In the house in Cleveland Square, on a morning in late January, Meyer
Isaacson read Nigel's letter.
"Villa Androud,
"Luxor, Upper Egypt, Jan. 21st.
"Dear Isaacson,
"Here at last is a letter, the first I've sat down to write to you
since the note telling you of my marriage. I had your kind letter
in answer, and showed it to Ruby, who was as pleased with it as I
was. She liked you from the first, and I think has always wished to
know you better since you went to cheer her up in her London
solitude. Some day I suppose she will have the chance, but now we
are on the eve of cutting ourselves off from every one and giving
ourselves up to the Nile. You are surprised, perhaps? You thought I
should be hard at it in the Fayyum, looking after my brown fellows?
Well, I'm as keen as ever on the work there, and if you could have
seen me not many days ago, nearly up to my knees in mud, and as
oily and black as a stoker, you'd know it. My wife was in the
Fayyum with me, and has been roughing it like a regular Spartan.
She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free, and has been
living under the tent, riding camels, feeding anyhow, and, in
short, getting a real taste of the nomad's life in the wilds. She
cottoned to it like anything, although no doubt she missed her
comforts now and then. But she never complained, she's looking
simply splendid--years younger than she did when you saw her in
London--and won't hear of having another maid, though now she might
quite well get one. For I felt I oughtn't to keep her too long in
the wilds just at first, although she was quite willing to stay,
and didn't want to take me away from my work. I knew she was
naturally anxious to see something of the wonders of Egypt, and the
end of it was that we decided to take a dahabeeyah trip on the
Nile, and are on the eve of starting. You should see our boat, the
_Loulia_! she's a perfect beauty, and, apart from a few absurd
details which I haven't the time to describe, would delight you.
The bedrooms are Paris, but the sitting-rooms are like rooms in an
Eastern house. You'll say Paris and the East don't go together.
Granted! But it's very jolly to be romantic by day and soused in
modern comfort at night. Now isn't it? Especially after the Fayyum.
And we've actually got a fountain on board, to say nothing of
prayer rugs by the dozen which beat any I've seen in the bazaars of
Cairo. For we haven't hired from Cook, but from an Egyptian
millionaire of Alexandria called Mahmoud Baroudi, whom we met
coming out, and who happened to want a tenant for his boat just in
the nick of time. It isn't my money he needs, though I'm paying him
what I should pay Cook for a first-rate boat, but he doesn't like
leaving his crew and servants with nothing to do. He says they get
into mischief. He was looking out for a rich American--like nearly
every one out here--when he happened to hear from one of our
fellows, a first-rate chap called Ibrahim, that we wanted a good
boat, and so the bargain was made. Our plans are pretty vague. We
want to get right away from trippers, and just be together in all
the delicious out-of-the-way places on the river; see the temples
and tombs quietly, enter into the life of the natives--in fact,
steep ourselves to the lips in Nile water. I can't tell you how we
are both looking forward to it. Isaacson, we're happy! Out here in
this climate, this air, this clearness--like radiant sincerity it
is, I often think--it's difficult not to be happy; but I think
we're happier even than most people out here--at any rate I'm sure
I am--I'll dare to say than any one else out here. And I'll say it
with audacity and without superstitious fears of the future. The
sun's streaming in over me as I write; I hear the voices of the
watermen singing; I see my wife in the garden walking to the river
bank, and I've got this trip before me. And--just remembered
it!--I'm superbly well. Never in my life have I been in such
splendid health. They say a perfectly healthy man should be
unconscious of his body. Well, when I get up in the morning, all I
know is that I say to myself, 'You're in grand condition, old
chap!' And I think that consciousness means more than any
unconsciousness. Don't you? I've no use for all your knowledge,
your skill, out here--no use at all. Are there really people being
ill in London? Are your consulting-rooms crowded? I can't believe
it, any more than I can believe in the darkness of London days.
What a selfish brute I am! You're hating me, aren't you? But it's
so good to be happy. When I'm happy, I always feel that I'm
fulfilling the law. If you want to fulfil the law better, come to
Egypt. But you ought to bring _the_ woman with you into the
sunshine. I can't say any more; I needn't say any more. Now, you
understand that it's all right. Do you remember our walk home from
the concert that night, and how I said, 'I want to get into the
light, the real light'? Well, I'm in it, and how I wish that you
and every one else could be in it too! Forgive my egoism. Write to
me at this address when you have time. Come to the Nile when next
you take a holiday, and, with many messages from us both,
"Believe us
"Your friends,
"N. A. and R. A.
"I sign for her. She's still in the garden, where I'm just going."
A letter of success. A letter subtly breathing out from every line the
message, "You were wrong." A letter of triumph, devoid of the cruelty
that triumph often holds. A letter, surely, for a true friend to rejoice
in?
Meyer Isaacson held it for a long while in his hands, forgetful of the
tea that was standing at his elbow.
The day was dark and grim, a still, not very cold, but hopeless day of
the dawning year. And he, was he not holding sunshine? The strange
thing was that it did not warm him, that it seemed rather to add a
shadow to London's dimness.
Mrs. Armine without a maid! He scarcely knew why, but that very small
event, the dismissal of a maid, seemed almost to bristle up at him out
of his friend's letter. He knew smart women well, and he knew that the
average smart woman would rather do without the hope of Heaven than do
without her maid. Mrs. Armine must have changed indeed since she was
Mrs. Chepstow. Could she have changed so much? Do people of mature age
change radically when an enthusiastic influence is brought to bear upon
them?
All day long Isaacson was pondering that question.
Nigel was knocking at a door. Had it opened to him? Would it ever open?
He thought it would. Probably he thought it had.
He and his wife were going away to be together "in all the delicious
out-of-the-way places on the Nile," and they were "happier than most
people"--even than most people in the region of gold.
And yet two sons had been born to Lord Harwich, and Nigel had been cut
out of the succession!
When he had read that news, Isaacson had wondered what effect it would
have in the _menage_ on the Nile--how the greedy woman would bear it.
Apparently she had borne it well. Nigel did not even mention it.
And the departure of that maid! Mrs. Armine without a maid! Again that
night as Isaacson sat alone reading Nigel's letter that apparently
unimportant fact seemed to bristle up from the paper and confront him.
What was the meaning of that strange renunciation? What had prompted it?
"She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free." Free for what?
The doctor lit a cigar, and leaned back in a deep arm-hair. And he began
to study that cheery letter almost as a detective studies the plan of a
house in which a crime has been committed. When his cigar was smoked
out, he laid the letter aside, but he still refrained for a while from
going to bed. His mind was far away on the Nile. Never had he seen the
Nile. Should he go to see it, soon, this year, this spring? He
remembered a morning's ride, when the air of London was languorous, had
seemed for a moment almost exotic. That air had made him wish to go
away, far away, to the land where he would be really at home, where he
would be in "his own place." And then he had imagined a distant country
where all romances unwind their shining coils. And he had longed for
events, tragic, tremendous, horrible, even, if only they were unusual.
He had longed for an incentive which would call his secret powers into
supreme activity.
Should he go to the Nile very soon--this spring?
He looked again at the letter. He read again those apparently
insignificant words:
"She packed off her French maid, so as to be quite free."