“I wish you were wearing your heart on your sleeve for me.” Brooke ran his green glance over Madeline, cool in melon-yellow piqué as the mimosa that tumbled on the villa’s white walls. The sun was beginning to give her a honey tan against which her casually styled hair had an exciting shimmer.
“You’re a mouth-watering picture, mia!” Madeline felt his signet ring pressing her wrist. “Now don’t go all uppity and British on me. It’s perfectly healthy for a guy of twenty-eight to get a kick out of looking at a pretty girl.”
“You make rather a career of it, don’t you, Brooke ?” With her free hand she flipped a peeled almond into her mouth and coolly chewed it.
“Miaow!” He released her hand and swiped his stick at the starry heads of some nearby jasmine. The rich scent burst free in the sunshine that silted through the cypresses, and somewhere behind her, at another table, Madeline heard a trill of seductive laughter. Donette sat with Alain Delaury, one of Victor’s fellow doctors. No doubt Dr. Delaury was discussing his colleague with Donette … that excited note in her laughter gave her away.
“Darn this ankle !” Brooke growled. “I made all sorts of plans for us. I was going to show you the mystery spots of Marrakesh and take you for glorious early morning rides.
That’s the best time of the day for riding. Once the sun gets up, the sands start to scorch and there isn’t much pleasure in stewing in the saddle and laying yourself wide open for a bad headache.” Suddenly he swivelled in his chair and took a look at his laughing cousin. “Donette’s laying on the charm, eh?
The bearded Belgian is hardly her type, so I reckon she’s pumping him about Tourelle. She has her eye on El Hakim, but I do believe he considers love so much moonshine then again I wonder if he has a harem tucked away in the desert ”
“Brooke, the things you say ! ” Madeline stiffened in her chair and eyed her companion with open disapproval.
“It isn’t such a batty notion,” he argued gaily. “Live among the Arabs long enough and it’s said you get like them. Look at Lawrence ! ”
“Dr. Tourelle doesn’t live among them,” Madeline protested.
“He lives in a Moorish house, my sweet. He disappears into the desert every now and again, and he rarely looks at a European woman. These facts add up and make for mystery when you remember that he was born in Algiers of a Provençal father and a Danish mother.” Brooke mockingly imitated Madeline’s affronted expression.
“Stop looking as prim as a clergyman’s collar,” he gibed.
“Some Berber girls are darned fetching, y’know. Their skins are often only a tone or two darker than yours will be when the Moroccan sun has really got to you.”
Madeline decided that despite his worldly experience Brooke was rather young in some ways and she was silly to let him ruffle her temper with such nonsense.
“Not all men are girl-chasers,” she retorted. “I’m sure Dr.
Tourelle has better things to do than allow his head be turned by every pretty face he sees. He goes into the desert on medical tours, and well you know it, Brooke.”
The sharp note in her voice made him narrow his eyes.
“You are up in arms in defence of El Hakim did the man impress you that much?” he demanded.
“I I don’t know what you mean.” Madeline prayed that her fair skin wouldn’t go pink and give her away.
Brooke leaned towards her, still with those jealously nar rowed eyes. “Women admire ruthlessness, don’t they? It appeals to their age-old desire to be dragged off by the hair to some lair in the wilds ”
“I think you’ve got a touch of the sun !” Madeline jumped to her feet. “I’m going indoors to do some work.”
“Honey ”
She ignored the note of appeal in his voice and murmured a greeting at Alain Delaury as she passed him. The Belgian doctor got to his feet and gave her a gallant bow. “How are you liking Morocco, mademoiselle?” he enquired.
She chatted with him for a few minutes. Donette tinkled the ice in her drink and looked faintly insolent, and it was with a sense of relief that Madeline finally escaped indoors.
With very little pushing, she realized, she and Amalia’s niece could become active enemies. Which would be a pity, because as Madeline had said to Dr. Delaury, she liked her job enormously.
She was busily typing in the coolly furnished study when her employer came bustling in.
“My dear, it’s far too warm an afternoon for chores !”
Amalia lifted her secretary’s slim fingers off the typewriter and coaxingly pressed them. “I’d like for you to go with Brooke to the hospital. The company of a nice girl is what that boy needs … and you find him attractive, don’t you ?”
This question shook Madeline, for she certainly didn’t want her employer getting any matchmaking ideas about Brooke and herself. He could be fun, but anything else was out of the question !
Amalia’s green eyes scanned Madeline’s face. Her hair fell attractively forward over one blue eye, while her English, lit-from-within complexion was a perfect frame for her wide, sensitive mouth and dignified nose.
“I’m very fond of Brooke,” Amalia confided. “He’s like my own son and I’d be so pleased to see him settle down with a nice girl. When he asked me to give you this job, why, I had my doubts about doing so. I thought you’d turn out to be another glamour girl he’d got tangled up with, but you’re no such thing, and I’m real happy about that.”
Madeline, meeting Amalia’s smiling eyes, was lost for words. She was beyond hurting nice people, and Amalia was kindness itself, though a bit misguided in the amount of rein she allowed a wild young colt like Brooke. Madeline caught back a sigh. Warm-hearted herself, she knew the danger in being so. It complicated life, because often when you knew you ought to say no to a person, you said the reverse… .
She was drawn up out of her desk chair and Amalia said happily : “You’ll enjoy a drive to the hospital, Madeline. It’s built right inside the prettiest oasis you ever did see, and I know you’ll get a kick out of seeing those cute brown infants in the children’s wing. Max Berault will be only too pleased to show you around. He’s the head of Green Palms and a great friend of mine.”
A few minutes later Madeline was up in her bedroom, changing her frock for a crisp pleated white skirt and a blue blouse with a wide boat neckline that allowed for coolness.
She shook her head at her reflection in the mirror, for her eyes had begun to glisten while her heart was behaving most erratic-ally.
“You little idiot!” she muttered. “Get a hold on yourself that man with eyes like desert gold is a hundred per cent proof against youthful secretaries, whom he obviously considers flighty and foolish. Remember that look he gave you at the airport? Good! That memory should help you ride a second meeting with him without your heart coming a cropper !
She slipped her sunglasses into a white handbag, approved the translucent blue beads she had clipped on, then made her way downstairs.
Where was Donette? she wondered as she passed the door of the other girl’s room. Had she returned to Green Palms with Dr. Delaury?
Brooke was already in the tourer. Zamil sat behind the wheel, looking very dark-skinned in the olive-green uniform he wore when he chauffeured the car.
Madeline received an appreciative, roving glance from Brooke when she slipped in beside him and clapped shut the door. “You love getting your own way, don’t you?” she accused.
“Most men do, Madeline mia,” he retorted. “Have you known so few that their basic arrogance remains a mystery to you?”
Madeline sat back in her seat, well away from Brooke and his gibing green eyes. The tourer turned out of the gates of the villa and headed south towards miles of olive groves, whose silvery foliage was reflected in the giant mirrors of the reser-voirs that fed the reddish earth. Further still the mountain peaks were cutting rents in a sky like ruched blue satin.
It was a shimmering day, with weird sandstone rocks standing in their
own shadows and looking in the distance like the djinns said by the Moors to haunt this region below the mysterious Atlas gorges.
“I prefer the view from where I’m sitting,” Brooke murmured impudently. “Eyes plucked out of desert skies, icy little heart straight off the Atlas peaks, but hair that promises to be as warm as the sand itself.”
“How poetical, Brooke !” Madeline spoke to the window out of which she gazed. “I hope you’ve brought your jotting pad with you?”
“Your image is indelibly printed on my cynical heart say, Madeline, does my cynicism scare you off?”
“It would take more than that to scare me.”
“H’m, I feel as though I’m trying to extract sunbeams from an iceberg! I thought we’d have fun together when I persuaded Aunt Amalia to send for you.”
Madeline’s golden head swivelled towards Brooke. “Fun?
I’m not sure I understand you.”
Brooke was grinning, getting ready to be flippant, then the direct honesty of Madeline’s gaze withered the wicked grin on his mouth. “No, that isn’t true,” he admitted. “I just like to ruffle your cool British feathers. The truth is, I think you’re great. I behave myself with you even though I don’t much want to.”
Madeline appreciated honesty, and she gave Brooke the smile he’d been angling for since they’d started their drive to Green Palms. “I don’t think you’re quite the graceless rascal you make out to be.”
“I can be positively angelic, darling ! ”
Her smiled faded at the endearment. She had thought she could be companionable with Brooke, but now she was out here on the fringe of the desert with him, their association had developed into a game of advance and parry. She didn’t think his intentions were serious, but all the same she’d have to watch herself with him. She was soft with people she liked
and it was dangerous to be that way.
“We’re approaching the hospital.” Brooke’s shoulder touched hers as he leaned forward and pointed. “Look, you can see the walls through that belt of palms just ahead.”
The palm fronds stirred a welcoming breeze down upon this white building that was excitingly unlike a hospital. Its graceful domes, latticed balconies, and shady courtways made of it a thing of beauty for which Madeline had been unprepared.
Brooke smiled at her amazement as Zamil brought the car to a halt in front of a courtyard alive with flowers and the music of a fountain. Zamil came round to assist Brooke out of the car, for his ankle was strapped with plaster, and Madeline followed eagerly. As she stood surveying the hospital, Brooke said : “Once upon a time this place was a Moorish palace. A Moroccan prince lived here surrounded by his harem, his servants, and bodyguards. When he died it fell into disuse and Max Berault, then a young man beating his brains out trying to run a city hospital that was no more than a huddle of old houses, decided he wanted somewhere a bit healthier and attractive for his patients. This place struck him as ideal, so he set about raising funds and with the aid of the govern-ment he eventually moved in. New sections have been added over the years. D’you see that building to the left with the blue tiling? That’s the new children’s wing which Victor Tourelle was instrumental in getting built.”
Madeline took in the palm-shaded building with fascinated eyes. She could hear childish voices beyond the sculptured doorways and balconies and she was remembering what Dr.
Tourelle had said about his small patients, that unless eye diseases were dealt with in infancy many of them would gradually go blind.
“Naharic saide!” murmured a voice at Madeline’s shoulder.
She swung round and standing before her was a handsome Moor, his coffee-coloured hands at rest on the cummerbund of a snowy gandourah. He wore also the dark red fez of an unmarried man.
“Hullo, Faris ! ” Brooke greeted him in English. “I’ve brought Miss Page, my aunt’s secretary, to see your hospital.
Madeline, meet Faris Fouad, one of Victor’s team of cm-saders.”
“How do you do, Dr. Fouad?” She smiled at him, thinking what symmetrical features he had. “Naharic saide sounded much nicer. What do the words mean?”
“May your day be blessed, Miss Page.”
“How lovely! Arabic translates so poetically, yet it comes out of the mouth in almost a strangled way.”
Dr. Fouad broke into laughter, showing teeth that dazzled with their whiteness and regularity. “Do you intend to learn Arabic, Miss Page?”
“I hope to. Mrs. Van Cleef speaks it and she has offered to teach me.”
“Faris,” Brooke said, “I’m going to have an X-ray. If you’re free, be a pal and show Miss Page over Green Palms.
She’s the energetic type who won’t be contented to sit pretty under a tree until I’m through having my picture taken.”
“I shall be delighted.” Faris smiled and touched his heart in a graceful salaam. “I have half an hour to spare and my Eastern intuition tells me that Miss Page will enjoy a stroll through our children’s wards.”
Madeline silently blessed the Eastern intuition of this charming Moorish doctor, for he saved her voicing in front of Brooke the wish uppermost in her mind. After their conversation at luncheon he would be bound to jump to the conclusion that she hoped to see Victor Tourelle in the children’s wing.
“I’ll see you shortly, honey.” Brooke hobbled away on his stick towards a doorway that led to the X-ray department, while Madeline walked with Dr. Fouad in the opposite direction.
“It must be a continual pleasure for you, working in such picturesque surroundings,” Madeline remarked as they passed in through a sculptured entrance, where fans whirled in a vaulted ceiling.
“Green Palms is a lovely place,” he agreed. “Dr. Berault, a man of culture as well as medical ability, was always determined to retain the original architecture, for many French hospitals have a tendency to look rather grim. You have come here, they seem to say, not to enjoy yourself but to be cured.
Madeline laughed and wondered if Victor Tourelle shared this point of view. Somehow she doubted it. An old shed would probably suffice for him if it were equipped with an operating table.
Dr. Fouad pushed open a pair of doors and they entered a long, bright ward. A slim nurse came towards them, whose shy smile and enormous Arabian dark eyes immediately won Madeline’s heart. She was Sister Yamile, who spoke a smatter-ing of English accompanied by a submissive little laugh whenever Dr. Fouad addressed her.
Some of the children were sitting up in their beds, and Madeline was inclined to make them shy. One small girl went diving under her bedcovers when Madeline paused to admire the doll she was cuddling. A boy occupying the next bed was less bashful. His left eye was completely covered in gauze, but his other eye was bright as a new penny, and when it twinkled up at Madeline she couldn’t resist sitting down on his bed for a chat.
“The child speaks a little French,” Dr. Fouad told her. “His father is an official of some standing and the boy has seen other European women.”
“Bonjour!” The boy had a mischievous, gap-toothed smile to which Madeline warmly responded as he slipped a brown hand into hers.
“Dites-moi.” She touched her own left eye.
In the melange of French and Arabic that followed she gathered that le docteur, un homme grand, had relieved a lot of douleur in the eye. The boy grinned and studied Madeline’s pale hand. He was no longer triste, he added.
Madeline felt a lump at the back of her throat, indescribably touched by the way the child said he was no longer sad.
The tall doctor had taken the pain from his eye.
She said good-bye to the child and promised that next time she came to Green Palms she would bring him a toy.
The boy had almost lost the eye Dr. Fouad told her. He had been playing ball with several other children and had received a blow which threatened to detach the retina. Dr. Tourelle had operated on him and in a few more days they would know whether the child would retain the sight of his eye or not.
> “Oh, I do hope the eye is all right !” Madeline exclaimed.
“He’s such a bright little chap.”
Many of these children were pretty and bright, but it was obvious that parental ignorance had led to the plight of quite a few of them. Dr. Fouad explained that religious prejudice kept some of the parents from bringing their children to a hospital run by the Faransawi. Others were under the influence of tribal fetish doctors and the children’s aches and pains were treated by primitive means.
Dr. Fouad shrugged his shoulders and spread his slender hands in an eloquent gesture. “I have not the patience of Victor in dealing with some of them. He is a marvel, that man, but then it is in the Eastern character to bow down to physical authority, combined with the gift of persuasion.”
“I’ve only met him once, but I must say he struck me as very forceful,” Madeline agreed, strolling with the Moorish doctor towards a blossom-hung archway that appeared to lead to a garden.
“Victor will not be deprived of his own way if he can help it,” Dr. Fouad smiled. “Ah, but he is an inspiring man to work for. He could go anywhere in the world and make a fortune as an eye specialist, but he has chosen to work among my people, who are often ignorant and unappreciative of how much he does for them. For Victor wealth is as dust on the hands !”
The phrase rang in Madeline’s mind as they passed under the archway that rioted with red and white hibiscus and clumps of pink geranium. Citrus trees scented the air, and coins of gold, milled by the sun, tumbled down through small openings in a canopy of interlacing palm fronds. There were oleanders, both passionately crimson and virginal white, and rose petals spattering a white path that led into a delightful playground, where some of the mothers were pushing their children in swings and watching them swoop down a slide.
There were also a couple of gaily painted roundabouts.
This was the first time Madeline had come into close contact with the women of Morocco and she found them wary of her but intriguing to look at. A couple of the more supersti-tious turned their children’s faces away from her. Others were openly inquisitive and came over when Dr. Fouad beckoned to them. In their indigo homespun, with coins plaited into black hair beneath their headdresses, and blue tattoo marks between their eyes, they were Biblical creatures.
Desert Doctor Page 3