Over the Blue Mountains

by Mary Burchell

  “N-no. Of course not. I just thought—”

  “Well, don’t think too much where Max is concerned,” Verity interrupted with a laugh. “He is my affair.”

  The laugh had not been a friendly one, and its implication was so absurd and so unfounded that Juliet felt herself flush. Anger prompted her to say sharply that she could not care lee: what Max Ormathon—or, come to that, Verity either—did. But prudence told her to hold her tongue. And, with a great effort at self-control, Juliet managed to obey the voice of prudence.

  It was hardly light the next morning when the alarm bell of her little traveling clock roused her. And, as Juliet struggled up through layers of sleep to consciousness, she thought, It has come! This is the day. This is my last day in England.

  And suddenly, in the cold light of the morning, she felt dreadfully hollow and dismayed instead of elated. Though she was ashamed to remember that fact four hours later, at that moment she passionately longed to undo the work of the past two weeks, and find herself uncommitted to this tremendous undertaking.

  I didn’t think enough what I was doing, she thought distractedly. It’s too big a change. What was I dreaming of, that I let myself be so persuaded? I wish—

  But then Aunt Katherine’s voice, lovely but inescapable, sounded from beyond the communicating door that led into her room.

  “Juliet dear, are you awake? I wish you’d come here a moment.”

  And Juliet’s day had begun.

  What she remembered afterward with poignant clarity was the drive to the airport. She had never thought to feel her throat tighten at the sight of the Albert Memorial or Hammersmith Broadway. But when one knew it was the last glimpse of them!

  At any rate, it will be for years, Juliet thought, and blinked back a tear or two.

  And then they were out on the Great West Road and heading for London Airport, and slowly the panic-stricken regret began to ebb, and the feeling of adventure to rise.

  At the airport itself, with the flurry of ticket examination, luggage checking, Customs examination, currency inquiries, there was little time for nostalgic reflection. But presently all that was over, and they were waiting in the long, light lounge—Max Ormathon now one of the party—for the final summons.

  Juliet could not say a word to anyone. She was too excited, too keyed up, too full of emotion. Besides, Verity’s ridiculous behavior of the previous evening returned to her, as a disagreeable reminder that she must be content to take a backseat.

  So she went to one of the windows and stood looking out across the runway to the immense airplane into which their luggage was being loaded. There it was, the strong, graceful monster that was to take them twelve thousand miles across the world. Only, once it was up in—above—the clouds, it would not be a monster, but a speck in a great universe.

  How fascinating that was, Juliet thought. That it was both incredibly large and incredibly small for the work it had to do. The sheer wonder of it all overwhelmed her again. It surely was not possible that she—she...

  “Will passengers for Rome, Cairo, Karachi, Singapore and Sydney please collect their hand luggage, extinguish all pipes and cigarettes and proceed to Exit Number One, where the aircraft is now waiting to depart.”

  At the sound of the pleasant, impersonal voice speaking over the microphone, Juliet felt her heart begin to beat heavily again. But she hoped that she looked as calm as everyone else while she rejoined her party, helped to collect coats and hand luggage, and followed the elegant figure of her aunt out into the cool morning sunshine and across the field to the great aircraft.

  She stumbled a little from sheer excitement as she mounted the steps to the airplane, but a smiling stewardess, who was waiting to greet all comers, caught her arm and showed her to her place in the long, luxurious cabin.

  There was an awkward moment when Verity discovered that, not unnaturally, she had been given a seat beside her mother. But she firmly had that put right, and Juliet found herself seated beside her aunt while, across the aisle, Verity sat with Max Ormathon.

  After that, it seemed only a matter of seconds before safety belts were fastened, in preparation for the actual takeoff, the door was slammed, and the machine began to move forward—clumsily for all its graceful appearance—along the runway. Tense with excitement, Juliet waited. But for several minutes—while the steward and stewardess collected coats and, somewhat surprisingly, distributed barley sugar, the engines continued to roar and the airplane continued to stay on the ground.

  “Why the barley sugar?” Juliet found time to ask her aunt in a whisper.

  “To suck, of course, darling. Surely you’ve been given something of the sort on other flights? Swallowing lessens the pressure on the eardrums or something when the machine rises.”

  Juliet was a trifle dashed that her aunt had so soon forgotten the, to her, all-important fact that she had never flown before. But, before she could say anything about that, she suddenly realized that the sound of the engines had taken on an entirely different quality. The machine began to move forward at a tremendous speed along the runway and a few seconds later, without having been able to tell exactly when it happened, Juliet saw that they were airborne.

  Fields, houses, airport buildings were all dropping away, like unreal things that no longer had any significance for her.

  The journey to Australia had begun, and there was no turning back now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Juliet was fascinated to discover that as soon as the airplane was fully airborne, and there seemed to be hardly any connection left with the world beneath them, a strangely intimate and completely self-contained system of life came into being in the cabin.

  Safety belts were unfastened, cigarettes were lighted, and some of the passengers even got up and strolled through the aisle to help themselves to newspapers and magazines from the racks provided.

  Others went to speak to fellow-passengers, and the general degree of movement was considerably more than one would have seen on a fast-moving train.

  But then there was so little sense of traveling at speed. At first Juliet could not imagine why they seemed to be going so slowly. Then it dawned upon her that the extent of one’s view from this height was so immense that it changed only very gradually, and this gave the illusion that the machine was actually moving slowly. And the steadiness of the plane so completely bore out this illusion that it was difficult to believe that one was rushing through space.

  Almost immediately the stewardess visited each passenger to explain various arrangements for their comfort, and Juliet began to have the delightful impression that never before had she known what it was like to be properly looked after.

  She simply could not imagine why her aunt had supposed she would need her. A sick child could not have needed more attention than each passenger received as a matter of normal service, and Juliet could only presume that it was during the stops on the ground that her aunt expected to require her.

  This prompted her to inquire, next time the stewardess came near, just how long they would have in Rome.

  “Less than two hours, I’m afraid. But you can either have a leisurely lunch at the airport, or be provided with a box lunch and be taken on a quick sight-seeing tour by bus. We arrange all that, and it’s surprising how much one can manage to see,” the stewardess assured her.

  Juliet smiled her thanks, and was already delightedly anticipating a fascinating drive when her aunt said, a little languidly, “We’ll stay and lunch quietly at the airport, of course.”

  “Oh, Aunt Katherine!” Consternation and dismay made Juliet’s face almost childlike in its expression of disappointment. “You—you won’t mind if I go, will you? I’ve never been in Rome.”

  “Well, that’s no way to start seeing it,” Aunt Katherine assured her, unmoved, and she turned to speak to Verity and Max Ormathon, who had come from their seats to comment on the first sight of the Channel beneath them. “We don’t want to do this glorified trippers’ tour of Rome,” sh
e declared firmly to the others. “We’ll all lunch quietly at the airport.”

  Verity agreed immediately. But Max Ormathon, perhaps prompted by the look on Juliet’s face, said, “It’s a remarkably good tour, as a matter of fact, if one hasn’t ever seen Rome. Not much for you two who know it, I agree. But if Juliet hasn’t seen it before, I expect she will want to take this opportunity of seeing something of it at least.”

  Aunt Katherine said very sweetly and vaguely that they would see. And Juliet knew quite well in that moment that there would be no sight of Rome for her, however fleeting. Aunt Katherine would find plenty to occupy her at the airport.

  The disappointment was keen. So keen that she actually felt tears in her eyes. But she stared out of the window and told herself not to be childish. She was here to look after Aunt Katherine, wasn’t she? She could hardly grudge her the first services required of her. Well, the first required on the actual journey.

  But—Rome!

  As they flew over the Alps later that morning, Juliet recovered her spirits. Two weeks ago she would have thought herself the happiest girl alive just to see this alone. The exquisite green of the valleys with their toy streams and waterfalls, the unbelievable beauty and drama of the immense and varied peaks rising, blue, purple and snowcapped on every side. One felt almost godlike, being able to see so far and so much beauty all at once.

  It was Max Ormathon who pointed out the Jungfrau, as they sailed along, so apparently close that it was almost like viewing a famous building rather than a towering Alpine peak. And Juliet told herself that she was a lucky girl, even if she could not see Rome.

  This philosophical frame of mind was difficult to maintain when they did actually come down, after a breathtaking glimpse of Rome from the air. It was hard to be so near and yet so far from the Eternal City. But, as Juliet anticipated, her aunt found her plenty of plausible tasks while they were on the ground, and Max Ormathon was evidently not prepared to make any further efforts on her behalf. For which, Juliet supposed, she could hardly blame him. He had probably forgotten her and her disappointment by now.

  In this, however, she was mistaken. Because, as they returned to the plane, he came up beside her on the short walk across the apron and said, “I’m sorry you didn’t manage your glimpse of Rome. If it’s any consolation to you, you’ll have better luck in Cairo. We stay the night there, and some of the passengers are sure to want to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx by moonlight.”

  “That will be wonderful!” Juliet said, and she smiled at him brilliantly—not only for the actual words of consolation, but because she was touched and pleased that he should enter into her disappointed feelings.

  But alas for all sightseeing plans. It was quite late that night when they arrived in Cairo, and on the long drive from the airport to the city, Aunt Katherine—looking really pale and exhausted—leaned slightly against Juliet’s arm and murmured, “How terribly hot it is! I shall be thankful to be in bed. What a mercy I have you here, dear, to look after everything.” Mentally, Juliet resigned the Pyramids and the Sphinx, as she had resigned St. Peter’s and the Coliseum. It was something just to be able to tell herself that she was in Egypt, to look out of the window of the airport bus and catch fleeting, but fascinating, glimpses of shops where, in the garish light of flares, figures moved about like people on a stage.

  Once when they crossed a big open square, Juliet saw the moon silvering the leaves of great palm trees, and another time they had to stop to let a long line of slow, swaying camels cross their path. It was all so completely unreal that again Juliet had that peculiar sensation of not being herself.

  Then the coach came to a final stop, and she realized that they were outside the hotel. People were still sitting about on the verandah in the warm, music-haunted dusk, grouped around tables, drinking, talking or just looking at the ever moving, ever changing scene.

  “What a long day it’s been,” Aunt Katherine exclaimed, as they mounted the steps to the entrance. “I hope they can give us some quiet rooms away from all this singing and strumming.”

  Juliet privately thought that the “singing and strumming” was part of the charm of the place. But, realizing that to anyone as genuinely tired as her aunt, peace was all that could be asked, she firmly saw to it that a comparatively quiet room was provided.

  By the time she had seen her aunt comfortably settled, and had unpacked and repacked her case for her so that clothes more suitable for the hottest part of the journey might be available, it was quite late. Very late, considering that they were to be called at six-thirty the next morning to continue the journey.

  All the same, as Juliet came out of her aunt’s room and along the great, gaunt, marble-floored passage to her own room, she could not help wishing that her visit to Cairo—her one and only visit to one of the most romantic and mysterious cities in the world—could have contained something more than a few hours in a hotel bedroom.

  She had reached her door and had even put her key in the lock, when the door of the room opposite opened and Max Ormathon came out.

  “Hello.” He gave her a brief, not unkindly smile. “Didn’t you join the party for the Pyramids, after all, then?”

  “No,” Juliet said carefully. “No. I couldn’t manage it. There wasn’t—time.”

  “There’s usually time for what one wants to do,” he rejoined carelessly and with the slight scorn of the man who gets things done for those who never make up their mind in time.

  He was, Juliet saw, dismissing her as the kind of girl who affected to have an intelligent interest in all the right things, but never backed up that with any effort on her own part. She flushed slightly.

  “Sometimes one hasn’t full control of one’s own time,” she retorted a little sharply.

  “No?” He measured her with those amused blue eyes, as though he saw her for the first time. “If I may say so, it’s always wise to retain a certain degree of right over one’s own time.”

  “I know. But—my aunt was really tired,” Juliet explained elliptically.

  “I see. Well, I’m sorry you missed the Pyramids.” And he was about to turn away.

  “I’m so-sorry, too,” Juliet said, and suddenly the cumulative disappointments of the day combined to bring a most unusual quiver to her voice.

  She thought he had finished the conversation, but at that he suddenly turned back to her.

  “If you’re prepared to get up about four, I’ll take you to see the sunrise from them, if you like.”

  His tone was so matter-of-fact and the offer so unexpected that for a moment Juliet could only gasp.

  “Sunrise? Dawn—from the Pyramids? Will you really?”

  “If you’re prepared to get up so early.”

  “Of course I will!” She had forgotten all previous disappointments now. She had also forgotten Verity’s possessiveness where Max Ormathon was concerned.

  “All right. Meet me downstairs at four-thirty,” he said. And, before she could reconsider the wisdom of her decision, he bade her good-night and left her.

  In her own room, having made arrangements to be called at four, she reviewed the conversation she had had with some misgiving. Verity would certainly be extremely annoyed. But was that really an adequate reason for rejecting her one chance of seeing something she might never see again? If Max Ormathon considered himself at liberty to give the invitation, she was surely at liberty to accept it.

  Anyway, thought Juliet obstinately, I’m going. And remembering what he had said about the wisdom of retaining a certain degree of right over one’s own time, she retired to bed reasonably well satisfied with her decision.

  At first it was difficult to sleep. Not only because of the many thoughts and impressions that pursued each other through her excited brain, but because the windows, standing open to the hot, still night, let in a variety of sounds beyond anything else Juliet had ever experienced.

  The sound of car horns and the grinding of brakes mingled with the rattle of primitive-soundi
ng wheels over the uneven streets. Modern dance music from some radio vied with the peculiar cadences of some pipe instrument that Juliet could not identify, and over it all the sound of talking, in curiously high-pitched voices, laughter, singing and a general hum of activity that there was no analyzing.

  For a long time she lay awake, wondering if Cairo ever slept. Then she must have drifted into some kind of sleep herself. And the next thing she knew was the ring of the telephone beside her bed and on her lifting the receiver a very foreign-sounding voice informed her that it was four o’clock.

  Everything, both inside and out, seemed very silent now as she rose and dressed, so evidently Cairo did sleep for a few short hours. It was still completely dark outside, too, which added to the strangeness of this experience. And as Juliet crept quietly along the wide corridor a quarter of an hour later, she thought, I’m glad I said I would come.

  A white-robed attendant took her down in the elevator, and in the great, otherwise empty entrance hall Max Ormathon was already waiting for her.

  “I’m not late, am I?” She came up to him eagerly, even a little breathlessly. “Did I keep you waiting?”

  But he assured her that she was in excellent time.

  “I have a car outside,” he said, as though there was nothing unusual in being able to conjure up a car in a strange city at four-thirty in the morning.

  “It ought to be a magic carpet,” Juliet told him with a laugh as they went down the steps together.

  A native driver bowed them into the waiting car, and they set off. For the first few moments they said nothing to each other. Then they crossed a bridge, and Juliet saw smooth, still water gleaming below.

  “Is that,” she said diffidently, almost awestruck, “is that—the Nile?”

  “That’s the Nile,” he assured her.

  “It doesn’t seem possible,” Juliet murmured, half to herself.

  He gave her a quick, amused glance and said, “On the way back, when it’s completely light, you’ll be able to see the full expanse of it, and the little sailing boats.”