The Shape of Sand

by Marjorie Eccles

  He listened with a grave, then incredulous face to the explanations of where and how Beatrice’s body had been discovered. “Bayah-tree-chay. How beautiful she was. A perfect English rose. And her deportment! Not even the women of Nubia, trained from childhood to carry loads upon their heads, could have been more graceful!” He heaved a deep sigh and chose another pastry. “And so – the mystery of her disappearance is now solved — leaving an even greater mystery, eh? I have no doubt the police suspect me.”

  “The man in charge doesn’t appear to think so.”

  “Nevertheless …”

  A small silence ensued. Tom fingered his scar. Uncertain as to how to proceed – or perhaps unwilling. An hour or two earlier, after his call to Iskander, he had surprised Nina by saying, “I fear she’s going to be disappointed.”

  “Who is?”

  “Harriet. She’s so adamant that Iskander must be involved.”

  “And you don’t want to admit it, if he is?”

  “Iskander’s my father’s friend – and mine. I just don’t want to believe he had anything to do with the damned affair.”

  Nina had realised, of course, that he’d wanted to come here, not to establish Iskander’s guilt, but his innocence. And now that the subject of the Nile trip and the reasons why the party had split up in Luxor had to be broached, she could see Tom was hesitant to begin. Well, she was the one, after all, who had read Beatrice’s journal in full, whereas Tom had only had time to read it in parts; the rest of what he knew was only what she had been able to tell him. She was duty-bound to help him out.

  The large room was cool, and smelled faintly of spices and jasmine. Iskander was evidently a man of taste, and not short of money. Against white walls and a marble floor were dark antiques and ancient rugs, sitting in pools of light cast by hanging lamps of wrought iron and jewel-coloured glass. The sofas on which they sat bore huge cushions of damask and silk in glowing colours. A whole wall was devoted to books. Mushrabiyeh-work tables carved in lacy trellis bore many more. There was again that light, gritty dust over everything, as if the desert sand encroached even this far into the city. Dust that filtered everywhere, impossible to keep out.

  Into the silence the noises of the street intruded, just as Nina was about to speak voices were raised in shouts. The unmistakable roaring groan of a camel was unexpectedly heard among the hooting of motor horns and a policeman’s whistle. Iskander showed no surprise or irritation, but rose and pulled the shutters across the two tiny trellised balconies which overlooked the street, and the room was enclosed in its own quietness again.

  The small interlude had given Nina time to decide how to begin. She explained about the journal which Beatrice had written, and which Harriet had discovered, and found Iskander responding quite willingly to the prompting.

  “Ah, yes, that journal!” He smiled reminiscently. “I remember how she would write in it, each day, on the dahabeah, how she would recall what we had seen and ask me to explain the intricacies and contradictions of this land.”

  “She did seem to find your country very strange and hard to understand.”

  “But she was in thrall to it, as many other people have been. It has held – and still does hold – a strange fascination, and no-one can tell who this may fall upon.”

  “I think she was a little frightened of how it made her feel. One experience in particular seems to have affected her very strangely. Do you recall an incident in the temple at Luxor?”

  He shrugged and spread his hands, which could have meant yes or no, and watched her as she went on to recount what Beatrice had written about the episode, aware even as she did that this was perhaps open to interpretation. “Whatever it was, I think it affected her so much because she had just, before starting out on the trip, lost an unborn child.”

  The light eyes stared at her piercingly. His face was expressionless, but she thought he hadn’t known this before. The room had become close since shutting the windows and he rose to switch on an electric ceiling fan. The paddles whirred lazily, stirring the warm air but not bringing in much coolness. The silence went on, during which he absently demolished a couple more of the delicacies in the silver dish and drank some more coffee.

  Finally, he said, “I will tell you the story as best I can.”

  “The English party were staying at the Luxor Hotel — now the Winter Palace. There had been an incident in the temple earlier that day, which was troubling me very much – or rather, my dear lady’s reaction to it was. It was fortunate that she had recovered so quickly from the injury to her head, but I could not make out what it was that had made her so afraid that she had turned to flee and thus not taken enough care.” He paused. In the effort to find the right words to convey his meaning, the hitherto easy flow of his English was becoming stilted. “She was taken back to the hotel to lie down and recover, and the visit to the temple was abandoned by the rest of the party. Later, in the cool of the evening, I walked up to the hotel from where the dahabeah was moored, to find out how she was. As I entered the gardens of the hotel, I saw a pale glimmer ahead of me in the darkness – and there she was, walking towards me, dressed in a loose white gown. I was overjoyed to find she had recovered and I hurried to meet her, hoping to speak with her and find out what had caused her to become so distressed that she had fled the temple and walked blindly into the stone lintel. When I drew level with her, I could see that she seemed to be weeping bitterly, and hadn’t been aware of my approach. It distressed me very much to see her in such condition and I stepped up to her and reached out to take her hand, hoping to comfort her in a way she had always found soothing. To my astonishment, she half-screamed and drew back, crying, ‘Don’t touch me! Haven’t you done enough already?’ Her sobs increased and she turned about and ran back the way she had come, straight into the arms of Major Randolph. ‘Don’t let him touch me! Keep him away from me!’ She was quite hysterical. And then I saw that she was holding together the bodice of her gown, as if it had been torn open …”

  His affront was palpable. Time had done nothing to soften the impact of his shock, but after a second or two he went on with a tale evidently still crystal clear in his mind.

  “Ah well, I forget myself. It is of no matter, now … She began to scream that I had touched her – improperly – that afternoon in the temple, that I had just attempted it again. She was hysterical. As for Major Randolph, that stiff Englishman, he was beside himself with fury. He sheltered her in his arms, while reviling me with all the names under the sun. Imagine my feelings! I had no idea what she meant by those accusations, but she was led away and I was given no chance to defend myself, then or thereafter. My protestations were not listened to and she – she said not a word in my defence. I was struck dumb by her treachery.”

  He leaned forward and filled their three tiny cups with yet more of the cloying coffee and after sipping, went on: “The sum of it was, I was dismissed, sent back to Cairo like a criminal. I burned with the injustice of it, but I was a young man, only just embarking on my career, with little or no redress against people like that. And it followed me, that incident. I had done nothing wrong, it was blown out of all proportion, but my days of guiding European parties around to earn a little money to help me until I established myself as a teacher were numbered. I had no choice but to try and forget it. I did the best I could for money, plunged deep into my studies and I might say came through with the highest honours, helped and encouraged by your father, Tom – by Professor Verrier. Gradually, of course, as the years went by, the incident was forgotten – by all but me. The unfairness of it still rankled. I determined I would not rest until I had seen Beatrice Jardine once more and forced her to tell me why she had levelled those false accusations against me. Then I would be satisfied. By that time, I had reached a professorship myself. I arranged to take time off, and went over to England. I wrote to her, asking her to see me, though I did not expect her to agree. I would have forced myself into her presence, if necessary. However, there was no
need for that. To my amazement, she wrote back in the most pleasant terms, inviting me to stay with her and her family at their country home.”

  “You didn’t go over to England to see her with the idea of revenge?” Tom interrupted the flow gravely. Revenge, to the Arab nature, was a matter of honour, and Iskander was part Russian, as well, not a nation renowned for lying down for ever under injustice.

  “No, no. As Allah is my witness, that was not my intention. I would have been satisfied if she had simply given me a reason for doing what she did, had told me in what way I had offended her. At first, I was puzzled as to why she had invited me to Charnley at all, but I soon realised that she feared I would make trouble if the invitation had been withheld, and that she hoped to persuade me that the business in Luxor had all been a big mistake. ‘I did not know what I was doing that evening, Valery,’ she said, whenever I approached the subject. ‘That bump on my head must have made me a little delirious. Can’t you understand?’ She begged my forgiveness for casting suspicion on me, but how could I give it without some more satisfactory explanation? Her conduct had nearly ruined my prospects of a career and I could not easily forgive that. On reflection, I realised she was playing for time, trying to think of a way she might wriggle out of the situation. But I was older and more experienced than I had been in Luxor, and I was on my guard. I had no intention of being caught in the same way twice, for I had begun to see her in a very different light.” He shrugged. “Maybe she had changed, or maybe I had previously been simply too naive. What I did see was that she was toying with the young man – Kit – as she had with me all those years ago. He was neither so young or so naïve as I had been that time in Luxor, but still, I could see he was dazzled by her. She was playing him off against Lord Wycombe – in the same way she had once played me off against him.” Iskander paused dramatically.

  “Trying to make Wycombe–”

  “Jealous? Exactly, Miss Nina. Well, finally, I lost my patience. I had not come all that way to be fobbed off. I wanted a full admission from her, an apology – and I wanted it then. I told her at her birthday party that I would wait no longer, that if she would not agree to give an explanation that satisfied me, I would go straight to her husband. I could see she was frightened by that. She told me to meet her in the conservatory after the party was over. So, after the last guest had departed, I went there and waited. And waited. I stayed there until the house should grow silent. But there was much noise, which went on for a long time. There were many comings and goings, mostly, I think, due to the exuberance of the young people. Because there had been elderly people at the celebration, who left early, the party was over too soon for them, before it came to its natural end and everyone was tired enough to go straight to bed and sleep soundly.”

  He smiled faintly. “I had heard of what went on at those country house parties, but that night there were no unattached lady guests and the daughters of the house were of unexceptionable character. No, I believed Beatrice was waiting until all had settled before she came down, so I curbed my impatience. I sat and smoked until the butler – what was his name? Ah yes, Mr Albrighton – came in on his rounds, to check that everything was secure for the night. He asked me politely if there was anything I required but I said no, I would finish my cigarette and then go to bed. He turned off all the lamps but one, bade me a civil goodnight, and I was left alone again.

  “When it became apparent she was not going to come, I put out my cigarette and sat quietly, thinking about what I should do. I must have fallen into a trance, or I may have dozed. When I came to, I was stiff and cramped. I stood up, ready to retire to my room, when I heard someone come in through the very door that Albrighton had just locked. I drew back a little, into the shadows behind a large plant, but I must have made some sound, for I suddenly felt myself seized roughly by the shoulders and pulled forward into what light there was.

  “‘Take your hands off me, Copley.’ I had recognised my assailant as the chauffeur.

  “He gave a curse. ‘What were you doing, hiding there in the dark – sir.’ The last word was added as an afterthought, servant that he was. The insolence of his tone was not to be believed, but he had never shown me any respect, having all the Englishman’s distrust of ‘foreigners’. He added, with a little more prudence, but hardly less insolently, that I had startled him, he hadn’t seen me sitting there in the shadows. Which was clearly meant to be – and was – taken as a reference to the colour of my skin.

  “‘What are you doing in here this time of night?’ I asked. In the dim lamplight, he looked wild and dangerous – and, I thought, not a little afraid.

  “It was then that I saw why he might have reason to be – for he had a companion with him. ‘My sister and I wanted to have a private word, sir.’

  “His sister, that was a rich invention! The woman who had been standing behind him, and who had said not a word was Beatrice’s maid, Clara Hallam. I knew the woman well, but disliked her none the less for all that – we had, after all, spent several weeks together in the close confines of the dahabeah. What the pair of them were doing there was none of my business, or indeed, how they had entered through the conservatory door when I had just seen the butler lock it. I assumed an assignation between the two – and that the chauffeur had no doubt at some time had a key cut for his own purposes. It was apparent they had been up to no good, but that was not my concern, I had other, more important, things to think of.

  “‘I will not mention this to anyone,’ I told them. ‘I am leaving’ — I glanced at my watch, it was nearly three in the morning - ‘by the earliest train.’ For this was the decision I had come to. It was a sad end to my bold enterprise, but during my long vigil, I had seen how futile my hopes were. After closely observing her behaviour towards the two men she had been flirting with that evening, under her husband’s very nose, seeing how she enjoyed the spice of danger, I had come to the conclusion that I was not going to get the explanation I had come to England for, much less an apology, from Beatrice Jardine. She had merely been putting me off all this time. If necessary, she would have gone to Amory herself, to put him against me before I had the chance to speak. For all his reserve, anyone could see he was besotted with her and would have believed her rather than me. More importantly, I believed that now the explanation for her previous – and her present – conduct, was self-evident. She was in love with Lord Wycombe, and he with her, though I had seen that all was not well between them. I disliked Wycombe as heartily as I believe he disliked me, but I believed him to be a man of honour. I guessed he was guilty about carrying on an affair with his friend’s wife, reluctant to continue – or resume – what I believed had begun in Egypt. I saw that she was again trying to make him jealous, this time by using the young fellow Kit as she had once used me. I think, perhaps, until that time in Luxor, Wycombe had resisted her but, recalling vividly how she had run into his arms after pretending I had violated her, how tenderly he had held her … yes, I am certain that was when it had begun.”

  “‘I’ll say no more about this,’ I repeated to the chauffeur, ‘But you will drive me to the station to catch the first train to London in the morning.’

  “We looked at each other and he knew that I was capable of carrying out my threat. Which he obviously had every reason to be afraid of. His ‘sister’ had said not a word throughout.

  “‘Not in the motorcar,’ Copley said, ‘The trap will have to do.’

  “And with that I had to be content. Thus did I leave Charnley. My hopes dashed …”

  19

  It could only be a good omen, the letter which arrived for Harriet that morning from Tony Bentham’s solicitor, lifting some of the gloom occasioned by that encounter with Clara Hallam the previous day. The solicitor informed her that Tony had met and married an Australian woman in South America, would not be returning to England and therefore had no further need of his cottage. Harriet was to be given first refusal to buy it, and whatever of its contents might have taken her fancy
.

  This was something she hadn’t dared to hope for, yet now that the opportunity presented itself it hit her like a blow to the stomach that much as she loved the cottage, buying it would mean commitment to the kind of life she wasn’t sure she wanted to be permanent. Finding somewhere like this had filled a need, but was she prepared to spend the rest of her life pottering about in this quiet village where nothing happened? Was that what she really wanted? Unsettled, baffled by her own disconcerting change of heart, she made herself a cup of coffee, putting off a decision for the time being. The travellers - Tom and Nina – were due to land any time now from Egypt and before they arrived, she wanted to get her mind straight about the packet Hallam had thrust into her hands.

  It constituted a disjointed collection of small snippets and snatches, written at various times in the weeks just prior to her mother’s death, almost as though Beatrice had felt compelled to use her Egyptian journal in an attempt to finish the story begun there, to close the circle.

  ‘I have had a letter from Valery Iskander,’ the first of the pages began, ‘and am at my wits’ end to know what to do. It gave me such a shock that I was prostrate for a whole day after reading it, lying in my darkened bedroom with one of my headaches. Neither smelling salts, eau-de-cologne nor Hallam’s tisanes helped in the least. He wants to come and see me here, at Charnley! I had thought that was all behind me, that terrible time in Luxor …’

  Then later: ‘Nothing must be allowed to disturb the sweet tenor of our lives – so dearly fought for, so hardly won – yet still so precarious! It would kill Amory to find out what started in Egypt, what has continued, albeit only occasionally, but I am afraid that Iskander will betray me to him. The only way is to invite him here, to see what I can to do prevent that happening.’