Straight on Till Morning by Mary S. Lovell Page B

careering downhill like a Scottish burn. Born in the glacier and flowing through peatlands before it reached the forest, it provided an endless source of delicious uncontaminated drinking water, filtered through hard black basalt stone thrown up by the last earthquake which had left its core in the mountain’s peaks. The brook became a branch of the Naro Moru River (Naro Moru being Maasai for Black Stone), which had been stocked with trout that could be seen where sunlight hit the water, glimmering in pools overhung with flowers and ferns.
    The Bathurst Normans had bought a tract of this paradise to remove their children from the coast where Charles was stationed as district commissioner (Mombasa), and where their son George ‘had shown every inclination of trying to die of malaria’. The choice of district for them was therefore dictated by the fact that 7000 feet was the lowest altitude guaranteed free from the malaria-carrying anopheles mosquito.
    â€˜It was wartime then, and by no means certain who would win the war, and as Charles could not leave his post the matter was becoming extremely urgent,’ Doreen related, but a friend suggested they should consider the western slopes of Mount Kenya and arranged that Doreen be taken there by a land agent. She fell in love with this enchanted country at first sight, and so – a short time later – did her more cautious husband. They bought a completely undeveloped piece of land which had previously been used by its owner only on rare occasions to graze a dry herd. The die was cast and thereby several people’s lives were changed – including Beryl’s.
    The land had no house on it and was approached by a rough track, occasionally used by the forestry officer who had built a camp higher up. What was more, nobody could be found to build the house. One day Charles said to Doreen, ‘I think you’ll have to go up and build it,’ to which she simply replied, ‘All right.’
    The train carrying Doreen’s station wagon arrived late, but it was unloaded instantly and she set off for Naro Moru over appalling roads. At last, blinded by dust and desperately tired, she stopped at Fort Hall for a drink, where a party of the British Army was doing the same. She collected a young officer as co-driver, and they joined the army convoy which provided better lights than her car – blacked out for use in Mombasa. Eventually they reached Nyeri where, thinking enough was enough, Doreen booked into the White Rhino Hotel for the night.
    Next day she proceeded to instal herself in a mud hut at the bottom of the farm, below a small belt of forest which lay between her camp and the site chosen for the house – both sites chosen for their proximity to the river. There at night herds of elephants could be heard watering, and the magical night sounds of an African forest lulled her to sleep, the odd screech of the hyrax being the last thing she heard. The African gang, which consisted of carefully selected old retainers, erected the house in five months. The children transferred there and George never suffered from malaria again.
    The couple were encouraged to think, quite erroneously as it turned out, that the farm would be suitable for Jersey cows, so cattle, a few fodder crops with maize shambas for the labour force, together with their own vegetables and fruit, became the mainstay of the farm. The milk was turned into cream and sent off to the creamery to be turned into butter. Doreen made soda bread from the butter milk. This is how things were when Beryl first arrived.
    When she first went to stay at Naro Moru, Beryl was often unwell, unusually for her; but initially she refused to see a doctor because of her aversion to hospitals. At times, her condition made her difficult and argumentative and Doreen was particularly aware of Beryl’s feeling of ‘total insecurity’. Charles was a barrister by profession, and had a successful