Nigel had come to hate the _Loulia_. They had no further need of her,
and he begged his wife to telegraph to Baroudi in his name to take her
away as soon as he liked.
"Ibrahim has his address, I know," he said.
The telegram was sent. In reply came one from Baroudi taking over the
_Loulia_. The same day the Reis came up to the villa to receive
backsheesh and to say farewell. He made no remark as to his own and his
crew's immediate destiny, but soon after he had gone the _Loulia_
untied, crossed the Nile, and was tied up again nearly opposite to the
garden against the western bank. And in the evening the sailors could be
heard in the distance "making the fantasia."
Mrs. Armine heard them as she walked alone in the garden close to the
promontory, and she saw the blue light at the mast-head. The cabin
windows were dark.
So this was the end of their voyage to the South!
She stood still near the wall of earth which divided the garden from the
partially waste and partially cultivated ground which lay beyond it.
She had not thought that they would come back--there.
This was the end of their voyage. But what was to be the end?
Baroudi made no sign. He had never written to her one word. She had
never dared to write to him. He had not told her to write, and that
meant he did not choose her to write. She was very much afraid of him,
and her fear of him was part of the terrible fascination he held to
govern her. She who had had so many slaves when she was young ended
thus--in being herself a slave.
She sat down by the earth wall on the first stones of the promontory.
The night was moonless; but in the clear nights of Egypt, even without
the moon very near details can often be distinguished.
To the right of Mrs. Armine the brown earth bank shelved steeply to a
shore that was like a sandy beach which an incoming tide had nearly
covered. About it, in a sort of large basin of loose sand and earth,
grew a quantity of bushes forming a not dense scrub. She had never been
down to walk upon the sandy shore, though she had often descended to get
into the felucca. But to-night, after sitting still for some time, she
went down, and began to pace upon the sand close to the water's edge.
From here she could not see the house with its lighted windows, speaking
to her of the life in which she was involved. She could see nothing
except the darkness of the great river, the dark outline of the
promontory, and of the top of the bank where the garden began, the dark
and confused forms of the bushes tangled together. At her feet the
silent water lay, like lake water almost, though farther out the current
was strong.
"What am I going to do?" she kept on saying to herself, as she walked to
and fro in this solitude. "What am I going to do?"
It was a strange thing, perhaps, that even at this moment Baroudi, the
man at a distance, frightened her more than Isaacson, the man who was
near. She did not know what either was going to do. She was the prey of
a double uncertainty. Isaacson, she supposed, would bring her husband
back to health, unless even now she found means to get rid of him. And
Baroudi, what would he do? She looked across the river and saw the blue
light. Why was the _Loulia_ tied up there? Was Baroudi coming up to
join her?
If he did come! She walked faster, quite unconscious that she had
quickened her pace. If he did come she felt now that she could no longer
be obedient. She would have to see him, have to force him to come out
from his deep mystery of the Eastern mind and take notice of what she
was feeling. His magnificent selfishness had dominated hers. But she was
becoming desperate. The thought of her wrecked beauty haunted her
always, though she was perpetually thrusting it away from her. She was
resolved to think that there was very little change in her appearance,
and that such change as there was would only be temporary. A little,
only a little of what she wanted, and surely the Indian summer would
return.
And then, she thought of Meyer Isaacson up there in the house close to
her, with his horribly acute eyes that proclaimed his horribly acute
brain. That man could be pitiless, but not to Nigel. And could he ever
be pitiless to her without being pitiless to Nigel?
She looked at the water, and now stood still.
If Baroudi were on board the _Loulia_ to-night, she would get a boat and
go to him--would not she?--and say she could not stand her life any
longer, that she must be with him. She would let him treat her as he
chose. Thinking of Nigel's kindness at this moment she actually longed
for cruelty from Baroudi.
But she must be with him.
If she could only be with Baroudi anywhere, anyhow, she would throw the
memory of this hateful life with Nigel away for ever. She would never
give Nigel another thought. There would be no time to waste over that.
"But what am I going to do? What am I going to do?"
That sentence came back to her mind. Flights of the imagination were
useless. It was no use now to give the reins to imagination.
Baroudi must come up the river. He must be coming up, or the _Loulia_
would surely not be tied up against the western shore. But perhaps she
was there only for the night. Perhaps she would sail on the morrow.
Mrs. Armine felt that if the next morning the _Loulia_ was gone she
would be unable to remain in Luxor. She would have to take the train and
go. Where? Anywhere! To Cairo. She could make some excuse; that she must
get some clothes, mourning for Harwich. That would do. She would say she
was going only for a couple of days. Nigel would let her go. And Meyer
Isaacson?
What he wished and what he meant in regard to her Mrs. Armine did not
know. And just at this moment she scarcely cared. The return to the
villa and the departure of the _Loulia_ seemed to have fanned the fire
within her. While she was on the _Loulia_, in an enclosed place, rather
like a beautiful prison, she had succeeded in concentrating herself to a
certain extent on matters in hand. She had had frightful hours of ennui
and almost of despair, but she had got through them somehow. And she had
been in command.
Now Nigel had been taken forcibly out of her hands, and the beautiful
prison was no more theirs. And this return to the home which had seen
the opening of her life in Egypt strangely excited her. Once again the
_Loulia_ lay there where she had lain when Baroudi was on board of her;
once again from the bank of the Nile Mrs. Armine heard the song of Allah
in the distance, as on that night when she heard it first, and it was a
serenade to her. But how much had happened between then and now!
Now in the house behind her there were two men--the man who did not know
her and loved her, and the man who did know her and hated her.
But the man who knew her, and who had wanted her just as she was--he was
not there.
She felt that she must see him again, quickly, that she must tell him
all that had happened since she had set sail on the _Loulia_. And yet
could she, dared she, leave Nigel alone with Meyer Isaacson?
She paced again on the sand, passing and repassing in front of the
darkness of the bushes.
When Isaacson had stood before her in the temple of Edfou, she had had a
moment of absolute terror--such a moment as can only come once in a
life. A period of fear and of struggle, of agony even, had followed. Yet
in that period there had been no moment quite so frightful. For she had
confronted the known, not the utterly unexpected, and she had been
fighting, and still she must fight.
But she must have a word from Baroudi, a look from Baroudi. Without
these, she felt as if she might--as if she must do something stupid or
desperate. She was coming to the end of her means, to the limit of her
powers, perhaps.
The hardest blow she had had as yet had been Doctor Hartley's escape out
of the circle of her influence. That escape had weakened her
self-confidence, had been a catastrophe surely grimly prophetic of other
catastrophes to come. It had even put into her mind a doubt that was
surely absurd.
Suppose Nigel were to emancipate himself!
If he were gone, she would care nothing. She would not want Nigel to
regret her. If she were gone, in a day he would be as one dead to her.
He meant nothing to her except a weight that dragged upon her, keeping
her from all that she was fitted for, from all that she desired. But
while she remained with Nigel, her influence must be paramount. For
Isaacson was at his elbow to take advantage of every opening. And she
was sure Isaacson would give her no mercy, if once he got Nigel on his
side.
What was she to do? What was she to do?
Secretly she cursed with her whole heart now the coldly practical,
utterly self-interested side of Baroudi's nature. But she was afraid to
defy it. She remembered his words:
"We have to do what we want in the world without losing anything by it."
And she saw him--how often!--going in at the tent-door through which
streamed light, to join the painted odalisque.
She was reaching the limit of her endurance. She felt that strongly
to-night.
On the day of their return to the villa Hamza had mysteriously left
them, without a word.
Two or three times Nigel had asked for him. She had said at first that
he had gone to see his family. Afterwards she had said that he stayed
away because he was offended at not being allowed any more to wait upon
his master: "Doctor Isaacson's orders, you know!" And Nigel had answered
nothing. Where was Hamza? Mrs. Armine had asked Ibrahim. But Ibrahim,
without a smile, had answered that he knew nothing of Hamza, and in Mrs.
Armine's heart had been growing the hope that Hamza had gone to seek
Baroudi, that perhaps he would presently return with a message from
Baroudi.
And yet could any good, any happiness, ever come to her through the
praying donkey-boy? Always she instinctively connected him with
fatality, with evil followed by sorrow. The look in his eyes when they
were turned upon her seemed like a quiet but steady menace. She had a
secret conviction that he hated her, perhaps because she was what he
would call a Christian. Strange if she were really hated for such a
reason!
Once more she stood still by the edge of the river.
She heard the sailors still singing on the _Loulia_, the faint barking
of dogs, perhaps from the village of Luxor. She looked up at the stars
mechanically, and remembered how Nigel had gazed at them when she had
wanted him to be wholly intent upon her. Then she looked again, for a
long time, at the blue light which shone from the _Loulia_'s mast-head.
Behind her the bushes rustled. She turned sharply round. Ibrahim came
towards her from the tangled darkness.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him. She spoke almost roughly. The
noise had startled her.
"My lady, you better come in," said Ibrahim. "Very lonely heeyah. No
peoples comin' heeyah!"
She moved towards the bank. He put his hand gently under her elbow to
assist her. When they were at the top she said:
"Where's Hamza, Ibrahim?"
Ibrahim's boyish face looked grim.
"I dunno, my lady. I know nothin' at all about Hamza."
For the first time it occurred to Mrs. Armine that Ibrahim and Hamza
were no longer good friends. She opened her lips to make some enquiry
about their relation. But she shut them again without saying anything,
and in silence they walked to the house.
On the following morning, when Mrs. Armine looked out of her window, the
_Loulia_ still lay opposite. She took glasses to see if there was any
movement of the crew suggestive of impending departure. But all seemed
quiet. The men were squatting on the lower deck in happy idleness.
Then Baroudi must presently be coming.
She decided to be patient a little longer, not to make that excuse to go
to Cairo. With the morning she felt, she did not know why, more able to
endure present conditions.
But as day followed day and Baroudi made no sign, and the _Loulia_ lay
always by the western shore with the shutters closed over the cabin
windows, the intense irritation of her nerves returned, and grew with
each succeeding hour.
Isaacson had not gone to stay at an hotel, but had, as a matter of
course, taken up his abode at the villa, and he continued to live there.
She was obliged to see him perpetually, obliged to behave to him with
politeness, if not with suavity. His watch over Nigel was tireless. The
rule he had made at the beginning of his stay was not relaxed. Nigel was
not allowed to take anything from any hand but the Doctor's.
The relation between Doctor and patient was still a curious and even an
awkward one. Although Nigel's trust in the Doctor was absolute, he had
never returned to his former pleasant intimacy with his friend. At first
Isaacson had secretly anticipated a gradual growth of personal
confidence, had thought that as weakness declined, as a little strength
began to bud out almost timidly in the poor, tormented body, Nigel would
revert, perhaps unconsciously, to a happier or more friendly mood. But
though the Doctor was offered the gratitude of the patient, the friend
was never offered the cordiality of the friend.
Bella Donna's influence was stubborn. Between these two men the woman
always stood, dividing them, even now when the one was ministering to
the other, was bringing the other back to life, was giving up everything
for the other.
For this prolonged stay in Egypt was likely to prove a serious thing to
Isaacson. Not only was he losing much money by it now. Probably, almost
certainly, he would lose money by it in the future. There were moments
when he thought about this with a secret vexation. But they passed, and
quickly. He had his reward in the growing strength of the sick man. Yet
sometimes it was difficult to bear the almost stony reserve which took
the colour out of his life in the Villa Androud. It would have been more
difficult still if he too, like Bella Donna, had not had his work to do
in the dark. Since they had arrived in Luxor he had been seeking for a
motive. The moment came when at last he found it.
Prompted by him, Hassan played upon Ibrahim's indignation at having been
supplanted for so long by Hamza, and drew from him the truth of Mrs.
Armine's days while Nigel had been away in the Fayyum.
Isaacson's treatment of Nigel's case had succeeded wonderfully. As the
great heats began to descend upon Upper Egypt, the health of the invalid
improved day by day. Mrs. Armine saw life returning into the eyes that
had expressed a sick weariness of an existence suddenly overcast by the
cloud of suffering. The limbs moved more easily as a greater vitality
was shed through the body. The nights were no longer made a torment by
the acute rheumatic pains. The parched mouth and throat craved no more
perpetually for the cooling drinks that had not allayed their misery.
Light could be borne without any grave discomfort, and the agonizing
abdominal pains, which had made the victim writhe and almost desire
death, had entirely subsided. From the face, too, the dreadful hue which
had even struck those who had only seen Nigel casually had nearly
departed. Though still very thin and pale, it did not look unnatural. It
was now the face of a man who had recently suffered, and suffered much;
it was not a face that suggested the grave.
Nigel would recover, was fast recovering. He would not be strong for a
time, perhaps for a long time. But he was "out of the wood." One day he
realized it, and told himself so, silently, with a sort of wonder
mingled with a joy half solemn, half lively with the liveliness of the
spirit that again felt the touch of youth.
The day that he realized it was the day that Isaacson found the motive
he had in the dark been seeking.
And on that day, too, Mrs. Armine told herself that she could endure no
longer. She must get away to Cairo, if only for two or three days. If
Baroudi was not there, she must go to Alexandria and seek him. Baffled
desire, enforced patience, the perpetual presence of Meyer Isaacson,
with whom she was obliged to keep up a pretence of civility and even of
gratitude, and the jealousy that grows like a rank weed in the soil of
ignorance, rendered her at last almost reckless. She was sure if she
remained longer in the villa she would betray herself by some sudden
outburst. Isaacson had kept silence so long as to the cause of her
husband's illness that she sometimes nearly deceived herself into
thinking he did not know what it was. Perhaps she had been a fool to be
so much afraid of him. She strove to think so, and nearly succeeded.
The _Loulia_ lay always by the western shore of the Nile, but each
night, when she looked from the garden, the cabin windows were dark. She
had made enquiries of Ibrahim. But Ibrahim was no longer the smiling,
boyish attendant who had been her slave. He performed his duties
carefully, and was always elaborately polite, but he had an air of
secrecy, of uneasiness, and almost of gloom, and when she mentioned
Baroudi, he said:
"My lady, I know nothin'."
"Well, but on the _Loulia_?" she persisted. "The Reis--the crew--?"
"They knows nothin'. Nobody heeyah know nothin' at all."
Then she resolved to wait no longer, but to go and find out for herself.
Perhaps it was the look of returning life in the eyes of her husband
which finally decided her.
She came out on to the terrace where he was stretched in a long chair
under an awning. A book lay on one of the arms of the chair, but he was
not reading it. He was just lying there and looking out to the garden,
and to the hills that edge the desert of Libya. Isaacson was not with
him. He had gone away somewhere, perhaps for a stroll on the bank of the
Nile.
Mrs. Armine sauntered up, with an indolent, careless air, and sat down
near her husband.
"Dreaming?" she said, in her sweetest voice.
He shook his head.
"Waking!" he answered. "Waking up to life."
"You do look much stronger to-day."
"Stronger than yesterday?" he said, eagerly. "You think so? You notice
it, Ruby?"
"Yes."
"That's strange. To-day I--I know that all is going to be right with me.
To-day I know that presently--Ruby, think of it!--I shall be the man I
once was."
"And I know it, too, Nigel--to-day--and that is why at last I feel I can
ask you something."
"Anything--anything. I would do anything to please you after all this
time of misery, and dulness for you!"
"It's a prosaic little request I have to make. I only want you to let me
take the night train and run up to Cairo."
His face fell. He stretched out his hand to touch hers.
"Go away! Go to Cairo!" he said.
And his voice was reluctant.
"Yes, Nigel," she said, with gentle firmness. "I've been looking over
my wardrobe these last days, and I'm simply in rags."
"But your dresses--"
"It's not only my dresses--I really am in rags. Won't you let me go just
for two days to get a few things I actually need? I'm not going to spend
a lot of money."
"As if it was that!"
He pressed her hand, and his pressure showed his returning strength.
"It's being without you."
"For two days. And you'll have Doctor Isaacson. I want to go while he is
still with us, so as not to leave you alone. And Nigel, while I'm gone,
can't you manage to find out what we owe him? It must be an enormous
sum."
Nigel suddenly looked preoccupied.
"I'd never thought of that," he said, slowly.
"No, because you've been ill. But I have often. And you must think of it
now."
"Yes; he's saved my life. I can never really repay him."
"Oh, yes, you can. Doctors do these things for fixed sums, you know."
He shifted in his chair, and sent an uneasy glance to her.
"I wish--how I wish that you and Isaacson could be better friends!" he
dropped out, at length.
"After all I've told you!" she exclaimed, almost with bitterness.
"I know, I know. But now that he's saved my life!"
"There are some things a woman can never forget, Nigel. I--of course, I
am deeply grateful to Meyer Isaacson, the doctor. But Meyer Isaacson the
man I never can be friends with. I must always tell you the truth, even
if it hurts you."
"Yes, yes."
"While I'm in Cairo, find out what we owe him. For I suppose now you
feel so much better he won't remain with us for ever."
"No, of course he must be wanting to go."
He spoke with hesitation. With the blameless selfishness of a sick man,
he had taken a great deal for granted. She was making him feel that now.
And he had to take it all in. How he depended on Isaacson! He looked at
his wife. And how he depended on her, too! He was conscious again of his
weakness, almost as a child might be. And these two human beings upon
whom he was leaning were at enmity, not open but secret enmity. He did
not know exactly how, or how much! But Ruby had told him often--things
about Meyer Isaacson. And he knew that Isaacson had mistrusted her, and
felt that he did so still.
"I may go, then?" she said.
He could not in reason forbid her. He thought of her long service.
"Of course, dearest, go. But surely you aren't going to-night?"
"If you'll let me. I shall only take a bag. And the sooner I go, the
sooner I shall be back."
"In two days?"
"In two days."
"And where will you stay?"
"At Shepheard's."
"I don't like your going alone. I wish you had a maid--"
"You've guessed it!" she said.
"What?"
He looked almost startled.
"I didn't like to tell you, but I will now. May I have a maid again?"
"That's what you want, to get a maid?"
She smiled, and looked almost shy.
"I've done splendidly without one. But still--"
From that moment he only pressed, begged her to go.
Isaacson returned to find it was all settled. When he was told, he only
said, "I think it wonderful that Mrs. Armine has managed without a maid
for so long."
Soon afterwards he went to his room, and was shut in there for a
considerable time. He said he had letters to write. Yet he sent no
letters to the post that day.
Meanwhile Mrs. Armine, with the assistance of one of the Nubians, was
packing a few things. Now that at last she was going to do something
definite, she marvelled that she had been able to endure her life of
waiting so long. This movement and planning in connection with a journey
roused in her a secret excitement that was feverish.
"If only I were going away for ever!" she thought, as she went about her
dressing-room. "If only I were never to see my husband and Isaacson
again!"
And with that thought she paused and stood still.
Suppose it really were so! Suppose she found Baroudi, told him all that
had happened, told him her misery, begged him to let her remain with
him! He might be kind. He might for once yield to her wishes instead of
imposing upon her his commands. There would be a great scandal; but what
of that? She did not care any longer for public opinion. She only wanted
now to escape from all that reminded her of Europe, of her former life,
to sink into the bosom of the East and be lost in it for ever. The far
future was nothing to her. All she thought about, all she cared for, was
to escape at once and have the one thing she wanted, the thing for which
the whole of her clamoured unceasingly. She was obsessed by the one
idea, as only the woman of her temperament, arrived at her critical age,
can be obsessed.
She might never come back. This might be her last day with Nigel.
In his room near to hers, Isaacson was sitting on his balcony, smoking
the nargeeleh, and thinking that, too. He was not at all sure, but he
was inclined to believe that this departure of Bella Donna was going to
be a flight. Ought he to allow her to go? Instead of writing those
letters, he was pondering, considering this. It was his duty, he
supposed, not to allow her to go. If everything were to be known,
people, the world would say that he ought to have acted already, that in
any case he ought to act now. But he was not bothering about the world.
He was thinking of his friend, how to do the best thing by him.
When he took his long fingers from the nargeeleh he had decided that he
would let Bella Donna go.
And that evening, a little before sunset, she kissed her husband and
bade him good-bye, wondering whether she would ever see him again. Then
she held out her hand to Meyer Isaacson.
"Good-bye, Doctor! Take great care of him," she said, lightly.
Isaacson took her hand. Again now, at this critical moment, despite his
afternoon's decision, he said to himself, not only "Ought I to let her
go?" but "Shall I let her go?" And the influence of the latter question
in his mind caused him unconsciously to grasp her hand arbitrarily, as
if he meant to detain her. Instantly there came into her eyes the look
he had seen in them when in the sanctuary of Edfou she had stood face to
face with him--a look of startled terror.
"You promise only to stay two days, Ruby?"
Nigel's voice spoke.
"You promise?"
"I promise faithfully, Nigel," she said, with her eyes on Isaacson.
Isaacson dropped her hand. She sighed, and went out quickly.