“Will you prove it, and marry me by licence before next weekend?”
“Oh, dear.” She was a little aghast. “Isn’t that horribly soon?”
“Beautifully soon,” he corrected. “If we marry at once we’ll be able to manage a few days’ honeymoon up in the mountains. It all seems very swift and sketchy, but it’s the best I can do just now. In any case, it will ensure that we’re not parted again. I feel I’d put up with anything, for that.”
Leaning against him, aware of his strength and undoubted if incredible love, Laurette gazed through the window at the dying day. The sky was hyacinthine, as she liked it best, and the orange flush of sunset slid calmly down behind the trees. The breeze off the sea was less humid, more bracing. There would be no storm tonight.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I was remembering that we’d left the paraffin heaters burning in your lounge and bedroom. I was so afraid your mattress would get damp.”
“Shall I tell you something?” he said teasingly. “The best way to keep mildew from books is to give them plenty of space in the shelves so that air can circulate about them. And by far the most sensible procedure with unused mattresses and cushions is to place them across wicker chairs in the midday sun. Irene comes from a too-dry climate, so she might not think of that.”
“What an idiot I’ve been,” she said soberly. “Charles, I’m so dreadfully sorry about the carpet.”
“Mention it again,” he said, “and you’ll be even more sorry. By the way, have you any ideas about what we might do with the house?”
She lifted her glance to his face. “I don’t think so. Have you?”
He shrugged. “My uncle’s will sets aside a sum to be used for charity, at my discretion. I was wondering whether Vaughan would be able to turn the house into a kind of nursing home or cottage hospital—if I let him have the money to do it with.”
“Charles!” She shone up at him. “He’d love that. It would make everything so worthwhile for him. Maybe he’d be able to attract a partner—he’s always bemoaning the fact that he can’t operate here because he has no assistant. On the whole, it’s a healthy climate and good for certain types of disease...”
“Steady. Let Ben do the enthusing. I don’t know that I take to your being so thrilled for him.”
“I’m fond of Ben,” she said. “I’ll always be fond of him. But I do hope he’ll buck up his ideas and marry Irene.”
“Good Lord. You women! Why shouldn’t the fellow remain a bachelor, if that’s what he wants?”
“It isn’t what he wants. He wants Irene, or someone like her, but I’m afraid he hasn’t realized it yet. I wonder if I dare suggest anything during the next week?”
“You’ll mind your own business,” he told her emphatically. “Ben can work out his own romance. You’ll have your hands more than full with me.” He paused. “Are you quite sure that you’ve never been a little in love with Ben?”
“Of course I’m sure. I don’t believe he was really in love with me, either. Do you think doctors do fall in love?”
“Seeing that most of those over thirty-five are married,” he replied dryly, “it’s within the bounds of possibility that they do.” He held her away from him. “That’s enough about Ben. I’ll give you just ten minutes to dress. If we can’t find a meal at the house we’ll go to the hotel.”
Half an hour later they were taking a drink in the Kelsey lounge. Charles had flung out the heaters and opened the windows to the sea breeze, and now he stood with Laurette, touching glasses. Her frock was of blue silk and for the first time in weeks she had taken care with her make-up; she wore a tiny pearl at each ear.
“To us,” he said, sipping his drink.
She hesitated. “Won’t they be surprised in Mohpeng when you take back a bride?”
“I suppose so, but they’ll fall over themselves to welcome you. It rounds off things when the District Commissioner has a wife.”
Intent upon the topaz liquid in her glass, she said, “Charles, about Maris.”
“Yes—What about her?”
“Were you ... did you encourage her to stay on in Mohpeng?”
“Why in the world should I do that?” he demanded, startled. Then he got a glimmer of what she was getting at, and laughed, as if enjoying a private joke. “Been jealous, darling? I hope so, because that evens things up. Did you tell yourself that I was falling for Maris?”
“You did pick her up at Maseru and drive her through to Mohpeng.”
“Her visit coincided with my return, that’s all. Maris is a jolly girl and I’ll admit that it was through me she came to Mohpeng. We met in London and again in Paris, and I asked her if she had ever thought of coming out to Kevin for a month or two. I hadn’t come across you then, remember. When I saw her again in Maseru it was difficult to analyze just what it had been that I’d found attractive about her. Her eyes were the wrong color, she didn’t laugh the right way—and she didn’t defy me! One month of you and there was no chance of my ever looking speculatively at another woman.”
“That’s dear of you. But Kevin wrote that you and Maris had an understanding with each other.”
“Did he?” There were points of danger in his eyes. “Then he must have manufactured it in that fertile imagination of his. Maris would hardly have told him so blatant an untruth.”
Laurette was not so sure; a woman who has set herself to the task of winning a man might easily try the accomplished fact as a last resort. However, just now Laurette would have been inclined to charity towards her worst enemy. Hastily shedding the topic, she said, “If we’re leaving Port Quentin, what are we going to do with Irene and the bungalow?”
“The bungalow is not really worth much, is it? You and your father loved it because it was home and you’d more or less built it up from a shell. The market value is fairly low. Don’t you agree that it would be rather nice to hand it over to that couple who live with Vaughan?”
“The Lockleys!” she cried. “Then Irene could remain there. Charles, you have the sweetest brainwaves, and I always thought you so ruthless.”
“I am ruthless, dear heart. You’ll find out! You’ve gone suddenly grave. What is it now—that brother of yours?”
She nodded. “How did you guess?”
“It wasn’t hard.” His mouth took the curve of sarcasm. “I take it you’d made up your mind to send him half the proceeds on the house and plantation. Believe me, Laurette, at his stage of development nothing would be more harmful than easy money. We’ll keep in touch with him to see how he goes, and if he has to rough it a bit, so much the better. Seeing that he was dismissed from West Africa, I can’t very well pull strings to get him into Basutoland.”
She laughed suddenly. “Poor Peter. He’s going to have a big shock when he hears you’re to be his brother-in-law. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive you for that letter you wrote him.”
“I could have twisted his neck for piling his troubles on to you.”
She put her hands to his shoulders, reached and pressed her mouth to the corner of his. “You’re violent and charming, and sarcastic and generous ... and I love you.”
He took a fistful of her hair and drew back her head. “You’re nearly my wife,” he said, and kissed her.
The climbers on the veranda rustled, a night bird gave a thin, piercingly-sweet call to its mate, and in the Kelsey lounge two hearts beat close together, as one.
THE END
Doctor's Assistant Page 22
