Dear Monsieur,--I am here. Poor mamma is in the hospital. I
am allowed to see her twice a day. At all other times I
remain alone, praying and weeping. I trust that monsieur has
passed a good night. For me, I was sleepless, thinking of
mamma. I go now to church.
Adele Verbena.
He laid this missive down, and sighed deeply. How strangely innocent it
was, how simple, how sincere! There were white souls in Algiers--yes,
even in Algiers. Strange that he should know one! Strange that he, who
had filled a Merrin’s exercise-book with tiny writing, and had even
overflowed on to the cover after “crossing” many pages, should receive
the child-like confidences of one! “I go now to the church.” Tears came
into his eyes as he laid the letter down beside a pile of buttered toast
over which the burning afternoon sun of Africa was shining.
“Monsieur will take milk and sugar?”
It was the head waiter’s Napoleonic voice. Mr. Greyne controlled
himself. The man was smiling intelligently. All the staff of the hotel
smiled intelligently at Mr. Greyne to-day--the waiters, the porters, the
chasseurs. The child of eight who was thankful that he knew no better
had greeted him with a merry laugh as he came down to breakfast, and an
“_Oh, là, là!_” which had elicited a rebuke from the proprietor. Indeed,
a wave of human sympathy flowed upon Mr. Greyne, whose ashy face and
dull, washed-out eyes betrayed the severity of his night-watch.
“Monsieur will feel better after a little food.”
The head waiter handed the buttered toast with bland majesty, at the
same time shooting a reproving glance at the little chasseur, who was
peeping from behind the door at the afternoon breakfaster.
“I feel perfectly well,” replied Mr. Greyne, with an attempt at
cheerfulness.
“Still, monsieur will feel much better after a little food.”
Mr. Greyne began to toy with an egg.
“You know Algiers?” he asked.
“I was born here, monsieur. If monsieur wishes to explore to-night again
the Kasbah I can----”
But Mr. Greyne stopped him with a gesture that was almost fierce.
“Where is the Rue du Petit Nègre?”
“Monsieur wishes to go there to-night?”
“I wish to go there now, directly I have finished break--lunch.”
The head waiter’s face was wreathed with humorous surprise.
“But monsieur is wonderful--superb! Never have I seen a traveller like
monsieur!”
He gazed at Mr. Greyne with tropical appreciation.
“Monsieur had better have a carriage. The street is difficult to find.”
“Order me one. I shall start at once.”
Mr. Greyne pushed away the sunlit buttered toast, and got up.
“Monsieur is superb. Never have I seen a traveller like monsieur!”
Napoleon’s voice was almost reverent. He hastened out, followed slowly
by Mr. Greyne.
“A carriage for monsieur! Monsieur desires to go to the Rue du Petit
Nègre!”
The staff of the hotel gathered about the door as if to speed a royal
personage, and Mr. Greyne noticed that their faces too were touched
with an almost startled reverence. He stepped into the carriage, signed
feebly, but with determination, to the Arab coachman, and was driven
away, followed by a parting “_Oh, là là!_” from the chasseur, uttered in
a voice that sounded shrill with sheer amazement.
Through winding, crowded streets he went, by bazaars and Moorish
bath-houses, mosques and Catholic churches, barracks and cafés, till at
length the carriage turned into an alley that crept up a steep hill. It
moved on a little way, and then stopped.
“Monsieur must descend here,” said the coachman. “Mount the steps, go
to the right and then to the left. Near the summit of the hill he will
find the Rue du Petit Nègre. Shall I wait for monsieur?”
“Yes.”
The coachman began to make a cigarette, while Mr. Greyne set forth
to follow his directions, and, at length, stood before an arch, which
opened into a courtyard adorned with orange-trees in tubs, and paved
with blue and white tiles. Around this courtyard was a three-storey
house with a flat roof, and from a bureau near a little fountain a stout
Frenchwoman called to demand his business. He asked for Mademoiselle
Verbena, and was at once shown into a saloon lined with chairs covered
with yellow rep, and begged to take a seat. In two minutes Mademoiselle
Verbena appeared, drying her eyes with a tiny pocket-handkerchief, and
forcing a little pathetic smile of welcome. Mr. Greyne clasped her hand
in silence. She sat down in a rep chair at his right, and they looked at
each other.
“_Mais, mon Dieu!_ How monsieur is changed!” cried the Levantine. “If
madame could see him! What has happened to monsieur?”
“Miss Verbena,” replied Mr. Greyne, “I have seen the Ouled on the
heights.”
A spasm crossed the Levantine’s face. She put her handkerchief to it for
a moment. “What is an Ouled?” she inquired, withdrawing it.
“I dare not tell you,” he replied solemnly.
“But indeed I wish to know, so that I may sympathise with monsieur.”
Mr. Greyne hesitated, but his heart was full; he felt the need of
sympathy. He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a great longing to
unburden himself overcame him.
“An Ouled,” he replied, “is a dancing-girl from the desert of Sahara.”
“_Mon Dieu!_ How does she dance? Is it a valse, a polka, a quadrille?”
“No. Would that it were!” And Mr. Greyne, unable further to govern
his desire for full expression, gave Mademoiselle Verbena a slightly
Bowdlerised description of the dances of the desert. She heard him with
amazement.
“How terrible!” she exclaimed when he had finished. “And does one pay
much to see such steps of the Evil One?”
“I gave her twenty pounds. Abdallah Jack----”
“Abdallah Jack?”
“My guide informed me that was the price. He tells me it is against
the law, and that each time an Ouled dances she risks being thrown into
prison.”
“Poor lady! How sad to have to earn one’s bread by such devices, instead
of by teaching to the sweet little ones of monsieur the sympathetic
grammar of one’s native country.”
Mr. Greyne was touched to the quick by this allusion, which brought, as
in a vision, the happy home in Belgrave Square before him.
“You are an angel!” he exclaimed.
Mademoiselle Verbena shook her head.
“And this poor Ouled, you will go to her again?
“Yes. It seems that she is in communication with all the--the--well,
all the odd people of Algiers, and that one can only get at them through
her.”
“Indeed?”
“Abdallah Jack tells me that while I am here I should pay her a weekly
salary, and that, in return, I shall see all the terrible ceremonies of
the Arabs. I have decided to do so------
“Ah, you have decided!”
For a moment Mr. Greyne started. There seemed a new sound in
Mademoiselle Verbena’s voice, a gleam in her dark brown eyes.
“Yes,” he said, looking at her in wonder. “But I have not yet told
Abdallah Jack.”
The Levantine looked gently sad again.
“Ah,” she said in her usual pathetic voice, “how my heart bleeds for
this poor Ouled. By the way, what is her name?”
“Aishoush.”
“She is beautiful?”
“I hardly know. She was so painted, so tattooed, so very--so very
different from Mrs. Eustace Greyne.”
“How sad! How terrible! Ah, but you must long for the dear bonnet
strings of madame?”
Did he? As she spoke Mr. Greyne asked himself the question. Shocked as
he was, fatigued by his researches, did he wish that he were back again
in Belgrave Square, drinking barley water, pasting notices of his wife’s
achievements into the new album, listening while she read aloud from
the manuscript of her latest novel? He wondered, and--how strange, how
almost terrible--he was not sure.
“Is it not so?” murmured Mademoiselle Verbena.
“Naturally I miss my beloved wife,” said Mr. Greyne with a certain
awkwardness. “How is your poor, dear mother?”
Tears came at once into the Levantine’s eyes.
“Very, very ill, monsieur. Still there is a chance--just a chance that
she may not die. Ah, when I sit here all alone in this strange place, I
feel that she will perish, that soon I shall be quite deserted in this
cruel, cruel world!”
The tears began to flow down her cheeks with determination. Mr. Greyne
was terribly upset.
“You must cheer up,” he exclaimed. “You must hope for the best.”
“Sitting here alone, how can I?”
She sobbed.
“Sitting here alone--very true!”
A sudden thought, a number of sudden thoughts, struck him.
“You must not sit here alone.”
“Monsieur!”
“You must come out. You must drive. You must see the town, distract
yourself.”
“But how? Can a--a girl go about alone in Algiers?”
“Heaven forbid! No; I will escort you.”
“Monsieur!”
A smile of innocent, girlish joy transformed her face, but suddenly she
was grave again.
“Would it be right, _convenable?_”
Mr. Greyne was reckless. The dog potential rose up in him again.
“Why not? And, besides, who knows us here? Not a soul.”
“That is true.”
“Put on your bonnet. Let us start at once!”
“But I do not wear the bonnet. I am not like madame.”
“To be sure. Your hat.”
And as she flew to obey him, Mr. Eustace Greyne found himself impiously
thanking the powers that be for this strange chance of going on the
spree with a toque. When Mademoiselle Verbena returned he was looking
almost rakish. He eyed her neat black hat and close-fitting black jacket
with a glance not wholly unlike that of a militiaman. In her hand she
held a vivid scarlet parasol.
“Monsieur,” she said, “it is terrible, this _ombrelle_, when mamma lies
at death’s door. But what can I do? I have no other, and cannot afford
to buy one. The sun is fierce. I dare not expose myself to it without a
shelter.”
She seemed really distressed as she opened the parasol, and spread the
vivid silk above her pretty black-clothed figure; but Mr. Greyne thought
the effect was brilliant, and ventured to say so. As they passed the
bureau by the fountain on their way out the stout Frenchwoman cast an
approving glance at Mademoiselle Verbena.
“The little rat will not see much more of the little negro now,” she
murmured to herself. “After all the English have their uses.”