by Isobel Chace
“Oh, Louis!” she said weakly. “How nice to see you!”
He grinned.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” he demanded. “Leaving me to find out like this!”
“We only got back last night,” she excused herself.
He threw himself on to one of the spindly modern-looking chairs. “You look terrible!” he informed her brutally. “You’d better tell me all about it.”
She hardly knew where to start. She had meant to tell him all about the fire, but she found herself relating how Félicité had bargained for the fish instead. Louis listened in silence.
“And then what happened, ma belle?” he asked her.
She gave him a racy description of the fire. It sounded amusing the way she told it, but when she moved to offer him a cigarette she winced. She couldn’t help it. Louis’ sharp eyes watched her closely.
“Of course you know what you should do,” he told her. “You should have an Arab bath at the local hammam.”
“A steam bath?” she asked him.
“A Turkish bath,” he agreed. “I’ll take you along this afternoon and call back for you afterwards. Meanwhile let’s do something in this frightful heat. Let’s go for a picnic.”
“Where?” she asked cautiously. The beach was far too hot for her on a day like this.
“We’ll go to Belvedere Park,” Louis said firmly. “If there’s any breeze anywhere, there’ll be some there.”
Rosamund agreed eagerly. It was so pleasant to have someone to tell her what to do for the next few hours that she would have agreed to almost anything.
“I’ll go and prepare the picnic,” she said shyly.
Louis nodded.
“Shout if you want any help,” he said.
Belvedere Park is on the outskirts of Tunis, a large public garden that straggles over the side of a hill and from which some of the finest views of the city are to be had. The hot breeze stirred the flowers and the younger branches of the trees and the birds hopped lethargically from one perch to another, alternately trilling and gasping in the heat.
“It was much cooler at Tabarka,” Rosamund said.
Louis looked up at the sun-bleached sky.
“You wait for the rain here,” he said. “It will be gorgeous when it breaks. All clean and re-born. Perhaps the rain will come tonight.”
“Perhaps,” Rosamund agreed without really believing it. It was close enough and very stuffy, but she couldn’t quite believe in this sudden storm that would bring about the end of the summer. It had been raining before they had gone to Tabarka and now here it was as hot as ever again.
They followed the signposts pointing up the hill to the Kouba, not knowing what a Kouba was, taking advantage of the shade and enjoying the multitude of flowers of every hue that blossomed, without any respect for season, all around them. At almost the top of the hill they were doubly rewarded for their effort by the sight of the Kouba, one of the most perfect examples of Arab architecture anywhere. In common with half a dozen young Tunisians they took refuge inside the beautiful building, staring up at the typical ceiling and revelling in its delightful coolness.
“Can we eat here?” Rosamund asked.
Louis sat himself down oh one of the low walls from where he could see the whole of Tunis spread out before him.
“I don’t see why not,” he said.
She sat herself down beside him. “Tell me about your girl in France, Louis,” she said suddenly.
His French eyes mocked her.
“She seems very far away at this moment. Is that what you want to hear?”
She shook her head, biting her lip. “No,” she said sharply. She turned away from him and her stiffness caught at her shoulders, making her exclaim out loud.
“What did that brute do to you in Tabarka?” Louis asked tempestuously.
“Brute? I thought you liked him,” Rosamund reminded him.
“So I do. That doesn’t stop him thinking everyone is as strong as himself. What did he do for those muscles of yours?”
Rosamund tried hard to detract the bitter note from her voice.
“Why, nothing,” she said uncomfortably. “He didn’t even thank me,” she added under her breath, and felt better.
“So,” said Louis. Rosamund blushed. There was a wealth of meaning in that one syllable. And yet she didn’t really mind his knowing.
“You’ve taken quite a toss, haven’t you?” he asked gently.
She nodded, smiling a little. “One can be very silly about these things,” she said uncertainly.
He handed her a sandwich and smiled calmly at her.
“You wanted me to tell you about Jeanne?” he began quietly. “One couldn’t mistake her for anything but a French girl. She’s petite and dark and her eyes flash when she gets mad. She isn’t at all beautiful, but I think you would like her just the same—”
He paused for breath, thoughtfully, wondering how to bring the unknown girl to life in words—and Rosamund settled down to listen, glad to have something that had nothing to do with Rupert to think about.
Louis insisted on Rosamund going to the hammam. He drove her to the highly decorated door of the one nearest to Sidi-Bou-Said and pushed her into the steamy darkness beyond.
“I’ll come back in a couple of hours,” he promised, and left her, standing nervously in the doorway, wondering what to do.
It wasn’t long before she found other women from Sidi-Bou-Said there. They showed her where to leave her clothes and summoned one of the attendants to massage her and wash her down. The pain had gone from her arms and shoulders and she felt considerably better as she paid the purely nominal sum required of her and went out into the hot sunshine again to rejoin Louis.
He gave her a long, critical look.
“You even look lovely with your hair all streaky and wet,” he told her.
She laughed and thanked him for taking her to the baths.
“It was kind of you to think of it, Louis,” she said. “I feel miles better. Do the Tunisians always bath there?”
He nodded,
“It’s a Moslem custom,” he said whimsically. “Before you pray, you get yourself clean!”
Rosamund looked down at her gleaming skin.
“I’ll say you do!” she agreed, and got into the car beside him.
Louis didn’t stay long after they had got back to Sidi-Bou-Said, and she didn’t ask him to. She was grateful to him for the time he had spent with her, but she was equally aware that this was his holiday and that he must have other fish to fry.
“I shall miss you when you go back to France,” she said as he stepped into his car.
He smiled.
“Not too much,” he told her. “Things never stand still, you know.”
When he had gone she went and surveyed the patio. It no longer seemed the frightful and impossible task of the morning and she set to with a will, moving the pot-plants into the centre and scraping down the walls with a hard broom, making a great deal of noise and dust and rather enjoying herself. She stirred the white lime into a smooth paste and added a bucketful of water. It was very splashy, and the brush they had sold her at the souks wasn’t really a brush at all but a collection of stiff rushes tied together, which made the whole job messier still. But even so she managed to cover the surface quite rapidly and was fairly pleased with the results.
She had just finished the first coat and was putting away the brush and pail when she heard the front door opening and sped across the patio to welcome the men home. It was Rupert, because she could hear him laughing, an affectionate and protective note in his voice. Rosamund came to an abrupt stop just before the door into the entrance hall. Not Félicité tonight! But she could hear her voice too, clear and brisk:
“Now, Rupert, not tonight! I’ve had enough tonight!” There was a second’s pause. “What is that abominable smell?” she asked.
Rosamund went forward to meet them.
“It’s the lime wash,” she explaine
d. “I’ve been doing out the patio.”
“So you have!” said Rupert. He transformed a splash of whitewash on her face into some warlike symbol and grinned at her. “Did you have to get it all over yourself?” he asked.
She tried vainly to wipe the splodge away with her bare arm.
“I haven’t got much of a brush,” she said defensively.
His eyes grew warm and very dark.
“It’s a poor workman who blames his tools,” he teased her.
Félicité sniffed daintily. “I should have thought you could have found a man to do it for you,” she said disdainfully. “For heaven’s sake, Rupert, get me a drink and let’s shut the inside windows.”
Rosamund watched them as they slowly climbed the stairs together, and she wondered what it could have been that Félicité had not wanted to do that night. Oh well, she thought, it was none of her business. She went slowly back into the kitchen to finish washing out the bucket. Her shoulders felt stiff again, though not as stiff as they had done before the bath, and the last thing she wanted to do was to start cooking the dinner. She put the meal on to simmer and covered it and left the vegetables in a pile on the table to be added later. It was so limiting, she thought, not to have an oven, and she stared mutinously at the cheap enamel saucepan that held the meat, wondering if it really were possible to get the gas low enough so that the contents wouldn’t stick and burn. She did as good a job on it as she could and prayed that it wouldn’t go out on her, and then went upstairs to join the others.
Felicity was re-applying her lipstick. It was an unnecessary action Rosamund thought, and something about the way she was doing it made her wonder. She glanced swiftly at Rupert, but he was as imperturbable and as enigmatic as ever. He rose slowly to his feet and grinned at her. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew exactly what she was thinking and that he didn’t mind a bit! Well, she didn’t mind either! Let him kiss Félicité all he liked! She had always known that he had wanted to. She drew herself up proudly and swept through the living-room towards her bedroom. The whitewash symbol that he had marked on her forehead stared crudely back at her from the looking-glass. With an angry movement she washed it off, scrubbing at her face like a schoolgirl. Then she gazed broodingly into her own stormy eyes. It was funny that not even being kissed had had the ability to soften Félicité’s—they had remained pale green and hard and—It was none of her business!
It didn’t take long to change and to brush the lime dust out of her hair. Her skin still shone with that excessive cleanliness the hammam had given her, and her hair, which fortunately didn’t mind steam or wet, was curling slightly more than usual as she pushed it into position. She was looking her very loveliest that evening, she knew. The shadows of tiredness under her eyes were not so much in evidence as they had been, and anyway they called attention to the brightness of her eyes. Not that it mattered, for who would bother to notice how she looked? Rupert had his hands full with Félicité, and Jacob didn’t count. But it was silly to mind, and she wouldn’t. Her eyes darkened. She would be gay and social and amusing and she wouldn’t think about anything at all. The experiment couldn’t possibly go on for ever, and then they would be leaving Tunisia and nothing would ever matter again.
She caught herself up sharply and put on some rather heavy ear-rings that she hardly ever wore. They gave her a sophisticated air that pleased her. She shook her head so that she could feel them against her neck, cold and comforting. They had a dancing air, glittering in the light. They were as defiantly gay as her mood.
There was silence in the salon when she returned to it. Félicité was looking sulky and was studying her drink as though she hadn’t another interest in the whole world, and Rupert was staring moodily out of the window, his jaw taut and unyielding. He wasn’t pleased about something. She knew that at a glance, and thought sadly that she was getting to know him too well. She was beginning to pick up the signs as quickly as she did with Jacob. It was only his reactions to herself that remained an enigma to her. “Can you see the mountains?” she asked him laughingly.
He started.
“Only heat haze at the moment,” he replied. “But it won’t be long before it breaks.”
Rosamund glanced briefly at the view that never failed to enchant her.
“May I have a drink, please?” she said.
He turned immediately and began to sort out the bottles and the glasses, looking for something that would appeal to her. “Wine as usual?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
His eyebrows rose slightly.
“Getting used to the high prices?” he teased her.
She laughed right back at him.
“I suppose I must be,” she said.
Félicité snorted suddenly. It was a disagreeable sound.
“But then you don’t pay for anything, do you, Rosamund? It’s all handed to you on a plate. Everything you want is yours for the asking!”
The colour came and went in Rosamund’s cheeks. She was hotly embarrassed and then coldly angry, but in the end she said quite calmly:
“Not everything. Life is never as kind as that to anyone.” She was shocked. She hadn’t thought that Félicité would ever have made her dislike as plain as that with Rupert there. It was almost as though she had discarded the sweet little widow act. But why? She looked surreptitiously at Rupert, expecting to be shocked also, but he only looked sad.
“You could be happy yourself, Félicité,” he said gently. “Any time you choose.”
Félicité took a deep sip from her drink.
“Well, here’s to that day!” she said sharply, and put the glass down with a snap on to the table beside her. “I suppose nobody objects if I stay on to dinner?”
Rupert looked at Rosamund.
“It isn’t very exciting,” she said doubtfully. “But if you want to, there’s plenty for four.”
“Good.” The one clipped syllable from Rupert brought the conversation to a definite end. He handed Rosamund her drink and sat down himself. There was a long silence and then he said: “Louis Dornant been around?”
Rosamund nodded. “We went for a picnic in the Belvedere Park,” she told him.
“I see,” he said thoughtfully.
Rosamund looked at him, puzzled. What did he see? She played with her drink, wondering what had made her ask for it. It was with a sense of relief that she heard Jacob coming in, the front door catching as it always did. She heard him swear at it and the scraping sound as he pushed it shut. Eagerly, she stood up to welcome him, running to the top of the steps.
“Jacob, why are you so late?” she demanded.
He kissed her on the cheek, lightly and mostly from habit. “I stopped by to see what was on at the theatre. The Russian Army Choir is coming next month. Want to see them?”
“Oh, yes, I should!” she exclaimed. “Did you get the tickets?”
“Yes, I got them,” he agreed. “How’s the stiffness?”
She escorted him into the room, smiling at him.
“Better,” she said. “Louis made me go to the hammam—you know, an Arab bath—and I feel heaps better!”
Rupert’s eyes met hers and she was aware of their darkness as she never had been before.
“And you felt so much better you started white-washing the courtyard?” he asked her harshly.
“Yes,” she replied bravely. She would have thought he would have been pleased at her efforts rather than otherwise, but obviously nothing she did was going to please him at the moment. Kissing Félicité didn’t seem to put him in a very good mood. Or her either! But perhaps that had only been the preliminary to some disagreement between them. She sighed, and that made Jacob Dane look at her more closely.
“Why all the decoration?” he asked her, fingering her ear-rings as he smiled at her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“I felt like it,” she said.
Félicité moved rest
ively on the one comfortable chair in the room.
“What an inquisition!” she broke in sharply. “Does the poor girl always have to account to you for everything she puts on?” Rosamund gasped. This was a change of front indeed! But Jacob only laughed.
“I notice too seldom for it to become monotonous,” he defended himself. “Don’t I, pet?”
But to Rosamund’s surprise it was Rupert who answered.
“I also sometimes envy them their family life,” he drawled. “It can be tantalising standing on the edge of it.”
And to Rosamund’s intense dismay she felt herself flushing scarlet.
“The meat’s burning!” she exclaimed, and retreated hurriedly down the stairs to the kitchen. It occurred to her that her efforts at being gay, social and completely indifferent had not so far been a conspicuous success.
Rosamund cooked the dinner in a dream. As usual Félicité made no attempt to help her. She sat upstairs with the two men and only came down when Rosamund called up that the meal was ready. She complained when she found the meal was hot, but she didn’t really seem to care, and accepted Rosamund’s explanation that Jacob didn’t care for cold meat without her usual acidity.
It seemed to Rosamund an endless meal. After two sleepless nights she could hardly stay awake at all. It had been a mistake to tackle the patio, she told herself, she was more than half asleep, and she knew from experience that it would be late before Félicité left.
“Very nice!” Rupert complimented her as he pushed back his chair.
She wasn’t sure whether she could really believe him.
“If you’re going to be here for two years I’d get an oven,” she recommended shyly. “It would make meals much more simple to arrange.”
He grinned at her.
“I’ll bear it in mind,” he said.
Félicité led the way back up the stairs to the salon. Rosamund piled the plates into the sink and decided to leave them for Yamina in the morning. She was secretly rather dreading joining the others. She would find some sewing to do, she decided; it would keep her awake and give her something constructive to do. She hadn’t had much time for fine sewing since she had been in Tunisia and it took her some time to find where she had put the embroidery she had started in England, but eventually she discovered it in the bottom of a drawer together with a tangle of colours that seemed to bear little relation to the work she had in hand.
