"_The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind
that can embrace equally great things and small._"
SAMUEL JOHNSON.
The two wise women had long since left Khargegh.
By special train, by special boat, by aid of runners, telephone and
telegraph, but above all by the magic of the Sheikh el-Umbar's name and
his wife's unlimited distribution of gold, Olivia Duchess of Longacres
and her maid and Jill el-Umbar and her maid arrived at the hotel on the
night of the full moon.
They would have arrived before sunset if it had not been for the
mistake made about the special steamer which had kept them waiting at
the quay; they would not have arrived until twenty-four hours later if
they had made use of the ordinary train and boat.
"Can't we go faster, ma'am? Can't we get there quicker?"
It was Maria Hobson, stolid, solid, dour, big-hearted woman with a
streak of Scotch blood in her veins, who worried outwardly. If you had
watched her out of the corner of your eye you would have seen her shake
her fist at the desert; if you had walked behind her on the quay you
would have heard her say, with a world of entreaty in her voice, to
some terrified, non-understanding _fellah_ who quaked at the knee:
"Can't you get a move on, somehow? You're only a heathen, to be sure,
but if you'd heard the tone in the young lady's voice you'd do
something instead of sal-aaming."
She said very little to her beloved mistress, but to Jill she poured
out her heart, and Jill who with the intuition of a mother's love had
connected the dream with her son let her repeat her tale over and over
again.
". . . Just as though she was standing on a precipice and frightened of
falling over was her voice like, Mum, Miss Jill--may I call you Miss
Jill? It's more familiar-like and--homely, and I know you will excuse
me, Miss Jill, if I say that I can't get used to you in those clothes,
pretty as they are and becoming to you. It seems to me like
fancy-dress, you with a veil over your face, if you will excuse me
saying so. You are just the same to me and my lady as when you came to
stay with her grace; and glad I for one shall be when I see the
barouche waiting for her at Victoria, with Whippup and his powdered
head on the box. I don't mind that young chauffeur with one leg lost
in the war, but I don't like that wicked-looking red vermilion
motor-car of her grace's, though the slum-folks do, and you should hear
them cheer, Miss Jill, when it goes down Shadwell way."
This conversation took place on the quay whilst her grace was absent,
trying to still the unaccountable fear with which her heart had been
filled by her maid's dream, by talking to the little brown urchins who
swarmed about her the better to view the bird.
"What do you think of them, Dekko old fellow?" She took him on her
wrist, at which he spread his tail, rattled his wings, and puffed his
ruff, whereupon the children fled, yelling. "Come now, say something
nice to the poor little things. You've frightened them. Ask them if
the boat is ready."
Dekko gave a sudden piercing screech:
"You damned, dirty lot!" he yelled. "You----"
And some doubted the bird's sojourn on a sailing-vessel in the
full-rigged, full-mouthed days of 1840!
Her grace rapped the razor-edged beak sharply and returned to the other
two just in time to hear her maid's answer to some question:
"Sergeant O'Rafferty of the Irish Guards, Miss Jill. He demeaned
himself by marrying a _bar_maid, miss."
As already mentioned, love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by.
Arrived at the hotel, their spirits went up with a bound.
What had come to them out there in the desert town? Had they all been
stricken with some dreadful depression? Of course the child was safe
in this laughing, dancing, happy throng, and at the sight of her
god-mother she would leave her partner and run to her; would throw her
arms about her, and hug her in her loving way.
Owing to the crowds of people and the crush of cars, little if any
notice had been taken of their arrival; the luggage was coming up later.
"Wait a minute here, Hobson," had said her grace. "Jill, come and see
if you can recognise Damaris by the picture you saw of her--the
prettiest girl in Egypt!"
They stood at the side door of the ballroom and scanned the laughing
couples sitting in rows in the throes of the cotillon. Ellen
Thistleton, with the royal asp of ancient Egypt with a slight list to
starboard above her heated countenance, stood alone in the middle of
the room, with a glass of champagne in one hand.
Before her stood Mr. Lumlough and the colonel for whom the gilded asp
was being worn at such a rakish angle.
She stood for quite some seconds in her conspicuous position, as though
debating within herself upon the choice. As Mr. Lumlough subsequently
remarked to his panting partner, in his customary slang, "She had a
nerve!"
Then, with head on one side, she coyly handed the Veuve Clicquot to the
thankful young man, and allowed herself to be gathered to the heart of
the portly, jubilant colonel, who, loving her, saw the jaunty gilded
asp as a nimbus around her head.
Of Damaris there was no sign, and the old lady's heart, through some
unaccountable terror, seemed as if it would sink into her small crimson
shoes, though outwardly she showed no sign of the fear that gripped her.
"I expect she has gone upstairs, or out into the grounds to give
Wellington a run--I don't see him anywhere. Come, Hobson; give me your
arm to the lift."
A deep growl welcomed them as the maid opened the sitting-room door and
switched on the light as the ladies entered. Wellington lay near the
balcony window, head on paws, with the book his mistress had given him
between his teeth. He rose slowly, very slowly, eyes red, ruff
bristling round the spiked collar, growling menacingly.
"My dear," said the duchess quietly, "just stand still. Damaris has
gone away. He is always like this when she has left him. Hobson, go
and see if you can find Jane Coop. I hope to goodness you don't."
She walked across the room and passed close to the dog, who turned his
head and, growling savagely, watched her as she moved. Then she came
back and sat down quite near him, and leaning down arranged the buckle
on her shoe, whilst Jill stood perfectly still, filled with admiration
for the old woman, who was not acting out of bravado but simply
tackling the situation in the only possible way.
Once let a bulldog on guard know that you do not want to take away or
touch his carefully-guarded possessions, and that you are not in the
least bit afraid of him, and all will be well.
"Come over here, Jill."
Jill, who had removed her veil and satin mantle, crossed the room and
sat down on a stool at the elder woman's feet. She took the wrinkled
little old hand and patted it; then they sat still and silent, hand in
hand, waiting for the maids' return.
What was there for these women to make such a fuss about? Cannot a
girl be allowed to sit out perhaps a dance, or a whole cotillon even,
without the world coming to an end?
What made them all three fret, and fuss, and fear?
The great love they had one for the other, perhaps, for love has been
known to pierce the mental fog we each one of us weave about ourselves
and so allow us to help one another, sometimes even at a great distance.
Maria Hobson knocked and opened Jane Coop's door, who rose and came
quickly towards her; and as her grace's maid involuntarily glanced
round the room, old Nannie peered over her shoulder with the hope of
seeing her young mistress in the corridor.
"Isn't she here?"
"My young lady? No; she's dancing." She paused, and put out her hand.
"Isn't she dancing? Isn't she?"
Why did Jane Coop fear as the others feared, and why did her bonny face
go suddenly white?
Because she, too, was one of the happy, limited throng who know what
real love is.
"My mistress would like to speak to you, Miss Coop."
"What's wrong? Maria Hobson, tell me what's wrong."
Hobson allowed the unlicensed use of her Christian name to pass
unnoticed; she closed the door behind her and spoke gently, as she took
the other woman's hand and shook it, which was her somewhat masculine
way of showing sympathy.
"I don't know; none of us know that anything _is_ wrong. As Mike
O'Rafferty used to say. 'We may be afther barking in the wrong
back-yard,' but I had a dream, Jane Coop. Sit you down whilst I'm
telling it you."
They sat on the sofa, hand in hand, strangely like their mistresses as
they sat in the sitting-room near the suspicious bulldog.
At the end of the story of the dream, Jane Coop rose.
"Thank you, Miss Hobson. I thought my young mistress was dancing. I
was hoping she was forgetting a bit, with the music and young folk.
There's one thing, I shall know where she has gone to. My dearie
wouldn't break her word. Come along." She opened the door and turned
and spoke over her shoulder.
"Drat men!" she said briefly and emphatically.
"Yes, _drat_ 'em!" replied Maria Hobson, even more emphatically, as her
memory leapt clear across the gulf of years to the time when she had
walked out with a certain Sergeant of the Irish Guards.
Jane Coop dropped a curtsey to the gentry and stood just inside the
door, up in arms, ready to fight anyone at the first word of
condemnation of her young mistress.
"Come over here, Coop, please, and tell me everything you can about
Miss Damaris. I have an idea--mind you, I am not sure--that she has
gone out alone, and we must be as quick as we can in finding her,
because Egypt is no place for a white girl to be running about in by
herself."
Jane Coop took up a corner of the big white apron she insisted upon
wearing, and pleated it between her fingers as she told her grace
everything with a surprising lucidity.
". . . She came in here to fetch her fan, your grace, and in here
somewhere she will have left me a message. I've never known my baby to
break her word, and I'll look for it, if I may. She'll have written it
on a bit of this block and with this pencil. It's been thrown down in
a hurry. Miss Damaris is that tidy, she can put her hand on anything
she wants in the dark, which is more than most of the slipshod,
take-off-your-dress-and-leave-it-there young ladies of the present day
could do."
The anxious maid hid her fear in a never-ending, _sotto voce_ invective
against the Pharaohs and their descendants down to the present
generation, as they all hunted vainly for the bit of paper; then she
stood helplessly in the middle of the room and apostrophised the dog:
"_You_ know where your missie's gone to. Why don't you help us,
instead of lying there growling?" She stood scowling at him, then
suddenly walked across to where he lay. "I wonder if she put it inside
that book," she muttered; then gave a little cry as she caught sight of
the paper twisted in the steel ring of the spiked collar. "I've got
it!" she cried. "I've got it!"
The duchess, who was quite near her, put her hand on her arm.
"Take care, Coop. The dog is really angry. Let me get it."
"Not you, your grace. No, not ever so, bless you."
Wellington was standing on the book, great tusks gleaming, eyes
glaring, a hideous picture of rage; but love casts out fear, even the
just fear of a dog who would never let go until you or he were dead,
once he got his teeth into any part of yon.
There was no haste about Jane Coop as she knelt beside him. "Missie
wants you," she said. "D'you hear?" The rose-leaf ears pricked at the
sound of the beloved name, but the whole tremendous body shook with his
growling response. "You don't love her, you brute, else you'd have
picked up the book and been ready to start at the sound of her name.
I'll teach you to be so slow." With a sudden lightning movement she
caught hold of the loose skin just under the jaw, firmly, grimly, with
her left hand, holding him amazed and for a moment helpless as she
pulled the paper out of the ring; then she let go, and pointed to the
book, just as the dog was about to spring.
"Missie told you to keep it for her."
The room vibrated with the thunder of his fury as he placed both feet
on the book and glared about him.
"I know," said Jill as she read the message over the old woman's
shoulder. "She has gone to my son. To his tents in the desert." She
spoke quietly and with a certain dignity and authority which checked
all questions. "He will take her straight to me. Shall we go back to
Khargegh, or shall I go to them, to his tents?" There was no sign of
the triumph in the mother-heart at the thought of the happiness which
was to come to her first-born; neither had she a single thought for the
others.
A mother's love is the most surpassing of all loves; it is the eighth
wonder of the world; it is a mystery before which that of the Sphinx
shrinks to insignificance; it is the one love which asks for so very
little in return for all it gives.
Blessed, sanctified refuge against all harm!
Five minutes of quick discussion; rapid weighing of the pros and cons
as to the best way to keep from the ears that which would serve as a
whetstone to the tongues of the scandalmongers; a sharp, clear
understanding and decision.
The manager of the hotel salaamed deeply in the doorway before the
high-born women, and showed no surprise at the tale--which he believed,
perhaps--of Miss Hethencourt, who had gone to meet her grace and having
undoubtedly mixed up instructions, had either gone up to Kulla to meet
her, crossing her on the river, or had crossed to the other side,
thinking, as her grace had suggested doing, that the return from Kulla
would be made by camel on the far side of the Nile.
Good gracious! no. He had long since given up showing or feeling
surprise at anything any of the great white races might elect to do.
He had harboured them for several winters in his hotel, you see.
Certainly everything should be ready in the quickest possible time. A
hamper and some brandy; the boat; and upon the other side the swiftest
camel from the hotel stables for her Excellency the wife of the Sheikh
el-Umbar; the swiftest men to carry a litter--ah! two litters, as her
grace's maid would join in the search. Not Miss Coop; she was staying
behind, of course, to have everything in readiness for Miss
Hethencourt, who would doubtless be very tired and a little frightened.
"There is nothing to fear," he added. "Nobody has ever really been
lost in Egypt, and as Miss Hethencourt will not want a crowd of friends
to meet her on her safe return, not one word shall be said about the
little expedition of relief."
He salaamed and retired, leaving the duchess looking after him.
She had her doubts about his belief in one word of the story.
* * * * * *
Wrapped in her ermine cloak and leaning on her ebony stick, Olivia
Duchess of Longacres stood near all that is left of the Gate of
To-morrow.
Hugh Carden's mother looked down at her from the back of her camel, on
which had been fixed the padded seat which is perhaps the most
comfortable of all saddles.
Wellington, with the book between his teeth, sat next her, firmly
secured by a rope through the steel ring in his spiked collar to the
back of the seat.
"Take him, your grace," had urged Jane Coop, whose own heart was nigh
to breaking at being left behind. "Take him; he'll find her if we
should happen to have made a mistake. Missie calling you, Wellington.
Take the book to Missie; she wants it."
And the dog had obediently picked up the book in his teeth and waddled
in the wake of the search-party.
Maria Hobson stood close beside her mistress; the indifferent
_fellaheen_ stood some little way apart. They, too, have long since
become accustomed to the vagaries of the great white races.
"Let me go alone, dear. He is my son!"
The mother had pleaded for the sake of her first-born, and the old
woman, understanding, had given way.
"Goodbye, dear. I will wait for you here. Hobson will look after me.
Besides, as long as we save her good name, what matters anything else?
Thank God for the moon, Jill. You will easily follow the track of the
two horses. Give them both my love, and tell them I'm waiting. _Au
revoir_."
She stood and watched the camel slither across the desert at that
animal's almost incredible speed; then turned, sat down on the edge of
her litter, took out her bejewelled Louis XV snuff-box, rasped a match
on the sole of her crimson shoe, and lit a Three Castles with her eyes
on the track left by the hoofs of two horses.
Yes! Two.
Just an hour before they arrived, Ben Kelham had started from the Gate
of To-morrow to find his school-mate, Hugh Carden Ali, at his Tents of
Purple and of Gold.