Burning Sands Part 12

That was a year ago, and since then she had been entirely heart-whole.

Now, however, the starry Egyptian nights, the sun-bathed days, the mult.i.tude of officers, officials, and diplomats whose acquaintance she was making, and the general court paid to her, both as a charming woman and as the Great Man's daughter, were beginning to stimulate her senses.

One morning, at the beginning of November, as she sat up in her bed, playing with her toes, the thought came strongly to her that her season in Egypt ought to be graced by some exceptional romance. Here was the setting for the play; here was the heroine; but where was the hero? It was true that Rupert Helsingham, of whom she had grown quite fond, was becoming daily more bold; but he had ever an eye on her father, on whom depended his budding career. In her exposed position whatever romance came to her would have to be conducted on very correct lines; and would probably be expected to end in marriage; but she did not want to be married. Indeed, the thought appalled her. She vastly preferred the idea of a great sorrow, a heartbreaking parting under the stars, a life-long devotion to a sad, sweet memory. But that a man should walk nightly into her bedroom in his striped pyjamas was a horrible thought.

Pensively she gazed at her toes, upon which a shaft of the morning sunlight was striking. They were pretty toes. A man's feet usually had corns on them. No, she had little wish for a bare-footed romance: the hero she pictured would make love in his boots, and tragedy should descend before the hour came to take them off.

Everything pointed to a clandestine affair-something in a garden, with the scent of roses in it; or in a boat floating down the Nile, very placid and mysterious; or far away in the desert....

In the desert! The thought brought back to her mind the parting words of Daniel Lane. "Why don't you break loose?" Several times she had wondered what he had meant: whether he were suggesting a breaking away from the routine of her life, or whether he were advising her to run amuck in a moral sense. The latter, it seemed to her, was the more probable, judging by his reputation; but this was not a form of entertainment that appealed to her. She did not mind playing with fire, but she had no wish at all to be burnt. Her education had trained her to think lightly of the chast.i.ty of others, but so far it had not injured her own natural continence.

Getting out of bed she stood for a few moments in the middle of the room, staring through the open window at the distant line of the desert.

Yes, the desert would be a wonderful setting for a romance; and yet even there she would not seem to be quite alone, quite un.o.bserved. In her mind the whole of those vast s.p.a.ces belonged, somehow, to Daniel Lane.

She would feel his disturbing influence there: his head would rise from behind a rock, and his quiet eyes would stare mockingly at her and her lover, whoever he might be. He might even stroll forward, pick up the wretched Romeo, with a yawn throw him over the cliffs, seat himself by her side instead, and light his pipe. And if she protested he might whistle up half a dozen cut-throat Bedouin and peg her to the ground for the jackals to sniff at till he was ready to put her in his harim.

She laughed nervously to herself as she went to her bath; and her thoughts turned again to the possibilities of the garden and the Nile, and once more the difficulties of her position were manifest. Female accomplices are required in romance: she had none. There was her maid, Ada, a large Scotchwoman, who would play the part about as nimbly as a hobbled cow. Lady Smith-Evered was not to be trusted with secrets, even if she were able to be flattered into acquiescence. There was no other woman in Cairo with whom she was at all well acquainted as yet, and none that gave promise of the paradoxical but necessary combination of self-effacement and presence of mind.

What she required was the friendship of a young married woman without stain and without scruple. Then there would be some hope that the season would not be entirely barren of romance, and, when she returned to England in the spring, she would not be in the painful necessity of having to invent confidences for the ears of her girl friends.

There is, however, an ancient and once very popular Egyptian G.o.d who seems to have survived to the present day, if one may judge by the strange events which take place in the land of the Pharaohs. By the Greeks he was called Pan-Who-is-Within-Hearing; and he must certainly have been sitting in the bathroom. For no sooner had Muriel dressed and come downstairs than the accomplice walked straight into the house.

Muriel had just entered the drawing-room by one door when a footman threw open the opposite door and announced "Mr. and Mrs. Benifett Bindane."

A moment later a plump, square-shouldered young woman hurried into the room and flung herself into Muriel's arms. "Muriel-you darling!" she cried, and "Kate-my dear!" cried Muriel, as they kissed one another affectionately.

Mrs. Bindane beckoned to the middle-aged man who had followed her into the room. "This person is my husband," she said. "I think you saw him when he was courting me."

He came forward and gave Muriel a limp hand. He was very tall, and appeared to be invertebrate; he had watery blue eyes, thin yellow hair, a long, white, clean-shaven face, and a wet mouth which was seldom, if ever, shut.

"Benifett, my dear," said his capable, handsome wife, "say something polite to the lady."

"How-de-do," he murmured, staring at her awkwardly.

"Yes, I think we did meet once, didn't we?" said Muriel.

Mrs. Bindane intervened. "Yes, don't you remember? At the pictures, when we were keeping company. We got wed at our chapel ten days ago-such a to-do as you never saw! And afterwards a real beano at the Fried Fish Shop: beer by the barrel, and port too! And Pa gave me away, in his evening dress, red handkerchief and all!"

Such was her peculiar and characteristic way of referring to the fact that she had introduced Muriel to her fiance one night at Covent Garden, and that she had been married to him at St. Margaret's, Westminster, where she had been given away by her father, Lord Voycey, a reception being later held at her paternal home in Berkeley Square.

"I didn't know you were coming out here," said Muriel. "It's splendid."

"We only decided on Egypt at the last minute," explained Mr. Bindane.

"Kate was so anxious to go up the Nile."

"It's a blinkin' fine river, I'm told," remarked his wife, at which he smiled reprovingly.

Her friend's language was notorious, though actually she seldom approached an oath except in mimicry. She was a woman of five-and-twenty, and for seven years she had delighted London with her pretended vulgarity. Her husband, on the other hand, was more or less unknown to the metropolis, though, as the inheritor from his father of an enormous fortune, his name had lately been heard in Mayfair, while in the City it was well known. People said he was a fool; and everybody supposed that the eccentric Kate had married him for his money. As a matter of fact, she had married him for love.

"Where are you staying?" Muriel asked.

"We've got a little paddle-wheeled steamer on the river," he replied.

"We arrived last night."

"And of course we came round to see you at once," said Kate. "Benifett's rather a sn.o.b, you know: loves lords and ladies. So do I. How's your pa?"

"Oh, just the same as always," Muriel answered. "I don't seem to see much of him."

"People say he's rather a success at running this 'ere country," the other remarked. "Personally, I detest the man: I think he's neglected you shamefully all your life."

"Oh, father's all right," said Muriel. "I'm very fond of him."

"Rot!" muttered her friend.

For some time they exchanged their news, and Muriel gave some account of the quiet life she had spent since her arrival.

"Any decent men?" Mrs. Bindane asked. "What about little Rupert Helsingham?"

"Oh, d'you know him?"

"Lord! yes. He stayed with us once when he and I were kiddies. I saw him when he was on leave last summer: he's grown into a handsome little fellow."

She asked if he were on the premises, and whether she might see him. In reply, Muriel rang the bell, and sent a message to the office where Rupert usually spent his mornings in interviewing native dignitaries.

"Here's a friend of yours," she said to him as he came into the room, and there ensued a rapid exchange of merry greetings.

"This is what I've married," remarked Mrs. Bindane, taking her husband's hand in hers and delivering it into Rupert's friendly grasp.

"How-de-do," said Mr. Bindane, looking down from his great height at the dapper little man before him.

"Glad to meet you, sir," said Rupert, looking up at the limp figure, which gave the appearance of being about to fall to pieces at any moment.

"His father's a lord, dear," whispered Mrs. Bindane to her husband, in a hoa.r.s.e aside.

"You're just as impossible as ever, Kate," laughed Rupert.

"It's my common blood," said she. "One of my ancestors married his cook: she was the woman who cooked that surfeit of lampreys King John died of."

"Is Lord Blair in?" Mr. Bindane asked, very suddenly.

Mrs. Bindane turned sharply and stared at him. "Now _what_ has Lord Blair to do with you, Benifett?" she asked in surprise. "I didn't know you knew him."

Her husband flapped a loose hand. "I've met his Lordship," he said.

"_His Lordship_," mimicked the impossible Kate, giving a nod of simulated awe. "Rupert, my lad, go and tell the boss he's wanted in the shop."

"I'd like to see him," murmured Mr. Bindane, quite unmoved.

"Well, I never!" said his wife.