Desert Doorway

by Pamela Kent

  Jenny looked at the Comtesse, in her silver lame dress, with her flaming hair and her perfect face, and she recalled that Max Daintry .had told her that this beautiful wife of the Comte had once been a Paris model. And she was not in the least surprised, for clothes worn by her acquired an.

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  elegance and a perfection beyond the dreams even , of the designers, and a sack worn by her would

  probably have appeared to greater advantage than an exclusively designed, model on many another woman.

  But, despite the beauty and the seemingly effortless grace, there was something in the cool, chiselled lines of the face which, Jenny knew, could repel. There was something hard and intolerant, and impatient of any of the softening influences, which could have provided a clue to the type of life she had led before she was fortunate enough to marry the Comte de St. Alais And if that clue was not entirerly misleading Raoul de St Alais had lifted her above an existence where struggle and hardship had not been unknown, and memories of the hardships were not easily bannished

  That was why, perhaps, when she looked at the vicarage-bred Jenny, whose life until the death of her father had been uneventful and monotonous and devoid of all glamour, and any form of real excitement, her lovely lips curled, and a gleam ot contempt appeared in her eyes. Jenny had been

  protected all her life, and if she was alone and unprotected now that did not awaken any deep feeling of sympathy in the Pansienne s heart

  That was one reason why every time she looked at her husband her look expressed contempt, tor he had known luxury all his life, and was still knowing it, and in spite of all that he had given

  her she despised him for it.Jenny felt�and hoped that perhaps she was wrong�that if Madame la Comtesse de St. Alais had lived at the time of the French Revolution

  she would have been overwhelmingly on the side of the revolutionaries, and when members of her husband's family lost their heads beneath the "kiss" of the guillotine she would probably have applauded enthusiastically. The Comte came across to Jenny and sat beside her. on another of the little Empire couches, and

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  I he asked her interested questions about her home life in England, and the kind of things she was interested in. When Jenny admitted how uneventful her life had been, rather than how simple her lfe had been. Celestine s heavy white eyelids drooping disdainfully, and the curl of the scarlet lips was almost openly sneering.

  At last, as if she deemed it time for Jenny to learn that she was still only someone who could be dismissed and summoned at will, in spite of the Oomte s attentiveness, she said: "You'd better go to bed, my dear, otherwise you won t be very fresh in the morning. And you certainly won't be able to keep pace with the freshness of the children."

  Jenny stood up, covered in confusion, and afraid that she must have appeared to be taking advantage of favors shown to her in her humbly position as a governess. But the Comte's eyes were very

  kind as he bade her good night, and his hand held hers strongly when she gave it to him For one instant, as she felt the close grip of his fingers embered the Power he had. and then she escaped some what hastily from the room.

  In the morning, she made a point of being up early in order that no one could accuse her of neglecting her duties, and although the children were certainly very fresh they were not too fresh for her to cope with. For one thing, in the short time that she had known them she had succeeded m winning their hearts completely, and although they were not the most tractable of children, towards her at least they were never openly rebellious, although the unfortunate Nerida often found them so.

  In the afternoon they went for a drive and as they were gliding smoothly along one of the narrow lanes of the medina, with high walls shutting out the sunshine, and cascades of blossom providing a kind of canopy for the car to pass beneath,

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  the chauffeur was forced hastily to apply his

  brakes when out through an open doorway rodean unforgettable figure on a pure white horse with a long, flowing tail. The car was open, and the children clutched eagerly at the sides to watch the horseman gain sufficient control of his mount to turn him in the narrow street. There was a wild clattering of hoofs, the gleam of silver spurs, and Si Mohammed Menebhi ranged himself and his superb

  mount along one side of the car, and looked downat Jenny, where she sat between her two charges

  on the drove-grey velvet seat. , ,

  He was wearing white riding-breeches and highpolished boots, a packet of fine white drill, and a long cloak lined with scarlet which was flung back over his shoulders and streamed out behind him like a flaunting banner. On his amazingly golden head was set a low tarboosh, and out of thedelicate olive of his face his large, extraordinarily beautiful-dark eyes gazed at Jenny with open admiration. She saw his teeth flash whitely as he

  "What a delightful encounter, Miss Armitage S" he exclaimed. "Is this a customary afternoonairing? Because, if so, I shall look out for you

  more often!" . ,

  Jenny was so taken aback by his unexpectedappearance that she found it difficult to formulate an immediate and suitable reply, but he seemed quite content merely to smile at her, while the children gazed up at him open-mouthed. Jennywas wearing an ice-blue dress of crisp linen, with a white belt and sandals, and her hair was partly concealed beneath a wide-brimmed hat thatwas white also. In the shade of the high walls her skin looked remarkably fair, and her eyes large

  and deep like shadowy purple pansies.

  Si Mohammed Menebhi bent lower m his saddle and addressed her softly: ... n

  "The Comtesse has given me permission to callupon you and take you out, Miss Armitage, when

  you have free time. I am very impatient to take you out, so will you not tell me when you are

  likely to be free?" "I , really haven't any idea at the moment," Jenny answered, scarcely hoping that he would

  believe her. "But it is very Mnd of you" she

  added.

  "There is no kindness in doing something one can barely wait to do." His eyes, with the queer, lambent lights in them like golden flames leaping up and down, remained fixed on her face, and thetiny smile on his mouth reminded her of the smileon the lips of the Sphinx. "When, Miss Armitaee7When may I call?" �

  "I�I really don't Imow��M Jenny stammered.

  "To-morrow afternoon? I will take you to tea where there is dancing and music. Or perhaps to-morrow night you will dine with me? It is not necessary that you look after these children atnight time!' with a not very approving glance atthem.

  But Jenny shook her head, and she managed to make it a firm shake.

  "I shall have to ask the Comtesse. I really must consult her before I make any plans whatsoever so although it is very kind of you .. .". She didn't

  know what else to say, but although the tiny smile vanished from his lips his eyes remained soft and caresssing.

  His horse started to become impatient, and he had some little difficulty in controlling it in the narrow space. But he was obviously a magnificent

  horseman, and Jenny could not help but admire the way he finally succeeded in quieting the impatient animal,, remaining at the same time completely cool and undisturbed.

  The chauffeur was waiting with his foot hovering over the brake, and Jenny leaned forward andaddressed him. Then she looked upwards at SiMohammed and smiled at him,

  "I can be patient," he assured her, and with a slight inclination of the head, but ignoring the children altogether, he gave the fretting horse its head and swept past the car, and the three occupants of the back seat watched him disappearingin a small cloud of dust which unfortunately

  settled all over them.

  When they reached home Jenny did not tell theGomtesse about her encounter with the Moor, and in fact she did not see her for the rest of that day. But the following morning Celestine sent forJenny to attend upon her in her own room, andwhen the governess entered she found Celestine still lying comfortably relaxed inche
d�an enormous French bed quilted in amber satin, and with

  an amber satin coverlet�and looking exquisite in a completely transparent nightdress of pale green chiffon with narrow black velvet ribbons running through it, and a black lace bed-jacket round her shoulders. Her hair flamed over her silk-covered pillows.

  "J have something to tell you which might, ormight not, interest you," she said. Her golden eyes studied Jenny obliquely, and her white eyelids looked heavy, as if they were still languid and weighted with sleep. "Max Daintry asked me last night whether he could take you out to-morrow to show you Marrakesh. It is natural�" her tonebecame rather noticeably drawling�"that being a fellow countryman of yours he should sympathize with your feeling of strangeness among somany foreigners, and as the children have taken to you so well, and I wish you to settle down here, I think it a good plan. Have you any objections to raise to it yourself? You would not, perhaps prefer to have lunch with Si Mohammed Menebhi, who is also pleading for your favors?" with a good deal of dryness.

  "I��why, I��" Jenny stammered, when her employer interrupted her. "Don't bother to appear embarrassed. You areyoung and pretty, and naturally the men will

  notice you. But Max is quite safe, and no one

  knows Marrakesh better than he does, so you willno doubt enjoy it in his company. And Si Mo

  hanuned will lose none of his enthusiasm by beingforced to wait a little." Her eyes slid over Jennyas if the girl and the situation amused her.

  Jenny finally left the room to return to hercharges with the bewildered feeling that her wholelife was being organized for her just then. It wasnot what she really wished to do�it was what the

  Comtesse decided she should 'do! And for some reason, in spite of all she had previously said, shehad no objection to Jenny's spending severalhours in the company of Max Daintry.

  Max had seen the Comtesse the night before! And he had managed to persuade her that it wasa good thing for him to take Jenny out! . ,

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  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JENNY was called for about eleven o'clock the following morning by Daintry with his car, and within a short time after that the car was parked and they were exploring on foot the narrow labyrinth of the medina, and the suqs wherein she had not previously had an opportunity to set foot. With her tall companion preventing her from being jostled by burly Arabs and laden donkeys, Riff women with straw hats descending almost to their shoulders, and whining beggars who occasionally sought to block their path, Jenny moved for the first time freely, and with wide eyes, amongst such a heterogeneous press of people that she realized that her comparatively sheltered life in England had not prepared her for such sights.

  The crowd wound like a colorful snake between

  the whitewashed houses and ochre-colorerd walls, and the air was heavy with the smell of charcoal fires, sandal-wood, drying foods, jasmine and attar of roses. There were shops full of leather goods, copper and brassware shops, weavers' shops, and shops where the colorful Moorish slippers were displayed in quantities. Other shops displayed silk scarves and European clothes, but to Jenny they had a look of shoddiness which was unattractive, and she was dismayed by dark and dismal interiors which to her were more than a little forbidding. But for the blue sky overhead, and the brilliant sunshine that occasionally found its way into even the meanest alley, there would have been little to tempt her to linger, even had her escort permitted her to do so. And so far as he was concerned she had the impression that he had done this sort of thing so many times before that any novelty it might once have possessed

  had long since evaporated. She much preferred it when they returned to the ear and he drove her down the long avenue which

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  led to the French town, and pointed out to herpublic gardens ablaze with flowers, golden orange

  groves, the Palace of the Pasha, and the slendertowers of minarets. In the course of that morning's outing she saw more of the French townthan she had ever seen before, the Minara gardenswith their artificial lake and pavilion�to which, Daintry told her, with an odd smile on his lips, aSultan of the past used to retire with his reigningfavorite, whom he eventually drowned in the lake�and the great gateway of Marrakesh, the Bab

  Aguenaou.

  On the whole, Jenny found her escort knowledgeable, patient, understanding of the sort ofthings she would like to see, and those she wouldprefer to avoid�and when she suddenly clutched

  at his arm in one of the sziqs and uttered an exclamation of horror because a half-starved cat robbed of its ears by disease darted between herlegs, or a blind beggar with fearsome eye-socketsappeared in her path, he knew that things of thatsort appalled her.

  "You're too sensitive," he said to her, rather

  harshly, when he felt her fingers clinging to hissleeve. "Or perhaps you have been too carefully

  brought up," with a great deal of dryness.

  "I couldn't bear to live in a place like this, surrounded by these things, and do nothing aboutthem," she told him.

  "In that case," he said, "and if all people felt

  like you, nothing would be done about them," andshe decided that that was very definitely a rebuke.

  Shortly before one o'clock, therefore, when hetold her that he was taking her to lunch, she wasnot much surprised to find that they were return

  ing to the medina. The French part of the town, she felt somehow certain, had little attraction for

  him, and in the medina it had struck her that he was very well known. Some faces had actually

  brightened when he passed by, and smiles andglances at him were all smiles and glances of ap

  What did surprise her was the type of place he had chosen for lunch. It was in a particularly narrow lane, and a low door admitted them to very much the same sort of patio that fronted the entrance to the St. Alais house, which also was in the oldest part of the town, and possibly one of the oldest houses in it. But the house Jenny suddenly saw standing in front of her, hidden away from the encroaching outside world by the usual high and unscaleable wall, was small, white and modem, with a flat roof and trailing creepers trained to conceal the bareness of the walls, and a garden full of color surrounding it on three sides.

  Jenny looked so surprised that Daintry gazed down at her with an amused look.

  "I hope you don't feel that it's improper to have lunch alone with a bachelor like myself in his own house but I decided that you would probably enjoy

  the, meal more here, and the Mamouma has unpleasing associations which I thought you d rather forget." As Jenny entered the big main living-room of the house, access to which was gained from the patio, she looked up at him. "Your house?"

  "Yes, mine!"

  "And you live here�all alone?"

  "All alone apart from my one or two excellent servants, yes. Why?" His glance down at her now was definitely mocking. "Do you feel very much

  alarmed?" "Of course not!" she exclaimed, and felt herself

  flushing brilliantly. Why she had made that absurd remark about his living there all alone she couldn't think, because naturally, if the house

  , was his own, and as he was a bachelor, he lived there alone. And hard on the heels of his own mocking inquiry came the remembrance of words

  , Celestine had used about him the morning before;

  "Max is quite safe! ..."

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  Why had Celestine thought it wag necessary to tell her that Max was quite safe? And what, in any case, had she meant by it?

  Jenny tried not to be aware of the man standing close to her as she looked about her at the cool and pleasant place in which she found herself after her morning's sight-seeing. It was beautifullyfurnished after a somewhat severe fashion, and apart from some comfortable modem armchairs and a cocktail cabinet in a corner, here, just as in the St. Alais house, there were some valuable

  -period pieces. The floor of black and white tiles was strewn with glowing Persian rugs, and in analcove stood a beautiful bronze figur
e of a negro boy. There was a Chinese lacquer cabinet and matching low tables, a standard lamp upheld by another graceful bronze, and heavy silk curtains , flowing beneath the arch which led to an adjoining dining-room.

  Jenny was impressed by the excessive orderliness, and the somewhat restrained taste which

  prevailed. There were few cushions, no oraar

  ments�or, rather, knick-knacks�which was per

  haps not surprising, and there was a monastic atmosphere of peacefulness which Jenny found .extremely pleasing after the heat and the glare and the discord outside.

  Max indicated a settee, and automatically she removed her hat and sat down. Her soft goldtendrils of hair were clinging moistly to her brow, and when he had brought her a drink her host�who, all at once, had become the urbane and perpectly polished host without any mockery in either his look or his voice�suggested that she might like to withdraw to a dressing-room on the ground floor and refresh herself with a wash, and of course, a re-application of make-up before lunch. She was only too glad to 'take advantage of this offer, feeling sticky and almost dirty after the squalor of the suqs, and when she saw the beautiful tiled bathroom which adjoined the admirably

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  equipped dressing-room she was delighted that she had done so. .

  When she rejoined him, she was conscious of appearing to much more advantage, particularly as her frock of hedge-rose pink, with the wide white collar and belt she favored so much, was new and most becoming, and her hair was shining

  like & polished chestnut.

  Max Daintry provided her with another drink, and they sat for a while talking in a relaxed fashion on the subject of some of the sights she had seen that morning. Then a servant announced that lunch was ready to be served and they moved to the dining-room, which was all very light, with light wood furniture, and an outlook over beds of brilliant flowers. Jenny decided she liked this smaller house better than the St. Alais's, for in some ways it reminded her of a modem villa at home in England, although not many English -yillas were as lavishly equipped.