Read Online Heartbeat (Medical Romance) by Anna Ramsay - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Anna Ramsay
Tags: Romance
Ads: Link
wrong with him. It was Francis Mwinyi who got us out of a pretty nasty situation. But I don’t mind telling you there was a tense moment or two waiting to see if it worked ...
'Sorry, by the way, to spill that stuff down your uniform. It shouldn't be a permanent stain. I couldn't risk letting you give the drug and taking the brunt if the man should die. We might well have had the mchawi stirring up the relatives by claiming we were the ones who'd poisoned him. And it was far better if any trouble was directed at me.'
‘Oh! I see …’ Her voice trailed away and to hide her embarrassment she put a hand up to her blushing face. Ross never even noticed your buttons were undone ... he was too busy protecting you from possible repercussions. Jumping to hasty conclusions yet again, hothead Westcott! Let this be a lesson to you.
'And had he been poisoned?' she managed eventually.
Ross shrugged his broad khaki shoulders, scratched the sunburned column of his throat and said that in his view it could well have been a case of extreme hysteria; but to be on the safe side the mug of water had been laced with tincture of opium.
'Did I hear someone mention poison?'
Paul had wandered across to pick up the tail end of this conversation. Ross sketched in a brief account and a chill shudder ran through Jenni's frame. 'I didn't think witch doctors still existed.'
'Sure they do,’ said Paul. ‘But you need to differentiate between the mganga or local medicine man—who, it must be admitted, still exercises a very powerful influence within the tribes—and the mchawi, or wizards, who practise black magic and are decidedly more dangerous.'
Lamplight accentuated the harsh lines etched into the planes and hollows of the priest's grave countenance. He gestured with long-fingered hands as he spoke. 'We’re working among a fearful and superstitious people who believe that during usiku —the hours of darkness—dangerous spirits roam the land and magic is rife. There's a world of anxiety here in the bush. You've noticed it yourself, haven't you, Ross? How they mull over your every word and expression: "Did the doctor frown when he was speaking to me? Is that why I'm not getting better?" They love and fear you at one and the same time.'
Ross was nodding, and his face mirrored Paul's grimness.
Jenni sat very still.
She was beginning now to have some inkling of the complex nature of Paul's work in Africa. It wasn't how she'd imagined it—a simple matter of going round preaching and everyone seeing the light and saying 'Praise the Lord!' Here was a challenge far more profound than some love affair that had gone wrong. No wonder Paul was physically altered, no wonder he had grown contemplative and ... and ...
Wise, decided Jenni in awe. It was no longer so easy to picture him as a married man with a wife and family of his own. The children of the bush were his children; their families were his families. She had a peculiar feeling that he would never want to leave Africa and come home—and that suspicion gave rise to a disquiet she hastily pushed to the back of her mind, to be worried over in total privacy, some other time.
'Well, our Jen, not regretting your decision?'
'Not in the least!' she said fervently. Then lapsed into silence.
Ross was bound to consider her gushing and ingenuous if she babbled on about why she was so sure, so soon, that she'd made the right decision in coming to Africa. Sure about the satisfactions of her work; far less certain, though, about her relationship with Paul.
Ross was flicking through an old copy of Private Eye but Jenni was acutely aware that he was listening and ready to pounce.
'I'm not being much use at the moment,' she acknowledged—well, if she didn't say it first, Ross surely would. During the afternoon session whenever the doctor had asked for a specific item—a pair of surgical gloves to replace the ones he'd just split, or a tongue depressor — while she had bumbled around uncertainly,
'Sorry, by the way, to spill that stuff down your uniform. It shouldn't be a permanent stain. I couldn't risk letting you give the drug and taking the brunt if the man should die. We might well have had the mchawi stirring up the relatives by claiming we were the ones who'd poisoned him. And it was far better if any trouble was directed at me.'
‘Oh! I see …’ Her voice trailed away and to hide her embarrassment she put a hand up to her blushing face. Ross never even noticed your buttons were undone ... he was too busy protecting you from possible repercussions. Jumping to hasty conclusions yet again, hothead Westcott! Let this be a lesson to you.
'And had he been poisoned?' she managed eventually.
Ross shrugged his broad khaki shoulders, scratched the sunburned column of his throat and said that in his view it could well have been a case of extreme hysteria; but to be on the safe side the mug of water had been laced with tincture of opium.
'Did I hear someone mention poison?'
Paul had wandered across to pick up the tail end of this conversation. Ross sketched in a brief account and a chill shudder ran through Jenni's frame. 'I didn't think witch doctors still existed.'
'Sure they do,’ said Paul. ‘But you need to differentiate between the mganga or local medicine man—who, it must be admitted, still exercises a very powerful influence within the tribes—and the mchawi, or wizards, who practise black magic and are decidedly more dangerous.'
Lamplight accentuated the harsh lines etched into the planes and hollows of the priest's grave countenance. He gestured with long-fingered hands as he spoke. 'We’re working among a fearful and superstitious people who believe that during usiku —the hours of darkness—dangerous spirits roam the land and magic is rife. There's a world of anxiety here in the bush. You've noticed it yourself, haven't you, Ross? How they mull over your every word and expression: "Did the doctor frown when he was speaking to me? Is that why I'm not getting better?" They love and fear you at one and the same time.'
Ross was nodding, and his face mirrored Paul's grimness.
Jenni sat very still.
She was beginning now to have some inkling of the complex nature of Paul's work in Africa. It wasn't how she'd imagined it—a simple matter of going round preaching and everyone seeing the light and saying 'Praise the Lord!' Here was a challenge far more profound than some love affair that had gone wrong. No wonder Paul was physically altered, no wonder he had grown contemplative and ... and ...
Wise, decided Jenni in awe. It was no longer so easy to picture him as a married man with a wife and family of his own. The children of the bush were his children; their families were his families. She had a peculiar feeling that he would never want to leave Africa and come home—and that suspicion gave rise to a disquiet she hastily pushed to the back of her mind, to be worried over in total privacy, some other time.
'Well, our Jen, not regretting your decision?'
'Not in the least!' she said fervently. Then lapsed into silence.
Ross was bound to consider her gushing and ingenuous if she babbled on about why she was so sure, so soon, that she'd made the right decision in coming to Africa. Sure about the satisfactions of her work; far less certain, though, about her relationship with Paul.
Ross was flicking through an old copy of Private Eye but Jenni was acutely aware that he was listening and ready to pounce.
'I'm not being much use at the moment,' she acknowledged—well, if she didn't say it first, Ross surely would. During the afternoon session whenever the doctor had asked for a specific item—a pair of surgical gloves to replace the ones he'd just split, or a tongue depressor — while she had bumbled around uncertainly,
Similar Books
