AT THE PALACE
That limousine utterly routed the tiny little qualm which had been
furtively worming into Arlee's thrill of adventure. Nothing very
strange or out-of-the-way, she thought, could be connected with such
a modern car; it presented every symptom of effete civilization.
Against the upholstery of delicate gray flamed the scarlet
poinsettias hanging in wall vases of crystal overlaid with silver
tracery; the mirror which confronted her was framed in silver, and
beneath it a tiny cabinet revealed a frivolous store of powders and
pins and scents. Decidedly the Oriental widow of said sequestration
had a car very much up to times. The only difference which it
presented from the cars of any modern city or of any modern lady was
in the smallness of the window panes, whose contracted size
confirmed the stories of the restrictions which Arlee had been told
were imposed upon Moslem ladies by even those emancipated masculine
relatives who conceded cars.
She peered out of the diminutive windows at the throng of life in
the unquiet streets as they halted for the passing of a camel laden
with bricks and stones from a demolished building; the poor thing
teetered precariously past under such a back-breaking load that the
girl felt it would have been a mercy to add the last straw and be
done with it. After it bobbed what was apparently an animated load
of hay, so completely were this other camel's legs hidden by his
smothering burden.
Then the car shot impatiently forward, passing a dog cart full of
fair-haired English children, the youngest clasped in the arms of a
dark-skinned nurse, and behind the cart ran an indefatigable _sais_,
bare-legged and sinewy, his red headdress and gold-embroidered
jacket and blue bloomers flashing in the sun. On the sidewalk a
party of American tourists were capitulating to a post-card vender,
and ahead of them a victoria load of German sightseers careened
around the corner in the charge of a determined dragoman.
Arlee smiled in happy superiority over these mere outsiders. _She_
was not going about the beaten track, peeping at mosques and tombs
and bazaars and windows; she was penetrating into the real life of
this fascinating city, getting behind the grills and veils to
glimpse the inner secrets.
She thought, with a deepening of the sparkle in her blue eyes and a
defiant lifting of the pointed chin, of a certain sandy-haired young
Englishman and how wrong and reasonless and narrow and jealous were
his strictures upon her politeness to young Turks, and she thought
with a sense of vindicated pride of how thoroughly that nice young
man who had managed to introduce himself last night had endorsed her
views. Americans understood. And then her thoughts lingered about
Billy and she caught herself wondering just how much he did mean
about coming up the Nile again. For upon happening to meet Billy
that morning--Billy had devoted two hours and a half to the accident
of that happening!--he had joyously mentioned that he was trying to
buy out another man's berth upon that boat. It wasn't so much his
wanting to come that was droll--teasing sprites of girls with
peach-blossom prettiness are not unwonted to the thunder of pursuing
feet--but the frank and cheery way he had of announcing it. Not many
men had the courage of their desires. Not any men that little Miss
Arlee had yet met had the frankness of such courage. And because all
women love the adventurous spirit and are woefully disappointed in
its masculine manifestations, she felt a gay little eagerness which
she would have refused to own. It would be rather fun to see more of
him--on the Nile--while Robert Falconer was sulking away in Cairo.
And then when she returned she would surprise and confound that
misguided young Englishman with her unexpected--to him--presence at
the Khedive's ball. And after that--but her thoughts were lost in
haziness then. Only the ball stood out distinct and glittering and
fairylike.
Thinking all these brightly revengeful thoughts she had been
oblivious to the many turnings of the motor, though it had occurred
to her that they were taking more time than the car had needed to
appear, and now she looked out the window and saw that they were in
a narrow street lined with narrow houses, whose upper stories,
slightly projecting in little bays, all presented the elaborately
grilled façades of _mashrubiyeh_ work which announced the barred
quarters of the women, the _haremlik_.
Arlee loved to conjure up a romantic thrill for the mysterious East
by reflecting that behind these obscuring screens were women of all
ages and conditions, neglected wives and youthful favorites, eager
girls and revolting brides, whose myriad eyes, bright or dull or gay
or bitter, were peering into the tiny, cleverly arranged mirrors
which gave them a tilted view of the streets. It was the sense of
these watching eyes, these hidden women, which made those screened
windows so stirring to her young imagination.
The motor whirled out of the narrow street and into one that was
much wider and lined by houses that were detached and separated,
apparently, by gardens, for there was a frequent waving of palms
over the high walls which lined the road. The street was empty of
all except an old orange vender, shuffling slowly along, with a
cartwheel of a tray on her head, piled with yellow fruit shining
vividly in the hot sun. The quiet and the solitude gave a sense of
distance from the teeming bazaars and tourist-ridden haunts, which
breathed of seclusion and aloofness.
The car stopped and Arlee stepped out before a great house of
ancient stone which rose sharply from the street. A high, pointed
doorway, elaborately carved, was before her, arching over a dark
wooden door heavily studded with nails. Overhead jutted the little
balconies of _mashrubiyeh_. She had no more than a swift impression
of the old façade, for immediately a doorkeeper, very vivid in his
Oriental blue robes and his English yellow leather Oxfords, flung
open the heavy door.
Stepping across the threshold, with a sudden excited quickening of
the senses, in which so many things were mingled that the misgiving
there had scarcely time to make itself felt, Arlee found herself in
a spacious vestibule, marble floored and inlaid with brilliant tile.
She had just a glimpse of an inner court between the high arches
opposite, and then her attention was claimed by Captain Kerissen,
who sprang forward with a flash of welcome in his eyes that was like
a leap of palpable light.
"You are come!" he said, in a voice which was that of a man almost
incredulous of his good fortune. Then he bowed very formally in his
best military fashion, straight-backed from the waist, heels stiffly
together. "I welcome you," he said. "My sister is rejoiced.... This
stair--if you please."
He waved to a stairway on the left, a small, steep affair, which
Arlee ascended slowly, a sense of strangeness mounting with her, in
spite of her confident bearing. She had not realized how odd it
would feel to be in this foreign house with the Captain at her
heels.
There was a door at the top of the stairs standing open into a long,
spacious room which seemed shrouded in twilight after the sunflooded
court. One entire side of the room was a brown, lace-like screen of
_mashrubiyeh_ windows; wide divans stretched beside them, and at the
end of the room, facing Arlee, was a throne-like chair raised on a
small dais and canopied with heavy silks.
By one of the windows a woman was squatting, a short, stout,
turbaned figure, striking a few notes on a tambourine and crooning
softly to herself in a low guttural. She raised her head without
rising, to look at the entering couple, and for a startled second
Arlee had the half hysterical fear that this squatting soloist was
the _triste_ and aristocratic representative of the _haut-monde_ of
Moslem which the Captain had brought her to see, but the next
instant another figure appeared in a doorway and came slowly toward
them.
Flying to the winds went Arlee's anticipations of somber elegance.
She saw the most amazingly vivid creature that she had ever laid
eyes on--a woman, young, though not in her first youth, penciled,
powdered, painted, her hair a brilliant red, her gown a brilliant
green. After the first shock of scattering amazement, Arlee became
intensely aware of a pair of yellow-brown eyes confronting her with
a faintly smiling and rather mocking interrogation. The dark of
_kohl_ about the eyes emphasized a certain slant _diablérie_ of line
and a faint penciling connected with the high and supercilious arch
of the brows. Henna flamed on the pointed tips of the fingers
blazoned with glittering rings, and Arlee fancied the brilliance of
the hair was due to this same generous assistance of nature.
"My soul!" thought the girl swiftly, "they _do_ get themselves up!"
The Captain had stepped forward, speaking quickly in Turkish, with a
hard-sounding rattle of words. The sister glanced at him with a
deepening of that curious air of mockery and let fall two words in
the same tongue. Then she turned to Arlee.
"_Je suis enchantée--d'avoir cet honneur--cet honneur
inattendu----_"
She did not look remarkably enchanted, however. The eyes that played
appraisingly over her pretty caller had a quality of curious
hardness, of race hostility, perhaps, the antagonism of the East for
the West, the Old for the New. Not all the modernity of clothes, of
manners, of language, affected what Arlee felt intensely as the
strange, vivid foreignness of her.
"My sister does not speak English--she has not the occasion," the
Captain was quickly explaining.
"_Gracious_" thought Arlee, in dismay. She had no illusions about
her French; it did very well in a shop or a restaurant, but it was
apt to peeter out feebly in polite conversation. Certainly it was no
vessel for voyaging in untried seas. There were simply loads of
things, she thought discouragedly, the things she wanted most to
ask, that she would not be able to find words for.
Aloud she was saying, "I am so glad to have the honor of being here.
I am only sorry that my French is so bad. But perhaps you can
understand----"
"I understand," assented the Turkish woman, faintly smiling.
The Captain had brought forward little gilt chairs of a French
design which seemed oddly out of place in this room of the East, and
the three seated themselves. Out of place, too, seemed the grand
piano which Arlee's eyes, roving now past her hostess, discovered
for the first time.
"It was so kind of you," began Arlee again as the silence seemed to
be politely waiting upon her, "to send your automobile for me."
"Ah--my automobile!" echoed the woman on a higher note, and laughed,
with a flash of white teeth between carmined lips. "It pleased you?"
"Oh, yes, it is splendid!" the girl declared, in sincere praise. "It
is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen."
"I enjoy it very much--that automobile!" said the other, again
laughing, with a quick turn of her eyes toward the brother.
Negligently, rather caressingly, the young man murmured a few
Turkish words. She shrugged and leaned back in her chair, the flash
of animation gone. "And Cairo--that pleases you?" she asked of
Arlee.
Stumbling a little in her French, but resolutely rushing over the
difficulties, Arlee launched into the expression of how very much it
pleased her. Everything was beautiful to her. The color, the sky,
the mosques, the minarets, the Nile, the pyramids--they were all
wonderful. And the view from the Great Pyramid--and then she
stopped, wondering if that were not beyond her hostess's experience.
In confirmation of the thought the Turkish lady smiled, with an
effect of disdain. "Ascend the pyramids--that is indeed too much for
us," she said. "But nothing is too much for you Americans--no?"
Her curious glance traveled slowly from Arlee's flushed and lovely
face, under the rose-crowned hat, down over the filmy white gown and
white-gloved hands clasping an ivory card case, to the small,
white-shod feet and silken ankles. Arlee did not resent the
deliberate scrutiny; in coming to gaze she had been offering herself
to be gazed upon, and she was conscious that the three of them
presented a most piquant group in this dim and spacious old room of
the East--the modern American girl, the cosmopolitan young officer
in his vivid uniform, and this sequestered woman, of a period of
transition where the kohl and henna of the _odalisque_ contrasted
with a coiffure and gown from Paris.
Slowly and disconnectedly the uninspiring conversation progressed.
Once, when it appeared halted forever, Arlee cast a helpless look at
the Captain and intercepted a sharp glance at his sister. Indeed,
Arlee thought, that sister was not distinguishing herself by her
grateful courtesy to this guest who was brightening the _tristesse_
of her secluded day, but perhaps this was due to her Oriental
languor or the limitations of their medium of speech.
It was a relief to have the Captain suggest music. At their polite
insistence Arlee went to the piano and did her best with a piece of
MacDowell. Then the sister took her turn, and to her surprise Arlee
found herself listening to an exquisite interpretation of some of
the most difficult of Brahms. The beringed and tinted fingers
touched the notes with rare delicacy, and brought from the piano a
quality so vivid and poignant in appeal that Arlee could dream that
here the player's very life and heart were finding their real
expression.
The last note fell softly into silence, and with her hands still on
the keys the woman looked up over her shoulder at her brother,
looked with an intentness oddly provocative and prolonged. And for
the first time Arlee caught the quality of sudden and unforeseen
attraction in her, and realized that this insolence of color, this
flaunting hair and painted mouth might have their place in some
scheme of allurement outside her own standards.... And then suddenly
she felt queerly sorry for her, touched by the quick jarring
bitterness of a chord the woman suddenly struck, drowning the
laughing words the Captain had murmured to her.... Arlee felt
vaguely indignant at him. No one wanted to have jokes tossed at her
when she had just poured her heart out in music.
The Captain was on his feet, making his adieux. Now that the ladies
were acquainted, he would leave them to discuss the modes and other
feminine interests. He wished Miss Beecher a delightful trip upon
the Nile and hoped to see her upon her return, and she could be sure
that everything would be arranged for her. When she had had her tea
and wished to leave, the motor would return her to the hotel. He
made a rapid speech in Turkish to his sister, bowed formally to
Arlee over a last _au revoir_ and was gone.
Immediately the old woman entered with a tray of tea things, the
same old woman who had been squatting by the window, but who had
noiselessly left the room during the music. She was followed by a
bewitching little girl of about ten with another tray, who remained
to serve while the old woman shuffled slowly away. Arlee was struck
by the informality of the service; the servants appeared to be
underfoot like rugs; they came and went at will, unregarded.
The tea was most disappointingly ordinary, for the pat of butter
bore the rose stamp of the English dairy and the bread was English
bake, but the sweetmeats were deliciously novel, resembling nothing
Arlee had seen in the shops, and new, too, was the sip of syrup
which completed the refreshment.
Her hostess had said but little during the repast, remaining silent,
with an air of polite attention, her eyes fixed upon her caller with
a gaze the girl found bafflingly inscrutable. Now as the girl rose
to go, the Turkish woman suddenly revived her manners of hostess and
suggested a glimpse of some of the other rooms of the palace. "Our
seclusion interests you--yes?" she said, with a half-sad,
half-bitter smile on her scarlet lips, and Arlee was conscious of a
sense of apologetic intrusion battling with her lively curiosity as
she followed her down the long chamber and through a curtained
doorway to the right of the throne-like chair, into a large and
empty anteroom, where the sunlight streaming through the lightly
screened window on the wall at the right reminded Arlee that it was
yet glowing afternoon.
She lingered by the window an instant, looking down into the court
which she had glimpsed from the vestibule. Across the court she saw
a row of windows which, being unbarred, she guessed to be on the
men's side of the house, and to the left the court was ended by a
sort of roofed colonnade.
Her hostess passed under an elaborate archway, and Arlee followed
slowly, passing through one stately, high-ceiled, dusty room into
another, plunged again into the twilight of densely screening
_mashrubiyeh_. There were views of fine carving, painted ceilings,
inlaid door paneling, and rich and rusty embroideries where the name
of Allah could frequently be traced, but Arlee was ignorant of the
rare worth of all she saw; she stared about with no more than a
girl's romantic sense of the old-time grandeur and the Oriental
strangeness, mingled with a disappointment that it was all so empty
and devoid of life.
This part of the palace was very old, her hostess said
uninterestedly; these were the rooms of the dead and gone ladies of
the dead and gone years. One of the Mamelukes had first built this
wing for his favorite wife--she had been poisoned by her rival and
died, here, on that divan, the narrator indicated, with a negligent
gesture.
Wide-eyed, Arlee stared about the empty, darkened rooms and felt
dimly oppressed by them. They were so old, so melancholy, these
rooms of dead and gone ladies. How much of life had been lived here,
how much of hope had been smothered with these walls! What aching
love and fiery hate had vibrated here, only to smolder into helpless
ennui under the endless weight of tedious days.... She shivered
slightly, oppressed by the dreams of these ancient rooms, dreams
that were heavy with realities.
Slowly she moved back after her hostess, who had pushed back a
panel in one wall, and Arlee stepped beside her within the tiny,
balcony-like enclosure the panel had revealed, one side of which was
a wooden lace-work of fine screening, permitting one to see but not
be seen. Pressing her face against the grill, Arlee found she was
looking down into a long and spacious hall, lined with delicate
columns bearing beautiful, pointed arches, and brilliant with old
gilding and inlay.
This was the colonnade which she had seen forming one side of the
court; it was the hall of banquets, she was told, and connected this
wing of the palace, the _haremlik_, with the _selamlik_, the men's
wing, across the way. Here in old times the lord of the palace gave
his feasts, and this nook had been built for some favorite to view
the revels.
Arlee stared down into the great empty hall with an involuntary
quickening of the breath. How desolate it was, but how beautiful in
its desolation! What strange revels had taken place there to the
notes of wild music, what girls had danced, what voices had shouted,
what moods had been indulged! She thought of the men who had made
merry there ... and then she thought of the women, generations of
women, who had stood where she was standing, pressing their young
faces against the grill, their bright eyes peering, peering down.
She felt their soft little silken ghosts all about her, their
bangles clinking, their perfumes enveloping her sense--lovely little
painted dolls, their mimic passions helpless in their hearts....
Dreaming, she turned and in silence retraced her way after her
hostess, loitering by the window in the anteroom to watch a veiled
girl drawing water at the old well in the center, an old well rich
in arabesques.
How much happier, thought Arlee, were these serving maids in the
freedom of their poverty than the cloistered aristocrats behind
their darkened windows. She wondered if that strange figure beside
her, half Moslem, half modern, envied the little maid the saucy jest
which she flung at a bare-footed boy idling beside a dozing white
donkey. As she watched the old-world quiet of the picture was
broken. Some one, the doorkeeper, she thought, from his vivid robes
and yellow shoes, came running across the court, shouting something
at the girl which sent her flying to the house, her jar forgotten,
and another man, an enormous Nubian with blue Turkish bloomers,
short red jacket and a red fez, hurried across the court toward the
_haremlik_.
The lady stepped toward the screening and called down; the man
stopped, raised his head, and shouted back a jargon of excited
gutturals, waving his arms in vehement gesturing. His mistress
interrupted with a brief question, then with another, then nodding
her head indifferently to herself, she called down an order,
apparently, and turned away.
"One of our servants is dead," she murmured to Arlee in explanation.
"They say now it is the plague."
"The plague?" repeated the girl absently. She was thinking what a
hideous creature that great Nubian was. Then, more vividly, "The
_plague_?"
"You have fear?" said the negligent voice.
Arlee nodded frankly. "Oh, yes, I should be terribly afraid of it,"
she averred. "Aren't you?" And then she reflected, as she saw the
inscrutable smile playing about the older woman's lips, that she
must be witnessing that fatalistic apathy of the East that she had
read about.
But there was nothing apathetic about the Captain. He followed on
the very heels of the announcement, his sword clanking, his spurs
jingling, as he bounded up the stairs and hurried through the long,
dim drawing-room toward them.
"You have heard?" he cried in English as they came to meet him. "You
have heard?"
"Of the plague!" Arlee answered, wondering at his agitation. "Yes,
your sister just told me. Is it really the plague?"
"So say those damned doctors--pardon, but they are such imbeciles!"
He made an angry gesture with his clenched hand. His face was tense
and excited. "They say so. And there is another sick ... _Dieu_,
what a misfortune! Truly, there was illness about us, a little, but
who thought----"
"I shall run back to my hotel," said Arlee lightly, "before I catch
one of your germs."
"To the hotel--a thousand pardons, but that is the thing forbidden."
The young man made a gesture, with empty palms outspread, eloquent
of rebellion and despair. "Those doctors--those pig English--they
have set a quarantine upon us!"