Sydney C. Grier

“ To Lady Haigh he looked exactly like a monkey in mid-winter, but she could not help pitying him as he shrank and cowered at every fresh shout of the mob outside. To her greeting and advice he paid but little heed.
“They are all saying we shall be killed, madame,” with a nod in the direction of the knot of frightened servants near the gate, “and if we are to be killed, why trouble about one’s appearance? It is destiny?”
“It is your destiny just now to go with Chanda Lal, and have a bath and some clean clothes, if any one here has any small enough,” said Charlie, returning with his bandages. ”

“ We can trust you for that, I think?”
“I am an Englishman, Lady Haigh,” replied Mr D’Silva, more in sorrow than in anger, as he withdrew, quite unconscious that he was saying the very thing which, as Lady Haigh remarked afterwards, when she remembered to be cynical, an Englishman would not have said.
“Now, Charlie,” said Lady Haigh, when he was gone, “make the most of your time. Never mind me,” and she sat down on the divan and composed herself as if for a nap, while Charlie and Cecil wandered to the other end of the room and enjoyed the luxury of being thoroughly miserable. ”

“ We are tired of our jewels, and our novels, and our embroidery; tired of making sweetmeats and eating them; we are so tired—you cannot imagine how tired—of being shut up always in the same rooms, with the same faces round us. We are not like birds or wild animals, to be kept in cages, we have minds and hearts, and we want to be able to go out in the world with our husbands, and enter into all they do.”
“But couldn’t you do that now—partially at least?” suggested Cecil, diffidently, surprised by this passionate outburst from languid-eyed, contented Naimeh Khanum. ”

“ If you harrow up Cecil’s feelings again, it will be too much for her.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr D’Silva’s voice at the door, “but the boat is waiting for Dr Egerton.”
“Now, Charlie, my dear boy,” said poor Lady Haigh, entreatingly, as Charlie still stood with his arms round Cecil. “You will get us all into trouble, you know, and we have really done all we could for you, and Sir Dugald will be so much vexed. Good-bye, my dear boy. Now let her go. Take care of yourself, and don’t be rash. No, you are not to come farther than this. I will look after Cecil. My dear child, don’t faint. ”

“ I am rather tired of it.”
“My dear Miss Anstruther,” said Charlie Egerton, solemnly, “I only wish I were Azim Bey!”
“Charlie, for shame!” cried Lady Haigh. “I will not have you tease Miss Anstruther. Remember that you will be companions all through our voyage to Baghdad, so you must behave properly. Cecil, my dear, you must not mind this wild boy. He is always getting into trouble by means of his tongue, and never takes warning. Charlie, I want to know how it is that you have not turned up at Helena’s house. She hasn’t an idea that you are in Cairo at all.” ”

“ I don’t grudge them their happiness, my dear,” added Miss Arbuthnot, slowly, “but I have never been able to help regretting that Elma should have given up such a work for the sake of that very ordinary little man.”
“I am quite anxious to see them,” said Cecil. “Is Sir Dugald in England as well as Lady Haigh?”
“No, she is here alone. Some trouble broke out in the country just as they were starting, and Sir Dugald would not take his furlough. But here we are. Now, my dear child, forget yourself, and think of the people you will see.” ”

“ Cecil had made up her mind what to do. The moment she observed that neither of the ladies made any reply or return to her salaam and salutation, she sat down at once without waiting to be invited, regardless of the contrast afforded by her travel-stained blue wrapper and yellow slippers to the wadded and fur-trimmed pelisse and trousers of green satin which formed the winter dress of the Um-ul-Pasha, or to Jamileh Khanum’s Parisian morning-robe of petunia velvet, with its front of costly lace. ”

“ What could Charlie be intending to do? Surely he could not mean to try and enter Baghdad again, in the face of the danger he had scarcely escaped, but what else did his words signify? He must be only joking, trying to make her look out for him, for the foolishness of an attempt to return to the city must be patent even to his mind. There was no need to be alarmed, nor to frighten Lady Haigh; but Cecil did not feel happy until she had written a long letter scolding Charlie for his mad project, and forbidding him to undertake it. ”

“ He turned away with a rueful look which made both ladies laugh, and disappeared obediently among the brilliant crowd, Lady Haigh only waiting until he was out of earshot to inquire anxiously what Cecil thought of him.
“He seems rather talkative,” said Cecil, expressing her thought mildly. “An empty-headed rattle,” was what she said in her own mind, and Lady Haigh, as if guessing this, took up the cudgels at once on her cousin’s behalf.
“Oh, that’s nothing but nervousness, my dear. You would really never guess that Charlie is simply afraid of ladies, especially young ones. ”

“ When shall we begin lessons, mademoiselle?”
“As soon as you like,” said Cecil, smiling, for it was refreshing to meet with a boy who looked forward to lessons with pleasure, and then she unfolded her difficulty with respect to the school furniture. To her amusement Azim Bey took her doubts as an insult.
“But yes, mademoiselle, of course I want all the books and maps in my reception-room. It is to be made to look like a schoolroom; I will have it exactly like a schoolroom in England. ”

“ You may be surprised to hear it, Miss Anstruther, but I have a very inconvenient conscience, especially with regard to the things which other people leave undone. They say that in England abuses are good things on the whole, because people get up a separate society for the removal of each one, and this affords occupation to many deserving persons; but in the East they’re good for a man to come to grief over, and nothing more. If you will only let things alone you’re all right, but if you make a fuss it’s like fretting your heart out against a stone wall. ”

“ Intent only on escaping, Cecil led her charge down the first turning they reached, and they hurried on breathlessly, through narrow echoing alleys, with houses almost meeting overhead, while behind them came the sound of many feet. The lanes afforded great facilities for eluding a foe, and Cecil and Azim Bey turned and doubled until they were tired. At last they came out on an open space with a well in it, and found their enemies awaiting them—a motley crowd of rough-looking men, with a sprinkling of impish boys and witch-like old women. ”

“ That storm not rain at all, dust-storm. I think this place Mosul. When dust fall about in the night, I think it only stuff off walls, but now I look, see it all thick on everything. You see this?”
Cecil sat up, and gazed in bewilderment at the handful of dust and sand which Um Yusuf had gathered up as a precious treasure. Then she recognised the maid’s allusion to the dust-storms peculiar to the Euphrates Valley, and conceived for the handful of dust an affection akin to that which Noah must have felt for the olive-leaf brought him by the dove. ”

“ A good deal was to happen, more than either Charlie or Lady Haigh anticipated.
“Well,” said Charlie, “at least I shall see her once a-week. I must live on that, I suppose, and endure the rest of my time. Now, Cousin Elma, I have listened to you a good deal, so you must just listen to me a moment. Did you ever know a girl like her, so sweet and gentle, and so awfully good? I believe she could do anything she liked with me, and she doesn’t see it a bit. You know what I mean; she doesn’t seem to understand compliments, she always wants to talk sense. ”

“ Naimeh Khanum shook her head. “You forget the strength of the influences at work in the opposite direction,” she said. “As it is, you have made my brother wiser, more polished, more European, but his character is unchanged. He will take all you can give him, and wear it like a cloak, covering his Eastern nature with it, but he will remain a Turk underneath all the same. His ideals, his views of women, are the same as my father’s—they are not yours. You cannot Europeanise Turkey from the outside.”
“And you, Khanum?” asked Cecil, “do you still feel as you did?” ”

“ With this in her mind, Cecil stood observant in the background while Sir Dugald gained the deck and greeted his wife. She saw a thin, almost insignificant-looking man, with a skin like parchment, and a small, carefully-trimmed grey moustache. In his dress there was visible a precision so extreme as almost to appear affectation, and his manners were the perfection of elaborate politeness. Sir Dugald Haigh at Baghdad was eminently the right man in the right place. ”

“ Cecil sat so long trying in vain to reproduce in a sketch the full effect of the contrast that she worked on into the twilight, and was forced at last to desist with a headache. Upon discovering this fact, Charlie showed himself so assiduous in moving her deck-chair about for her, and in trying to arrange her cushions more comfortably, that the sight seemed to irritate Lady Haigh.
“My dear,” she said at last to Cecil, “you will never be better on deck here. You are tired out. Go to bed at once, and then you will wake up fresh and well to-morrow.” ”

“ I verily believe that if he met the Viceroy himself”—Lady Haigh spoke with bated breath—“out for a walk, he would enter into conversation quite coolly and offer him a cigar, just as if he was a man of his own standing. If the Viceroy was a nice sensible sort of man and took it all as it was meant, it would be all right, but if he was angry and tried to snub him, Charlie would be very much hurt, perhaps indignant, and would probably let him know it. You can imagine how a man of this sort comes into collision with some of our stiff-and-starched officials. ”

“ Much surprised that the Pasha should pay his son a visit at this unwonted hour, Cecil and the other women hurriedly assumed their veils, presenting thereby an extremely grotesque aspect to Charlie as he approached, preceded by the much-perturbed Masûd. He could not help laughing to see the women instantaneously transforming themselves into closely swathed bundles at his appearance, and Azim Bey marked his levity with displeasure. ”

“ She and Mr D’Silva helped Cecil into the saddle, for she was in a numb, dazed condition, and he led her horse through the wood and into the road. Pausing only once, to see the Seleucia passing out of sight round a bend in the stream, they rode swiftly back to Baghdad, which looked dull and miserable under the clouded sky, with mud under foot and sodden palm-trees overhead, and a turbid, rapidly flowing river that could not reflect the mean houses on either side. ”

“ All I can say is, Cecil, don’t let my blundering way of speaking for him prejudice you against the poor fellow, for he really is head over ears in love with you. Sometimes I think you don’t appreciate him properly, but remember, he has waited patiently for two whole years, and only refrained from speaking out of pure consideration for you, lest you should be compromised in your new position. You have never shown him any special encouragement, always laughing at him and teasing him as you do, but he has never wavered, so if you can find it in your heart to say yes, do be kind to the poor boy. ”

“ Well, Miss Anstruther, I can forgive him anything, since he is bringing you to Baghdad.”
Cecil frowned. “I really cannot imagine,” she said, severely, “how a person like yourself, who admires quiet so intensely, can talk so much.”
“That is the fault of the two natures in me,” said Charlie, gravely, though he was inwardly shaking with laughter over this amazing snub. “As a European, I am bound to talk and go on like other people, to be feverishly busy, and if I have no work of my own, to hunt up other people’s and set them at it. Then I get sick of it all, and go off and become an Eastern. ”

“ It will probably be the Pasha coming to see how the Bey is getting on with his lessons, or some old man who comes to teach him the Koran, but be sure you remember. And, my dearest child, you must never go anywhere without Um Yusuf. She must be always with you—in lesson-time, recreation, coming to us, everything. You must never be impatient, and think she is spying upon you. It is her duty to keep you always in sight, and she knows it. And now I must be going. Basmeh Kalfa, I leave Mademoiselle Antaza and her nurse in your charge. ”

“ Well, you see if Cecil believes that she has a mission to finish Azim Bey’s education, she will probably feel bound to continue it for the five years specified. If she thinks it her duty, I believe she will do it.”
“So do I,” said Charlie, seriously. “I had rather not be weighed in the scale against Miss Anstruther’s duty. I’m afraid I should go to the wall. But five years, Cousin Elma! Do you know how old I shall be then?”
“Nonsense!” cried Lady Haigh; “what’s five years at your time of life? It’s we old people who can’t spare it. Why, anything may happen in five years.” ”

“ But the desert life is wonderful, simply wonderful! The mere thought of it makes me long to go out there and begin it again this moment. It is so free and irregular. You pass from tremendous exertion to absolute idleness.”
“And while you are idle the poor women do all the work,” interrupted Cecil, unkindly.
“Yes, that is where Eastern and Western notions clash,” said Charlie. “There must be some drawbacks even to desert life, and one scarcely feels called upon to go about lecturing to the Arabs on the proper treatment of their wives.” ”

“ Cecil lost her temper.
“Very well, Bey; if you are going to behave so foolishly, and talk so childishly of what you know nothing about, I am not going to tell you anything more. You may find things out for yourself, if you like.”
And Cecil walked away to her own room, and returned with Charlie’s ring shining on her finger, a perpetual defiance and reminder to Azim Bey. ”