Plantation Doctor Read Free Page B

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