Free Doctor's Assistant by Celine Conway

giggled into her embroidery. Mrs. Lockley’s lips tightened, and she moved Laurette away.
    “One needs patience,” she said in a loud and vibrant whisper. “They’re like children.”
    “The whole mission is a credit to you,” Laurette replied sincerely.
    But by the end of that day she felt desperately sorry for the Lockleys. Both lived on their nerves. They slept in a tiny separate hut and spent all their waking hours in the mission. There were no flowers about them, no shrubs; only beaten, sun-drenched earth, worn grass and a line of skinny blue gums about two hundred yards away.
    Ben was hard at it the whole of that day. He broke off for twenty minutes at lunch-time, but Laurette did not see him again till the sun was going down and Africans could be seen plodding away down the footpaths in all directions.
    He washed his hands, they both said good-bye to the Lockleys and the car moved off along the track.
    “No wonder you’re always tired out after your days there,” Laurette commented. “It’s too much, Ben. Is there really a lot of sickness among those people?”
    “A fair amount, but half the patients are spurious—they love the importance attaching to a sick person and to display a bottle of medicine. But among the others you find serious cases. I did three hernia ops. today.”
    “Poor Ben.” And he was going home to the loneliness of that dim old house. “Let’s stop above the river and watch the last of the sun.”
    He threw her a quick, pleased glance. “That sounds like the prescription for a tonic. Say when.”
    She chose a ledge which overlooked a green valley and a curving stretch of river. With the engine switched off they could hear the cicadas tuning up for their night-songs and the distant throbbing of a motor-boat. Across the river a mountain rose sheer from the water’s edge, its side densely packed with tree-ferns and wild fruit and nut trees. Branches moved, indicating the presence of monkeys, but the creatures were too small to be seen at this distance.
    Ben sat sideways, his arms crossed on the wheel. The attention he gave to the view was perfunctory, for Laurette’s head was in the way; golden-brown curls and a little ear, her small clear profile against the dark greenness framed by the window.
    Ben was not a man to hoard illusions. He knew himself fairly well, and he also knew Laurette rather better than she thought he did. Sometimes he was amazed at his having allowed himself to fall in love with her; he couldn’t possibly give her any of the things she wanted, because in buying the Port Quentin practice he had carved for himself a hard and precarious future. To sell it again would take years, and he was not the sort to cut his losses and start elsewhere from scratch. Nor would his conscience permit him to move out and leave the place without a doctor. Yet he loathed the practice. Nobody suspected that, of course, not even Laurette; but being frank with himself was his only means of survival. He had to admit to being embittered by the frustrations of the practice, and to loving someone totally outside his reach. The sane, medical man in him was then able cynically to retort, “Well ... so what?”
    Laurette said softly, “We’re looking east, aren’t we? Don’t you think the first darkness is a heavenly color? Dark hyacinth shading to a rich purple. I love that purple tint in the night sky, don’t you?”
    “I seldom notice it. This is my country, you know. My parents emigrated from England when they married, and I’ve lived in the south-east of Africa most of my life, though before taking over the practice I’d never been to Port Quentin. I’m afraid I’ve always accepted purple night skies.” He shifted to make himself more comfortable. “Are you doing the things you want to do, Laurette?”
    She puckered a smile at him. “What do you mean—living here with my father, working for you?”
    He nodded. “Do those things satisfy you?”
    “Of course,” she