THE SIRDAR'S BALL
Biddy, radiating joy, walked beside me with wide-open, eager eyes,
taking in every detail of the historic house. She admired the immense
hall, whose archways opened into dim, fragrant gardens. She was
entranced with the Sudanese band, ink-black giants uniformed in white,
playing wild native music in the moonlight. She wanted to stop and make
friends with the Shoebill, a super-stork, apparently carved in shining
metal, with a bill like an enormous slipper, eyes like the hundredth-
part-of-a-second stop in a Kodak, and feet that tested each new tuft of
grass on the lawn, as if it were a specimen of some hitherto
undiscovered thing.
No question but she was happy! I was proud of her, and proud of myself
because my love had power to give her happiness. What matter now if I
were being robbed at the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, by some
unknown thief? Neither he nor any one could steal Biddy.
Even Cleopatra seemed pleased to be coming to the Sirdar's ball, though
gloom lay heavy upon her. She wanted to look her best. She wanted to be
admired by the officers she was to meet, and to have as many partners
as she could split dances for. To be admired by some one was essential
to her just now, a soothing medicine to heal the smart of hurt vanity.
Monny, I felt, had made herself look beautiful only because she thought
that Antoun, unseen, would see her. As we entered the ballroom, her
eyes were wistful, searching, yet not expecting to find. He had said
that she would never see Antoun again.
I found friends in the ballroom: men I knew at home, and a few pretty
women I had met in England or abroad: but there was no more than time
to be received by the Aide-de-Camp, and to introduce a few officers to
my three ladies, when the moment came for the formal entry of our host
and hostess, the soldier-Sirdar and his graceful wife, the Royalties of
the Sudan. We were presented: and I guessed at once that the Sirdar had
been prepared in advance to take a special interest in Rosamond Gilder.
"Anthony has told him the whole thing, and asked his help," was my
thought. From the instant of his kindly greeting for the girl, I found
myself suddenly, excitedly assuming the attitude of a spectator in a
theatre, on the night of a new play. I knew the plot of the play, but
not how it would be presented, nor how it would work out. I saw that
the Sirdar had made up his mind to a certain line of action where Monny
was concerned. And by and by, when he had time to spare from his
general duties as host, I heard him ask if she would like to go on the
roof, where Gordon used to stand watching for the English soldiers to
come.
"I will take you," he said. "And if you like to stay longer than I can
stop away from our guests, I'll give you another guide."
He turned to Biddy and me. (Cleopatra was dancing with Baron Rudolph
von Slatin Pasha, gorgeous in medals and stars: Brigit and I had just
stopped.)
"Would you like to come, too?" the Sirdar asked.
I answered for Biddy, knowing what she would want me to say. And still
the sense of being a spectator in a wonderful theatre was dreamily upon
me. Stronger and stronger the impression grew, as the Sirdar led us out
onto a wide loggia white with moonlight, and up a flight of stairs to a
flat roof. Overhead a sky of milk was spangled with flashing stars.
Beneath our eyes lay the palace gardens, where the torches of the
Sudanese band glowed like transfixed fireflies, in the pale moon-rays.
Palms and acacias and jewelled flower-beds, were cut out sharply in
vivid colour by the lights which streamed from open windows. Beyond
--past the zone of violet shadow so like a stage background--was the
sheen of the river, bright as spilt mercury under the moon. And beyond
again, on the other side of the Nile, the tawny flame of that desert
across which came the Khalifa's fierce army. "This is where Gordon
used to stand," the Sirdar stopped us near the parapet. "Only the roof
was one story lower then. He climbed up here every day, till the last,
to look out across the desert, saying: 'The English _will_ come!'
There's a black gardener I have, who thinks he meets him now, on
moonlight nights like this, walking in the garden. It wasn't much of a
garden in his day; only palms and orange trees: but a rose-bush he
planted and loved is alive still. I've just asked one of my officers
--one whom I particularly want you to meet, Miss Gilder--to pluck a rose
from Gordon's bush and bring it to you here. He knows where to find us;
and when he comes, I must go back to the ballroom and leave you--all
three--to his guidance. Lord Ernest and he used to be friends as boys,
I believe. Perhaps you've heard him speak of Captain Anthony Fenton?"
"Perhaps. I don't remember," Monny answered, apologetically. She, so
self-confident and self-possessed, was charmingly shy with this great
soldier who had made history in the Sudan.
"If you don't remember, Lord Ernest can't have done justice to the
subject. Fenton's one of the finest young officers in Egypt, or indeed,
in the service. We're rather proud of him. Lately he's been employed on
a special mission, which he has carried out extremely well. Few others
could have done it, for a man of great audacity and self-restraint was
needed: a combination hard to find. He has been in the Balkans. And
since, has had a particularly delicate task intrusted to him, to be
conducted with absolute secrecy. No 'kudos' to be got out of it in case
of success. And failure would almost certainly have cost his life. It
was a question of disguise, and getting at the native heart."
"It sounds like something in a story book," said Monny, while Brigit
and I kept mum, drinking in gulps of moonlight.
"Yes," the Sirdar agreed, "or the autobiography of Sir Richard Burton.
Fenton has the same extraordinary gift of language and dialect that
Burton had: the art of 'make-up,' too; and he's been to Mecca; a great
adventure I believe he had. Perhaps you can get him to talk of it:
though he's not fond of talking about himself. Altogether he's what I
sometimes hear the ladies call 'a romantic figure.' His father was a
famous soldier. If you were English you would have heard of him. He
broke off a brilliant career in Egypt by running away with a beautiful
princess. She was practically all Greek and Italian, though her father
called himself a Turk: no Egyptian blood whatever. But there was a
great row, of course, and Charles Fenton left the Army. Now Anthony
Fenton's grandfather, who lives in Constantinople, would like to adopt
his grandson: but the young man is in every sense of the word an
Englishman, devoted to his career, and doesn't want a fortune or a
Turkish title."
"Why, that sounds--" Monny faltered.
"Like a man of character, and a born soldier, doesn't it? Here he comes
now."
There was a sound of quick, light footsteps on the stairs. In silence
we turned to see a tall young officer in uniform walk out upon the flat
roof. The moon shone straight into a face grave, yet eager, so deeply
sunburned as to be brown even in that pale light: long eyebrows
sketched sharply as if in ink--the black lines running down toward the
temples; large, sad eyes; a slight upward hitch of the mouth on one
side; clear cut Roman nose; aggressive chin.
"Miss Gilder, let me introduce Captain Anthony Fenton," the Sirdar
said.
"I've brought you a rose," said Anthony.
They stood looking at one another for a long moment, the sun-browned
British officer, and the pale girl. We, Biddy and I, stared at them
both from our distance; and when the spell of the instant had broken,
we saw that the Sirdar had gone.
We, too, would have gone, though the man and the girl were between us
and the stairway, and we should have had to push past them. But
Anthony, seeing our hesitation, spoke quietly. "Don't go," he said. "I
may want you."
Never until to-night had Monny Gilder heard him speak English.
"You see," he said to her, "why I told you yesterday you would never
see Antoun again. I had to tell you that, to make sure you would trust
me--fully, through everything. You _have_ trusted me, and so you've
made it possible for me to keep my vow--a wrong and stupid vow, but it
had to be kept. When I was angry because you treated me like a servant,
I swore that never, no matter how I might be tempted, would I tell you
with my own lips who I was--or let Borrow tell. I was going to make
myself of importance in your life as Ahmed Antoun, if I could, not as
Anthony Fenton. But long before that night at Philae I was ashamed. I
--but you said then, you would forgive me. Now, when you understand what
you didn't understand then, can you still say the same?"
"I--hardly know what to say," she answered. "I don't know how I feel
--about anything."
"Well, I know, you goose!" exclaimed Biddy, rushing to the rescue,
where angels who haven't learned to think with their hearts might have
feared to tread. "You feel so happy you're afraid you're going to howl.
Why, it's all perfectly wonderful! And only the silliest, earliest
Victorian girls would sulk because they'd been 'deceived.' If anybody
deceived you, you deceived _yourself_. _I_ knew who he was from the
first! So did your Aunt Clara. We'd kept our ears open, and heard the
Duffer talk about his friend Anthony Fenton who was coming to meet us.
_You_ were mooning I suppose, and didn't listen. We didn't give him
away partly because it wasn't our business, and partly because each of
us was up to another game, never mind what. Captain Fenton never tried
to play you a trick. You threw yourself at his head, you know you did,
from Shepheard's terrace. He had his _mission_ to think of, and you'd
be _very_ conceited if you thought he ought to have let you interfere
with it. As it happened, you worked in quite well with the mission at
first. Then Fate stepped in, and made the band play a different dance
tune; no military march, but a love-waltz. That wasn't his fault. And I
have to remind you of all this, because you're glaring at Captain
Fenton now as if he'd done something wrong instead of fine, and he
can't praise himself."
As she finished, out of breath, having dashed on without a single
comma, the giant black musicians in the garden began to sing a strange
African love song, in deep rich voices, their instruments, which had
played with precision European airs, suddenly pouring out their
primitive, passionate souls.
"Biddy dear," said the girl in a small, meek voice, "thank you very
much, and you're just sweet. But I _didn't_ need even you to defend him
to me. I was only just stopping to breathe, for fear my heart would
burst, because I was _dizzy_ with too much joy. I _worship_ him! And
--and you can both go away now, please. We don't want you."
We went. Biddy would have fallen downstairs, if I hadn't caught her
round the waist. Needless to say, I didn't look back; but Biddy did,
and should by rights have been turned into a pillar of salt.
"My gracious, but they're beautiful!" she gasped. "For goodness' sake,
let's dash as fast as we can, down into the garden, and do the same
thing!"
"What?" I floundered.
"Why, you _duffer_, kiss each other like mad!"
* * * * *
Boiling with excitement, when I met Cleopatra later in the ballroom, I
told her what was going on above, in the moonlight, on the roof.
"At last your niece knows what I think you have guessed all along, but
so wisely kept to yourself," I said. "About Fenton, I mean. It's all
right between those two now. They will come downstairs engaged."
"Everybody is engaged!" Cleopatra stormily retorted.
"That's exactly what I remarked to Brigit, before I could persuade her
to follow the general example. 'Everybody in the world is engaged
except ourselves,' are the words I used."
"And except me," added Mrs. East. "You forgot me, didn't you?"
"Never!" I insisted. "You could be engaged to a dozen men any moment,
if you wanted to."
"I think you're exaggerating a little, Lord Ernest," Cleopatra replied
modestly and unsmilingly. But her countenance brightened faintly. "Of
course there are a few men--there were some in New York--"
"You don't need to tell me that," I assured her.
"I feel as if I'd like to tell you something else," she went on, "if
you can spare a few minutes."
"Will you sit out the next dance?" I asked. "It isn't a Bunny Hug or
Tango, or anything distracting for lookers-on."
"Aren't you dancing with Brigit?"
"No such luck--I mean, fortunately not. She has grabbed Slatin Pasha,
and forgotten that I exist. By jove, there come Miss Gilder and Fenton.
What a couple! They're rather gorgeous, waltzing together--what?"
"Very nice," said Cleopatra, trying with all her over-amuleted heart,
not to be acid. "But oh, Lord Ernest, that _settles_ it! I _must_ be
engaged myself, _before_ Monny brings him to show me, like a cat with a
mouse it's caught. Otherwise I couldn't _stand_ it; and afterward would
be too late."
Hastily I rushed her out into the garden, where the Shoebill regarded
her with one eye of prehistoric wisdom. If she really were a
reincarnation, I'm sure he knew it: and had probably belonged to her in
Alexandria, when she was Queen.
"There's a Mr. Talmadge in New York," she went on, wildly. "He said he
would come to me from across the world, at a moment's notice, if I
wired. Only it would be awkward if I announced our engagement to-night,
and then found he'd changed his mind. Besides, he'd be a _last_ resort:
and Sayda Sabri said I ought--"
"Why not wire _Sir Marcus_?" I ventured. (If his telegram had not come
yesterday, I would as soon have advised Cleopatra to adopt an asp.)
"Oh! well--I _was_ thinking of it. That's one thing I wanted to ask
your advice about. I believe he does love me."
"Idolizes is the word."
"And now and then in the night I've had a feeling, it was almost like
wasting something _Providential_, to refuse a Marcus Antonius. Sayda
Sabri warned me to wait for a man named Antony, whom I should meet in
Egypt. That's why I--but no matter now. The 'Lark' is a dreadful
obstacle, though. How could I live with a lark?"
"Lady Lark has quite a musical lilt."
"Do you think so? There's one thing, even if you're the wife of a
marquis or an earl, you can only be called 'Lady' This or That. You
might be _anything_. He's taller than Antoun--I mean, Captain Fenton.
And his eyes are just as nice--in their way. They quite haunt me, since
Philae. But Lord Ernest, he has some horrid, common little tricks! He
scratches his hair when he's worried. If you look up his coat sleeves
you catch glimpses of gray Jaeger, a thing I always felt I could
_never_ marry. And worst of all, when he finishes a meal and goes away
from the table, he walks off _eating!_"
"I don't suppose," said I, "that your first Marcus Antonius ever went
away from a table at all--on his feet; anyhow, while you were doing him
so well in Egypt. He had to be carried. _I_ call Sir Marcus (and I
stole the Sirdar's epithet for the other Anthony) a Romantic Figure!
His adoration for you is a--a sonnet. There's no 'h' in his name to
bother you. And he fell in love at first sight, like a real sport--I
mean, like the hero of a book. If he has ways you don't approve, you
can cure them; redecorate and remodel him with the latest American
improvements. Why, I believe he'd go so far as to give his Lark a tail
if you asked him to spell it with an 'e'."
"Well--I suppose you're right about what I'd better do," she sighed. "A
bird in the hand--oh, I'm not making a silly pun about a lark--is worth
two in New York! Please tell _every one_ you see I'm engaged to Sir
Marcus, for he is my bird in the hand: and I'll send off a telegram the
first thing to-morrow morning, for fear he hears the news that he's
engaged to me, prematurely. Where is he--do you know?"
"By to-morrow he'll be at Meröe Camp," I said: But I did not add: "So
shall we!"