WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MY BACK WAS TURNED
Three letters for me, brought out by the pilot! One I had expected from
Anthony; but my heart gave a bound as I recognized Brigit's
handwriting, not seen for years; and instinct told me that the third
was from Monny Gilder.
My one thought for the last two days, steaming back from the Piraeus to
Alexandria, had been that I was drawing nearer to Cairo, and to those
whose doings in my absence pulled at my curiosity and keyed my interest
to breaking point. But if you think that I tore open those envelopes
and greedily absorbed their contents the moment they were put into my
hands, you have never been a conductor or even an observant passenger
on a "pleasure yacht." When the letters arrived I was engaged in
persuading breakfast-lingerers (they of the eggs-and-bacon habit, who
ought never to leave their peaceful English homes) that it would give
them more real pleasure to be first in the shore boats than last at the
table. Then to get them into the boats; then to hypnotize Lady Biddell
and Mrs. Harlow into the belief that they would not, could not, be
seasick on the dancing waves which bobbed us up and down. No time to
think of the letters; much less to feel the strangeness of fate which
brought me back in such queer circumstances to the port I had entered
on the _Laconia_ eight days ago.
"As soon as we get on shore," I soothed my gnawing impatience, "I'll
steal a minute somehow." But each moment was so conspicuously labelled
that I could not be a thief of time--my time, which was my charges'
time, bought and paid for by Sir Marcus Lark.
This was not the first occasion on which I'd heard the clanking of my
chains, for, although I flattered myself that I was a popular success,
popularity had penalties. On the night of the lecture I had used the
passengers. Since then they had used me. Old ladies appealed to me on
questions of etiquette, health or religion, and retailed my answers,
not always correctly. Girls asked my advice about keeping up
flirtations, and men wanted my help in getting out of them. I was
expected to spout pages of Strabo or Pliny at an instant's notice; I
must know why Plato went to Egypt, or how long he stayed; and be umpire
between American and British bridge-players. I must be able to explain
the true meaning and age of the Sphinx; invent new deck games; and show
those who hadn't learned, how to dance the Tango. But with those three
letters burning over my heart the duties of conductor became
infuriating.
It was an awful day; for what was Pompey's Pillar to me while I
remained ignorant of my friends' adventures? As I discoursed (more or
less) learnedly about Diocletian, and Ptolemy's plot to drown Pompey in
the Nile, something inside was asking, "Has Anthony fallen in love with
Monny Gilder?" "What scrapes has that blessed girl got into?" "Has
anything happened to worry Biddy?" Even that nameless but incomparable
tomb on the hill of Kom esh-Shukafa could not distract my thoughts from
the sealed envelopes; and three very modern handwritings came
obstinately between my eyes and the matchless wall-paintings--paintings
as fresh in their underground hiding-place as if finished yesterday
instead of in days when it was dowdy to be pagan, fashionable to be
Christian.
Corkran, as a soldier, had to guide a band to Aboukir, and chat about
Nelson; point out the medieval fort of Kait Bey, and dash with hired
motors to Adjemi, where Napoleon landed. Kruger took a few studious
pilgrims to that unspoiled Oriental Nile town where the Rosetta Stone
gave the secrets of Ancient Egypt to the world. It was mine to pilot
the "frivolous lot"; to escort them in carriages round the
Italian-looking city when they had absorbed its two chief sights; to give
them a glimpse of the Museum, and to let them see the beauty and fashion
of Alexandria driving out to San Stefano in the late afternoon. Still I
had no chance to read my letters; but, thought I at the hotel, "Now at
last, it has come!" Not at all! People's trunks were missing, or in the
wrong rooms. It was I who had to sooth alarms, and calm rising storms.
It was I who must assure Mrs. Harlow that her room was really
preferable to that of Lady Biddell; and Lady Biddell that she, and not
Miss Hassett-Bean, had the best in the hotel. Still, I had ten minutes
to dress for dinner. Like Mr. Gladstone, I could do it in five, and
have five left for my letters. But hardly had I slipped a paper knife
under the flap of Monny's envelope (I should have felt a vandal to tear
it) when one of the hotel managers knocked at my door. A gentleman was
being very angry in the dining-room. He insisted on seeing me. He said
he had been Lord Mayor of London, and ought to have a window-table. All
these were previously engaged. What was to be done? Would I kindly come
at once?
I persuaded Sir John that window-tables were the least desirable, owing
to draughts, and returning to my room, had four minutes to dress or
risk further rows. After dinner Miss Hassett-Bean burst into tears
because she was alone in the world owing to the marmoset's death from
seasickness; and now that she was growing old nobody cared to talk to
her. I argued that people were shy because she was more important than
they, and had a reputation for satire. It took half an hour for the
lady's nose to go from red to pink (I think she had papier poudré in
her handkerchief); and then I was obliged to walk on the beach with
Miss Enid Biddell to keep Mr. Watts from proposing. As Snell relieved
me from sentry duty, I was called by Kruger to discuss certain details
of next morning's start for Cairo; and at midnight, when I crawled to
my room a shattered wreck, the letters were still unread.
"I'm incapable of caring now," I groaned, "what has happened to any of
them. If an earthquake has swallowed up our mountain, and Anthony's
married Monny, and Brigit's been abducted, or vice versa, and Miss
Guest has gone off with the jewels, it will leave me calm."
That was the spirit in which I tossed up a coin to see which letter to
read first. Heads, Monny's; tails, Anthony's; but the penny rolled
away, far under the bed where collar-buttons go, and so--I opened
Biddy's. She began:
MY DEAR GOOD DUFFER!
For any sake hurry back. Make an excuse to leave your pilgrims the
minute you get this, and take the first train to Cairo. Surely the late
conductor can be your understudy, and trot the people round Alexandria
for a day? We need you more than they do. I picture you reading this
early in the morning, with Alexandria still in the distance; for you
said you'd arrange to have letters come out to the yacht by the pilot.
I shall expect a telegram saying by what train you'll arrive here in
the afternoon. You'll understand when I've told you everything, why
it's _necessary_ for you to hurry.
We have done and seen so many things, it seems years instead of days
since you left us in care of that handsome Hadji of yours. I wonder if
really you didn't suspect that I guessed who he was; or _did_ you
suspect; and didn't care? I caught the look in your eyes, when you
first saw him standing under the terrace at Shepheard's, and then, when
the name "Antoun Effendi" came up in the conversation, I put two and
two together. Mrs. East guesses, also. I don't know if she did from the
first, but she does now. It isn't a question of "guessing" with either
of us, really. It's a certainty. Not that she's said anything to me or
I to her. That is the malady of us all since you went. We are boiling
with secret thoughts, and keeping them to ourselves, which is bad for
us and for each other in the long run. I haven't told Monny that the
"Egyptian Prince," as Rachel Guest has nicknamed him, is your friend
Captain Anthony Fenton playing some deep game, partly connected with
us, partly connected with a secret of his and yours; the secret you
said was a "dusty" one in which women would not be interested. I
haven't told her, because I don't want her to know. She is always
talking and thinking about him, and is vexed with herself for doing so.
She tries to stop, but can't. If she knew who he was, she wouldn't try
to stop. She'd let herself go, and feel she was living in a beautiful
romance. So she is living in a romance, but I want you to be the hero
of it, not your Anthony Fenton. That's why I don't open her eyes to the
game that's going on. The man is a perfect devil. Not a bad devil, but
a wild devil.
Mrs. East doesn't tell Monny that Antoun is "Anthony with an h" because
she is enjoying the thought that she alone knows the wonderful truth.
She imagines that she is in love with him. She believes Fate has
brought them together--that he is a "reincarnation," as she is, and
that they ought to belong to each other. Well, let them! She isn't more
than six or seven years older than he, and she's rich (though poor
compared to Monny, of course), and every day she grows handsomer. So
does Monny. As for Rachel Guest--but she is in another part of my
story. Yet no, come to think of it, I'll bring her in now, because if
it weren't for developments concerning that young woman, I might be
able to wait one more day without begging you to come to us. She is
taking Monny away from me; and something odd is going on, I can't make
out what. Anyhow, that horrid Bedr el Gemály is in it. And there's to
be a climax, I'm sure, to-morrow night. You'll get this letter
to-morrow morning, for I'm writing it early, with my hair down my back,
and my coffee not ordered, though I'm starving. We've left Shepheard's
because Monny wanted to live for a few days in a hotel close to the
Nile; and we were all pleased with the plan, for this was once a palace
of Khedive Ismael, and his furniture's still in it, the wildest mixture
of Orientalized French taste. There's a garden, with paths of vermilion
sand brought from somewhere in the desert. But the most convulsive
things live along the Nile Valley and spend their nights braying,
hooting, cooing, whining, bellowing, and barking. If only the donkeys
and dogs and birds and a few other sacred animals of Egypt would be a
little more reticent, especially after dark, the country would be
faultless. But what with worrying myself, and listening to furred and
feathered creatures worrying themselves, I couldn't sleep last night,
and I want you to help me! You'll be here to-morrow afternoon, and I
shall stay in to receive you instead of going to the bazaars with the
others, chaperoned by that dark-eyed devil of yours, "Antoun." I was
there all yesterday, watching crowds of tourists buy beautiful
expensive things for themselves, and horrid inexpensive things to take
to their friends. Cleopatra purchased some disgracefully cheap pearls
no self-respecting _mummy_ would be seen in; and my prophetic soul
tells me that she's going to try and dissolve them in wine.
There's to be a fancy dress ball at this hotel to-morrow night--or
rather in the adjacent Casino, which is one reason we migrated here;
and praise the saints you'll be in time for it because if anything's
going to happen, you'll be able to stop whatever it is. If I were
supposed to know that Antoun was Anthony Fenton, I might take him into
my counsels. As it is, I can't. And anyhow, it wouldn't do much good,
at present, because a silent duel is going on between him and Monny. He
is bent on compelling her to acknowledge his authority. She is bent on
resisting it--which is a great compliment to his power--but he doesn't
know that, for he doesn't know Monny yet. It would be fun to watch them
together, if I hadn't your interests to think of.
He hasn't got rid of Bedr el Gemály; but he would have done so, I'm
sure, if it hadn't been for an unexpected turn of the wheel, by the
hand of Fate in the person of Rachel Guest. Her hand is never _off_ the
wheel just now! The few days since you have been away have brought out
the true inwardness of her. _Felis Domestica_ with very little
_Domestica!_ Perhaps it's the air of Egypt which is having a really
extraordinary effect on all of us; perhaps it's the fact that Monny has
given Rachel a lot of lovely clothes which have rejuvenated and
apparently revitalized her. But you will see for yourself, and talk
things over with Your old friend, Biddy.
This was a nice letter to read, heaven knew how many hours too late!
My fatigue had slipped off like the skin off a grape. I felt energetic
enough to start out and walk to Cairo. What could be in Biddy's mind?
And what must she have thought when afternoon and evening passed
without even a telegram? The evening paper, if she had happened to
look, would have told her that the _Candace_ had reached Alexandria in
the morning, as she expected; and she could neither have guessed nor
believed that the whole day would pass without my having a chance to
read her letter. I ransacked the writing-table drawers for a telegraph
form; and finding one had begun to address it, when I stopped. The
message could not go out until morning. Meanwhile there were Monny's
and Anthony's letters to read. One or both might give me some clue to
the "climax" Biddy feared for to-night at the ball. I cut open Monny's
envelope, which had on it an alluring sunset picture of the Pyramids
and the name of the hotel. Hastily I ran through the pages. Not a hint
of anything disquieting! If I had read her letter instead of Brigit's I
might have gone to my well-earned rest without a qualm.
"Dear Lord Ernest," Miss Gilder addressed me, in a handwriting which to
any "expert" would reveal some originality, more pride, still more
conscientiousness, any amount of self-will, and singularly little
conceit. An odd combination! But the Gilded Rose is that. She went on:
You asked me to write to you while you were away, and tell you the
news, and what I thought about things. But I'm thinking so much and so
fast that I can't sort out my thoughts. I suppose it must be so with
every one who comes to Egypt for the first time. Everything fascinates
and absorbs me, even more than I had hoped it would--almost too much, I
feel sometimes. Your Antoun Effendi is a very good guide, and I am not
sorry that we have him--except once in a while. And now and then I'm
glad. We're proud of his looks when we go about, for every one stares
at him and envies us for having him to take us about, instead of being
condemned to a mere dragoman. Oh, talking of dragomen (you see I _will_
call them that!), we still have Bedr, though I know you thought we
ought to give him up, and I don't see how we are ever to discharge him
now, for he has attached himself to Rachel G. in the most wonderful
way. It is _pathetic_. It began with a talk they had the day you left,
about his having been in America, and about _religion_. She found him
half inclined to be converted, and of course, her goodness and
unselfishness made her long to snatch him like a brand from the
burning. He thinks no one ever talked so wonderfully about religion as
she does, which she, dear thing, attributes to the fact that she taught
Sunday-school in Salem. She says, if she can have him to work upon even
for a few weeks, she is sure to make him a convert.
We haven't wasted a minute since you went away, but have seen sights
from morning till night, so as not to have missed anything when we
leave Cairo on the _Enchantress Isis_. I hope you'll be pleased that
I've given up my dream of having a private dahabeah, and that we shall
be with you on Sir Marcus Lark's boat. She is really a beauty. Antoun
took us over her, and on board we met Sir Marcus, who was showing some
friends round. Antoun introduced him to us. I think Sir M. asked him to
do it. We had great fun, for Sir Marcus seemed to take the most violent
fancy to Aunt Clara, who didn't like him at all. She says now that she
believes when she was Cleopatra he was Caesar, and that it's a pity he
can't wear a wreath to hide his baldness, as she remembers his doing
then. It's only a _very_ little bald spot, really, and Rachel Guest
says it reminds her of a tonsure on the head of a fine-looking monk.
Aunt C. quite resents Sir Marcus being able to engage the services of
you and Antoun. She wants you both to be there, but she doesn't like
Sir M. to have a superior position to Antoun's. That day on the
_Enchantress Isis_ Sir M. invited us to have tea on the deck, and it
really was enchanting; a deck like a huge open-air drawingroom, or one
of our biggest verandas at Newport, or somewhere, with jolly green
wicker chairs and tables and sofas with heaps of cushions. But I
forgot--you've seen the boat. The best rooms _were_ engaged, but when
we talked to Sir Marcus, he called a man who can speak many languages
in bits--broken English, cracked German, fractured French, and goodness
knows what all. Between them, they arranged it somehow that we should
have our choice, and the other people were to take what was left. I
would have refused, because it didn't seem fair, but it was for Aunt
Clara's sake, evidently, that Sir M. wanted to make the exchange, and
_she_ accepted. She was as haughty as a queen, but in rather a
fascinating, soft way that I think men like. And she was looking
beautiful. So is Rachel, as even Biddy admits. I do believe Rachel
looks younger than I do, in some new dresses and hats she has. I never
noticed before, but I fancy now that we're rather alike. I'm so
delighted to see her enjoying herself so much, for you know, she's
_wonderful_. Think what courage it must have taken to break with her
tiresome old life, because she felt she must see the glory of the
world, when a tiny legacy gave her the chance she'd longed for. She
wouldn't have had a penny left, after she'd finished her trip, if Aunt
C. and I hadn't been able to help her out. It's a privilege to do
anything for such a brave creature. And I can't bear to think of her
having to go back when this is over, to the dull round. Perhaps some
way out will be found for her.
I've fallen in love with Cairo, although--or perhaps because--I still
feel as if I were moving in a marvellous picture. Antoun does make it
live for us! I will say that for him, though he can be so annoying that
at times he spoils everything, and makes me wish you'd won my hat
instead of my winning his green turban. I'm dying to find out how you
got it. But, of course, I can't ask him: it would be _infra dig_. You
_must_ tell me when you come. I think the one he wears now is handsomer
though. I wish I could change it for mine.
We have been to heaps of mosques, and I can't help wishing we were the
only tourists in Cairo. Of course, this is a selfish wish; and as dear
Biddy says, it's quite funny to think how each tourist feels that _he_
is the only spiritual-minded, imaginative person travelling--that he
alone has the right to be in Egypt--that all the others are offensive,
vulgar creatures, who desecrate the beautiful places with their
presence. But really, you know, it gets on one's nerves, meeting droves
of silly men in pith helmets with little white lambrequins looped up,
when it would be so much more appropriate to wear the kind of hats they
have at home. And some of the women are _weird!_ They have the queerest
ideas of what is suitable for Egypt. One friend of Bedr's refused to go
about and be seen with the ladies who'd engaged him, as he was the
smartest dragoman in Cairo and had his reputation to keep up. Don't you
_like_ that? Even Antoun laughed--which he hardly ever does. He's so
dignified I wish his turban would blow off or something. I _wonder_ how
he'd look without it, and if most of the charm would be gone? Almost, I
hope so. One doesn't like to catch one's self feeling toward an
Egyptian, even for a minute, as one does toward men of one's own blood
--I mean, on the same level, or even as if a person like that were
_above_ one. It's just the picturesque dignity of the _costume_, and
the _pose,_ perhaps. And then, this strange glamour of the East is over
everybody and everything, here. I used to wonder why people wrote and
spoke of the East as _mysterious._ Why should it be more mysterious
than the West? I would ask. Nobody could explain exactly. They said
only, "It is." Now I know why--at least I _feel_ why. Without his green
turban, or in European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away
from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and gold and emerald, Antoun
would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old
fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European
clothes, and the tarboosh which Egyptians love because it never blows
away or falls off when they pray. He _does_ make me angry, because he
wants to banish the beggars and poor men who sell things in the street,
instead of letting me give and buy. What am I _for_, with all my money,
except to do things for people? And it's such fun making them happy by
saying "I _want_ a cat-necklace--" or a scarab, or whatever they have,
instead of pushing past with a stony glare as if they were dust under
our feet. Of course we're attended by great crowds whereever we go,
because it's got round that we don't refuse any one, consequently it
takes a _little_ long to arrive anywhere. But what does that matter in
Egypt? Already I'm losing my American hustle. I want to eat lotuses,
which seem out of season in Egypt now! I've asked for them everywhere
but can't get them. I want to feel back in the Middle Ages, in Cairo,
which, as Antoun says, is an Oriental and Medieval Gateway to the Egypt
older than history. And how I am looking forward to the _Desert!_ Sir
Marcus tells us that _you_ are to take the people of the _Candace_ for
a desert trip before they go up the Nile; so of course you must count
us among your "trippers," and Mr. Willis and Mr. Sheridan, who have
settled to go on the _Isis_. You didn't mention the desert plan before
you went away!
No news of that poor, beautiful child, Wretched Bey's wife though I've
written twice. I'm worried about her. Mabel she used to be. Now she's
Mabella Hânem! Biddy says you'll arrive for the ball to-morrow night.
But somehow I don't _feel_ you will. I don't know why you should. Men
don't care for such things much. And of course I shall not dance, as
I'm still in half mourning. I shall only look on, and then--Rachel and
I have an amusing plan for the end of the evening. But even if you
came, we couldn't let you into the secret, as you would think it silly.
Yours sincerely,
ROSAMOND GILDER.
Mine "sincerely, Rosamond Gilder!" So she ended her letter, with
youthful and characteristic dignity, childishly unaware, apparently,
that there was more to read between the lines than in the lines
themselves.
Had I read this Rosamond letter first, the last four or five sentences
would have meant little for me. As it was, I would have given a month
out of my future for the gift of an astral body which could go this
minute to the ball at the Ghezireh Palace. I was lost in the mystery of
that "amusing plan."
In Anthony's letter lay my last hope of a clue. But in it there was
none. He did not even mention Monny's name. It was all about that
"desert trip" which, from her, I hadn't taken seriously. Sir Marcus was
actually planning it. Kruger had written that some of the passengers
were clamouring for a few days' camping, and the idea was to send them
off in my care, after three days in Cairo, while the others remained in
charge of Antoun, who wasn't yet ready to leave. Fenton said:
Somebody's trying to defeat my scheme for getting the sheikh's tomb
moved. I don't know who it is yet. Meanwhile my time and my head are so
full, that in the few hours of the night I put aside for sleep, I dream
queerer dreams than the visits of ghostly sheikhs. Apropos of dreams,
do you know by chance a man who answers this description: elderly,
stoutish, red face, gray hair, black moustache, pale eyes with sharp
look in them. Sounds commonplace, doesn't it?
But I have a recurring dream of such a man, whose face I never saw
elsewhere. For the last three nights, as soon as I shut my eyes, he
comes. He seems to interrupt some scene between you and Lark, and
myself, and I see him looking over Lark's shoulder. Then he turns
quickly away, and tiptoes off to a very low, closed door in a deep
recess. There he disappears into shadow--and I wake up with a jump, or
slide off into another dream--but generally this rouses me, for there's
an impression of something stealthy in the shadow round the door. That
so ordinary a type of person should be in a dream. You'll laugh at my
asking if you've ever known such a man, and say that I'm back at my old
tricks again, as a dreamer of dreams. Never mind, I scored, dreaming of
our Mountain of the Golden Pyramid the night before I got your letter
with Ferlini's papers. I can't help feeling that there may be something
in dreams--in mine, anyhow, though I never have any except in Egypt.
This one about the red-faced man and the closed door in the deep recess
is getting a bit on my nerves.
Excited as I was over the patchwork of news, I laughed scornfully at
Anthony's dream. For the man he described might be Colonel Corkran.