence, and Hazel was older and infinitely wiser about men than Lyn. One couldn’t probe and offer clever advice.

The evening before Claud was due back Lyn spent alone. Just before going to bed it struck her that his room might need attention and she opened the door a couple of feet. Hazel had certainly left her imprint
—
a dented and crumpled bedspread, scattered sheets of typing and several grubby handkerchiefs as well as an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts. On the tallboy, leaning against the wall, stood the picture of Hazel Merrick as Portia.

Disturbed, Lyn collected and tidied the manuscript and straightened the bed. She heard a sound and twisted round, to see Hazel standing in the doorway. Hazel, tall and straight as a boy in her brocade dress, her grey eyes opaque, her mouth hard and vivid in the mask-like beauty of her face.

“Hello,” said Lyn automatically. “You’re home earlier tonight. Did you have a good evening?”

The hypnotic stare lowered and Hazel came into the room and cast an indifferent glance around her. “Left chaos in here, didn’t I? Decent of you to clear up.”

“It looked worse than it was. You’ll miss this room when Claud’s once more in residence. I should never have let you persuade me to share your bedroom, Hazel. You need the privacy
...”

“I don’t
...
It’s bad for me.” With a gesture that would have been magnificently theatrical had it been premeditated she pointed to the propped-up photograph. “I put that there to remind me that second love is often the sincerest and best. Also, it bolsters my morale, because I really was good as Portia. Whatever happens, there’s always the struggle to go back to, the competition for small parts in obscure companies, the wild, unreas
o
ning hope of one day being acclaimed a first-class straight actress and being given the part of a lifetime. It’s a good thing Houe was left in Pandora’s box, isn’t it?”

“You sound so bitter, Hazel, so miserable.”

“I have been miserable, shatteringly so, but from tonight onwards it’s going to wear off.” She tossed back her hair and slumped on to the foot of the bed. Her smile up at Lyn was sharp with unhappiness. “You’ve been good to me
—
better than I’ve deserved, because quite often I’m not a very nice person. I owe you an explanation, but I’m afraid you won’t understand. If you’d fallen in love two years ago you’d have known it; you wouldn’t have been blinded to it by the lure of a profession.”

Lyn was clasping the bundle of typescript over a heart that beat fast and unevenly. “You fell in love
here,
two years ago?”

“Yes. Foolish, wasn’t it? But it just happened, and inside myself I was madly happy
—
that’s how love begins, and you’re hardly aware of it. My visit that time lasted three months. After that I had a promising job to go to
—
it was my first after leaving the Academy, and I was happy about that too, even though the promising part of it became more and more remote. While I was working I thought continually about him. Claud sometimes wrote about him in his letters
—
how he was still engrossed in his work but had asked after me. In time the happiness dimmed
—
exciting emotions never last
—
but as time went on I knew I had to see him again.” She moistened her lips and drew down their corners cynically. “When I was one of those selected for the part-reading at the audition I told myself that this was the decision upon which my future rested. If I failed, I must be meant for the man who slaved in West Africa.”

“Perhaps,” said Lyn, her throat curiously dry but her perceptions painfully keen, “you subconsciously caused the failure yourself, because you wanted so desperately to come here.”

“You’re wise, darling, and very comforting. I like to think that I needn’t have failed. I challenged the gods and seem to have lost both ways.” She shrugged char
ac
teristical
l
y, and got to her feet. “I’ve had it rammed into me enough times that to be a good actress one must suffer, so perhaps it’s as well to endure my quota early in life. The book of rules didn’t point out that it’s wrong to alleviate suffering, so there’s nothing against having a cup of coffee. Let’s go and make one.”

Her tone forbade Lyn to continue the subject or ever to reopen it. They went to the kitchen and had their coffee, and the moment the cups were empty Hazel suggested bed. Now it was Lyn who shrank from sharing a bedroom, who longed inexpressibly for even a recess such a Melia’s, so long as it were her own.

She slipped between the sheets and snapped off her light for the boon of half-darkness. She recalled the other evening, when Hazel had spoken of Adrian’s imperturbability and the care she had taken to exclude Lyn from her engagements. And there were Adrian’s more frequent visits to town
—
for Hazel’s sake he had actually been to the homes of Claud’s friends. Lyn groped for enlightenment. It wouldn’t be difficult to fall in love with Adrian, the man. The doctor, smiling, sympathetic, but ruthless, was capable of repelling the more tender feelings, but Adrian as Hazel knew him in Palmas was urbane, gentle and withal mockingly remote. In an inward flash Lyn saw the range of that charming and self-sufficient personality, and more than ever before she hated him
—
for hurting Hazel, and for being emotionally impervious to all women.

Claud came home the following afternoon to a house that was quiet and neat, and to two women who had been reading in the lounge till his footsteps sounded. They were standing when he entered, however, and what more natural than that he should slide an arm about each and plant a kiss first on Hazel’s temple and then, as if to even things up, upon Lyn’s. He sniffed at Lyn’s bright, silky hair and brushed his cheek against it, before letting them both go.

“I feel like a warrior back from war. Thank heaven for the traditional welcome from loving womenfolk. How have you been doing?”