Desert Doctor

by Winspear, Violet

“Better the gentle creature for you, perhaps. This Barb of mine might frighten you. He is something you are not used to, n’est-ce pas?” Donette’s glance slipped over Madeline “Would you like to try him, all the same? It would interest me to see if you can handle a creature who is so much of the desert and the elements.”

  Perhaps if Madeline had not been told already — by Victor Tourelle — that she was the type to be made afraid of the things out here, she would have ignored Donette’s challenge.

  As it was her pride was stung, and a flash of recklessness lit a fuse to what had been smouldering ever since that drive from Green Palms yesterday.

  She was just a mild English miss, eh? Of the green fields and temperate skies !

  “I’d rather like to see if I can handle him myself,” she said.

  “Will you hold Alina for me?”

  “Of course.” Donette swung out of the saddle, and again the Barb showed temperament, cocking a wicked sideways glance at the girl who had just dismounted and switching his high-carried tail.

  Madeline put a gentling hand upon him. He stood higher than Alina and he accepted her into his saddle with a dis-agreeable flicker of his nostrils.

  “I will wait here and smoke a cigarette,” Donette said.

  “Bonne chance!”

  Something whined through the air, the Barb bounded as though stung, and Madeline knew as he shot away with her that Donette had deliberately flicked his haunches with her riding-whip.

  The action had put him completely out of control. His loping strides were eating up the sand and stone of the Bled as though it were the rolled track at Epsom, and Madeline, without the physical strength to pull him up, could only crouch low in the saddle and wait for him to tire himself.

  Her heart was thudding beneath her fawn shirt. She was as furious with herself as with Donette.

  The wind rushed past her ears and she knew with alarm that the Barb was carrying her further and further from the spot where she had exchanged horses with Donette. She gripped his bridle and gave it a wrench, but his strength was almost devilish, and Madeline knew with despair that she could only sit tight and let him have his way. Blast him, his pace was tireless ! He’d have been an acquisition to any racing stable, but this was the desert — the Moroccan Bled !

  All around her it stretched, illimitable and lonely …

  lonely? Not quite ! To her left she caught sight of a tethered horse and a man. Arab headwear fluttered as he turned a quick head. She cast a frightened glance over her shoulder. The warnings she had been given about being alone in the desert were suddenly lurid in her mind as she saw him leap into the saddle and start to pursue her. The sun gilded him to copper, that much Madeline saw before she dug panicky heels into the Barb, urging him to that dizzy pace she had feared until this moment.

  But now, inevitably, he was tiring. He stumbled into a sun-cracked groove, almost shooting her out of the saddle, and as she clung to him she cast another glance over her shoulder.

  Her pursuer was definitely gaining on her, and as the honey strands of her hair blew across her face, she saw the gleam of white teeth in a dark face and knew she had been recognized as a woman.

  He must have spurred his mount to an even greater effort, for there was a low thunder of hooves growing ever nearer, a flash of bronze as the desert rider surged ahead for several yards. Then with effortless strength the big horse was hauled round in front of Madeline’s mount. A ruthless brown hand jerked on the bridle and the creature reared into the air with a snorting, molten grace. Instinctively Madeline hauled on her own bridle, and the Barb, quivering, tossing its mane, was brought up short.

  He plunged for a moment, then stood still, and Madeline felt a shaft of fear go through her as she confronted the rider of the bronze stallion. She took in with heat-smeared eyes his linen kibr slashed open at his powerful brown throat, corduroy breeches ending in heavy leather boots. Her breath shuddered out of her in a sob.

  “You thought me a lawless tribesman, eh?” Tawny eyes swept over her, burnished and angry. “I might well have been, ma fille, then you would indeed have looked at me with eyes drowned in fear !”

  CHAPTER V

  THOSE whiplash tones of Victor Tourelle flicked at Madeline’s frayed nerves. She felt she hated everything about him, especially his boundless masculine freedom to roam wherever he pleased in the desert. God, how arrogant he was ! Soothing that bronze devil of a horse in Arabic, and sweeping over her a look that made her burn. It plainly said that she was not a boy, even if she chose to dress like one; underlining his cutting reference to what she could have expected had he been a lawless tribesman riding her down.

  “I have a compulsion to shake you,” he gritted. “Are you deliberately asking for trouble?”

  “No —”

  But he gave her no chance to launch into an explanation, he leant towards her, caught at her wrist and pressed it with his hard fingers. “Your pulse is thudding,” he said. “You are thoroughly unnerved, and I am without sympathy for you. Was your mount out of control — he seemed to be?”

  Her wrist moved within his fingers, she wanted to wrench it free but knew there was no getting away from him until he chose to release her. “L-let me go — I’m all right now,” she glared.

  His glinting eyes dwelt on her face, testing her endurance to his scrutiny. Her lashes fluttered. She felt hot, helpless, and stripped of dignity.

  “I am aware of the secret charm of the forbidden — this desert — and you are much of a child,” he spoke sternly. “But this incident this morning has probably taught you a lesson, and you will wisely not ride alone another time.”

  “I was riding with Donette,” she blurted. “We exchanged horses so I could try this Barb of hers — and he bolted.”

  “So?” A frown joined his brows in a dark bar, then he released her wrist, leaving pressure marks on her softly tanned skin. “Was it at Donette s suggestion you try this Barbary mount of hers?” A dark brow arched enquiringly towards the agar that bound his headcloth.

  “Alina, my own mount, is tame, and the air this morning made me want a gallop.”

  A caustic smile flickered on his lips. “Well, you have had your gallop, Miss Page. Now we had better ride back.”

  They swung their mounts and set off on the return journey at a moderate canter. Madeline’s nerves were no longer snapping, but her throat was parched, and spotting a water-flask hanging beside Victor’s saddle she dared to ask him if she might have a drink.

  “But of course !” He unscrewed the cap and handed her the flask. The water rolled cool down her throat and she felt very much like splashing some of it on her skin. The heat was beginning to hum, and shadows of rocks and patches of shrub were starkly etched on the sands. Not so far off, wending its way over the undulating landscape like a monster snake, came a camel caravan. Each man and beast stood out against the brilliant sky like a woodcut. The Biblical robes, long camel canes, and arched necks of the swaying “ships of the desert”

  created a moment cf magic for Madeline.

  A mirage thrown back from the dawn of history, Victor had said. Oh, why would he not believe that she too could feel the bewitchment of all this?

  “Thank you.” She handed him the flask and after he had hooked the strap at the side of his saddle they rode on. Trembly sand birds hopped in pursuit of insects invisible to human eyes, while the chik-chak of lizards was curiously soothing, like the ticking of a clock in an otherwise quiet room.

  Madeline was reluctantly impressed by the ease with which the man beside her handled his mount, which rippled with satiny muscle and was possessed of small, temper-pricked ears.

  Self-will was in a man and horse, Madeline told herself, which made them a well-matched pair.

  Victor must have been taking note of her own riding skill, for he suddenly remarked that she was surprisingly good in the saddle.

  “Surprisingly ?” She flashed him a look. “Believe it or not, Doctor, the English don’t just use the horse for keeping the
grass cropped.”

  “Touché!” His eyes laughed, the sun in those tawny irises.

  “It is that one does not think of the modern girl in connection with outdoor pursuits. She dances and flicks a tennis ball over a net in order to wear the attractive white shorts. She cannot bear the fingers of the wind through her smart coiffure.”

  “That hardly applies to me,” Madeline laughed. “My hair is a mess at the moment.”

  His glance took in her tumbled hair beneath the brim of her slouch hat. The sun lit it to a dazzling fairness, but her un-painted mouth and shiny nose made her look naive. She felt sure he was thinking this, and wished there might come a moment when he could see her in that blue frock she had brought with her to Marrakesh, her hair swathed up, her eyelids faintly tinted, her mouth aglow. Would he look at her then, as he was looking at her right now, with coolly mocking eyes?

  Did she — want him to look at her with eyes that were not cool? Not mocking?

  She glanced away across the sands, aware that her eyes wanted to dwell on his throat, on those broad shoulders that would feel like steel and yet offer such protection to a woman —

  did he ever choose to love one.

  His love? Had she grown that curious about this aloof, complex desert doctor?

  Then, afraid of his quick mind, she pointed with her crop towards the Atlas range and asked him about the people living in the wild, hidden villages where he sometimes went.

  “They are of a fascinating strangeness,” he replied. “They live by rules almost feudal, and because of this an old-world courtesy runs in them side by side with an incredible heart-lessness. Their dwellings are of mud and stone and they eke out a daily meal from the maize and vegetables they grow. I go to them with medical aid because they are very reluctant to come to us. When they fall sick they seek a charm against it from their local aleb, who also runs a primitive pharmacy of herbs and drugs. Then again they fear that we will keep them in hospital, and they dislike being separated from their families — we have had patients creep away in the night with sicknesses and injuries that would kill a mule ! ”

  He smiled, showing those regular teeth that were so white against his sun-bitten skin.

  “The desert, Miss Page, is not all painted shadows and tapestry sunsets.”

  “I know that, Doctor.” Her hand clenched on the Barb’s bridle. “I’m aware that it’s a place of extremes. Of vipers, scorpions, and flies. Of trachoma, and children with empty bellies. It challenges one to wade in and help —”

  At this point he cut through what she was saying with a curt decisiveness. “I appreciate that you are sympathetic, Miss Page. The children I treat have touched your heart, but let them do no more than that. There is a harshness here — it winnows out the delicate from the strong.”

  “But women live here,” Madeline protested.

  “Quite !” His eyes clashed with hers, steely and unrelent-ing. “There is Amalia Van Cleef, for example, left lonely and childless and trying to find her husband again in this book she is writing. Conflict with the elements appeals very much to some men, but they should not marry. That is how I feel !”

  “A harsh philosophy, Doctor,” Madeline argued. “Sometimes a woman can love only the one man, and surely better for both of them to take a chance on being together, if it should only be for a year.” Colour stole into her cheeks, she felt its warmth and the strangest of pains at her heart. “I know you’re thinking me a romantic schoolgirl, Dr. Tourelle, but I’m certain I am right.”

  “Women are always certain they are right,” he mocked her.

  “They follow their hearts, but the seat of wisdom is not in the heart.”

  They were now cantering past some low-walled gardens on the edge of the city, scented by apricots, pomegranates, and orange blossom. Madeline gazed around her as though she had just aroused from a strange dream. “I think Donette must have returned to the villa,” she remarked.

  “I am sure of it,” he drawled. “She is a young woman who will never let her heart rule her head. She is of a realistic turn of mind — her Latin blood, you comprehend.”

  Madeline felt infuriated when he said that, so deliberately.

  Donette could not be hurt because she wasn’t soft. Donette, in short, was not a naive English miss !

  “I know my way from here, Doctor, so I won’t detain you any longer,” she said in a cool voice.

  “Au contraire,” he slanted her a smile that held amusement at her touch of dignity, “we are not far from my house and I should like to give you breakfast. You can telephone to your good employer and assure her that her very efficient secretary has not been carried off into the hills by a Berber bandit.”

  “Oh, don’t throw that in my teeth,” she protested. “I couldn’t see you properly for the sun, a — and when you’re wearing Arab headwear you look remarkably like one.” Her eyes darted blue sparks at him, she was indignant and yet shot through with excitement that he should proffer an invitation to breakfast at his Moorish house. She had been curious to see it ever since learning he lived in one.

  One of his bold brows flickered quizzically as he surveyed the pink that flushed her cheeks. “You are looking overheated, Miss Page, and my house is cool and restful. Come, this is the way.”

  He headed his mount down a track between the gardens and she heard the wheel of a well creak in the hot sunshine like a monster cicada. A knot of Moorish women unravelled as they approached, staring with solemn eyes at Madeline’s boyish clothing and bright hair. Their own muffled figures and half-covered faces filled her with a kind of suffocation. She had seen younger women in Marrakesh who did not go veiled, but many of the older ones clung to the mystery of the yash-mak.

  Soon they were riding along beside a high wall, broken suddenly by an immense arched doorway. Victor dismounted, pushed open the door and led his stallion into the courtyard.

  Madeline trotted in, her heart beating with a speed that merited a firm reprimand. She was about to eat breakfast with Dr. Tourelle, that was all !

  She glanced about her, taking in the latticed balcony girdl-ing the upper storey of the house, the ornamental arcades leading from the patio into the ground floor apartments. A scented cloak of morning-glory tumbled from the stone coping of a coolly playing fountain, and there were many bushes of roses and camellias. Pinky-white oleander trees and junipers silted phantom gold on to mosaic benches — it was altogether a delightful garden.

  “Permit me to assist you.” Victor was standing tall beside her mount, and shyly she put her hand into his and felt the hard warmth of his fingers as he handed her to the ground. A bare-legged Moorish boy came loping across to them and was told in French by the doctor to unsaddle both horses for a while and to give them some water.

  “Mais oui, monsieur le docteur!” The boy flashed a smile in Madeline’s direction. He had the great brown eyes of the East; a curiosity untinged with insolence. Primitive though these people were in many respects, they often had a charm about them that caught at Madeline’s imagination.

  She walked with the doctor across the patio and he told her the boy worked for him in the mornings, attending school in the afternoons. It wasn’t always possible for such as he to attend school all day. He came from a large family and the money he earned was badly needed. Madeline thought how much more the teenage children in England had — how unappreciated some of it was.

  They entered the house through one of the mosaiced archways, straight into the long, shady living-room. A carpet colourful as an Eastern sunset lay on the floor, big cushions scattered the cane easy chairs, alongside of which stood low eating tables. The walls were painted an ivory-cream, rising to a cedarwood ceiling, from which hung Moorish lamps of copper. Here and there stood some colourful local pottery, and there were books packed into a blackwood cabinet. On top of the cabinet stood a pair of silver-framed photographs — Victor’s mother again, companioned by a uniformed man with a lean, haughty face under an officer’s kepi.

  “Here is the
telephone,” Victor indicated the black instru -

  ment on a side table. “I will go and tell my housekeeper I have a guest for breakfast while you telephone the villa.”

  He strode from the room through a vermilion door, and Madeline took up the receiver and dialled her employer’s num-ber. One of the servants came on the line, then a moment later Amalia herself.

  “My dear child,” she sounded extremely agitated, “are you all right? When Donette returned home without you — why, I nearly died. She had no right letting you ride that mount of hers — I’ve been extremely anxious. Brooke as well ! ”

  “I’m all right,” Madeline quickly assured her. “I was lucky enough to run into Dr. Tourelle, and I’m phoning from his house. He has invited me to breakfast, but if you’d like me to come straight home —”

  “No, indeed ! You go ahead and eat breakfast with Victor, my dear. My, but it’s a relief to know you’re all right. I worry so when you girls are out of my sight. You’re both so pretty, and added to it Donette is so thoughtless. It really didn’t occur to her that you might be frightened… .”

  I bet it didn’t! Madeline thought swiftly.

  “I’m sorry you’ve been worried, Amalia,” she said gently.

  “I’ll see you in about an hour. Is that all right?”

  “Of course, honey ! Thank Victor for being on hand to rescue you — men have their uses, huh?”

  Even as Madeline gave a laugh, she ruefully recalled the fear she had felt when that powerful figure had ridden her down on his horse. Had her heart known it was Victor … had she fled instinctively from him?

  She was replacing the receiver as he came back into his living-room, divested now of his headcloth and looking a trifle the patio, Miss Page ?” he asked.

  “I’d love to,” she replied.

  more civilized. “Would you like to eat petit dejeuner out in “Then I will set up a table. In the meantime you would like to comb your hair, no ?”

  She had removed her hat while talking on the phone to Amalia and at the moment her hair was tumbling into her eyes. Victor waved her through the vermilion door into the coolness of a tiled corridor and showed her where she might tidy herself up.