EDITH AND MEA
Edith had heard it all. Not one bitter taunt, not one rough word had
that merciless interpreter glossed over. She had heard herself called “a
woman who should be scourged with rods” and “a daughter of Satan.” She
had heard herself, while Dick sniggered behind her, and Tabitha strove
to repress a smile that she felt to be unholy, compared to mire in
which, if a man rolled, he could never be clean again, and to a sower of
poisonous weeds, and this by that other hateful woman who had bewitched
her husband with her beauty. She could bear no more; for once her bitter
anger made her almost heroic. She would face them there and then. She
would demand an answer to the question urged in such forcible language
by that blind and sardonic Arab, whose pleasure it was to pick the
holiness of other men to pieces. She hid herself in the shawl. She
pushed herself through the crowd; she stood in front of the platform,
then suddenly unveiled.
Mea saw her first; some instinct of intense antipathy caused her to look
round and find her rival’s eyes. Suddenly she stiffened, falling into
that attitude which she assumed when, as judge, she passed sentence on a
criminal. Then she spoke in English, asking, although already her heart
knew the answer to the question, she who remembered well the picture in
the locket that Rupert used to wear:
“Stranger, who are you who creep into my house not asked? And what seek
you?”
Hearing her voice, Rupert looked round also. Next instant he was
clinging to the arms of his chair to prevent himself from falling out of
it, while over his face there spread a look of woe and terror, such as a
man might wear who suddenly thinks he sees a hated ghost come to summon
him to hell. His heart stopped, his sight grew dim, a cold sweat burst
out upon his forehead.
“I am the Lady Devene,” Edith answered, “and I am here to seek my
husband, Lord Devene, who sits at your side.”
By now Mea had recovered herself, for she felt the crisis of her life
had come, and her bold spirit rose to meet it. She grew quiet, quick,
resourceful.
“Is it so?” she said. “Then that old teacher, he must be, what you call
him, a prophet—or perhaps he hear you come. You want seek Lord Devene,
him whom you spit on when he was Rupert Ullershaw Bey? Yes? Well, Zahed
no look as though he wish to go away with you, his face all change,” and
she pointed to Rupert’s agonised countenance.
“I am speaking to my husband, not to you, woman,” said Edith.
Mea shook her beautiful head and smiled.
“Woman wrong word. I great lady here; lady whom he love but no
marry—till you die, alas!”
Rupert still seemed unable to speak, and Edith positively choked with
wrath, so, perhaps to prevent any awkward pause, Mea continued the
conversation.
“Who those?” she asked, pointing with her finger at Tabitha and Dick,
who, with the interpreter, were making their way towards the platform.
“Your mama come to look after you? And him? Oh! I know. That gentleman
you love. Him for who you turn Zahed into the street. Oh! I know, I
know. Old woman down there with white head,” and she pointed to Bakhita,
who was watching all this scene with the grimmest interest, “she have
magic; she show me his ugly face in water. He swim about in water with
the tail of a snake, head—man, heart—snake, you understand, yes? Bakhita
show you some magic, too, if you like.”
Now at last Rupert shook himself free from his faintness.
“Edith,” he said, “why have you come here?”
“Really I begin to wonder,” she answered, while she gathered herself
together, “for I don’t seem very welcome, do I? Also this place isn’t
pleasant, its inhabitants are too fond of personal remarks.”
Then she paused and presently flung her words at him, few and swift and
straight.
“I come, Rupert, to ask you to answer the riddle which that blind old
dervish has been amusing himself by putting to you at such length. Will
you return to your duty and your deserted wife? Or will you stop here,
as the—the friend of that shameless person and head-priest of her
barbarians?”
“Please, Edith,” said Rupert, “be a little milder in your language.
These people are peculiar, and my power here is limited; if you apply
such names to Tama, and they come to understand them, I cannot answer
for the consequences.”
“I did not ask you to answer for the consequences, I asked you to answer
my question,” replied Edith, biting her white lips.
“It seems to require some thought,” said Rupert sadly.
Then he lifted his hand and addressed the audience, who were watching
what passed with wondering eyes.
“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “a wonderful thing has happened. In
speaking to you to-day about the crimes that have been done in Tama, I
told you my own story for an example. Then the teacher yonder showed me
how weak and evil I really was, and put a question to me as to whether,
should she appear and ask it, I would take back the wife of that story,
she that had wrought me evil in the past. Now this wife stands before
me, and demands the decision which I said I would give when the time
came. It has come—that evil day has dawned upon me who never thought to
see it, forgetting that things have changed in the matter of my fortunes
across the sea. Yet, my brethren, shall I be wrong if I ask for a while
to think? If, for instance, I say that when we meet again as is our
custom on this same day of the next month, I then decide, and not
before?”
“No, no, you will be right, Zahed,” they murmured, the blind old mystic
leading them with his shrill voice. “We will have it so.” More, great
men among them stood up here and there and shouted that he should not
go, that they would gather their servants and guard the pass, and if
need be, keep him prisoner, or—and they looked viciously at Dick and his
companions.
Achmet translated their remarks, adding, on his own account: “This
people in damned nasty temper—very private people and very fierce who
love Zahed. You must not make them angry, or perhaps they kill us all. I
came here to interpret, not to have throat cut.”
Dick also seizing the situation with remarkable swiftness, was equally
urgent and out-spoken.
“Don’t show off any of your airs and graces here, Edith, please,” he
said, “I am not anxious to follow the example of our friend, the god
upon the platform, and renounce the world in a wider fashion. That
little tartar of a woman would jump at a chance of murdering us, and she
can do it if she likes.”
Only Tabitha, weary with standing, sank down on to a block of stone, and
incidentally into the lap of a native who already occupied it, and
scarcely heeding his wild struggles to be free, fanned herself with a
broad-brimmed hat and remarked:
“Ach! do not trouble. If they kill us, they kill us. It is very
interesting to hear them say their minds so well. I am most glad that we
came.”
“You hear their answer, Edith,” said Rupert, “and you must understand my
position. Have you any objection to make?”
“I understand your position perfectly, Rupert, and I am quite aware that
a man may find it difficult—most difficult, to escape from certain kinds
of entanglements,” and she glanced at Mea and paused.
“Wrong word again,” murmured that lady, with a sweet smile; “no what you
call it, no tangles, only one great rope of love, too thick to cut, too
strong to break—much!”
“As for objections,” went on Edith, without heeding this melodious and
poetic interruption, “I could make scores, but since we don’t wish to be
butchered by your amiable _protégés,_ perhaps I had better hold my
tongue and give you a month in which to come to your right mind. Only I
am by no means sure that I shall stop here all that time.”
“Don’t stop if you no like,” broke in Mea again. “Please not—the road it
always open, give you camel, give you soldiers, give you food, and write
you letter afterwards to tell you how Zahed make up his mind. I can
write very nice letter all in English, learn that at Luxor, or if you
rather, write in Arabic.”
At this sally Dick grinned, for it pleased his wounded soul to see Edith
getting the worst of it for once in her life, and Tabitha burst out
laughing. The general effect was to induce Edith to change her mind
rapidly.
“Yes, I shall stop,” she went on, as though she had never suggested
anything else, “because I suppose it is my duty to give him every
chance.”
“Glad you stop,” said Mea, “my humble people much honoured. Give you
nice house, high up there on the mountain since in this month you catch
great fever down here and perhaps stop too long,” and turning, she
issued a sharp and sudden order whereat men sprang up, bowed and ran to
do her bidding.
“What’s that?” asked Dick nervously.
“Nothing,” said Mea, “only tell them make ready house on the mountain
and take your things there and set guard about it so you no be hurt. Now
I go. Good-night!” whereon she rose, bowed to her people, bowed to her
guests, and then, making a deep obeisance to Rupert, lifted his hand and
with it touched her brow. After this she descended from the platform,
and at its foot was instantly surrounded by an armed guard, in the midst
of which, preceded by old Bakhita, Mea marched down the passage between
the central columns of the great hall, while to right and left, as was
their custom on these days of ceremony, her people prostrated themselves
as she passed, shouting: “Tama! Tama!”
“Himmel,” said Tabitha. “Himmel, she is charming! No wonder Rupert do
love her, like all her folks. Look how they bow. Achmet, where is my
photograph thing? I wish to take them quick.”
“Mustn’t take photograph here,” answered Achmet gloomily; “they think
that bad magic, great big evil eye. No photograph, please.”
But Tabitha had already forgotten her intention and was advancing
towards Rupert.
“My dear Rupert,” she said, as climbing the platform she dropped into
the throne-like chair vacated by Mea, and then bending forward, solemnly
kissed him upon the brow. “My dear Rupert, oh! I am glad to see you, I
cannot say how glad.”
“I am glad to see you also, Tabitha,” he answered, “though I wish we
could have met under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Ach! you are in a deep hole,” she said, “down at the bottom of a well,
but there is light above, and who knows, you may come out again.”
“I don’t see how,” he answered sadly.
“No; but God sees. Perhaps He will pull you out. I am sorry for you,
dear. I have no patience with Edith, and that Dick, I hate him now and
always.”
“Tell me a little about things,” he said; “we may not have another
chance.”
So she told him all she knew. Dick and Edith had vanished back through
the side door; the audience for the most part had melted away, only a
few of them remaining at the far end of the hall. As she spoke rapidly,
mixing German and English words together, although his intelligence
followed her, Rupert’s mind wandered, as was its ancient fashion. He
recalled, for instance, how Tabitha and he had once sat together upon
another dais in a very different hall far away in England.
“You remember,” he said suddenly, “that New Year’s Eve at Devene, the
night I got engaged, and what you told me then?”
She nodded.
“You said she would breed trouble,” he went on; “you said she was very
dangerous. Well, it is so, and now—what am I to do?”
“Nothing at all, just wait,” she answered. “You have a month, and during
that time you need only see her in public. In a month many things may
happen. Indeed, I do think that things will happen,” and once again that
fateful look crept over the strong, solid face and into the quiet eyes,
the same look that he had noted years ago when she sat with him on the
dais in the hall at Devene. “God He does not desert men like you,
Rupert, who have suffered so cruelly and behaved so well,” she murmured,
gently pressing his hand. “Look! Dick has come back and is calling me.
When shall we meet again?”
“To-morrow,” he said, “I cannot see her to-night. I will not see her
privately at all till the month is up. You must make her understand.”
“Oh! she understands well enough, and so does Dick, and so do I. But are
they safe here?”
“Safer than in London, only they must not speak ill of the lady Tama.
Good-night!”
“Good-night, dear Rupert,” she said, and went away, leaving him seated
there alone upon the platform.
That night Tabitha and Edith slept in the house which Mea had assigned
to them. It was situated upon a mountain-crest over two miles from the
town of which it formed part of the fortifications, was cool, and
commanded a beautiful view. To Dick Learmer was given a similar but
somewhat smaller house belonging to the same chain of defences, but
about five hundred yards away. Both of these houses were provisioned,
and both of them guarded day and night, that no harm might come to the
guests of the tribe.
So angry was Edith that for a long while she would scarcely speak to
Tabitha, who, their meal finished, sat upon a kind of verandah or
outlook place, a shut Bible upon her knees, looking at the moonlit
desert upon the one hand, and the misty oasis on the other. At this game
of silence her patient, untroubled mind was far stronger than that of
Edith. At length the latter could bear it no longer; the deep peace of
the place, which should have soothed, only exasperated her raw temper.
She broke out into a flood of words. She abused Tabitha for bringing her
here and exposing her to such insults. She named Mea by ill names. She
declared that she would go away at once.
“Ah!” asked Tabitha at last, “and will you take Dick with you?”
“No,” she answered; “I never want to see Dick or any of you again.”
“That is unlucky for me,” said Tabitha; “but since I have reached this
nice place, I shall stay here the month and talk with Rupert. Perhaps if
he and that pretty lady will have me, I shall stay longer. But I, too,
do not want the company of Dick. As for you, dear Edith, if you wish to
go, they told you, the road is open. It will save much trouble to
everybody.”
“I shall not go,” exclaimed Edith. “Why should I leave my husband with
that woman who has no right to him?”
“I am not so sure,” answered Tabitha thoughtfully. “If my little dog is
caught in a trap and is ill, and I kick it into the street, and leave it
there to starve, and some kind lady comes and takes my little dog and
gives it a good home for years, can I say that she has no right to it
just because I find out, after all, that it is a valuable little dog,
and that I am—oh! so fond of it?”
“Please stop talking nonsense about little dogs, Tabitha. Rupert is not
a dog.”
“No; but then why should he have been treated as one? If such a dog
would have learned to love its new mistress, is it wonderful that he
should do the same? But have you learnt to care for him at last, that
you should want him back so much, he who lives here good and happy?”
“I don’t know,” snapped Edith; “but I won’t leave him with that other
woman if I can help it; I don’t trust all that Platonic nonsense. I am
going to bed;” and she went.
But Tabitha still sat for a long time and gazed at the moonlit desert,
there making her accustomed prayers.
“Oh! God in heaven,” she ended them, “help those two poor people whom
Thou hast tried so sorely,” and as she spoke the words a conviction came
into her mind that they would be heard. Then, feeling comforted, she too
went to her bed.
In the morning Edith received a note from Rupert; it was the first time
that she had seen his handwriting for many a year. It ran:
Dear Edith,—I will not debate the strange circumstances in which we find
ourselves, and I write to ask that during the ensuing month you will
avoid all allusion to them. The facts are known to us both, to discuss
them further can only lead to unnecessary bitterness, and perhaps
prevent a peaceful solution of the trouble. If you agree to this, I
write on behalf of the lady Tama and myself to say that we are ready to
enter into a like undertaking, and that we shall be happy to see you
here whenever you wish.
If, on the other hand, you do not agree, then I think that we had best
keep apart until the day when I have promised to give an answer to your
question. A messenger will bring me your written reply.
Rupert.
Edith thought a while, then she took a piece of paper and wrote upon it
with a pencil:
I agree.
EDITH.
P.S.—I enclose a letter which I have for you. He wrote it shortly before
he died. Also, there are some from the lawyers.
“After all,” she reflected to herself, as she saw the runner depart
swiftly, carrying her packet on the top of a cleft stick, “it will give
me a little time to look round in peace. Rupert is right, it is no use
wrangling. Moreover, he and that woman are masters here, and I must
obey.”
Within an hour the runner returned again, bearing another note from Mea,
which, in very queer English, asked them both to honour them with their
company at the midday meal. They went, and on the way met Dick, who had
received a similar invitation. On arriving at the town, they found
Rupert seated beneath the verandah of his house, and squatted upon the
ground around him a considerable number of people, all of them suffering
from various complaints, together with some women who held sick children
in their arms. He bowed to them, and called out in a cheerful voice:
“Forgive me for a little while. I have nearly finished my morning’s
doctoring, and perhaps you had better stand back, for some of these
ailments are infectious.”
Edith and Dick took the hint at once, riding their animals into the
shade of a tree a little way off. Not so Tabitha. Descending from her
donkey with a bump, she marched straight to Rupert and shook his hand.
Two minutes later they perceived that she was helping him to bandage
wounds and dispense medicines.
“How she can!” exclaimed Edith, “and the worst of it is she is sure to
bring some filthy disease back with her. Just think of Rupert taking to
doctoring all those horrid people!”
“They say he is uncommonly clever at it,” answered Dick, “and will ride
for miles to see a sick person. Perhaps that is why they are so fond of
him.”
“Why don’t you go to help him?” asked Edith. “You studied medicine for
two years before you went to the Bar.”
“Thanks,” he answered, “I think it is pleasanter sitting under this tree
with you. At present I am not a candidate for popular affection, so I
don’t see why I should take any risks.”
“Rupert doesn’t mind risks,” said Edith.
“No,” he said, “one of his characteristics always was to like what is
disagreeable and dangerous. In that fact lies your best chance, Edith.
He may even make up his mind to abandon an existence which seems to suit
him exactly and return to the joys of civilisation.”
“You are even ruder than usual, Dick,” she said. “Why did you come here
at all? We never asked you.”
“You cannot pretend, Edith, that gentleness has been your prevailing
note of late. For the rest, considering that on the results of this
inquiry depended whether I should be one of the richest men in England
or a beggar, it is not strange that I came to look after my own
interests,” he added bitterly.
“Well, you know now,” she answered, “so why don’t you go away? Rupert is
alive, therefore the property is his, not yours.”
“Quite so; but even Rupert is not immortal. He might contract one of
those sicknesses, for instance.”
“No such luck for you, Dick,” she said, with a laugh, “he is too much
accustomed to them, you won’t get rid of him like that.”
“I admit it is improbable, for he looks singularly healthy, does he not?
But who knows? At any rate, he is a good-natured fellow; I may be able
to come to some terms with him. Also,” he added, in another voice,
“please understand once and for all that I am going to see this play
out, whatever you or anybody else may say or do. I was in at the
beginning, and I mean to be in at the death.”
Edith shrugged her shoulders, turning away, for there was a very
unpleasant look upon Dick’s face, and just at that moment they saw
Rupert, who had washed his hands and changed his robe, riding towards
them upon a white mule by the side of which walked Tabitha. He could not
take off his hat because he wore a keffieh, but he saluted Edith by
placing his fingers upon his forehead; and then stretched out his hand
to her and to Dick.
“Forgive my dismounting, Edith,” he said, in a pleasant voice, “but you
remember what a dreadful cripple I am, and I haven’t been able to grow a
new foot, or even to get an artificial one here. I did send for the
article, but it must have been made for a lady; at any rate, it was
three sizes too small, and now adorns a black old beggar woman.”
Edith laughed; somehow the thought of Rupert’s mutilated state no longer
filled her with horror.
“Mea is expecting you all to luncheon,” he said, “if I may so call our
unconventional meal. Will you come?”
She nodded, making a funny little face, and rode away towards Mea’s
house at Rupert’s side.
“Did you get my note,” she said suddenly, “and the enclosures?”
“Yes,” he answered, “his letter is very painful—very painful indeed, and
the others are interesting. But we have agreed not to talk about those
things, haven’t we, until the month is up?”
“Certainly, Rupert,” she answered, in a gentle voice. “So far as I am
concerned, the past is all gone. I am here now, not to consider myself,
but to do what you desire. I only wish to say that I am sorry if I spoke
as I should not yesterday—and for many other things also, Rupert, but
really it was hard to have to listen to all those bitter words, even if
I deserved them.”
“I understand—very hard,” he said, flushing, “and now for the next month
it is settled that we are going to be just friends, is it not?”
“Yes, Rupert, as you have ordered it,” she whispered, and glancing at
her, he saw that there were tears standing in her blue eyes.
“This business is going to be even harder than I thought,” reflected
Rupert to himself, and in another moment Mea, clad in her spotless
white, was receiving them with gracious smiles and Oriental courtesy.