City of Jasmine

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I hurried upstairs to Aunt Dove, not entirely surprised to discover her propped up on the divan, a fashion magazine in one hand and cigarette in the other. She had wound up my gramophone and was playing the newest jazz records while Arthur Wellesley bobbed his head furiously.

  “I quite like this new music of yours,” she said, “although I think Arthur disapproves.”

  “Then you ought to turn it up,” I said waspishly.

  She laughed and waved me to the cocktail pitcher. “Have a drink, child. You must be exhausted.”

  “I shall be grateful for an evening in,” I confessed. “I’ve spent the whole day walking, but it’s been brilliant.” I spent the next hour describing the sights and sounds and telling her about Rashid and meeting Miss Green. I finished by explaining we would be dining with Miss Green and Halliday the following evening.

  “A party!” she exclaimed, her turban wobbling happily. “And that Rashid fellow sounds a first-rate dragoman, although I’m surprised at him charging so little.”

  I had wondered the same, but I felt vaguely insulted that Aunt Dove made a point of it. “I can take care of myself, you know, darling. If he attempts to abduct me into the desert, I promise I will fend him off.”

  She puffed out a sigh of cigarette smoke. “Bedouins don’t carry off their brides as if they were Sabine women, Evangeline, although I will admit they are rather deliciously masculine. I think it must be the diet. They eat few vegetables, you know. I always think a man who eats vegetables loses something of his vigour.” I thought of young Rashid and said nothing. In spite of his tender years, he was decidedly authoritarian. It didn’t bear thinking about what he might be like when he matured. Aunt Dove was still talking. “Very well, child. Enjoy yourself with your little dragoman. Now, speaking of sex, what do you think of that tasty Mr. Halliday?”

  Four

  The next day Aunt Dove decided to stay in the hotel and hold court—something she occasionally did when we arrived in a city. She simply arranged herself in the most public spot, sat expectantly and within minutes she invariably gathered a crowd of people about her. Some were old friends, many were new, and some were merely thrill seekers eager to gape at the famed traveller Lady Lavinia Finch-Pomeroy, a Victorian legend in the flesh. They would ask her for photographs and stories, and she was always delighted to oblige, staying so long as she had an audience, and I was more than happy to let her. Very occasionally her little soirées managed to land us a sponsor or two, and from time to time with a discreet hint she managed to get a little something knocked off the price of the hotel altogether or a free luncheon for her troubles. Hotel managers were usually delighted to oblige as her devotees were quite happy to order quantities of food and drink, but it was the admiration she longed for most of all, I realised. She had been so famous in her youth, and her middle years had been dull ones, tarnishing the bright gleam of her fame. Being out and about again, surrounded by people who would thrill to her adventure stories, was like a tonic to her, and I encouraged her to indulge.

  Of course, in this case, she might just as easily have been intending to get me out of the way to engage in a tender afternoon with the charming Étienne, the hotel manager, I realised, and I hurried out of the suite to find Rashid. To my astonishment, he was nowhere to be found, and in his place Halliday waited, hat in hand, and a broad smile lighting his face.

  “Surprised? I took the day, told the office to go hang because I was going to show a lady the city,” he said, offering me his arm. I wondered what had become of Rashid, but I had often been told the Easterner had a more flexible sense of time and I made up my mind to adopt the habit myself as long as I was in Damascus. I took Halliday’s arm, and together we wandered the souks, each devoted to a different trade—silversmith, bookseller, tailor, mercer, tobacconist. There were coppersmiths and birdsellers, dealers in antique furniture and Persian rugs all calling their wares and bantering, and over it all hung the scent from the perfumers and spice merchants whose fragrant wares brought buyers from across the East. Halliday showed me the souk el-Jamal, the odiferous camel market, and afterwards we braved the din of the souk el-Arwam, where armourers and weapon-makers cried their wares next to the sellers of shawls and water pipes. Through it all wove the beggars pleading for alms, and the public scribes selling their skills for a few coppers. Vendors offered roasted peas and sweet pastries while others carried steaming urns of tea to provide refreshment on the street.

  It was a glorious riot of colour and noise and scent and Halliday kept up a commentary straight out of Murray’s guide book. I felt a little wistful for Rashid’s much more colourful delivery. The boy had shown me the great bazaar that stretched all the way to the walls of the Umayyad mosque and explained how the roof had been torn off when the Turks left, opening the arcaded shops up to the sunlight for the first time in half a millennium. He had described the scene the day the city fell to the conquerors, Arab and Westerner marching together to drive out the Turks, how the women of the city showered them with flower petals and sprinkled them with attar of roses until the cloud of perfume wafted over the desert sands all the way to Baghdad. Rashid could paint a picture with just his words, and although Halliday tried, he didn’t have the knack for it. We stopped at a quiet coffee house just outside the souk, and he ordered a pot of coffee and some pastries.

  When the refreshments came, the coffee was nearly thick enough to stand a spoon in and terribly gritty. I pulled a face and he laughed.

  “You must strain the grounds between your teeth. Like this.” He demonstrated, and after a few attempts, I got the hang of it. The pastries were crispy and stuffed with nuts and bathed in warm honey. Those were much more to my taste and I stuck a finger in my mouth, licking off the succulent stickiness.

  “I know. I’ve appalling manners. Pay no attention,” I instructed him.

  He smiled, his slight dimples in evidence. “I think you’re everything that is charming and unfettered. You’re like a breath of fresh air, so different to the girls I knew back in England, Mrs. Starke.”

  “You were supposed to call me Evie.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I want to. It just seems like such a dashed impertinence. I mean, you’re Evangeline Starke. You’re becoming something of a legend in certain circles.” He hesitated. “And I have looked into your husband. A man of many talents. That sort of thing could put a man off of wooing,” he added lightly.

  “Some men,” I corrected. “I ought to feel sorry for them.”

  “Do you feel sorry for me?”

  I tipped my head, taking him in from firm jaw to broad, innocent brow under a silken fall of dark blond hair. It was a good face, a decidedly English face. I shook my head. “No. I think you like me for me.”

  “I do. More than I ought,” he said, a certain bleakness coming into his eyes.

  “Oh, dear,” I said. I smiled, but didn’t dare laugh. “Is it as bad as all that?”

  “It is,” he returned, matching my light tone. “Appearances to the contrary, I’m rather desperately poor. Haven’t a bean of my own to offer a woman.”

  “If it’s any consolation, you make a good showing for a fellow who’s up against it.”

  He shrugged. “Splendid genes and nothing to show for them. My grandfather is the Duke of Winchester.”

  I gave him my best po-faced expression, and he burst out laughing. “Bless you for that. I should have known tossing out his title wouldn’t impress you. I’ve seen the cuttings from places like Monte Carlo and Biarritz. I know you’ve met your share of Russian grand dukes and American millionaires. A plain English duke must seem like rather small change in comparison.”

  “The Russian grand dukes are all poor as church mice and just looking to get their names into the newspapers so they can make a few quid themselves. And the Americans are after publicity for whatever they’re selling—rubber tyres or bath soap o
r cough medicine. They’ll be gone as soon as my headlines are. At least being the Duke of Winchester is something to hang your hat on. It still means something in England.”

  “Not for me,” he said. His expression didn’t turn pitying and I liked him better for it. “My cousin will inherit. I’m the second son of the third son. No title of my own, and twelve relations between me and the strawberry-leaf coronet. I’m left to make my way in the world with a good name and a few decent suits.”

  “And some good connections,” I pointed out. “Surely your grandfather knows people in the diplomatic corps who might help you along.”

  He smiled. “You don’t know Grandfather. He has been locked in his study writing a treatise on the subject of Tudor tax laws since 1893. Oh, he creeps out for Christmas, but the rest of the time he’s content to stay in his study. I think the housemaid occasionally dusts him and turns him to face the sunlight like an aspidistra.”

  I laughed and he carried on, still lightly, although I suspected it was an effort.

  “So, that’s me. Educated and tailored beyond my means, but with great hopes. What of you, Evie? See, there, I managed it. Next time I promise it will sound almost natural.”

  “I’m like you, making my own way as best I can.”

  “But there is a double-barrelled surname in your family tree, as well,” he prompted.

  “Ah, the Finch-Pomeroys. My grandfather wasn’t as grand as yours—only an earl and on my mother’s side, so it doesn’t much count. When Grandfather died the whole caboodle went to a cousin who kicked it in ’07 and then onto his nephew. Everything has passed so far away that the current earl is a perfect stranger. I’ve never even seen the estate myself, although Aunt Dove grew up there with my mother.”

  “And where is your mother now?”

  “Dead,” I replied succinctly. “She married badly.”

  “A footman?” he asked with a bit of a twinkle in his eye.

  “Worse. A writer, and a dead broke one at that. But they were very much in love. There was a good deal of laughter in that house, although neither of them had the sense God gave a goose. If Papa sold a story, he’d spend every penny in a day. I remember when he sold a book of poetry and he went straight from the bank to the furrier. He bought Mama a silver fox stole she had to pawn a week later to pay the butcher’s bill. It was always furs for Mama or pearls. And for me, it was books, beautiful books with silk ribbons to hold my place. It was always Christmas when Papa sold something—the trouble was he didn’t sell much.”

  “He sounds a remarkable man,” Halliday said softly.

  “He was. As good as they come and guileless as a lamb. He always thought the next great adventure was just around the corner. When I was eight, he sold his first novel. He was so happy, he glowed with it. There were new frocks for me and for Mama, and that night he took us to the theatre. Peter Pan had just opened, and he was determined to get the very best seats. He took us to Simpson’s first for roast beef and I ate more than I have ever eaten in my life. And when the play was over he took us for ice creams and told us he had bought a share in a business in New Orleans. He was leaving the following week for America to investigate his new investment.” I paused. I didn’t tell the story often, and the words were rusty and stuck in my throat. “Mama insisted upon going. I think he knew she would. He was desperately pleased she didn’t want to be parted from him. So they dropped me in the midst of a pack of aunts and sailed for America.”

  Something in my tone must have warned him. His eyes were soft and his voice was gentle. “What was it?”

  “Yellow fever. Turns out there was a beastly epidemic raging. They died within a week of one another. That’s the only mercy in the whole story.”

  “Good God,” he said faintly.

  I shrugged and affected a casual air I did not feel. “It all happened so long ago, it’s almost like talking about strangers.”

  “Still, I imagine that sort of thing leaves a mark,” he said quietly.

  “It does, rather. I try to be responsible. I try to take care of the things that matter like keeping food on the table and shoes on our feet. But sometimes...well, sometimes I do very thoughtless things. Like running away with Gabriel Starke the night I met him.”

  His expression was delightfully scandalised. “You didn’t!”

  “I did. We eloped to Scotland after we met at a New Year’s Eve party. A mutual friend invited us both because she intended to match us up with other people. But we danced together and that was it. A coup de foudre. We both felt it—at least I thought we did. In any event, he had a fast car and somehow I found myself on the road to Scotland, ready to marry a man I hadn’t even known six hours before.”

  To his credit, Halliday looked more amused than shocked. “It sounds terribly romantic.”

  “That’s very kind of you. I think it sounds mad.”

  Something shrewd stirred in his eyes. “The song you danced to the night you met Gabriel Starke. Wasn’t ‘Salut d’Amour’ by any chance?”

  He gave me a kindly smile and I returned it. “Got it in one.”

  “Ah. Pity, that. And here I thought I was sweeping you off your feet,” he told me with a rueful lift of his silky brows.

  I laughed. “Don’t give up so easily. Just because I’ve learned to keep my feet on the ground doesn’t mean I can’t be wooed.”

  “But you don’t really keep your feet on the ground, do you?” he countered smoothly. “You’re always dashing off in that aeroplane of yours. I must say, I’ve done a bit of flying myself, and it’s a devilish thing for a lady to try. You astonish me, Evie.”

  “But there’s nothing astonishing about it,” I protested. “It was the most logical thing in the world. I worked at a convalescent hospital during the war. I brought them tea and read their letters from home and played cards with them. They were pilots, most of them American and terribly young and so sweet it broke your heart just to see them all swathed in bandages and aching for a chance to get back into the action before it all went away. I adored them, but I could only read so many letters and play so many games of cards before I wanted to scream. So I made them teach me about flying instead. It gave them no end of a thrill to talk about it, you know, and they were terrifically good teachers.”

  Halliday smiled. “You liked them.”

  “Immensely. They were just boys, really. Like brothers to me.”

  He shook his head. “Surely not all of them. I imagine more than a few found themselves smitten with you.”

  I shrugged.

  “You surprise me. I would have thought the dash and romance of a pilot would have turned any girl’s head.”

  I grinned. “Well, there was the odd kiss or two, but nothing more. There was only one I almost lost my head over, but it would never have worked.”

  He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Aha! Intrigue at last. Was he a pilot?”

  “Yes. He was the one who took me up the first time.”

  “One of those daring Yanks, no doubt,” he said, pulling a face. I laughed.

  “Almost. He was Canadian by birth but brought up in Africa.”

  “Good God. Colonials,” he said with a shudder.

  “And Ryder was more rustic than most,” I told him. “He helped form the flying corps in British East Africa. He was shadowing the highest ranking ace in our flying corps when the fellow was shot down. Ryder came with him to Mistledown while he recuperated, but he was bored out of his mind. He amused himself by borrowing a pal’s Sopwith and getting me in the air.”

  “A direct and dashing way to a lady’s heart.”

  “True. I might have been smitten by any man who taught me to fly. But Ryder was something special.”

  Halliday’s voice was soft. “You were in love with him.”

  “No. Not even halfway. But I was
grateful to him. He was the one who got me airborne, convinced me I could do it. He flew like a buccaneer and he taught me everything he could before he was sent back to Africa.”

  “Did you keep in touch with him?” Something like jealousy tinged Halliday’s voice, and I enjoyed that.

  “The occasional postcard. It’s all very polite and respectable,” I said with a prim mouth.

  Halliday leaned closer still. “It’s no business of mine, but I wonder if I should believe that.”

  “It’s the truth,” I assured him. “Ryder never laid a finger on me. Of course,” I said, slanting him a wicked smile, “I put considerably more than a finger on him, but that’s a different matter.”

  Halliday’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open, but his expression was not entirely disapproving. “You seduced him?”

  “I tried, but bless him, he wasn’t having any of it. He understood why I did it and he turned me down so sweetly I couldn’t even be angry with him.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “I wanted him for all the wrong reasons.” I shrugged. “He reminded me of Gabriel. I don’t know why—entirely different men. But there was something fine about Ryder, something deeply good, and that was what I thought I had seen in Gabriel once. It brought up feelings I thought I had buried.”

  “No man wants to be a woman’s second choice,” he said, his voice low. His gaze was intent, his eyes searching, and after a moment, perhaps not seeing what he wanted in my face, he sat back and adopted a lighter tone.

  “And how did you go from student pilot to world-famous aviatrix?”

  “I started barnstorming. I thought I could make a living at it, but Aunt Dove’s money dried up and suddenly I had her to take care of. And so many girls had taken up barnstorming it wasn’t enough just to be a woman pilot anymore. I had to do something to set myself apart. It got so competitive the manager of one aerial circus wouldn’t even give me a try-out, so I stole an aeroplane and pulled a barrel roll over his head. He screeched like a monkey, he was so furious. He threw me off his airfield and swore he would make certain I never got another job flying anywhere. He was as good as his word. Every other outfit refused to see me after he told them what I’d done. It wasn’t long before I didn’t even have enough money for a cup of coffee at a corner house. I was feeling desperate, horribly so, and suddenly the walls of our little rented room just seemed to close in on me and I had to get out. I went to the park—Kensington Gardens. I wandered for hours, not even paying attention to where I was, until finally my legs gave out and I just sat. And do you know where I was?”