The first excitement of arrival over, he drew breath, as it were, and
looked about him. Egypt delighted and amazed him, surpassing his
expectations. Its effect upon him was instantaneous and profound.
The decisive note sounded at Alexandria continued in his ears. Egypt drew
him in with golden, powerful arms. In every detail it was strange, yet
with the strangeness of a predetermined welcome. It was not strange to
_him_. The thrill of welcome made him feel at home. He had come
back. . . .
Here, at Assouan, he was aware of Africa, mystic, half-monstrous
continent, lying with its heat and wonder just beyond the horizon.
He saw the Southern Cross, pitched low above the sandy rim. . . .
Yet Africa had no call for him. It left him without a thrill, an
uninviting, undesirable land. It was Egypt that made the intimate and
personal appeal, as of a deeply loved and half-familiar place. It seemed
to gather him in against its mighty heart. He lay in some niche of
comforting warm sand against the ancient mass that claimed him, tucked in
by the wonder and the mystery, protected, even mothered. It was an oddly
stimulated imagination that supplied the picture--and made him smile.
He snuggled down deeper and deeper into this figurative warm bed of sand
the ages had pre-ordained. He felt secure and sheltered--as though the
wonder and the mystery veiled something that menaced joy in him, something
that concealed a notion of attack. Almost there seemed a whisper in the
wind, a watchful and unclosing eye behind the dazzling sunshine:
'Surrender yourself to me, and I will care for you. I will protect you
against . . . yourself. . . . Beware!'
This peculiar excitement in his blood was somehow precisely what he had
expected; the wonder and the thrill were natural and right. He had known
that Egypt would mesmerise his soul exactly in this way. He had, it
seemed, anticipated both the exhilaration and the terror. He thought much
about it all, and each time Egypt looked him in the face, he saw Lettice
too. They were inseparably connected, as it were. He saw her brilliant
eyes peering through the great tawny visage. Together they bade him pause
and listen. . . . The wind brought up its faint, elusive whisper:
'Wait. . . . We have not done with you. . . . Wait and listen!
Watch . . .!'
Before his mind's eye the mighty land lay like a map, a blazing garden of
intenser life that the desolation ill concealed. Europe seemed infinitely
remote, the life he had been accustomed to unreal, of tepid interest,
while the intimate appeal that Egypt made grew more insistent every hour
of the day. It was Luxor, however, that called him peremptorily--Luxor
where all that was dearest to him in life now awaited his return.
He yearned for Luxor; Thebes drew him like a living magnet. Lettice was
in Thebes, and Thebes also seemed the heart of ancient Egypt, its centre
and its climax. 'Come back to us,' whispered the sweet desert wind;
'we are waiting. . . .' In Thebes seemed the focus of the strange
Egyptian spell.
At all hours of the day and night, here in Assouan, it caught him, asking
forever the great unanswerable questions. In the pauses of his strenuous
work, in the watches of the night, when he heard the little owls and the
weird barking of the prowling jackals; in the noontide heat, and in the
cold glimmer of the quiet stars, he was never unconscious of its haunting
presence, he was never beyond its influence. He was never quite
alone. . . .
What did it mean? And why did this hint of danger, of pain, of loneliness
lurk behind the exhilaration and the peace? Wherein lay the essence of
the enchantment this singular Egyptian glamour laid upon his very soul?
In his laborious way, Tom worked at the disentanglement, but without much
success. One curious thought, however, persisted with a strange enough
significance. It rose, in a sense, unbidden. It was not his brain that
discovered it. It just 'came.'
For he was thinking of other wonderful countries he had known.
He remembered Japan and India, both surpassing Egypt in colour, sunshine,
gorgeous pageantry, and certainly equalling it in historical association
and the rest. Yet, for him, these old lands had no spell, no glamour
comparable to what he now experienced. The mind contains them,
understands them easily. They are continuous with their past.
The traveller drops in and sees them as they always have been. They are
still, so to speak, going on comfortably as before. There is no shock of
dislocation. They have not died.
Whereas Egypt has left the world; Egypt is dead; there is no link with
present things. Both heart and mind are aware of this deep vacuum they
vainly strive to fill. That ancient civilisation, both marvellous and
somewhere monstrous, breaking with beauty, burning with aspiration,
mysterious and vital--all has vanished as completely as though it had not
been. The prodigious ruins hint, but cannot utter. No reconstruction
from tomb or temple can recall a great dream the world has lost.
It is forgotten, swept away, there is no clue. Egypt has left the
world. . . .
Yet, as he thought about it in his uninspired way, it seemed that some
part of him still beat in sympathy with the pulse of the forgotten dream.
Egypt indeed was dead, yet sometimes--she came back. . . . She came to
revisit her soft stars and moon, her great temples and her mighty tombs.
She stole back into the sunshine and the sand; her broken, ruined heart at
Thebes received her. He saw her as a spirit, a persistent, living
presence, a stupendous Ghost. . . . And the idea, having offered itself,
remained. Both he and Lettice somehow were associated with it, and with
this elusive notion of return. They, too, were entangled in the glamour
and the spell. They, too, had stolen back as from some immemorial lost
dream to revisit the scenes of an intenser yet forgotten life.
And Thebes was its centre; the secretive and forbidding Theban Hills, with
their desolate myriad sepulchres, its focus and its climax. . . .
Assouan detained him only a couple of days. He had capable lieutenants;
there was delay, moreover, in the arrival of certain material; he could
always be summoned quickly by telephone. He sent home his report and took
the express train back to Luxor and to--her.
He had been too occupied, too tired at night, to do more than write a
fond, short letter, then go to sleep; the heat was considerable; he
realised that he was in Africa; the scenery fascinated him, the enormous
tawny desert, the cataracts of golden yellow sand, the magical old river.
The wonder of Philae, with its Osirian shrine and island sanctuary, caught
him as it has caught most other humans. After the sheer bulk of the
pyramids and temples, Philae bursts into the heart with almost lyrical
sweetness. But his heart was fast in Thebes, and not all the enchantment
of this desert paradise could seduce him. Moreover, one detail he
disliked: the ubiquitous earthenware tom-tom that sounded day and
night . . . he heard its sullen beating in his dreams.
Yet of one thing he was ever chiefly conscious--that he was impatient to
be with Lettice, that his heart hungered without ceasing, that she meant
more to him than ever. Her new beauty astonished him, there was a subtle
charm in her presence he had not felt in London, her fresh spontaneous
gaiety filled him with keen delight. And all this was his. His arrival
gave her such joy that she could not even speak of it; yet he was the
cause of it. It made him feel almost shy.
He received one characteristic letter from her. 'Come back as quickly as
you can,' she wrote. 'Tony has gone down the river after his birds, and I
feel lonely. Telegraph, and come to dinner or breakfast according to your
train. I'll meet you if possible. You must come here for all your meals,
as I'm sure the hotel food is poor and the drinking water unsafe.
This is open house, remember, for you both.' And there was a delicious
P.S. 'Mind you only drink filtered water, and avoid the hotel salads
because the water hasn't been boiled.' He kissed the letter. He laughed.
Her tender thought for him almost brought the tears into his eyes. It was
the tenderness of his own mother who was dead.
He reached Luxor in the evening, and to his delight she was on the
platform; long before the train stopped he recognised her figure, the wide
sun-hat with the little roses, the white serge skirt and jacket of knitted
yellow silk to keep the evening chill away. They drove straight to her
house; the sun was down behind the rocky hills and the Nile lay in a dream
of burnished gold; the little owls were calling; there was singing among
the native boatmen on the water; they saw the fields of brilliant green
with the sands beyond, and the keen air from the desert wafted down the
street of what once was great hundred-gated Thebes. A strangely delicate
perfume hung about the ancient city. Tom turned to look at the woman
beside him in the narrow-seated carriage, and felt as if he were driving
through a dream.
'I can stay a week or ten days at least,' he said at last. 'Is old Tony
back?'
Yes, he had just arrived and telephoned to ask if he might come to dinner.
'And look, Tom, you can just see the heads of the Colossi rising out of
the haze,'--she pointed quickly--'I thought we would go and show them you
to-morrow. We might all take our tea and eat it in the clover.
You've seen nothing of Egypt yet.' She spoke rapidly, eagerly, full of
her little plan.
'All?' he repeated doubtfully.
'Yes, wouldn't you like it?'
'Oh, rather,' he said, wondering why he did not say another thing that
rose for a moment in his mind.
'You must see everything,' she went on spontaneously, 'and a dragoman's a
bore. Tony's a far better guide. He knows old Egypt as well as he knows
his old birds.' She laughed. 'It's too ridiculous--his enthusiasm; he's
been dying to explain it all to you as he did to me, and he does it
exactly like a museum guide who is a scholar and a poet too. And he is a
poet, you know. I'd never noticed it before.'
'Splendid,' said Tom. He was thinking several things at once, among them
that the perfumed air reminded him of something he could not quite recall.
It seemed far away and yet familiar. 'I'm a rare listener too,' he added.
'The King's Valley you really must do alone together,' she went on;
'I can't face it a second time--the heat, the gloom of it--it oppressed
and frightened me a little. Those terrible grim hills--they're full of
death, those Theban hills.'
'Tony took you?' he asked.
She nodded. 'We did the whole thing,' she added, 'every single Tomb.
I was exhausted. I think we all were--except Tony.' The eager look in
her face had gone. Her voice betrayed a certain effort. A darkness
floated over it, like the shadow of a passing cloud.
'All of you!' he exclaimed, as though it were important. 'No bird-man
ever feels tired.' He seemed to think a moment. There was a tiny pause.
The carriage was close to the house now, driving up with a flourish, and
Tony and Mrs. Haughstone, an incongruous couple, were visible standing
against the luminous orange sky beside the river. Tom pointed to them
with a chuckle. 'All right,' he exclaimed, with a gesture as though he
came to a decision suddenly, 'it shall be the Colossi to-morrow.
There are two of them, aren't there--only two?'
'Two, yes, the Twin Colossi they call them,' she replied, joining in his
chuckle at the silhouetted figures in the sunset.
'Two,' he repeated with emphasis, 'not three.' But either she did not
notice or else she did not hear. She was leaning forward waving her hand
to her other guests upon the bank.
There followed then the happiest week that Tom had ever known, for there
was no incident to mar it, nor a single word or act that cast the
slightest shadow. His dread of the 'other' who was to come apparently had
left him, the faint uneasiness he had felt so often seemed gone.
He even forgot to think about it. Lettice he had never seen so gay, so
full of enterprise, so radiant. She sparkled as though she had recovered
her girlhood suddenly. With Tony in particular she had incessant battles,
and Tom listened to their conversations with amusement, for on no single
subject were they able to agree, yet neither seemed to get the best of it.
Tom felt unable to keep pace with their more nimble minds. . . .
Tony was certainly improved in many ways, more serious than he had showed
himself before, and extraordinarily full of entertaining knowledge into
the bargain. Birds and the lore of ancient Egypt, it appeared, were
merely two of his pet hobbies; and he talked in such amusing fashion that
he kept Tom in roars of laughter, while stimulating Madame Jaretzka to
vehement contradictions. They were much alone, and profited by it.
The numerous engagements Lettice had mentioned gave no sign.
Tony certainly was a brilliant companion as well as an instructive
cicerone. There was more in him than Tom had divined before. His clever
humour was a great asset in the longer expeditions. 'Tony, I'm tired and
hot; please come and talk to me: I want refreshing,' was never addressed to
Tom, for instance, whose good nature could not take the place of wit.
Each of the three, as it were, supplied what the other lacked; it was not
surprising they got on well together. Tom, however, though always happy
provided Lettice was of the party, envied his cousin's fluid temperament
and facile gifts--even in the smallest things. Tony, for instance, would
mimic Mrs. Haughstone's attitude of having done her hostess a kindness in
coming out to Egypt: 'I couldn't do it _again_, dear Lettice, even for
_you_'--the way Tony said and acted it had a touch of inspiration.
Mrs. Haughstone herself, meanwhile, within the limits of her angular
personality, Tom found also considerably improved. Egypt had changed her
too. He forgave her much because she was afraid of the sun, so left them
often alone. She showed unselfishness, too, even kindness, on more than
one occasion. Tom was aware of a nicer side in her; in spite of her
jealousy and criticism, she was genuinely careful of her hostess's
reputation amid the scandal-loving atmosphere of Egyptian hotel life.
It amused him to see how she arrogated to herself the place of chaperone,
yet Tom saw true solicitude in it, the attitude of a woman who knew the
world towards one who was too trustful. He figured her always holding up
a warning finger, and Lettice always laughingly disregarding her advice.
Her warnings to Lettice to be more circumspect were, at any rate, by no
means always wrong. Though not particularly observant as a rule, he
caught more than once the tail-end of conversations between them in which
advice, evidently, had been proffered and laughed aside. But, since it
did not concern him, he paid little attention, merely aware that there
existed this difference of view. One such occasion, however, Tom had good
cause to remember, because it gave him a piece of knowledge he had long
desired to possess, yet had never felt within his rights to ask for.
It merely gave details, however, of something he already knew.
He entered the room, coming straight from a morning's work at his own
hotel, and found them engaged hammer and tongs upon some dispute regarding
'conduct.' Tony, who had been rowing Madame Jaretzka down the river, had
made his escape. Madame Jaretzka effected hers as Tom came in, throwing
him a look of comical relief across her shoulder. He was alone with the
Irish cousin. 'After all, she _is_ a married woman,' remarked Mrs.
Haughstone, still somewhat indignant from the little battle.
She addressed the words to him as he was the only person within earshot.
It seemed natural enough, he thought.
'Yes,' said Tom politely. 'I suppose she is.'
And it was then, quite unexpectedly, that the woman spoke to him as though
he knew as much as she did. He ought, perhaps, to have stopped her, but
the temptation was too great. He learned the facts concerning Warsaw and
the--husband. That the Prince had ill-treated her consistently during the
first five years of their married life could certainly not justify her
freedom, but that he had lost his reason incurably, no longer even
recognised her, that her presence was discouraged by the doctors since it
increased the violence of his attacks, and that his malady was hopeless
and could end only in his death--all this, while adding to the wonder of
her faithful pilgrimages, did assuredly at the same time set her
free. . . . The effect upon his mind may be imagined; it deepened his
love, increased his admiration, for it explained the suffering in the face
she had turned to sweetness, while also justifying her conduct towards
himself. With a single blow, moreover, it killed the dread Tom had been
haunted by so long--that this was that 'other' who must one day take her
from him, obedient to a bigger claim.
This knowledge, as though surreptitiously obtained, Tom locked within his
breast until the day when she herself should choose to share it with him.
He remembered another little conversation too when, similarly, he
disturbed them in discussion: this time it was Mrs. Haughstone who was
called away.
'Behaving badly, Lettice, is she? Scolding you again?'
'Not at all. Only she sees the bad in every one and I see the good.
She disapproves of Tony rather.'
'Then she will be less often deceived than you,' he replied laughingly.
The reference to Tony had escaped him; his slow mind was on the general
proposition.
'Perhaps. But you can only make people better by believing that they
_are_ better,' she went on with conviction--when Mrs. Haughstone joined
them and took up her parable again:
'My cousin behaves like a child,' she said with amusing severity.
'She doesn't understand the world. But the world is hard upon grown-ups
who behave like children. Lettice thinks everybody good. Her innocence
gets her misjudged. And it's a pity.'
'I'll keep an eye on her,' Tom said solemnly, 'and we'll begin this very
afternoon.'
'Do, Mr. Kelverdon, I'm glad to hear it.' And as she said it, he noticed
another expression on her face as she glanced down the drive where Tony,
dressed in grey flannels and singing to himself, was seen sauntering
towards them. She wore an enigmatic smile by no means pleasant. It gave
him a moment's twinge. He turned from her to Lettice by way of relief.
She was waving her white-gloved hand, her eyes were shining, her little
face was radiant--and Tom's happiness came back upon him in a rising flood
again as he watched her beauty. . . . He thought that Egypt was the most
marvellous place he had ever known. Even Tony looked enchanted--almost
handsome. But Lettice looked divine. He felt more and more that the
woman in her blossomed into life before his very eyes. His content was
absolute.