“Would I stand more of a chance with you if I became PP”—
honourably occupied?” Though he spoke humorously, he was regarding her with eyes that were serious. This room, always cool because its windows were shaded by the graceful branches of a huge Lebanon cedar, was also a tranquil little den. Madeline was very conscious of this tranquillity after the anxiety of
several restless nights with Amalia, and for a moment she and Brooke just looked at one another, locked in a mood of har-mony, neither of them wanting more than this satisfying silence. Words would have intruded, and Madeline silently left him.
Brooke was nice, at times.
The villa was very quiet after lunch. Amalia was fast asleep.
Brooke remained in the study in clouds of pipe smoke and inspiration. Donette had gone to watch a tennis match with Raoul Lestrade.
Madeline, wandering alone in the garden, was in a curiously peaceful, enervated sort of mood. Now her employer was sleeping herself back to health she could relax and enjoy an hour alone. It was also good to know that she had proved of real use in an emergency. Amalia had turned to her as to a daughter, and Madeline had responded with what she now recognized as real affection. It would last beyond their present association as employer and secretary, but right now, this afternoon, Madeline didn’t want to think of the future and what it might hold.
The big garden of the Villa Mimosa was attractively laid out in a series of terraces, one below the other, each planted with a vivid, fragrant selection of flowers and trees. Here and there a white-gowned gardener was indolently sweeping fallen petals from the sanded paths that led to shady arbours, or pruning the ornamental hedges.
The sun shone brilliantly and Madeline’s fair hair was swathed in a gay bandeau, while she wore a cool shift dress with the flimsiest of undies beneath its silk. The heat had increased just lately and she felt certain that as soon as Amalia was back on her feet they would depart for Mazagan and the invigorating Atlantic breezes that blew along its wide sandy beach.
Some scarlet pomegranate blossoms brushed her arm as she passed them, then she gave a gasp as a great velvety bee flew out from among them and zoomed towards her face. She threw up her hands and whirled to avoid the bee, and in so doing she blundered into someone. Hands closed on her waist and she was caught painfully close to a muscular body. “Are you stung?” a deep voice demanded.
Madeline, thoroughly unnerved, dropped her hands and looked up into a pair of tawny eyes that held a fleeting concern as she remained pressed silken and slight against Victor Tourelle’s chest. His hands bit into her waist and she felt her head tilting crazily backwards, then he had stepped away from her and she was left with an unfettered body and a mouth that was poignant with a silent cry.
“The bee did not sting you.” He spoke curtly, making up for the stinging she might have received. “What a nervous creature you are, Miss Page !”
“I I’m not,” she denied hotly. “You creep upon people like a a Bedouin !” She smoothed her skirt, still trembling inwardly. “I’m afraid if you’re looking for Donette well, she isn’t here. There’s a big tennis tournament on at the El Aksa Club and she has gone to watch it with some friends.”
“I came to see you,” he replied, not looking too amiable and therefore bursting a bubble of hope that he was going to be as cordial as he had been the other morning. “Shall we find somewhere else to talk? These bushes of flowers are alive with honey-bees, and another might decide to explore you.”
“I believe you think it would find only gall,” she retorted.
He quirked an eyebrow, while his tawny gaze flickered over her slender, shift-clad figure. Her skin grew heated, for now it occurred to her that when he had held her a few moments ago he must have felt how little she had on under her dress.
When he gestured imperiously towards a nearby arbour, she hurried in ahead of him. In one of his “Monseigneur” moods he was infuriating! Anyway, what did he want to talk about?
she wondered, sitting down on a rustic bench and sweeping aside the skirt of her dress as he hoisted a rope-soled sandal to the edge of the bench and bent upon her a look of cool-eyed amusement.
“How you make me laugh, you child,” he murmured. “I think we could never be friends. Friendship is an effortless thing, which two people do not have to strive to maintain.
We are like tinder and flint … sparks always fly when we meet. Miss Page,” his voice dropped into a mocking key, “surely I have not yet given you cause to be annoyed with me?
Or is it enough that I am here at all? Perhaps I disturb your tranquillity, eh?”
She looked at him. Misty shadows lurked beneath her eyes and a light application of lipstick made her delicately pretty this afternoon. Even as his glance softened, she told herself he was right. Friendship with him was impossible.
“I believe I know what you have come to talk about,” she replied, giving back coolness for his mockery. “I suppose Dr.
Berault has told you of our talk the other day that I might train for child welfare work?”
“Yes, Max has told me,” he inclined his head and kept his disconcerting gaze trained upon her.
“Well, nothing definite has been decided, Dr. Tourelle,”
she hurried on. “It seemed a good idea that I should come to work at Green Palms, but as you say, with us it is les extremes se touchent and I doubt whether we could work amicably together. You made up your mind from the moment we met in Casablanca that I was ornamental but useless. Oh, don’t smile at me in that superior way ! ”
She jumped to her feet, blue eyes sparkling angrily, the gold heart swinging on her wrist as she clenched her hands at her sides. “I dislike you as intensely as you dislike me… .”
“Enough !” His hands closed over her shoulders as he towered above her, and she felt how easily he could have snapped her bones. “You are using a word that most certainly does not apply in my case. Furthermore, I did not come here in order to indulge in an argument over this matter of your career.”
She threw back her head and scorned his assertion with a twist of her lips. “What else could have brought you? Well, it’s been a wasted trip, for I already know that the children’s wing at Green Palms is your province and that you say who is employed there. When Dr. Berault asked me if I should like to train for child welfare work, it was only tentatively suggested that I follow up my training by applying for a post at Green Palms. I knew you wouldn’t want me there.”
Her heart was beating heavily, and as she felt the bruising pressure of Victor’s hands, she recklessly told herself that she didn’t care if she angered him into really hurting her. All she wanted right now was an end to this meeting.
“For a girl who is wise in many ways, you can be very foolish,” he grated. “I agree with Max that you might enjoy working among children, but my reason for not wanting you at Green Palms is not motivated by this animosity we gener-ate.”
“But you’re admitting you don’t want me there !” For the life of her she couldn’t keep her voice from trembling, while her anger was dissolving into a weary desire to give way to tears. He had shattered peace for her, and knowing how things had been at the villa just lately he might have chosen some other time to come here and torment her.
“Ma petite ingenue,” he gave her a slight shake, “it would be a folly for you to undertake work in a climate such as this.
Have you not been nursing Amalia these last few days? Have you not seen for yourself how these fevers can rack and pros-trate? By all means train for work among children, but do so in England. That is your world !”
He let go of her and swung to the doorway of the arbour, where he lounged nonchalantly, wild roses symbolic of pain and pleasure clambering about his tall, vigorous figure. The hard bones of his shoulders tautened the khaki drill of his shirt, and tendrils of hair clung dark with perspiration to the nape of his neck. She saw him flicking a fingernail against the right leg of his slacks and suddenly his attitude had meani
ng for her. His mother had died out here. The desert, for him, was an enemy to women.
“Dr. Tourelle,” she touched his arm and he slanted her a sideways glance, “I’m sorry for losing my temper. I think I’m all on edge from lack of sleep. Will you come into the villa?
We could have some tea, or perhaps you would prefer a glass of limoon?”
“Refreshments of some kind would be pleasant,” he agreed.
They made their way indoors and a few minutes later were seated in comfortable chairs in the salon, holding long iced glasses of that delicious cordial, limoon, which was squeezed from fresh limes. Victor lounged back in the draught of a nearby fan. He smiled his thanks as Madeline leant forward and refilled the glass he had emptied in thirsty gulps.
“To have cool English blood,” he murmured. “Or is it just a trick of the skin, that you appear not to feel the heat?”
She gave him a slight smile. “You have probably been working hard all the morning, Doctor,” she said. When he had held her against his chest in the garden she had breathed the ether that still clung to his skin; she knew he had been in the operating theatre for several hours.
“May I smoke?” he enquired.
“Please have one of these, it will save you messing about with loose tobacco.” She extended a silver box filled with the Virginian cigarettes both Brooke and her employer smoked.
Victor took one in his lean fingers, then as he leant towards the table lighter she flicked on, he steadied her hand with his. Their eyes met above the flame. “Merci,” he said, lounging back again and crossing his legs.
The strangest sensation feathered over her skin as she replaced the lighter. Merci! It was as though she had been stroked, darn him!
She saw him run a hand round the back of his neck, as though to relieve a crick in it, and the action was so human, so almost tired, that Madeline had to lower her gaze to hide her look of sympathy. Like any other man he could feel whacked, and seek ease for it in the company of a woman !
“I have had a busy morning,” he agreed. “It always seems that with the rise in temperature we receive an influx of patients. I have snatched an hour this afternoon, but I shall be back in the theatre at five o’clock.”
“Anything spectacular on your morning agenda ?” She asked, sipping her drink, her slender legs disposed with grace, her interest in his work a genuine one.
“I had a glaucoma to deal with it does not worry you to hear me talk of such things, Miss Page? You are not squeam-ish?”
“I’m really much tougher than I look,” she laughed, hoping he took the hint. “Please go on, Doctor. What is a glaucoma?”
“A very distressing eye condition, producing acute pain and a great deal of shock in the sufferer. An iridectomy has to be performed, which in layman terms is the cutting away of a section of the iris in order to provide room for the expansion of the pupil. Narrow angle glaucoma is what we call it. An interesting operation, but a taxing one. The patient is a boy of nineteen, a particularly brilliant student of engineering ”
Victor broke off, leant forward with a slight frown and peered at a small red mark on Madeline’s left leg. “You have a mosquito bite there,” he said. “Citronella is an effective re-pellent, and I advise you to spread it on yourself if you happen to be out in the evenings. These bites can lead to malaria.
The fever is no longer all that prevalent in Morocco, but pre-vention is better than taking a chance.”
“Very well, Doctor,” her smile was dry. “Do I pay now, or will you send in a bill?”
A sunray of amusement lines showed beside his eyes.
“Always I am the doctor,” he shrugged. “You must forgive me.”
“Oh, I think most men carry their work about with them,”
she rejoined. “I know my father does. He’s a market gardener and loves nothing better than being able to tell someone how to clear their rose bushes of greenfly.”
“You miss your father, yes?” Victor queried.
“Of course. He’s a dear, with a marvellous sense of humour, and he grows the most beautiful gladioli.”
“It is good to be friends with one’s parents.” Victor nodded to himself, as if to say that this was the answer to most youthful problems. He swung his cigarette to his lips, took a draw and released the smoke through his nostrils. “American cigarettes are rather sweetish in flavour, but pleasant. The Americans themselves, for all the virility of their appearance, are of a staggering sentimentality.”
“And what profound conclusions have you reached regarding the English?” Madeline dared to ask.
“Ah, the English !” He flicked ash in the tray at his elbow.
“The men a very cool brand of smoke. The women iced soufflé with brandy inside.”
“Monseigneur,” her eyes filled with laughter, “are you speaking from experience?”
“Were you experienced you would know the answer to that question,” he mocked.
“I take it my ‘brandy’ awaits ignition?” she parried.
“And who have you in mind for that momentous occasion
the charming Brooke Van Cleef ?”
“I might have,” She gazed into her drink. “At the moment he’s very much in my good books.”
“May one ask why?”
“He’s working busily on an article.”
“Ah, you are shaking him out of his laziness. I congratulate you, Miss Page. You might yet make a man out of a boy.”
Though she smiled, she was abruptly conscious that some of her enjoyment in this exchange had fizzled out. She didn’t want to discuss Brooke with Victor … there was pain in doing so.
“You haven’t told me why you came here this afternoon, Dr. Tourelle. I gather something specific brought you?”
“Naturellement,” he drawled, his profile hawklike as he stubbed his cigarette. “I have an invitation for you from the parents of Tahar. They would like you to have dinner with them one evening.”
“Why, how very nice of them !” Surprise and genuine pleasure mingled in her eyes, producing the glow that intensified their blueness.
“They are nice people,” warmth had edged back into his voice. “When they came to collect Tahar he was playing with his cadeau from you, the box of soldiers, and his mother said at once that she would like to meet you. I felt that you would like this, but I knew you would not feel free to accept the invitation until Amalia was on the mend. Max told me the crisis of her fever had passed, and it occurred to me that you might welcome an outing this coming Saturday.”
“I would indeed.” Then his wording struck home to her.
“Will you I mean are you going, to be there?”
“I am afraid so,” he responded dryly. He rose to his feet.
“The Raschids live at Jezara, where the Sheikh holds a govern-ment post of some importance. An invitation to a single woman would not be issued with the same casualness as in England, so very naturally I shall be escorting you.”
He spoke as though it would be a duty rather than a pleasure, and Madeline tried not to mind. Anyway, it would be exciting to meet the Sheikh Raschid and his wife, and to see mischievous Tahar again. “Is Jezara very far ?” she asked composedly.
“About an hour’s drive away,” he replied. “I shall telephone the Sheikh to let him know we are coming and call here for you about five o’clock.”
“Thank you.” She rose and walked with him to the front door of the villa. As they passed the study the patter of the typewriter seeped out and she saw Victor glance in that direction. “Perhaps our friend has commenced a novel,” he remarked, intending to be droll, but flicking Madeline to annoyance. His work was naturally of an importance that threw everyone else’s into the shade !
Out on the steps, with his sleek black car awaiting below in its usual dusty condition, she found there was something she just had to say. “Dr. Tourelle ”
“Yes, Miss Page ?” He stood facing her, very upright, a rather unkind glint in his eyes.
“That I would take you for my own pleasure?” The steel edge to his voice cut into Madeline. “This is purely a matter of good relations, which Max and myself are always careful to maintain. Had Max been present at the time the invitation was issued he would be escorting you. Doubtless you would prefer his company, but I will attempt to amuse you to the best of my ability.”
“I was talking about Donette,” Madeline flashed. “You’re her property, and she’s possessive ”
“Miss Page,” his eyes had narrowed to merciless topaz slits, “I am no woman’s property. Grand Dieu, what a word ! But I will certainly assure Donette that she has no need to regard you in the light of a rival. Au revoir!” He gave Madeline a suave bow, then loped down the steps to his car and folded himself into it with one of his quick supple movements. The curt slamming of the door made her flinch, gravel spat from beneath its wheels, and a minute later she was alone in a back-wash of silence, broken only by the piping of birds in the pepper trees at the side of the drive.
Madeline shivered, though her light dress was clinging to the moisture that had broken out on her back. She had asked for that final brutal jab, and he had not hesitated for a second to inflict it.
She closed the villa door and returned to the salon, where cigarette smoke still lingered and a silk cushion retained the imprint of an iron-hard shoulder. Madeline plumped the cushion, waved a newspaper to dispel the smoke and rang for the limoon pitcher and glasses to be taken away. When the room was restored to normality, Madeline went upstairs to take a shower.
CHAPTER VII
AMALIA was feeling much better the following day that she was able to enjoy a light lunch of devilled roes on buttered toast. Madeline brought up the tray, to which she had added flowers. “You nice child !” Amalia buried her nose in the spray. “What would I do without you? No, don’t run away
Desert Doctor Page 10