Through a labyrinth of narrow streets, echoing with native cries and
Oriental traffic, a wonderful sight and sensation to strangers
unfamiliar with Cairene commercial life, Margaret Lampton found her way
to "the home of enchantment," as she afterwards called the Iretons'
ancient mansion. It was a native house, typical and expressive of the
most resplendent years of the Mameluke rule in Egypt.
A licensed guide, with a brass-lettered number on his arm, in a blue
cotton jebba and a scarlet fez, had volunteered to show her the way; it
would have been impossible for a stranger to find it alone. The
Cairene licensed guides, although they are pests, have their uses.
As Margaret passed under the lintel of the outer door, which led into a
quiet courtyard, of Hadassah Ireton's house, a Nubian servant rose from
the stone _mastaba_--the guards' seat--upon which he had been lying
half asleep; he conducted her with the silence of a shadow to the gate
of the inner or women's courtyard. This courtyard was overlooked by
the women's quarters of the house only.
Margaret rather timidly entered the second courtyard. She scarcely
knew what to expect. She was certainly not prepared for the vision of
beauty which she saw directly the door was opened. She had heard
nothing at all of the fantastic beauty of the superb old Mameluke
palaces in Cairo; she did not know that the Iretons lived in one.
A fat servant, also a Nubian, but more amply clad the guard at the
outer door, rose from a wooden seat, grown grey with age. With the
same silence and mystery he conducted Margaret across the courtyard.
Margaret could, of course, only glance at the bewildering beauty of her
mediaeval surroundings as she followed the servant, but brief as her
vision of it was, it left a never-to-be-forgotten picture in her mind.
A vision of coolness and peace, of oriel windows--chamber-windows for
unreal people, jealously screened with weather-bleached _meshrahiyeh_
work--and one high balcony, the special feature of the courtyard, a
dream of romantic beauty, shaded by the dark leaves of an ancient
lebbek tree. It was a vision as dignified as it was touching. It was
like a lost piece of a world which had passed away, a lonely cloud
which had detached itself from a world of romance and had hidden itself
in the heart of a seething city of ugliness and sin.
Surprise temporarily drove from Margaret's mind the object of her
visit; it was not until she was seated in the spacious room which
overlooked the courtyard, and whose front wall consisted of the
_meshrahiyeh_ balcony--it was now Hadassah Ireton's drawing-room--that
she was brought face to face with the unusualness of her visit.
The room was beautifully cool, screened as it was by the delicate
lace-work. _Meshrabiyeh_ was invented to fill two wants--to screen the
windows through which women could look out, without being seen
themselves, and to admit fresh air while it excluded the sun. It is a
substitute for glass in a warm climate.
Margaret would have liked to have sat for a little time longer to
collect her thoughts and to take in the beauty of the room; but that
was not to be; the door opened and her hostess entered.
Of all the beautiful pictures which she had seen since she entered the
inner courtyard of this mediaeval home, Hadassah Ireton was the most
beautiful. She had brought her baby-boy with her; he was just learning
to toddle. A sob rose in Margaret's throat, as she saw the fair-haired
child beside the tall young mother.
Hadassah had greeted her with the conventional "How do you do?"
Margaret answered it as conventionally.
Hadassah lifted her boy up and held him out to Margaret. "This is my
son," she said. "I know he wants to welcome you."
The boy held up his face to be kissed. As he did so, Margaret took him
in her arms and held him close to her breast. Hadassah, who had
brought him to administer to that very want--a woman's empty arms--went
to the balcony and made a pretence of letting in some fresh air and
excluding the shaft of sunlight which was coming from one of the small
oriels that had been left unclosed.
When she turned to her guest, she saw something very like tears in
Margaret's eyes. The child, who did not know the meaning of the word
fear or shyness, was speaking to Margaret as if he had known her all
his short life.
"He has taken you into his elastic heart," Hadassah said. "Because, if
you don't mind me saying so, I think we are rather like one another."
"Oh, no!" Margaret said impulsively, while she blushed. "I'm not like
you!"
Her words were expressive of admiration. Hadassah did not pretend to
misunderstand them; she was well accustomed to admiration.
"The boy sees the resemblance, I'm sure."
"We have both dark heads and we are both tall," Margaret said
laughingly. "But there the likeness ends." She looked at Hadassah's
eyes as she spoke and wished that she could believe that she was in the
least like her. She had never seen such a beautiful expression in any
woman's eyes before. Was she really the Syrian girl whom Michael
Ireton had dared to marry?
"Let us sit down," Hadassah said. "But before we begin our talk, I
must send Michael to the nursery. I am really so foolish about him--I
wanted you to see him." She rang the bell and a pretty Coptic girl in
native dress came into the room; the boy went on with her without
demur. The girl had looked at Margaret with big brown eyes; they
carried her mind back to the portraits of Egyptian women painted in
Roman times on the walls of tombs.
"What a good little chap!" Margaret said. "I'm sure he wanted to stay
with you. How marked the Coptic type is!--they are the true
descendants of the ancient Egyptians, aren't they? He looked so fair
beside her."
"Dear little son! He will be perfectly happy with her. He loves
everybody and everything. I sometimes wonder if it means a lack of
character. He rarely cries, and he sings baby-songs to himself all day
long."
"What a darling!" Margaret said. "And how fair!"
"Yes," Hadassah said, "quite English." The words were spoken without
malice, but they brought the colour to Margaret's cheeks. Hadassah saw
it, and said laughingly, "I was granted my wish--I wanted to have a boy
as like my husband as possible. He wanted a girl, I think."
Margaret laid her hand on Hadassah's arm. "Did you mind me writing?"
she said. "I hope you didn't think it very odd?" Her voice broke. "I
wanted your advice. I knew you and your husband could help me."
"Dear Miss Lampton," Hadassah said, "I'm so glad you wrote, and of
course I understood. It's worth while to have suffered oneself, so as
to be able to understand and help others in their suffering."
Margaret knew all that the words implied, but with her habitual
reserve, she answered as though Hadassah had referred to her cousin's
death. The Nationalist plot in which he was implicated had added to
the horror which British society in Cairo had openly expressed at
Michael Ireton's marriage with a Syrian, who was a cousin of the
ill-advised youth.
"Michael told me something of the tragedy," Margaret said. "You must
have felt his death terribly."
Margaret's words were conventional, but Hadassah did not miss the
sympathy and feeling which lay underneath them.
"I did," Hadassah said. "But the boy would never have been happy--he
was one of the pitiful instances you meet in Egypt; of misguided
idealists. Girgis had a fine character, but he was fastened upon
because of his wealth by the wrong set of the Nationalist party, who
misled him and then turned on him and killed him because he wouldn't go
as far as they wanted him to go in their horrible outrages. It was a
pitiful story, greatly distorted and misinterpreted by the press."
"His death was splendid," Margaret said. "It wiped out all the
rest--it proved his real worth."
"Yes," Hadassah said. "Poor Girgis died a hero's death. He was as
brave as a lion. But come," she said, "let me hear your news. These
things we are talking about are ancient history to everybody but
myself, and I never think of them if I can help it. It is better not."
She sighed reflectively. "Dear Girgis knows that I can never forget
him. He gave me all his fierce young love at a time when it was very
precious."
"Ignorance was at the bottom of it all," Margaret said. She was
alluding to the behaviour of the British residents in Cairo in respect
to Hadassah's marriage. Hadassah understood.
"I have learned to know and realize that," she said. "And, after all,
one must pity ignorance. I have got so far that I can actually feel
sorry for such narrow minds. As for Michael, he never gave it a
thought. If our characters are widened through suffering, I have
gained--they have lost. Something fine always leaves our natures when
we do or think unkind things--nothing is truer or surer than that."
"Michael always says the same thing," Margaret said eagerly. "He
thinks unkind thoughts and uncharitable acts--want of love, in
fact--the unpardonable sins."
"Both our men have the same name." Hadassah's eyes smiled. "I like
your man so much, if I may say so. He is worth a great deal. We can't
expect big things to come to us in a small, mediocre way, can we?"
"I am so glad you like him," Margaret said. "And you believe in him?
Your husband believes in him, in his . . ." she hesitated ". . .
unpractical mind?" Hadassah's understanding and gentleness made her
feel childishly weak. It would have been a relief to give way to
weeping. Her nerves were at the point when any rebuke would have
braced her sympathy was undoing.
"Why, of course!"
"May I tell you why I came?"
"Will you have some tea first? You are tired!"
"No thanks, really. I had numerous cups of coffee on my way here."
"Then let me hear all you want to tell me. Even if I can't help you, I
know how nice it is to talk over one's troubles with another woman.
You have lived very much cut off from women's society all these months.
Where is Mr. Amory? Did he go into the desert? We haven't heard of
him or from him since he spoke to my husband about going off on a long
journey. He had a great scheme in his head. He's an odd creature."
She laughed. "You and I both like individualities, I think."
"He went into the eastern desert soon after you saw him. I haven't
heard from him since he went. His letters may have gone astray. But
in the meantime a report has been spread abroad that he has taken a
woman with him, a Mrs. Mervill. Have you heard of her?"
"Millicent Mervill? I know her!"
"Well, she is in love with him. You know how beautiful she is. . . ."
Margaret's voice lost its steadiness.
"Yes, and also I know how thoroughly lacking in morals. She is very
well-known by this time. Last season she was the fashion; she
entertained lavishly. This year she has thrown caution to the winds."
"She certainly has, for she has positively hunted Michael to earth."
"Michael Amory, of all men!" Hadassah's laugh encouraged Margaret; it
was so expressive of what she herself felt.
"Yes, I think she is annoyed because. . . ." Margaret paused ". . .
well, I can't express what I mean, but Michael isn't that sort. He
would be her friend if she would let him, but friendship isn't enough."
"I know what you mean. He certainly isn't that sort, there can be no
mistaking that."
Margaret smiled happily. "Then you believe he isn't?"
"Of course! Who doesn't?"
"My brother objects to my name being mixed up in the scandal." Margaret
had evaded answering Hadassah's question.
"But what scandal?"
"The reports that are going about that Mrs. Mervill is with him in the
desert, that that is why I haven't heard from Mike. Everyone is saying
it." Meg's words conveyed an apology for her brother.
"Your brother really believes this, and yet he knows Mr. Amory?"
"Yes. But you mustn't blame him. He has tried not to believe it; he
is really awfully good about it all. And I must admit that it looks as
if the story was true, but I just know it isn't."
"Of course it isn't!" Hadassah said, almost sharply. "Who spread the
report?"
"First it came from the native diggers in the valley, and then my
brother heard it from Mr. King. Now lots of people are talking about
it, and my brother wants me to go home. . . . I've promised to go
if . . ." Margaret paused. "That's why I came to you. I want your
advice. If we could only hear from Michael, I know the whole thing
would be explained. My brother would do anything he could to help me,
but his business ties him and . . ." again she paused and then said
hurriedly, "You know what men are--he hates my name being bandied
about."
"I'll get my husband to comb out the truth from all these lies."
Hadassah put her hand on Margaret's. "You'll laugh at your fears one
day."
"If you only knew how thoughtless Michael is about the opinion of the
world! If he isn't doing wrong, he never stops to think what
construction the world may be putting on his action, nor does he care."
"Personally I think it's the malicious talk of some enemy, or of Mrs.
Mervill herself. Can she have intercepted his letters, and spread the
report so as to separate you?"
"She may have followed him. If she is with him, she is self-invited."
Hadassah Ireton interrupted her. "Even Mrs. Mervill could scarcely do
that!"
"My brother says that I may wait in Cairo until we can find definite
proofs one way or another. A letter may come from Michael at any
moment. I know it will come if he is all right, but I'm so afraid he
is ill--that is really what I came to ask you about."
"You want us to try to find out if he is ill?"
"Yes, if you will, if it is not asking too much. Something keeps on
telling me that he is ill, that he is in need of help." Margaret was
speaking more earnestly and with less restraint. "I have had queer
visions and many presentiments since I lived in the Valley. I seem to
be able to see beyond . . . if you know what I mean. They have come
true in many instances--it is not mere imagination. But perhaps you
have as little belief as I once had in these things?"
"Where ought Mr. Amory to be just now--have you any idea?" Hadassah's
voice conveyed the idea to Margaret that the subject was too serious to
be spoken of hastily or decisively.
"He ought to have reached his destination, the hills beyond the ruins
of Tel-el-Amarna. Did you know the object of his journey?" Margaret
spoke nervously, shyly; she shrank from speaking of her lover's belief
in the treasure of Akhnaton.
"Yes. He told my husband the twofold reason of his wish to make the
journey. He believes in the theory that there is a buried treasure in
the hills beyond Tel-el-Amarna, where Akhnaton was buried, and I think
he also wanted . . . what shall I say? . . . to find himself--I suppose
I must use that hackneyed phrase for want of a better--to find himself
in the desert. Wasn't that it?"
"Yes. He is a born wanderer." Margaret said the words dreamily; her
thoughts had flown, to the luminous figure of Akhnaton. In this superb
mansion, fashioned by Oriental genius and Eastern wealth and
imagination, her vision took its place, not unnaturally, in the strange
list of things which her eyes had seen or her mind had received during
her life in Egypt.
"Will you enjoy a wandering life? Don't you think women like a home?"
"With an intellectual companion any place is home; with a stupid one a
palace becomes a wilderness. I have learnt that in the desert, if I
have learnt nothing else, I think. Michael could make a real home out
of a bathing-machine and a box of books." She laughed. "He is never
dull, he doesn't know the meaning of the word bored. His only trouble
is that no day is long enough. He'd forget the dimensions of the
bathing-machine--it would become to him a beautiful house like this."
"What a wonderful thing love is!" Hadassah said to herself, as she
watched Margaret's eyes glow and shine. Her thoughts had transformed
her. "A wonderful and beautiful thing! Whatever would the world be
without it? And yet there are some people who go through life without
the faintest idea of what it really means!"
"What we three have got to do," she said aloud, "is to discover where
the wanderer is. The sooner he is found the sooner he can start life
in a bathing-box. I agree with you so far that I think it's more than
likely that he is ill--not necessarily seriously ill, but ill enough to
have been delayed on his journey. Still, that is not the only solution
of the problem. His letters may be lying in some native post-office.
I've known letters remain for weeks on end in out-of-the-way village
post-offices. The official can't read the address; he puts the letter
aside until someone comes along who can. It may be sooner, it may be
later; they eventually reach their destination."
Margaret smiled. "Michael's writing is not too clear--that may be the
cause of the delay."
"My husband has received letters which have been months on a journey
which should have taken days. Time means nothing to desert peoples, as
you know."
"You have made me feel much happier," Margaret said brightly. She
could have kissed the beautiful woman by her side out of sheer
gratitude.
For some time longer they discussed the subject more fully and laid
their plans.
Suddenly Hadassah said, "Where are you staying in Cairo?"
When Margaret told her the name of her hotel, she said, "You must come
to us. We have lots of spare room in this big house, and if you are
here we can work together so much better. The hotel is too public. It
would really give us great pleasure if you will. I feel sure it would
be wiser."
"How kind of you to ask me!" Margaret said. "I am quite a stranger to
you! I'd love to come. Michael has told me something about your work
among the Copts--indeed, everyone speaks of it, of your new educational
scheme and the progress you have made in so short a time. I should
like to understand more about it, if I may."
"Perhaps our minds have met many times before, for I think we are
scarcely strangers," Hadassah said. "I hope you don't feel towards me
as one?"
Margaret looked pleased. "I have heard so much about you, about your
work."
"It is very uphill work. You can only hope for very slow results
amongst a people who have been scorned and persecuted and rejected for
generations and generations. I, as a Syrian, know what social
persecution means, so it is my highest ambition to do what little I
can, with my husband's help and my father's wealth, to elevate the
ideals and the moral standard of the young Coptic girls. You can do
nothing, or next to nothing, with the older women. Their characters
are formed, their prejudices too deeply-rooted."
"I suppose so. It is the same in India--the women there are the
bitterest opponents to the reforms for women. They cling to the
suffering and oppression they endure."
"These Copts have absorbed so many of the worst features of the
Mohammedan civilization--their superstitions, their domestic customs
as regards the women, and a great many of their least desirable
religious ceremonies. It is hard, for instance, for a stranger to
distinguish between a Christian native's marriage or funeral and a
Moslem's--indeed, it is often not easy even if you have a lifelong
knowledge of the country. The finest qualities of Islam--and they
are many--they have rejected, and for so doing they have suffered
unthinkable hardships and persecutions. Bad as things are to-day, they
were far, far worse in the days before the British Occupation, when the
Christians were at the mercy of the fanatical Moslems."
"It is such a pity that the native Christian population is the one
which no one trusts in this country. The Mohammedans are respected,
the Copts are despised. I find that, even in connection with my
brother's work. The brains and industry of the country seem to belong
to the Copts; the honour and reliability to the Moslems."
"I know," Hadassah said. "And that's what my husband and I are
fighting against. He wants to prove that the people of any country and
of any religion, even the English," Hadassah's eyes twinkled, "will
become degraded and untrustworthy in time, if they are persecuted and
oppressed. With the Christian element in Egypt, it has been a case of
every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. If we were to
take some Coptic children and Mohammedan children, of the same social
grade out here, and had them educated in England as Christians, you
would soon see that it is not the Copts who ought to be despised, but
their intolerant oppressors and persecutors." Hadassah smiled. "You
know, Miss Lampton, how easy it is to be good and strong when one is
trusted and loved. Love makes finer, better women of us."
Margaret rose from her seat. "You have done me so much good," she
said. "I feel as if my world had been re-made."
"That's splendid!" Hadassah said. "I always try to remember that it is
a privilege to suffer. It is one of the divine fires which tests us;
suffering links us to the great brotherhood. You wouldn't choose to be
outside it. The older we grow the more we realize that it is
suffering, not happiness, which makes the whole world kin."
Margaret's silence, which often was more eloquent than other women's
speech, told Hadassah that she agreed. Suffering was teaching her its
lessons.
"When may we expect you?" Hadassah said. "The sooner the better, don't
you think?"
"May I come in a day or two? I have some business to do for my
brother--I have promised to see one or two people for him; he is going
home very soon." She looked round the hall through which they were
passing. "I can't imagine myself ever really living here. It looks as
if it had all been created by the wand of some magician for a princess
in a fairytale. What a contrast to our hut in the Valley!"
"You like it better than a new house in the European settlement? You
think I chose wisely?"
"Of course I do. Who wouldn't?"
"This house costs us no more than a good flat would in the European
part of the city, but you have to come through the native quarters to
get to it, remember. Many people would object to that."
"I hate the European quarter of Cairo," Margaret said. "It seems to me
so vulgar and degenerate. The native quarter is just what it sets out
to be, no better and no worse."
"Well, you must come and stay with us--my husband will enjoy showing
you the hidden beauties of Cairo. He is devoted to it."
Margaret's ears caught the sound of water. It was coming from a tall
fountain which was playing in the centre of the outer hall. Above it
was a pendentive roof, richly carved and coloured. A suggestion of
turquoise-blue and the gleam of iridescent tiles showed through the
clear water in the octagonal basin set in the floor. The jets of water
came from a large ball of blue faience resting on the top of a slender
spiral column. The fountain was only one of the beautiful features of
that Eastern mansion which Margaret noticed as her hostess conducted
her to the inner courtyard.
"How enchanting it all is!" Margaret said. "I feel much too prosaic to
imagine spending my everyday working hours in it." Her life in the hut
seemed better suited to her practical nature.
"I love it," Hadassah said. "And I like its emptiness. That is the
native idea. We have tried not to make it look like a mediaeval
museum, not to stuff it up with things. It's a great temptation."
"Its sense of space is its greatest charm. There is everything you can
possibly want in it, and yet it has none of the absurd knick-knacks and
useless lumber of Western houses. My brother and I have learned to do
without so much that I don't think we shall ever fall into the sin of
overcrowding our rooms again."
Hadassah laughed. "Will you have the courage to burn family
relics?--Aunt Maria's uncomfortable ottoman, Aunt Elizabeth's
escritoire, which is too small to write at, and Aunt Anne's firescreen
with strawberries worked in bead-work?"
"Oh, I know them all," Margaret said. "Just compare them to these
beautiful things!"
"Don't forget," Hadassah said, "that you are comparing the things of
England's worst period to the things of the finest period in Cairo. If
you saw some of the native houses, furnished from the European store in
the Ezbekiyeh, you would think Queen Victoria's private apartments at
Osborne beautiful," Hadassah's voice expressed her meaning.
"Good-bye," Margaret said laughingly. "It is hard to believe that, but
I take your word for it."
As Margaret walked through the outer courtyard, she kept saying to
herself, "So that is the Syrian's daughter, the girl whom the English
people rejected and would have none of!"
Freddy had often corrected his sister for her careless use of the word
"beautiful." He maintained that few people had ever seen a really
beautiful human being. The Greeks idealized their models in their
types of Venus and Apollo. Margaret felt that at last she could
truthfully tell him that she had seen a beautiful woman, and that that
woman was a Syrian, Michael Ireton's "wife out of Egypt."