The Shape of Sand

by Marjorie Eccles

“Wycombe does it so much better than I. They make a very handsome couple, don’t you agree?”

  That was true, but neither looked as though they were enjoying themselves. “Won’t you dance with me?” I asked, tucking his hand beneath my elbow.

  He smiled and began to shake his head. He does not really care for dancing at all, but then he looked at me and I suppose he thought I had asked him because I felt left out – a wallflower! “And save me from Mr Iskander,” I added, rather quickly.

  “That’s a fate I would not wish upon anyone,” he said, after a moment’s pause for thought. Papa does not often make jokes – and when I looked at him I saw he was not smiling. He was in a very strange mood tonight. Then he did smile, and bowed very gallantly and took my hand and escorted me to join the others.

  Lord Wycombe and Beatrice waltzed politely, holding themselves carefully apart, as if they’d be glad when their duty was over. They spoke little, and avoided looking at each other. Perhaps they had nothing to say, or perhaps they were afraid of what they might say if they did speak.

  Then suddenly he said, abruptly, “What was Kit saying to you? Was he telling you how he inveigled me into letting him borrow my precious Silent-Knight?”

  “Inveigled? Does that mean blackmailed?” She smiled. “But what hold could he possibly have over you?”

  He almost missed a step, held her a little tighter until they regained the rhythm. “That was not what I meant,” he answered stiffly. “No, he threatened to get in the way and disrupt proceedings if I did not, which you know he’s perfectly capable of doing.”

  “He means no harm. It’s just a lot of silly talk because he’s not sure of himself.”

  “Then it’s time he was, at his age,” his Lordship said sternly, his eyes resting for a moment on Kit, who was leaning against a tree, part of a group, but not joining in. Despite himself, his expression softened, and he sighed. “He’s allowed too much rope. A spell in the army would have knocked all that out of him.”

  “You sound just like Amory!”

  “That’s hardly surprising. We think alike on most things.”

  Their glances met. Hers was the first to fall. “Oh, Beatrice!” he exclaimed wearily, under his breath. After that, they danced in silence until she was claimed by someone else.

  “Well, Bayah-tree-chay?”

  “Well, Valery?”

  “I am still awaiting my answer.”

  This had to stop. One way or another. She knew that it would come to the point where she must bow to the inevitable - but would it end there? Tonight she had been so very happy, and because of it, she found a sudden determination, a strength surging in her that she hadn’t known she possessed. She would not allow anything to spoil tonight, nor mar her life by regrets that she hadn’t taken the opportunity when it arose. So be it. She let her hand rest on his arm. His other hand closed over hers and at the remembered touch, her breathing quickened. “Very well. Tonight, when everyone has gone.”

  6

  The celebrations had been a triumph, and social success always gave Beatrice an unusual animation. She felt vibrant and alive, keyed up, aware that the wine, plus the decision to act, at last, had brought a becoming flush to her cheeks, a sparkle to her eyes. At midnight, when the very last of the guests had gone home, or to their rooms if they were houseguests, her senses still felt as tautly-tuned as violin strings. The night could have gone on for ever, as far as she was concerned. While the servants, some of whom had to be up at five the next morning, hurried to clear away the debris of the party and leave the rooms tidy, aching for their beds after their long, hard day’s work, their mistress drifted through the rooms where the aromas of cigar smoke, flowers and women’s scent lingered, as if reluctant to let it all go, bending her head to breathe in the scent of a bowl of roses, touching this and that, looking out into the blackness of the now still garden while stroking a velvet curtain, as if drawing its sensuous feel into her fingertips. Staring at the ormolu clock on the drawing room mantelpiece, her shoulders tense, then from the portrait of herself above it, painted by John Singer Sargent, to her actual face in the looking glass, suddenly anxious and sad, as if she didn’t really know who this stranger was. At last she made her way to the foot of the stairs – but no, it was only to murmur to Albrighton that she’d decided to take a last turn in the garden. A footman clearing the last of the plates from the supper room dared to roll his eyes at the butler, but Albrighton, always correct, pretended not to see. Waiting to lock up, he swallowed a yawn, stretched his eyelids and wished his shoes weren’t so tight.

  It wasn’t until some time later that Beatrice at last went up to her room and sent for Hallam, who must have been dropping with fatigue but wasn’t allowing herself to show any signs of it. When the hair ornament and feathers had been removed and she’d been helped out of her dress and stood only in her shift, her black kimono loosely shrugged on, Hallam stood waiting for her to sit before the mirror.

  “Oh, leave my hair!” Beatrice said, suddenly impatient. “I’ll see to it myself.”

  The other woman paused, hairbrush in hand, her eyebrows raised.

  “I’m quite capable of taking a few pins out, Hallam!” she said sharply. “You may go.”

  “Very well.” Hallam’s eyes flickered, but she put the brush down, bent to pick up an armful of the silk underclothes Beatrice had stepped out of, and left.

  Almost immediately, the door from Amory’s dressing room opened and he came in just as Beatrice was lifting her arms to remove her hairpins. He had discarded his jacket and replaced it with a red silk dressing gown, and he was wearing his soft, morocco leather slippers.

  “I have just come to say goodnight, Beatrice.”

  “Oh, it has been such a lovely birthday!” She went to him, and impulsively wrapped her arms around his neck, resting her cheek against his, moulding her soft body against him. She was almost as tall as he.

  He kissed her gently on the forehead and held her at a little distance. “A tiring one, for both of us, I’m afraid, but I’m glad you enjoyed it so much.”

  “Everyone helped to make it lovely. How clever the girls were with their little tableau – and they looked so charming.”

  “We have some very beautiful daughters – almost as beautiful as their mother.” His eyes rested on her with his wonted admiration, but she felt, as always, that his response was detached, dictated by propriety rather than warmth. When what she wanted, what she desired most of all …

  ‘Save me,’ she longed to say, ‘Save me from myself …’

  “See you get a good night’s rest,” he finished. “I have a couple of hours’ work to do before I go to bed. Goodnight, my dear.”

  She immediately withdrew herself and turned away so that he should not see her face. Her voice was flat as she said, “It’s very late. Must you work tonight?” It was well after midnight, there were dark circles under his eyes and his face looked drawn. He worked much too hard. She had never regarded herself as a clever woman, but it had occurred to her more than once that he drove himself too far, striving perhaps beyond the limits of his own competence.

  “I’m afraid I must.”

  “Goodnight then, Amory.”

  “Goodnight, my love.”

  After her bedroom door had clicked behind him, she sat staring at her reflection. All the life and animation had drained from it. Her face was paler than the shift beneath her wrapper.

  She still had on her jewels and, slowly, she took off the garnet bracelet. It slid like a snake on to the glassy surface of the dressing table. She unhooked the pendant earrings and laid them beside it, then lifted her hands to undo the necklace. Her fingers were not quite steady and she was unable to undo the awkward clasp behind her neck – better to leave it to Hallam’s deft fingers, rather than break it. She reached for the bell to call the maid back, but her hand stayed in mid-air. For one horrifying moment, it seemed to her that the necklace encircling the base of her throat was a raw, gaping red wound, and the garnet
drops depending from it were gouts of blood.

  With a great gasp of despair, she buried her face in her hands. Amory, Amory! Was this, then, the form that retribution, Nemesis, fate, call it what you will, was to take? After all these years?

  Wycombe had joined the party at Luxor, where they had already spent two days in the first class Luxor Hotel, in what seemed like sybaritic splendour after the confines of the dahabeah. It was pleasantly crowded with European society, and Millie had consulted the resident English doctor and been given some medication for her upset stomach. She had availed herself of the laundry facilities and those of the hairdresser, had even found that the hotel served excellent English tea, and was, consequently, much improved in temper by the time Wycombe was due to arrive. She had not yet come down to have breakfast with him and the others, which they were taking in the welcome shade of the hotel’s garden, overlooking the Nile. The fierce heat of the sun had already burnt off the sharp coldness of the early morning and was glaring from the sky on the procession of black-robed and veiled women who walked gracefully down to the river-bank, balancing heavy loads on their heads. The Nile boulevard was white and hot and dusty, and onto it, from the buildings at the side, fell deep shadows, sharp and dark.

  “How very nice it is to see you again, Beatrice,” said Wycombe. He added stiffly, “You are looking very well. The journey has obviously suited you”.

  She who accepted compliments gracefully, as a matter of course, felt a quick flush warm her cheeks. “Why thank you. I don’t believe I’ve ever felt better in my life.”

  After so long in the sole company of Egyptians (Glendinning, at the moment devouring a plate of three fried eggs and several slices of extravagantly buttered toast, scarcely counted), Wycombe’s very Englishness was at once a shock and a tonic. He had come by rail overnight from Cairo, but after fourteen hours in what was said to be a train de luxe, the definition of which all depended on your standards of comparison, nevertheless managed to arrive trim, clean-shaven and spruce as always, the epitome of the British army officer.

  Beatrice slowly ate some sweet, pink-fleshed melon, and watched a now familiar scene, sharp and clear in the hot sunlight: the busy traffic moving up and down the wide river, a felucca crossing to the west bank, leaning to the breeze, its sail like a curved white wing, while on the quayside further down, a host of dragomen, guides and donkey boys in their galabeyas and skullcaps sat on the ground, gossiping, smoking, one eye out for trade. A steamer had just arrived, and a shrill gaggle of eager, barefoot children in their short, vividly striped shifts chased each other around while waiting to beg baksheesh from the Cooks’ tourists who would shortly be pouring down the gangway.

  “How long are you able to stay, Myles?”

  “I’ve accumulated some leave, so – nearly three weeks. Then I’ll return with Amory, by rail, and leave the rest of you to sail back to Cairo. You’ve heard from him?”

  “Yes. He will join us in a few days at Assuan, as planned,” murmured Beatrice.

  Glendinning clapped his hands loudly for the white-turbaned waiter to bring more coffee.

  “At once, effendi.”

  “Must wait until Jardine arrives before we go to look at the dam, of course,” Glendinning said, rubbing his fiery chin. He had developed a bad case of prickly heat and had forgotten to apply the camomile this morning. “Sort of thing he’d appreciate.”

  The building of the great dam at Assuan was an enormous undertaking, its complex of locks, drains and sluice-gates across the Nile, the greatest engineering work, next to the Suez Canal, ever undertaken in Egypt. When completed, it would hold back an immense reservoir of water which would enable the land to be irrigated throughout the summer, and make it possible for many otherwise waste and barren regions to be brought under cultivation, for cotton and the other crops on which the country’s life and prosperity so desperately depended. It was the sort of enterprise which was certain to have Amory’s wholehearted approval.

  “Pity he wasn’t here for the rest – missed some dashed good shooting on the way here,” Glendinning added, getting his priorities right.

  It was indeed a shame he had missed so many wonderful things, agreed Beatrice, thinking guiltily of the journal she had started, which she had meant to keep religiously every single day, so that Amory could at least read about the marvels he would unfortunately have no opportunity, in his short stay, of seeing for himself. Her intentions, alas, had proved better than the deed – or perhaps it was because, in the end, what she had confided to her little book was purely for her eyes only. However, she had written regularly to him, letters that were posted at the various stopping places near to the railway, as it followed the line of the Nile – that same railway he would be journeying along in a short time. In her mind’s eye she had seen him with her letters in his hand, characteristically pulling his long upper lip and smiling slightly as he read what she had written. She had described, with as much detail as she could recall, the awe-inspiring monuments to a lost civilisation they had already seen, yes, but very little of the feelings they inspired in her (all that was too complicated, too involved with hidden meaning and her increasingly complex reaction to everything around her, as they journeyed ever deeper into the heart of the ancient world). Instead, her letters were confined to what she saw of the life lived along the banks of the river, in which people washed their clothes, performed their ablutions and carried from it drinking water in pots on their heads. She had described the water buffaloes tended by small boys, and the shadoufs that raised river water in leather buckets to irrigate the fields. She wrote about glimpses of distant minarets, so clear against the sky, of muezzins singing their queer, wailing call to prayer five times a day, and of Moslems kneeling to obey the calls, wherever they happened to be. Of a solitary camel and its rider, silhouetted against the magnificent sunset on a far distant hill. And often she would think: Oh, Amory! and wish intensely that he were with her. And was, for some reason, very glad that he was not. But soon, now, very soon, he would be here.

  Spreading jam on a French croissant and pouring more coffee, Wycombe said, “You’re right, Glendinning. The dam construction is something not to be missed, but it’s only one of many expeditions we must make from Assuan. I’m told the splendid repairs to the temple at Abu Simbel are well worth the effort of getting there. A tremendous undertaking, carried out by our own Royal Engineers – and under dashed difficult circumstances, I might say.”

  Millie arrived at that moment, just in time to hear his last remarks. She greeted Wycombe with a coquettish smile, very pleased with herself, quite restored and looking piquantly attractive this morning under a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat, wearing a muslin dress which had been exquisitely laundered and starched, even by her exacting standards. “Just a little fruit, please, waiter,” she said, as he drew out her chair. Then, as he left, “What was all that about? More ruins?”

  She was still quite determined to be bored with tombs and temples – and also with donkey rides, which had quite lost their appeal – and looked deeply uninterested on being told about Abu Simbel, rolling her eyes when Wycombe informed her that the great rock temple, originally carved out of the heart of a vast hillside, was yet another conception of that indefatigable builder, Rameses the Second. Now relieved of the three thousand-year burden of sand which had silted over them, as high as their heads, four colossal statues, over sixty feet high, guarded the entrance, each in Rameses’ royal likeness.

  “In case anyone should be in doubt as to who the builder was,” Beatrice teased her.

  “Hmm. That man was vainer than Narcissus – and didn’t he fall in love with his own reflection and die of unrequited love? You see, I’m not so ignorant as you think, Beatrice! I do remember something from my lessons,” said Millie lightly. “But when all’s said and done, it’s just another old temple.”

  “Oh come, it’s an astonishing experience,” Wycombe chided, though mildly enough, and he said it with a smile. He had grown accustomed to, and s
ometimes was amused by, Millie’s outrageous statements when they were in Cairo. “Like nothing you’ve ever seen before, you may count on that. I think we may change your mind before then. You can’t come all the way to Egypt and fail to see one of its greatest wonders. Meanwhile, you had better tell me what you have been doing since you arrived in Luxor, then we may decide how to expend the rest of the time here before we embark for Assuan.”

  Millie shrugged as she began to peel an orange. “Oh, we’ve done very little, to be truthful, except to have a delicious rest and do a little shopping.”

  He nodded approvingly. “That was wise. You’ll be quite prepared now for seeing the temples here, and the City of the Dead.”

  “The City of the Dead?” Millie shuddered theatrically.

  Beatrice contemplated the next two, or maybe three, no doubt exhausting days which would be necessary to explore the necropolis of ancient Thebes, covering many square miles of the river plain and its surrounding, rocky cliffs, where in remote and hidden valleys was the astounding collection of rock-tombs and temples of the ancient kings and queens.

  “I suggest,” said Wycombe, “we make a trip to the west bank tomorrow, then take a day’s rest before exploring Karnak. Not forgetting the temple here, of course.”

  He waved a hand in the direction of the Luxor Temple, smaller than the stupendous ruins at Karnak a couple of miles away, but equally as impressive, and said to be even more beautiful, standing but a few hundred yards from the hotel, its ancient columns bizarrely situated right in the middle of the modern little town.

  Millie was rather unsuccessfully stifling a yawn, while Beatrice herself felt slightly piqued by the military precision with which Wycombe had taken over the organising of their time here. However, he was putting himself out to be gallant and agreeable. He had been here before and therefore knew what was what. And on the whole, it was so much easier simply to put oneself in the hands of someone so capable, even if he was being rather managing.