RHODA FAIR: The Classic Novel of a Woman at the Crossroads

by Clarence Budingtion Kelland

  Then, at night, the hot train again to El Cantara upon the Suez Canal—the snail-slow crossing of that historic ditch upon cable-drawn ferries—fresh vexations of customs and passport examination as one passed into the hands of the British—and a new, splendidly efficient, clean, rapid train for Haifa. . . . It was morning before she saw the land through which they passed—a desert of sand, swales and hillocks and dunes of sand, sharp-ridged, reaching, on the right, as far as the eye could see, disclosing on the left occasional glimpses of the blue Mediterranean. Now and then a daring palm plumed itself; distant camels plodded in silhouette against the sky line—and heat—and sand! It sifted through the tightly closed windows until it gathered in a little heap in Rhoda's lap, until it gathered in her ears, crusted her hair, inflamed her eyes. . . This was her introduction to the Holy Land. Tall, childlike Egyptian missionaries on their way to some conference, planning how much money they could spend on lantern slides of the sacred places of the Holy City to be exhibited to their Sunday schools and loaned and loaned again to other Sunday schools! German tourists, glowering at all the world, bullet-headed, gross, with unsightly rolls of fat at the backs of their necks! And heat—and sand—and more and ever more sand!

  She dozed and awoke to acute discomfort, disgruntled that she had taken a stranger's advice to visit such a land. The Promised Land! . . . The children of Israel had wandered forty years in the desert to reach this! What she did not realize, perhaps, was that what she saw might have been the very desert which impeded their progress toward the Caanan of milk and honey. . . .

  Then Haifa, where the German in quest of commercial foothold had entrenched himself so firmly before the war, and a large, comfortable automobile to take them on to Beyrout. It may be she will forget that ride—between Haifa and Acre upon the broad sand beach, passing and being passed by caravans of camels, by trains of donkeys with tinkling bells and blue beads to keep off the evil eye; the ancient embattled city which had known the tramp of Cœur de Lion's mailed feet; the rise to the higher, sweeter air of the hills of Syria. It seemed that, no sooner did one leave Palestine than the country became gracious, fertile, desirable. The Promised Land! Again she held the name ironically at the tip of her tongue, but forbore to utter it in Reuben's hearing. . . . At last, in the cool evening, Beyrout, good food, a comfortable bed, the lapping of waves against a sea wall—and sleep.

  At breakfast it was Reuben Friend who said, "It must be our first business to secure you a trustworthy dragoman—if you will not remain here during our necessary stay. We would go on with you, child, but I have promised the American University here—"

  "I know," she said. "It is unnecessary for me to tell you how grateful I am—for more than your mere care of me. I shall be all right, I am sure. . . . And I shall see you soon in Nazareth?"

  "Soon," he said, rising, and, with his wife, accompanying her to the office where an employee approached.

  "A man awaits mademoiselle," he said.

  "A man. What man?"

  "I do not know. He says that he has been sent."

  Rhoda turned a puzzled face toward Reuben, who smiled his kindly, sorrowful smile. "Suppose we investigate," he said. "Where is this man?"

  "He awaits there," pointing toward the terrace.

  "If you will call him," said Reuben, and presently there came through the door a man of middle age, dressed in European garments except for the red fez; mustached, white teeth showing through a pleasant, deprecatory smile—a large man who wore a certain dignity; Arab without question, of the better class, as testified by his olive, intelligent face, straight, thin nose, and frank, questioning eyes.

  "You wished to see Miss Fair?"

  "I am sent to be dragomans for the American young lady."

  "Sent? By whom?"

  "By him. He sends a telegram to where I am living, saying make haste to come to Beyrout, for there is a young lady who must have a trustly dragomans. I am ver' trustly, and I do not make up stories as I go, but know the true history of places and things."

  "Yes, yes. But who told you to come?"

  Before he could answer, Rhoda interjected a question. She knew. "Was it Mr. Ghafir?" she asked.

  "El Ghafir. Truly. He knows me very well. . . . Will you travel by the train or in an automobile? I think by train to Baalbec. Or will you first see this ver' interesting city with houses of the richly people and university where I shall send my son Joseph if I am able to afford it?"

  Reuben Friend hesitated, studied the face of the Arab, peered doubtfully at Rhoda. But as for her, she had no doubts. Mr. Ghafir sent this man, therefore she would go with him and in perfect confidence.

  "We will go by train," she said.

  "First to Baalbec, then to Damascus. You shall see the cedars of Lebanon, my young lady, and the valleys and olive orchards in the valleys. You to ride first class, I in the second class, but seeing always after your baggage and to make you comfortable. After Damascus, Tiberias—and then only a shortly ride to Nazareth where our Blessed Lord is live and work at his business."

  "Now, papa, is it all right? Is it safe that she should go? We do not know this man. You must make sure, papa." Mrs. Friend was solicitous.

  "If Mr. Ghafir sent him, it is better than safe," said Reuben. "What is your name?"

  "Saffoury. . . . I am dragomans only since the war. Before I have owned a hotel in Nazareth and also a flour mill. Yes. Then in Cana of Galilee I own an olive mill, but these Germans have break my engine there, and I have not money for another. . . . Also the Turks take from my hotel all the beds and furniture for their hospital, and, even though I am made member of British Empire for services, I cannot to get any claims paid. It is ver' hard to make over the start again, though all mans know me, even the English officers, and are well knowing the services I have done."

  "Kadeish yiswa?" asked Reuben, his eyes twinkling as he aired his scant store of Arabic.

  "One pound Egyptian for each day—and the cost of travel."

  "It is well. And Mr. Ghafir, does he come himself?"

  "That," said Saffoury piously, but noncommittally, "is as God wills."

  So that thing was settled, and presently, her good friends accompanying her for a last farewell, she mounted the train—by no means the English conveyance upon which she had arrived—a narrow-gauge, rickety affair, for the French are more casual about such matters in their colonies than the British, just as they are more affable with the populations, less given to rule of thumb, and therefore better loved even when dispensing fewer real benefits.

  "Khatrak!" called Reuben through the window, and the grave Saffoury paused in his task of bestowing Rhoda's baggage in the inadequate racks to reply, "Ma' as-salameh!" whose meaning is "Go in peace."

  The train started with the usual shouting and confusion, and crawled upon its upward way. Saffoury took seat opposite Rhoda and with that dignified courtesy which marked his every act in her behalf, asked, "What will you be wishing?"

  "To talk to you," she said.

  "But I must go in the second class. I have the tickets, but also I must be taking your passport to show the conductor. There will be no difficulties."

  "You can stay a moment," she said. "Tell me of Mr. Ghafir. Who is he? Is he an Arab? How come you to be acquainted with him?"

  "El Ghafir! I am knowing him many years. He is ver' richly man. What he says is to be done. His protection is upon you and you are safely. Who is he?" He lifted his shoulders. "Who shall answer that? I am knowing him as my father before me and his father—" he stopped abruptly, evidently drawing rein upon his tongue.

  "But he is not so old. How could your grandfather have known him?"

  He looked at her strangely, his face expressionless. "These things are as God wills," he said, nor was further information to be had from him. Instead of lightening the haze of mystery which surrounded the man, Saffoury had darkened it. Rhoda felt an uneasiness, such as one might feel in the presence of the occult. Who, indeed, and what was this man, known alike to
the millionaire Reuben Friend and to the dragoman Saffoury—whose telegraphed orders were obeyed with alacrity though a quarter of the earth's circumference separated from the man he commanded?

  "But does he come to Palestine?"

  "The peoples say so," he answered. "All mans say his comings will be soonly."

  Here was more mystery, more to excite the imagination and the curiosity. Rhoda studied over it, but could see no light. "Is there a good hotel in Nazareth?" she asked.

  "Ver' goodly hotel, but we do not go there. We go to the house of my brother's cousin's husband who is a carpenter. So he say in telegram."

  It appeared that her goings and comings had been taken from her hands; her movements were being directed, overseen. It did not vex her, but nevertheless it troubled her. What did it all mean? Into what world was she come, in what affairs was she entangled?

  "Fatima Kaleel, who is my brother's cousin, has prepared for you. She is kindly woman with children. All will be done." He smiled again. "Her name in English means 'friend'. . . . But now I must go to the second class. At each station I shall be coming to you."

  Alone, she found leisure to gaze from her window at scenery more gorgeous than her eyes had ever before beheld. The feeble engine panted as it hauled its burden up the steepest of grades, toward mountain elevations looking down into lovely valleys thousands of feet below, valleys green with luxuriant verdure, terraced, cultivated, returning to the husbandman abundant harvests. Giant cedars of Lebanon, towering cypress trees, the grayish green of olive groves—and above frowning, jutting, impending crags of eternal granite rising to peaks tipped with snow! So went the day, slowly, peacefully, high winds whipping about the cars, colder and colder as they reached the height of snow and ice. Leisure to see, to think, to feel were hers. . . . Why was she going to Nazareth? What could come to her there? . . . With such things as reared themselves out of the past to threaten her, what hope was there of tranquility? She could only ask; there was no comforting answer.

  Her mind, as idle minds must do, veered from subject to subject, from individual to individual—until they rested upon Paul Dare. What of him and his assertion that he would follow her until association with her had taught him if he loved? Her last glimpse of him had been in Cairo. Had he already given over his purpose, she wondered—and with some slight feeling of disappointment. He had not seemed a man lightly drawn from a declared purpose. . . . She need not have questioned his tenacity, for at that moment he sat in another car of the train, entertaining a state of mind no more cheerful than her own.

  At Baalbec, where she spent the night in a German hotel, he remained invisible; at Reyak, where they changed cars for Damascus next day, he kept himself concealed; nor was it until she entered the long lobby of the Victoria Hotel in Damascus that he allowed himself to be seen.

  "So you did come," she said.

  "Yes." And then: "A wonderful country this. I had no idea. The French did very well for themselves. And from here—may I ask?—where do you go?"

  "We remain here tomorrow, my dragoman and I. He tells me the bazaar is wonderful, and the factory where the brass is hammered and the mother-of-pearl inlay done."

  "I wonder," he began, with a diffidence foreign to her knowledge of him, "if I might go with you—be with you—tomorrow?"

  She considered briefly. "Why not?" she asked. "And now—it has not been an easy day—I'm going to try to sleep. Good night." She was friendly—in her loneliness felt truly friendly—and something within him warmed to the unexpected offering. He felt a desire of a sort strange to him—the desire to protect. In his individualistic life the difficulties and dangers of others had affected him not at all. He had observed, but been untouched—a spectator without investment in the drama; but this was different, personal, pleasurable. He even found himself wanting to believe that she was not as he had reason to know she was; incomprehensibly, he wanted her to be good in the stereotyped sense of that word. He wanted her to be admirable according to that code of morals which he professed to despise —that code which he believed to have its origin in expediency and which was nothing more nor less than unwritten legislation springing out of the sum total of customs which society had erected, hit or miss, for its ease of mind and protection. It was inconsistent, and he despised inconsistencies.

  He awoke in the morning eager as a boy; breakfasted early, and awaited impatiently Rhoda's appearance. Chaperoned by Saffoury, who studied covertly Paul Dare with sidewise glances, they entered a shabby carriage which drove them along the swift flowing Nahr Baroda, confined between its walls, across the Place du Serai, along the Sandjackdar past the Citadelle, where, upon the curve leading into the street called Souk el-Kharratin, was a confusion of street cars, carriages, camels, donkeys, and foot passengers making their way to and from the bazaar. To this point it had been disappointing, a French city; but with the bazaar this changed, became another world, another age, another civilization. It was necessary to walk, and one found oneself pushing past kneeling camels, crowded to the walls by ladened donkeys, scattering for cover as some sheik on glossy, beautiful Arab horse permitted the milling crowd to look out for itself as he passed through it.

  Sweetmeat shops; bakers exhibiting for sale the thin, flat bread which the population delights to eat only when it is warm, their proprietors keeping up an endless shout of "Yâ rezzâk," which in translation is, "Oh, giver of sustenance"; venders of berâzik, spread with butter and grape syrup and sprinkled with sesame, each bawling at top voice, "God is the nourisher, buy my bread" . . . all these quaint sights and foreign, exciting sounds were there. Lemonade cooled with the snows of Lebanon, whose merchants carried great copper jars of it upon their backs and kept up a constant clinking of the metal cups in which it was sold! Then the silk bazaar, that explosion of color and beauty; the shops for the sale of rugs and embroideries and antiques! The Street Called Straight, worthy of the history which attaches to it; dogs, fowls, children, filth, beauty, glamour—all were there. . . . Rhoda drank it in with the delight of a child; Paul Dare was put to it to conceal his own pleasurable excitement. . . . The day was good for both of them, not soon to be forgotten; not without its definite, lasting influence, for it forged between them a little silver chain of familiarity, of a pleasure enjoyed in common. Never again could they be toward each other as they had been. Each had played truant for a few hours from the problems of his and her life; Rhoda, for a day had been the girl nature intended her to be; Paul Dare had been a being he did not at all understand, not himself. Each knew it to be an interlude, a brief running at large. What neither of them knew was that they had tasted the God-given normal, shared it, and its flavor was pleasant upon their lips.

  Hours later they returned to the hotel; restraint fell upon them; the day was ended, their defenses re-erected. As they entered the sprawling lobby with its colored pictures on glass, of ancient warriors, curvetting Arab steeds and beautiful maidens, what joy had lain in the day for Rhoda Fair was snatched from her as if it had been some illegally worn garment reappropriated by its owner. It is significant that, in her sudden alarm, she drew close to Saffoury, the dragoman, not to Paul Dare, her fellow-countryman.

  Though he had never before seen the face of the man who leaned negligently over the desk in conversation with the wiry, nervous little French clerk, something told Paul Dare that he was that man with whom he had grappled on shipboard, the man of mysterious relations with Rhoda—her accomplice, perhaps. He drew into his shell, scrutinizing Rhoda's face with chill, scientific glance. Was this, then, a prearranged meeting? . . . Rhoda was asking another question: Had Jaunty Bailey followed her? Was he in Damascus because of her, or did that other important affair of his call him to these distant parts?

  "Take me out again," she said in a low voice to Saffoury, but it was too late. Bailey turned, opened his eyes in unfeigned astonishment, and strode forward, debonair, handsome, magnetic, with outstretched hand.

  "Why, Rhoda!" he exclaimed, "the sight of you brings joy to a br
oken old man! I guess all the genii haven't been chased out yet, eh? Did one of 'em lug you here? Now I ask you if luck isn't a right bang-up thing to have in your vest pocket!"

  Somehow, now that he was at her side, he seemed far from the fearsome creature she had been imagining him. His evident delight at seeing her was warming; his personality—and none might dispute the charm or the force of it—dazzled her as it always dazzled her. She returned his smile, even while she felt how incongruous, how far short of the exigencies, was her stereotyped rejoinder.

  "How do you do, Jaunty?" she asked, accepting his hand. Then, "I think you have never met Mr. Dare—Mr. Bailey."

  The men shook hands, and Bailey, sensing something antagonistic in the other's manner, looked at him for the first time and smiled irritatingly. "I do believe," he said, "Mr. Dare and I have met. . . . But the meeting was brief. I was called away suddenly." He turned to Rhoda. "I hope I may have a place at your table. You haven't dined?"

  "Why not? And you, Mr. Dare?" A reckless mood had overtaken her now. She was caught up in the whirlwind of events and the sensation was one of tingling pleasure. She surrendered herself to it, curious in an almost impersonal way to see what was going to happen. "Now I'm going to look for lots of water and another dress." She nodded to them gayly, and the lightness of it was unforced. She did not know it, but her inheritance from her mother was functioning. In this moment she was as Rhoda Fair the elder used always to be when events began to crowd her dangerously. . . .

  Chapter Ten

  JAUNTY BAILEY'S conduct during the evening was peculiar, disquieting. Not because he sought opportunity to speak with her privately, but rather because he did not; not that he made either open or veiled reference to the jewels, but because he seemed to have forgotten them; not because he showed pressing curiosity as to her plans and her destination, but because he asked no question whatever. He might have been any pleasant, debonair acquaintance, pleased at brief meeting, making the most of a single evening and exerting himself to be charming. It was as if there were nothing between them, no bond of secrecy, nothing other than a casual, social past. It seemed, in fact, as if his mind were upon Paul Dare rather than upon her, for he watched the young man continuously, covertly, with such interest that, at times, he found himself at a loss to snatch up the thread of conversation. . . . And once he arose from the sofa upon which he was seated to speak to a small, swarthy, Asiatic-appearing individual, who, after a few words, moved away and effaced himself.