As they left the arcaded streets of commercial Algiers, and drove up the
long hill towards Mustapha Supérieur, where most of the best and finest
houses are, Stephen and Nevill Caird talked of what they saw, and of
Victoria Ray; not at all of Stephen himself. Nevill had asked him what
sort of trip he had had, and not another question of any sort. Stephen
was glad of this, and understood very well that it was not because his
friend was indifferent. Had he been so, he would not have invited
Stephen to make this visit.
To speak of the past they had shared, long ago, would naturally have led
farther, and though Stephen was not sure that he mightn't some day
refer, of his own accord, to the distasteful subject of the Case and
Margot Lorenzi, he could not have borne to mention either now.
As they passed gateways leading to handsome houses, mostly in the Arab
style, Nevill told him who lived in each one: French, English, and
American families; people connected with the government, who remained in
Algiers all the year round, or foreigners who came out every winter for
love of their beautiful villa gardens and the climate.
"We've rather an amusing society here," he said. "And we'd defend
Algiers and each other to any outsider, though our greatest pleasure is
quarrelling among ourselves, or patching up one another's rows and
beginning again on our own account. It's great fun and keeps us from
stagnating. We also give quantities of luncheons and teas, and are sick
of going to each other's entertainments; yet we're so furious if there's
anything we're not invited to, we nearly get jaundice. I do
myself--though I hate running about promiscuously; and I spend hours
thinking up ingenious lies to squeeze out of accepting invitations I'd
have been ill with rage not to get. And there are factions which loathe
each other worse than any mere Montagus and Capulets. We have rival
parties, and vie with one another in getting hold of any royalties or
such like, that may be knocking about; but we who hate each other most,
meet at the Governor's Palace and smile sweetly if French people are
looking; if not, we snort like war-horses--only in a whisper, for we're
invariably polite."
Stephen laughed, as he was meant to do. "What about the Arabs?" he
asked, with Victoria's errand in his mind. "Is there such a thing as
Arab society?"
"Very little--of the kind we'd call 'society'--in Algiers. In Tunis
there's more. Much of the old Arab aristocracy has died out here, or
moved away; but there are a few left who are rich and well born. They
have their palaces outside the town; but most of the best houses have
been sold to Europeans, and their Arab owners have gone into the
interior where the Roumis don't rub elbows with them quite as
offensively as in a big French town like this. Naturally they prefer the
country. And I know a few of the great Arab Chiefs--splendid-looking
fellows who turn up gorgeously dressed for the Governor's ball every
year, and condescend to dine with me once or twice while they're staying
on to amuse themselves in Algiers."
"Condescend!" Stephen repeated.
"By Jove, yes. I'm sure they think it's a great condescension. And I'm
not sure you won't think so too, when you see them--as of course you
will. You must go to the Governor's ball with me, even if you can't be
bothered going anywhere else. It's a magnificent spectacle. And I get on
pretty well among the Arabs, as I've learned to speak their lingo a bit.
Not that I've worried. But nearly nine years is a long time."
This was Stephen's chance to tell what he chose to tell of his brief
acquaintance with Victoria Ray, and of the mission which had brought her
to Algiers. Somehow, as he unfolded the story he had heard from the girl
on board ship, the scent of orange blossoms, luscious-sweet in this
region of gardens, connected itself in his mind with thoughts of the
beautiful woman who had married Cassim ben Halim, and disappeared from
the world she had known. He imagined her in an Arab garden where orange
blossoms fell like snow, eating her heart out for the far country and
friends she would never see again, rebelling against a monstrous tyranny
which imprisoned her in this place of perfumes and high white walls. Or
perhaps the scented petals were falling now upon her grave.
"Cassim ben Halim--Captain Cassim ben Halim," Nevill repeated. "Seems
familiar somehow, as if I'd heard the name; but most of these Arab names
have a kind of family likeness in our ears. Either he's a person of no
particular importance, or else he must have left Algiers before my Uncle
James Caird died--the man who willed me his house, you know--brother of
Aunt Caroline MacGregor who lives with me now. If I've ever heard
anything about Ben Halim, whatever it is has slipped my mind. But I'll
do my best to find out something."
"Miss Ray believes he was of importance," said Stephen. "She oughtn't to
have much trouble getting on to his trail, should you think?"
Nevill looked doubtful. "Well, if he'd wanted her on his trail, she'd
never have been off it. If he didn't, and doesn't, care to be got at,
finding him mayn't be as simple as it would be in Europe, where you can
always resort to detectives if worst comes to worst."
"Can't you here?" asked Stephen.
"Well, there's the French police, of course, and the military in the
south. But they don't care to interfere with the private affairs of
Arabs, if no crime's been committed--and they wouldn't do anything in
such a case, I should think, in the way of looking up Ben Halim, though
they'd tell anything they might happen to know already, I
suppose--unless they thought best to keep silence with foreigners."
"There must be people in Algiers who'd remember seeing such a beautiful
creature as Ben Halim's wife, even if her husband whisked her away nine
years ago," Stephen argued.
"I wonder?" murmured Caird, with an emphasis which struck his friend as
odd.
"What do you mean?" asked Stephen.
"I mean, I wonder if any one in Algiers ever saw her at all? Ben Halim
was in the French Army; but he was a Mussulman. Paris and Algiers are a
long cry, one from the other--if you're an Arab."
"Jove! You don't think----"
"You've spotted it. That's what I do think."
"That he shut her up?"
"That he forced her to live the life of a Mussulman woman. Why, what
else could you expect, when you come to look at it?"
"But an American girl----"
"A woman who marries gives herself to her husband's nation as well as to
her husband, doesn't she--especially if he's an Arab? Only, thank God,
it happens to very few European girls, except of the class that doesn't
so much matter. Think of it. This Ben Halim, a Spahi officer, falls dead
in love with a girl when he's on leave in Paris. He feels he must have
her. He can get her only by marriage. They're as subtle as the devil,
even the best of them, these Arabs. He'd have to promise the girl
anything she wanted, or lose her. Naturally he wouldn't give it away
that he meant to veil her and clap her into a harem the minute he got
her home. If he'd even hinted anything of that sort she wouldn't have
stirred a step. But for a Mussulman to let his wife walk the streets
unveiled, like a Roumia, or some woman of easy virtue, would be a
horrible disgrace to them both. His relations and friends would cut
him, and hoot her at sight. The more he loved his wife, the less likely
he'd be to keep a promise, made in a different world. It wouldn't be
human nature--Arab human nature--to keep it. Besides, they have the
jealousy of the tiger, these Eastern fellows. It's a madness."
"Then perhaps no one ever knew, out here, that the man had brought home
a foreign wife?"
"Almost surely not. No European, that is. Arabs might know--through
their women. There's nothing that passes which they can't find out. How
they do it, who can tell? Their ways are as mysterious as everything
else here, except the lives of us _hiverneurs_, who don't even try very
hard to hide our own scandals when we have any. But no Arab could be
persuaded or forced to betray another Arab to a European, unless for
motives of revenge. For love or hate, they stand together. In virtues
and vices they're absolutely different from Europeans. And if Ben Halim
doesn't want anybody, not excepting his wife's sister, to get news of
his wife, why, it may be difficult to get it, that's all I say. Going to
Miss Ray's hotel, you could see something of that Arab street close by,
on the fringe of the Kasbah--which is what they call, not the old fort
alone, but the whole Arab town."
"Yes. I saw the queer white houses, huddled together, that looked like
blank walls only broken by a door, with here and there a barred window."
"Well, what I mean is that it's almost impossible for any European to
learn what goes on behind those blank walls and those little square
holes, in respectable houses. But we'll hope for the best. And here we
are at my place. I'm rather proud of it."
They had come to the arched gateway of a white-walled garden. The sun
had set fire to the gold of some sunken Arab lettering over the central
arch, so that each broken line darted forth its separate flame. "Djenan
el Djouad; House of the Nobleman," Nevill translated. "It was built for
the great confidant of a particularly wicked old Dey of Algiers, in
sixteen hundred and something, and the place had been allowed to fall
into ruin when my uncle bought it, about twenty or thirty years ago.
There was a romance in his life, I believe. He came to Algiers for his
health, as a young man, meaning to stay only a few months, but fell in
love with a face which he happened to catch a glimpse of, under a veil
that disarranged itself--on purpose or by accident--in a carriage
belonging to a rich Arab. Because of that face he remained in Algiers,
bought this house, spent years in restoring it, exactly in Arab style,
and making a beautiful garden out of his fifteen or sixteen acres.
Whether he ever got to know the owner of the face, history doesn't
state: my uncle was as secretive as he was romantic. But odd things have
been said. I expect they're still said, behind my back. And they're
borne out, I'm bound to confess, by the beauty of the decorations in
that part of the house intended for the ladies. Whether it was ever
occupied in Uncle James's day, nobody can tell; but Aunt Caroline, his
sister, who has the best rooms there now, vows she's seen the ghost of a
lovely being, all spangled gauze and jewels, with silver khal-khal, or
anklets, that tinkle as she moves. I assure my aunt it must be a dream,
come to punish her for indulging in two goes of her favourite sweet at
dinner; but in my heart I shouldn't wonder if it's true. The whole lot
of us, in our family, are romantic and superstitious. We can't help it
and don't want to help it, though we suffer for our foolishness often
enough, goodness knows."
The scent of orange blossoms and acacias was poignantly sweet, as the
car passed an Arab lodge, and wound slowly up an avenue cut through a
grove of blossoming trees. The utmost pains had been taken in the laying
out of the garden, but an effect of carelessness had been preserved. The
place seemed a fairy tangle of white and purple lilacs, gold-dripping
laburnums, acacias with festoons of pearl, roses looping from orange
tree to mimosa, and a hundred gorgeous tropical flowers like painted
birds and butterflies. In shadowed nooks under dark cypresses, glimmered
arum lilies, sparkling with the diamond dew that sprayed from carved
marble fountains, centuries old; and low seats of marble mosaiced with
rare tiles stood under magnolia trees or arbours of wistaria. Giant
cypresses, tall and dark as a band of Genii, marched in double line on
either side the avenue as it straightened and turned towards the house.
White in the distance where that black procession halted, glittered the
old Arab palace, built in one long façade, and other façades smaller,
less regular, looking like so many huge blocks of marble grouped
together. Over one of these blocks fell a crimson torrent of
bougainvillæa; another was veiled with white roses and purple clematis;
a third was showered with the gold of some strange tropical creeper that
Stephen did not know.
On the roof of brown and dark-green tiles, the sunlight poured, making
each tile lustrous as the scale of a serpent, and all along the edge
grew tiny flowers and grasses, springing out of interstices to wave
filmy threads of pink and gold.
The principal façade was blank as a wall, save for a few small,
mysterious windows, barred with _grilles_ of iron, green with age; but
on the other façades were quaint recessed balconies, under projecting
roofs supported with beams of cedar; and the door, presently opened by
an Arab servant, was very old too, made of oak covered with an armour of
greenish copper.
Even when it had closed behind Stephen and Nevill, they were not yet in
the house, but in a large court with a ceiling of carved and painted
cedar-wood supported by marble pillars of extreme lightness and grace.
In front, this court was open, looking on to an inner garden with a
fountain more delicate of design than those Stephen had seen outside.
The three walls of the court were patterned all over with ancient tiles
rare as some faded Spanish brocade in a cathedral, and along their
length ran low seats where in old days sat slaves awaiting orders from
their master.
Out from this court they walked through a kind of pillared cloister, and
the façades of the house as they passed on, were beautiful in pure
simplicity of line; so white, they seemed to turn the sun on them to
moonlight; so jewelled with bands and plaques of lovely tiles, that they
were like snowy shoulders of a woman hung with necklaces of precious
stones.
By the time they had left this cloistered garden and threaded their way
indoors, Stephen had lost his bearings completely. He was convinced
that, once in, he should never find the clue which would guide him out
again as he had come. There was another garden court, much larger than
the first, and this, Nevill said, had been the garden of the
palace-women in days of old. It had a fountain whose black marble basin
was fringed with papyrus, and filled with pink, blue, and white water
lilies, from under whose flat dark pads glimmered the backs of darting
goldfish. Three walls of this garden had low doorways with cunningly
carved doors of cedar-wood, and small, iron-barred windows festooned
with the biggest roses Stephen had ever seen; but the fourth side was
formed by an immense loggia with a dais at the back, and an open-fronted
room at either end. Walls and floor of this loggia were tiled, and
barred windows on either side the dais looked far down over a world
which seemed all sky, sea, and garden. One of the little open rooms was
hung with Persian prayer-rugs which Stephen thought were like fading
rainbows seen through a mist; and there were queer old tinselled
pictures such as good Moslems love: Borak, the steed of the prophet,
half winged woman, half horse; the Prophet's uncle engaged in mighty
battle; the Prophet's favourite daughter, Fatma-Zora, daintily eating
her sacred breakfast. The other room at the opposite end of the tiled
loggia was fitted up, Moorish fashion, for the making of coffee; walls
and ceiling carved, gilded, and painted in brilliant colours; the floor
tiled with the charming "windmill" pattern; many shelves adorned with
countless little coffee cups in silver standards; with copper and brass
utensils of all imaginable kinds; and in a gilded recess was a curious
apparatus for boiling water.
Nevill Caird displayed his treasures and the beauties of his domain with
an ingenuous pride, delighted at every word of appreciation, stopping
Stephen here and there to point out something of which he was fond,
explaining the value of certain old tiles from the point of view of an
expert, and gladly lingering to answer every question. Some day, he
said, he was going to write a book about tiles, a book which should have
wonderful illustrations.
"Do you really like it all?" he asked, as Stephen looked out from a
barred window of the loggia, over the wide view.
"I never even imagined anything so fantastically beautiful," Stephen
returned warmly. "You ought to be happy, even if you could never go
outside your own house and gardens. There's nothing to touch this on the
Riviera. It's a palace of the 'Arabian Nights.'"
"There was a palace in the 'Arabian Nights,' if you remember," said
Nevill, "where everything was perfect except one thing. Its master was
miserable because he couldn't get that thing."
"The Roc's egg, of Aladdin's palace," Stephen recalled. "Do you lack a
Roc's egg for yours?"
"The equivalent," said Nevill. "The one thing which I want, and don't
seem likely to get, though I haven't quite given up hope. It's a woman.
And she doesn't want me--or my palace. I'll tell you about her some
day--soon, perhaps. And maybe you'll see her. But never mind my troubles
for the moment. I can put them out of my mind with comparative ease, in
the pleasure of welcoming you. Now we'll go indoors. You haven't an idea
what the house is like yet. By the way, I nearly forgot this chap."
He put his hand into the pocket of his grey flannel coat, and pulled out
a green frog, wrapped in a lettuce leaf which was inadequate as a
garment, but a perfect match as to colour.
"I bought him on the way down to meet you," Nevill explained. "Saw an
Arab kid trying to sell him in the street, poor little beast. Thought it
would be a friendly act to bring him here to join my happy family, which
is large and varied. I don't remember anybody living in this fountain
who's likely to eat him, or be eaten by him."
Down went the frog on the wide rim of the marble fountain, and sat
there, meditatively, with a dawning expression of contentment, so
Stephen fancied, on his green face. He looked, Stephen thought, as if he
were trying to forget a troubled past, and as if his new home with all
its unexplored mysteries of reeds and lily pads were wondrously to his
liking.
"I wish you'd name that person after me," said Stephen. "You're being
very good to both of us,--taking us out of Hades into Paradise."
"Come along in," was Nevill Caird's only answer. But he walked into the
house with his hand on Stephen's shoulder.