Burning Sands Part 49

"P'r'aps you're right," she said; and presently they went out together to see what was happening to Daniel.

They found him just emerging from the tent where he had slept. It was evident that he was still thoroughly tired; but a group of troopers and their camels outside the police buildings indicated that, nevertheless, an immediate start was to be made.

He was munching biscuits as he shook hands with Mr. Bindane. "I'm sorry I can't stay," he said. "I've got to set this business to rights at once. But I dare say we'll meet in Cairo before you leave for England.

Good-bye!" He held out his hand, but Kate checked him.

"I'll go and see if Muriel is awake," she said.

"No, never mind," Daniel answered, with his mouth full. "I won't disturb her. Please tell her I'm coming to Cairo within a month from now."

He waved his hand to them, and hurried away; and presently they saw him mount his camel and ride away southwards, followed by half a dozen troopers, their rifles slung across their shoulders.

"Well, I'm blowed!" muttered Kate.

"It seems to me it's business first with him, too," remarked Mr.

Bindane, looking vacantly before him.

"Oh, rot!" replied his wife. "From what Muriel says it appears that he had promised the old Sheikh that his son should hold office after him; and he's going to keep his word."

That night Muriel confessed the whole truth to her friend, only exacting the promise that she would not tell of her humiliation to Benifett. She related the events without emotion, her voice steady and the expression of her face calm. It was as though she were telling the story of some other woman in whom she felt no personal interest. It was as though Daniel had now pa.s.sed entirely out of her life.

"I'm going to marry the first man who proposes to me," she said, setting her jaw.

"Well, you'll have to look sharp about it," Kate replied. "He's coming to carry you off by the hair in a month's time, and don't you forget it."

Muriel put out her hand quickly, and touched her friend's arm. "No, you don't understand him," she said. "He's not a bit that sort of man...."

She checked herself, feeling that she had no desire to be inveigled into discussing his character.

Next morning, soon after breakfast, the start was made on the return journey to the Nile. Muriel, after a long sleep, was quite recovered from her fatigue; but she did not feel happy, and the wide vistas of the desert did not make the same appeal to her as on the outward journey.

She felt herself to be very much older, very much more subdued; and there was, as it were, a veil between her eyes and the beauty of the wilderness.

Moreover, she was very self-conscious. It seemed to her that she had lost caste; and, now that all the alarums and excursions were over, she was not a little dismayed at the affront she had put upon the conventions. Benifett Bindane's att.i.tude to her was non-committal, but in his evasion of the subject of her adventures he displayed an awkwardness which she found almost insulting.

And then the natives.... She felt as though many pairs of eyes were upon her, and more than once it seemed to her that she was not being treated with the same deference as formerly.

Once, when her camel had lagged behind the others, she found herself riding beside the Egyptian secretary of the expedition, a young man who evidently regarded his personal appearance with favour; and it seemed to her that he turned his dark eyes upon her with a boldness which she had not previously observed.

But the most galling experience was provided by her dragoman, Mustafa, who took the opportunity to speak to her on the day of their departure, when she was sitting alone, waiting for the picnic luncheon to be served.

"I hope my leddy was varry happy at El Hamran," he said, grinning at her boldly.

"Thank you, yes," she answered, fiddling with her shoe.

"Mistair Lane he varry nice gentleman," he went on; and then, leaning forward, he lowered his voice. "Mustafa know the beesness: he say nudding; he keep varry quiet, my leddy. No talk 'bout El Hamran...."

"What d'you mean?" she exclaimed angrily, but he only smiled at her, and salaamed.

It was disgusting, and she felt a cold shiver creep down her spine, as she hastened across to the others.

As she jogged along, day after day, towards Cairo her thoughts were given more and more to the subject of her coming return to her father.

What was she going to say to him? It had all seemed so easy before: she had thought that there would be no difficulty in concocting a plausible story. But now the idea of inventing a pack of lies revolted her; and as they drew ever nearer to the Nile there grew steadily in her mind a determination to tell him the truth.

Daniel, it seemed to her, had deliberately left her to extricate herself; and at the thought her heart was filled with renewed anger against him. Yet had she not told him that her plans were all laid to prevent gossip, to prevent her father's name being injured? He probably supposed that there would be no scandal; and, after all, why should there be? A little talk in the native quarter, perhaps, that would be all. But these lies she would have to tell her father! They hung over her like a menacing storm.

Yet if she told the truth, what then? Daniel's reputation would suffer as much as hers: she wondered whether he had realized this fact, when he had obliged her to stay with him for the full fortnight.

Yes, she would tell the truth. It would be a ghastly ordeal, that hour when she would have to face her father; but it would be better than lies, and shufflings, and the crooked ways of which she had seen so much amongst the women she had known in her life.

Suddenly the realization came to her that her character was not such as theirs, that it took no delight in intrigue; and upon that disclosure there followed a new understanding of Daniel's att.i.tude to her when she had told him of her arrangements for their secret fortnight.

"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, almost speaking aloud in the surprise of her sudden shame. "What a sneaking little liar I must have seemed to him!"

At last one day, in the blaze of noon, they descended from the desert and dismounted from their camels at the gates of Mena House Hotel. Now, towards the end of March, the days were growing hot, and Muriel appreciated to the full the cool halls and shaded rooms of the hotel, and at luncheon the ice which tinkled in her gla.s.s seemed to be a very gift of the G.o.ds.

Amongst her letters, addressed to the care of Mr. Bindane, she found one from her father, written from the White Nile; and her heart leaped with sudden relief when she read in it that he had decided to extend his tour through the Sudan, and would not be back in Cairo for another three weeks. He suggested to her that she should invite the Bindanes to stay at the Residency, so that Kate could be with her, thereby relieving Lady Smith-Evered of the responsibility of upholding the conventions by her otherwise unnecessary presence; or else that she should remain at Mena House with them until his return.

She therefore put the two alternatives to her friends, and, though Kate was all for remaining where they were, her husband could not resist the aristocratic enticement of the Residency. Next day, therefore, they made their adieux to the desert and drove into Cairo. Muriel's relief at not having yet to face her father had raised her spirits; and for the first time for many days she appeared once more to be vivacious and conscious of the enjoyments of life.

All went well for a week or more. Muriel entertained her guests at the Residency with painstaking care; and every day had its list of engagements. Indeed she was glad of the task, for, now that her life had resumed its unadventurous course, she could not keep her mind from thinking over the events of the last few months, although her recollections brought her nothing but searchings of heart.

Towards Daniel she maintained an att.i.tude of estrangement. Though her eyes had been opened to her own shortcomings, and she was no longer so sure of herself as to be able to censure him without qualification, yet she wanted to a.s.sert herself, and to show him that she was mistress of her own destiny; and, like a spectator of her own life, she almost hoped that she would find herself belonging to some other man by the time that Daniel returned, so that she would be able to say, "There now!-you've lost me, you see."

The bombsh.e.l.l fell unexpectedly. One morning Lady Smith-Evered came over to the Residency soon after breakfast, and asked Muriel if she might see her alone. She had been dining with them only the night before, and Muriel did not, therefore, antic.i.p.ate any serious trouble.

They went into the library together, and no sooner was the door shut than the elder woman sat herself down in the desk chair, and cleared her throat as though she were about to make a speech.

"Now Muriel," she began, "I want you to tell me the truth, please. I have acted more or less as your chaperone throughout the winter, and I'm sure you can trust me to do what is right. I want you to give me a direct answer to a direct question: did you or did you not spend a fortnight alone with Mr. Lane in the Oases?"

For a moment Muriel's head was in a whirl, and she felt the colour mounting to her cheeks, as she hesitated to face the sudden crisis.

Then, fortifying herself to meet the situation with candour, she looked at her questioner straight in the face.

"Tell me, first," she replied, "the story you have heard."

Lady Smith-Evered shrugged her shoulders. "I see no reason why I should not. My maid told me late last night that she had heard it from our native cook, who had heard it in the bazaars. The story was simply that you left the Bindanes and went to stay with that man. I thought the best thing I could do, and the General agreed, was to come and ask you straight."

"Thank you," Muriel replied. "Yes, it's perfectly true."

Lady Smith-Evered threw up her fat hands. "My dear girl!-what on earth made you do such a foolhardy thing? You might have known the natives would talk. Of course I guessed you were in love with him, otherwise you would never have been so rude to me as you were that day when I asked you why he had left the Residency so suddenly. But I never dreamed that things had gone so far. Supposing you have a baby...?"

An expression of amazed indignation came into Muriel's eyes, and for a few moments she was absolutely dumb. It was as though she had had a lump of mud flung straight at her face; and at first she experienced only burning resentment and blinding anger. Then, suddenly, she saw things as they were: the thought had never come to her until now in all its crudeness, its stark nakedness.

"How can you suggest such a thing?" she answered at last, lamely, her indignation strengthening her voice but not her wits.

"You must have been mad," said Lady Smith-Evered. "And at your age, too!

It was more than naughtiness: it was downright folly. And as for the man, he deserves to be thrashed."

"But you don't understand," Muriel gasped. "There was no intimacy of any kind."