by Mary Stewart
‘Okay, okay, it’s not coming.’
‘Sure?’
‘Of course. You’re all right, love, relax.’
I was shivering, and the arms tightened. The top of my head came just up to his cheekbone. ‘Give it a minute,’ he whispered, ‘then we’ll go.’
He held me like that for a while, till the shivering quietened, and I felt the cold leave my body. It was very dark and still. I knew from the sound of his breathing that he had turned his head away, and was watching and listening. He turned back, and I felt him draw breath to speak, then with an abrupt but stealthy movement his cheek came down against my hair.
‘Christy—’
‘Yes?’
A tiny pause. The breath went out like a light sigh, stirring my hair. ‘Nothing. All right now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come along then.’
‘You – you really didn’t want to wait and see her? I don’t think somehow—’
‘No. Forget it, we’ll go back.’
‘I’m sorry, Charles.’
‘So you should be.’ His whisper mocked me gently. ‘Brace up, love, it can’t get you. Be a big brave girl. Charles’ll fight the nasty cat for you.’
The terror receded. I laughed. ‘Big brave Charles,’ I said. ‘What if we meet the dogs? I’m fine now, thank you.’
‘Really? Then we’ll call it a night, I think. Back to your harem, my girl.’
The painted door was still wedged open, and the air outside in the pavilion was wonderfully fresh and sweet. We crossed the bridge to the gap, and I jumped it after him. He didn’t let me go straight away.
‘Christy …’ He spoke softly, quickly. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’
‘I knew it. I knew you were holding something back. Well?’
‘Not quite that. I don’t know anything. I’ve been making a few wild guesses, let’s say. And I know that there’s one thing very wrong, and it makes me smell a hell of a big rat. But – and I want you to take this if you will – I’m not going to tell you here and now.’
‘Why not?’
‘For the simple reason that you’ve got to stay in this place until morning, and I haven’t. No, listen Christy … you’ve got to meet John Lethman and be civil and normal to him, and you never know, Great-Aunt Harriet may take it into her head to see you again, and—’
‘“Civil and normal” to John Lethman? Then there is something wrong about John Lethman?’
‘I told you I was only guessing. Most of it’s only a guess. But you have got to stay here.’
‘So the less I know the better?’ I said derisively. ‘Corny, Chas darling, corny! Blast you, I can act innocence, can’t I? I’m doing it all the time. Don’t be so maddening! If it comes to that, it’s me that’s in the middle of this, and not you! Come on, you’ve got to tell me! Is John Lethman Aunt Harriet’s lover or something?’
‘Heavens,’ said Charles, ‘if that were all …’
I argued, of course, but he wouldn’t be moved. Eventually he let me go, and prepared to jump back across the gap. I said: ‘Why do you have to go back that way? Why don’t you just shin down now from the window with the rope?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s easier this way. Close the shutters now, will you, so there’s nothing to catch the eye? Don’t put the bar back yet, just in case. I’ll go now. You get yourself to bed, I’ll see you at the hotel in the morning.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’
‘Scared? Why on earth should I be scared?’
‘Well, as long as you’re not,’ said Charles, and left me.
11
So free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
S. T. Coleridge: Christabel
I THOUGHT I wouldn’t have slept well, but I went out like a light for the five hours or so until my breakfast came, and woke to a glorious morning, and the sunlit peace of the Seraglio garden with the ripple of water where a light breeze touched it, and the singing-birds.
All the same, I remembered that I came back to consciousness not of the romantic peace of the place, but of the incipience of something cloudy, the faintest shadow of apprehension colouring the day ahead. Even when I realised that this was probably only the result of Charles’s hints about John Lethman, whom I would have to meet again this morning, and the rest of the day would be shared with Charles himself, I still found that the Seraglio Court, the whole palace locked in its hot valley afflicted me with a sort of claustrophobia, and I got up quickly and swallowed my coffee, restlessly eager now to get out of the place and back to the hotel and the life and colour and vulgar bustle of Beirut. And to Charles.
Hamid had been told to come for me at half-past nine, but it was barely half-past eight when I finished the coffee that Nasirulla had brought me, lingered for a few minutes for a last look at the garden with the sun on the pavilion’s golden dome, then let myself – by the orthodox route – out of the Seraglio.
My first apprehension had been removed by Nasirulla’s appearance with my breakfast. If he were here, the river must be passable this morning. I decided to go immediately, and walk up to the village to meet Hamid there. I had tried to indicate to Nasirulla by signs that I wanted to leave early, and though he had merely stared at me in his unsmiling way without a hint of understanding, he must have told John Lethman, for I met the latter coming to meet me in the second courtyard, where the anemones of the Adonis Gardens had already, in the one day’s heat, withered and died.
I thought he looked the worse for wear this morning, and wondered if the same could be said of me.
‘You’re up early,’ he said.
‘I suppose I must have been worrying about the ford. I gather it’s all right and I’ll be able to get across?’
‘Oh, yes. Did you sleep all right in the end after the alarums and excursions?’
‘After the—? Oh the dogs. Yes, thanks. Did you shut the poor things up? I admit I was a bit scared at first, but they were rather pets, and it’s just another romantic episode to think about later on. But they’re not like that with everybody, are they?’
‘By no means. You must have something special.’ A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say they’re ever exactly savage, but they make good guard dogs, simply because they make a hell of a row if they hear anything out of the ordinary, I did shut them up, and it may have been a mistake.’
I didn’t want to ask him why, but he had paused as if he expected it, and it was certainly the natural question. At least the pause gave me time to get my face in order, I asked: ‘Why?’
‘I should have left them on patrol. We found the side gate open. Anyone could have got in during the night.’
‘The side gate? Is there another gate, then?’
‘There’s one opening out on the plateau at the back. What with that, and letting the hounds into the Seraglio, Jassim seems to have had himself a ball yesterday.’
I said, as casually as I could: ‘But would anyone break in? You don’t mean you’ve found signs of something?’
‘Oh, no. It’s just that universal trust isn’t a habit of mine, particularly since I came to live in this country. What time’s your driver coming?’
‘Nine,’ I said, lying, ‘but I thought I might as well take myself straight off, and walk over to meet him in the village. You’ve been terribly good to put up with me for so long. I know I said it all to you yesterday, but you can take it today that it’s easily doubled.’
‘It’s been a pleasure. Well, I’ll see you out.’
He didn’t even try to sound, today, as if he meant it. Yesterday’s calm had vanished, and he seemed harassed and edgy. He hurried me through the smaller court with quick, nervous strides, a hand going to his face in that gesture I had noticed the first day, as if the skin was tender. He was sweating a little, and his eyes looked inflamed. I noticed that he didn’t look at me, but kept his face turned away, as if self-conscious or ashamed.
I wondered if he were being hag-ridden by the need for a ‘smoke’, and looked away, embarrassed.
‘Your Adonis Gardens are dying.’
‘Yes, well, they’re meant to.’
‘Of course. She doesn’t know I came back?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t expect you’d tell her, it’s all right. I just wondered if she said anything more about my cousin.’
‘Not a word.’
Short, sharp, and to the point. Well, he owed me nothing but my escape. And far from preventing that, he was as eager to get rid of me as I was to get out. He walked out of the main gate with me, and right to the edge of the plateau, and stood there to watch me start down the path. When I reached the ford I looked back, and saw him still there, watching as if to make sure I really went.
I turned my back on Dar Ibrahim for the second time, and trod carefully out over the stepping-stones.
These were clear now, and already dry, but the water that swirled round them was higher than the last time I had crossed, and still ran iron red, blood red for the dead Adonis. Twigs, leaves, scarlet flowers, had been rushed down the stream and strewed in debris on the banks. Two of the goats browsed desultorily among the jetsam, but I could see no sign of the boy. As I gained the far side of the stream and picked my way up the stony bank I saw Hamid – this time unmistakably Hamid – coming down the path towards me.
We met in the shade of a fig tree where three more of the goats were sleeping in a dusty heap. When our greetings were over I asked him the question that had been simmering on the surface of my mind ever since Nasirulla had brought me my coffee.
‘Have you seen my cousin this morning?’
‘No.’ He smiled. ‘He is very like you, that one, is he not? I should have thought brother and sister.’
‘We were always taken for twins. You didn’t meet a white sports car on your way up from Beirut? Or see one parked?’
‘This morning? I saw nothing on the road at all except one car – a black one with an Arab driver – and a Land-Rover with three Maronite fathers.’ He eyed me curiously. ‘I know your cousin’s car, I saw it yesterday. You mean he has also been for the night at the palace?’
I nodded. ‘This means he probably got away all right before he was seen. That’s a relief … Hamid, you mustn’t tell anyone, promise. Actually, my great-aunt doesn’t even know he was there. She did see me on Sunday night – I’ll tell you about it later – but she said she wouldn’t receive my cousin Charles, and he needn’t bother to come up to Dar Ibrahim. Well, you know how he drove up yesterday morning from Damascus, and came up to meet me, but the stream was flooded, so I had to stay another night anyway. It was partly because of that, that my cousin hatched up a plan to get inside the palace and take a look round for himself.’ I went on to tell him rapidly the main facts: the meeting at the temple and the plans for the ‘break-in’. ‘So I let him in and we explored a bit. We didn’t see my great-aunt again, and my cousin didn’t think it right to force himself on her like that, so I went back to bed and he went to let himself out by the back entrance. I was just hoping he’d got his car away before anyone saw it.’
‘I certainly didn’t see it.’ Hamid, though obviously intrigued by my story, contented himself with reassuring me. ‘It’s a Porsche, isn’t it? I don’t think you need worry. I know the quarry you mean, and I think I’d have noticed if the car was still there when I came by.’
We had been climbing as we talked. Now I saw what I had been looking for, a patch of shadow under a tree thirty feet away, where half a dozen goats stood or lay, chewing and eyeing us with supercilious boredom. Among them the faun, shock-headed, grinning, squatted cross-legged in the dust and chewed a leaf with the same kind of disenchanted thoroughness as the goats.
‘There you are!’ I said.
‘I am always here.’ It was said with a sort of cosmic simplicity that one could readily believe.
‘It’s all right,’ I said to Hamid, who had looked slightly startled. ‘It’s only the goat-herd.’
‘I never saw him.’ He regarded the boy doubtfully. ‘If he saw your cousin, Miss Mansel, the whole village will know by now that he spent the night at Dar Ibrahim.’
‘I don’t think so, I’ve a feeling this boy isn’t exactly an idle gossip. In any case if Nasirulla had known, you can bet Mr. Lethman would have had something to say this morning.’ I called to the faun. ‘Ahmad, did you see the Englishman leave Dar Ibrahim this morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘At what time?’
‘Just after daylight.’
‘About four o’clock, that would be,’ said Hamid.
‘He must have stayed on for a bit after we parted, then. I wonder what for? However …’ I turned back to the boy. ‘He went up this way to the village?’
‘Yes. He went to get the white car which was in the quarry by the road.’
Hamid’s eyes met mine. I laughed, and he shrugged, turning down his mouth.
‘You heard him go?’ I asked, and the boy nodded briefly, and waved a hand towards Beirut.
I was surprised at my own feeling of relief. ‘Did he speak to you?’
‘No. I was over there.’ A jerk of the head seemed to indicate some inaccessible tumble of rocks a quarter of a mile away. ‘He came from the gate at the back of the palace.’
There was no curiosity in his voice, but he was watching me intently. I regarded him thoughtfully. ‘And this was very early? Before anyone else was about?’
A nod.
‘No one else saw him?’
‘No one, only me.’
‘And I am sure that you have already forgotten that you saw him, Ahmad? Or that there was a car?’
A brief flash of the white teeth, clenched on the chewed green leaf. ‘I have forgotten everything.’
I fished some notes out of my handbag, but though the black eyes watched me unwaveringly, the boy made no move. I hesitated, I had no wish to offend his dignity. I laid the notes on the rock beside me, and put a stone on them to hold them down, ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. ‘May Allah be with you.’
Before I had got more than two steps away there was a flash of brown limbs and a swirl of dust, and the notes had disappeared into the dirty kaftan. Dignity, it seemed, took second place to common sense. ‘The goats would eat it,’ explained the boy carefully, and then, in a rush of Arabic which Hamid laughingly translated for me as we moved off up the path: ‘And the blessing of Allah be upon you and your children and your children’s children and upon your children’s children’s children and upon all the increase of your house …’
It was strange to find the hotel looking the same: I seemed to have been away for ever, like Sleeping Beauty, in a story-book world. It was even the same desk clerk on duty, and he smiled and lifted a hand and said something, but I said, ‘Later, please,’ and went straight past him to the lift with only two thoughts in my mind, to get out of these clothes and into a gorgeous hot bath before I spoke to a single soul, or even thought once about Charles.
It was heaven to be back in my airy, modern, characterless and superbly comfortable room, throw my horrible clothes on the bathroom floor and climb into the bath. The telephone rang twice while I was there, and once there was a knock at the outer door of the lobby, but I ignored the calls without effort, broiled myself happily for a dangerously long time in a concentrated solution of bath oils, then climbed languidly out, dried myself, and dressed carefully in the coolest frock I had – white and yellow and about as far-out as a daisy – then rang down for coffee, and put a call through to my cousin.
But here at last the desk clerk caught up with me, slightly aggrieved and perhaps in consequence just a little pleased that he could disappoint me. Mr Mansel was not there. Yes, he certainly had suite fifty, but he was not in the hotel. The clerk had tried to tell me; he had tried to give me Mr Mansel’s letter, but I hadn’t waited … Then he had telephoned twice, but had not been answered. A letter? Yes, Mr Mansel had left me a letter, he
had left it this morning, to be delivered to me as soon as I arrived … Yes, of course, Miss Mansel, it had already been sent up to my room; when I had not answered the telephone, he himself had sent a page up with the letter. I hadn’t answered the door, either, so the boy had pushed the letter underneath it …
It was lying out in the lobby, white on the blue carpet, startling as an alarm signal. I pounced on it and carried it back to the light.
I’m not sure what I had expected. Even after last night I couldn’t see the situation vis-à-vis Great-Aunt Harriet as anything more than highly bizarre, but my disappointment at not seeing my cousin straight away was such that I tore open the envelope in a fury of irritation, and eyed the letter as if I expected it to be an anonymous obscenity, or at least a forgery.
But it was, unmistakably, my cousin’s hand. And unequivocally ordinary, unexciting and infuriating. It said:
Dear Coz,
I’m fearfully sorry about this, as there’s nothing I’d have liked better than to forgather this morning once you’d got out of purdah, and hear all about it. Am particularly interested to know if J. L. let you see Aunt H again. Was nearly caught just after I left you. Aunt H came down the underground corridor with the girl, just as I was letting myself out at the foot of the spiral stair. I dodged back in time, but managed to get a glimpse of her. As you say, a weirdie nowadays, but she seemed active enough and was talking nineteen to the dozen to the girl. I was very tempted to pop out and have a word then and there, but it might have scared the daylights out of them, so I stayed where I was till they went in through the Princes’s door, then I let myself out. No trouble. Picked up the car and got down here without seeing a soul. Didn’t want to walk into the hotel at crack of dawn, so had breakfast at a café and rang Aleppo to see if I could catch Ben’s father. Was told he’d left for Homs and is due home today.
This is where you’re going to be blazing mad at me, especially after all my dark hints last night. I may have been wrong about that – something I heard her say to Halide explained quite a bit to me. Tell you when I see you. But there’s still a bit of a problem, and the only person I can take it to usefully is Ben’s father, and I gather he’ll be leaving home again for Medina almost straight away. So I’ve gone down to Damascus to catch him. Sorry about this, I know you’ll be mad at me, but bear up, I’ll be back as soon as I can, tomorrow, possibly, or Thursday morning. Wait for me till then, and sharpen your claws. But don’t, please don’t do anything else, there’s a maiden – except extend your booking, and when I get back we’ll have fun. And I think – if my idea works out – that I’ll get to see Aunt H after all.
