Palace Circle Part 16

"Not Conisborough." His grin widened even further. "Your real father. Jerome Bazeljette." There was absolutely no mischief in his voice, or his smile. He simply said it as a statement of fact-a fact of which he obviously thought she was aware. He gave a jolly laugh. "In a rum kind of way we're almost family. Not that I imagine Jack will ever call me 'stepfather.' Can't blame him. I'm only ten years his senior, after all. Give my regards to your mother, Petronella. Goodbye and toodle-oo."

He sauntered off down the street, happily oblivious of the effect his words had had on her.

She stared after him in a daze. Jerome, her father? She wanted to laugh the idea off as too ridiculous for words, but she couldn't.

She remembered her aunt Gwen telling her of how Jerome had been at Cadogan Square the day she was born; how he had held her almost immediately after her birth. She remembered how he had always been there for her; of how, fond though he was of Davina, he had always singled her out. She remembered the interest he had taken in her education and that the Inst.i.tut Mont-Fleuri had been so conveniently near to his villa at Nyon.

She remembered how, when she was sixteen, he had suggested that, if her mother had no objections, she put an end to calling him "uncle." After a long, tension-filled pause, her mother had said, "Of course not. So silly to use it when you are most definitely not her uncle" and, when Jerome had responded drily, "No, indeed," that her mother had blushed furiously.

She remembered how aghast her mother had been when she had suggested that Jerome should stand in for the traditional father-and-daughter waltz.

Other memories, too, fell into place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Jerome's constant presence in her mother's life; the way that though she'd been brought up to believe Jerome was her father's friend, her father always had important business elsewhere whenever Jerome visited. The way her mother had made so many lone visits when Petra had been at school in Montreux, always staying with Jerome at Nyon when she had done so. She recalled how her mother's joie de vivre had vanished overnight when Jerome began paying attention to Magda. Most of all, there was her mother's horror when Jack told her they wanted to marry.

Last, but by no means least, she thought of the two nights she and Jack had spent together in Archie's cottage.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. She had to know the truth. And only two people could tell her. Her mother and Jerome.

She stared around, looking for a telephone booth. There wasn't one in sight and she began walking numbly toward the one in Sloane Square.

Once there she fumbled clumsily in her bag for money. Twice she dropped her sixpenny piece. By the time she fumbled it into the slot she was so terrified of what she was possibly about to hear she thought she would faint.

"Chelsea 3546," Jerome's dearly familiar voice said. "Bazeljette speaking."

She pressed b.u.t.ton A. The coin fell into the box.

"It's Petra," she said. "I have to ask you ... I have to know ... Are you and my mother lovers?"

There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line and then Jerome said in a voice almost as unsteady as hers, "Petra, my dear. This isn't a conversation we should be having over the telephone. You are obviously very distressed. Where are you? I'll come and meet you-"

"I don't want to meet you, I just want to know the truth." Tears coursed down her face. "Are you and my mother lovers? Have you been lovers for years?"

There was a long silence and she knew he was trying to think of the right words. "Petra, sweetheart," he said at last. "The answer is yes. You are old enough now to understand and I suppose someone who should have known better has told you. I love your mother dearly. I've loved her from the very first moment I met her and-"

With a cry of anguish she dropped the receiver and pushed blindly against the telephone-booth door.

Jerome's voice calling her name followed her as the receiver dangled in midair. She hadn't asked her next question, "Are you my father?," because there was someone else she wanted to hear answer the question. And that someone was her mother.

Tears still raining down her face, she walked the short distance from Sloane Square to Cadogan Square.

Her mother was in the drawing room, seated at her pretty Chippendale writing desk. She was wearing a pale-mauve voile dress and her favorite item of jewelry, a three-string pearl necklace.

As Petra entered the room her mother turned to greet her but the instant she saw Petra's face her smile vanished.

"What on earth has happened, honey?" she said, jumping to her feet.

"I ran into Theo Girlington in Lower Sloane Street." Petra put her hands up, to forestall her mother from hugging her. "He told me he'd just seen my father."

Delia stopped, her face whitening. "Unless Theo was hotfoot from Cairo he has bats in the belfry."

"He wasn't referring to Ivor, Mama." Petra's voice sounded to her as if it were coming from a million miles away. "He was referring to Jerome."

Her mother tried to speak but couldn't.

"I spoke to Jerome, Mama. He told me that you and he are ... that for years you and he have been ..." She tried to say the word "lovers" but she could not utter it. "Is he my father?" she managed at last, her voice breaking. "Is what Theo Girlington said true?"

Her mother's lips were now as white as her face. She looked as if she were in the seventh circle of h.e.l.l, impaled on the past, paralyzed by the present, and unable to conceive of the future. "I don't know," she said at last. "It's a possibility, Petra. There was one instance, in the early spring of 1914, when I went to Jerome for comfort just after I had returned from a trip to America. It was an isolated instance. Our affair didn't truly start until much later, after Davina was born. I'm so sorry, Petra. I never dreamt that there would be such complications." She made a helpless motion with her hands. "That Jerome may be your father is something Jerome and I have never talked about... never openly acknowledged ... and he may not be, Petra. Under the circ.u.mstances, though, I couldn't allow you and Jack to become engaged. Not when there was even the faintest possibility that Jack was your half-"

"Don't say it!" Petra clapped her hands over her ears, "Don't say it!"

She struggled to breathe, numb with pain. She had lost not only Jack but her mother, too, for things could never be the same between them, just as things would never be the same between her and Jack.

"I'm going back to Cairo," she said, fighting to keep hysteria out of her voice. "And I don't want Jack to ever know about this. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Petra dear, but you have to listen to me. You have to let me explain the circ.u.mstances-"

"No." Petra's voice was hoa.r.s.e. "I don't have to listen to another word about you and Jerome. Not now. Not ever." And turning her back on her mother she ran from the room.

She didn't stop running until she was once again in Sloane Street, and when she did, she had three thoughts clear in her mind. First, she couldn't possibly see Jack again, for it would be an agony she would never survive. Second, because Jack would follow her to Cairo, she would stay not at Nile House but with Kate. And third, she had two letters to write: one to Jack, breaking off their relationship; and one to her father telling him she had turned down Jack's proposal for private reasons, and informing him that she was returning to Cairo but would be staying with Kate and on no account wanted Jack told.

On the far side of the street was a travel agent. Hardly able to believe that the world was still turning exactly as it had been doing when she had seen Lord Girlington striding toward her half an hour earlier, she crossed the street.

Minutes later, in a voice she could barely recognize, she booked a Channel crossing and a train first to Paris, then Ma.r.s.eille, and pa.s.sage on a ship sailing to Alexandria. Unable to face returning home, she walked into Hyde Park and sat on a bench beside the Serpentine and sobbed until she could sob no longer.

Part Three.

DAVINA.

19341939.

THIRTEEN.

Davina boarded a tram that was packed to capacity and squeezed onto a seat next to a heavily veiled Muslim woman. The tram was traveling from the Mokattam Hills down into the city center, and because she was the only non-Egyptian on board, she immediately became the object of disapproving scrutiny.

She ignored it. She had just spent the morning-as she did every morning-working as a volunteer at an Anglican orphanage tucked away in the tumble of streets at the foot of the Citadel. It was early afternoon and Cairo's March sun was uncomfortably hot. She wiped her forehead and tried to ignore the hen trapped in a wooden cage on her neighbor's knee. When it became a little cooler, she was going to the Gezira Sporting Club with Fawzia to watch Darius play in the club's annual tennis tournament. Petra was also going, though not with them; she would be with her new group of friends.

The hen squawked and its owner slammed a silencing hand down on the top of the cage. Davina averted her eyes and continued to think about her sister.

Ever since Petra had returned to Cairo the previous summer, the closeness that they had always enjoyed had become marred by a strain that Davina couldn't understand. Petra rarely chatted to her in the old carefree manner and never about anything that mattered, such as why she was living with Kate Gunn and avoiding Jack, who had arrived in the city a few days after her.

All she had ever said on that subject was, "We were about to become engaged and then I decided it would be a mistake. That's all there is to it, Davvy. Now if you don't mind, I'd rather not talk about it."

And she hadn't. Ever.

Jack had been totally bewildered by her action.

"I'm sorry, old chap," her father had said. "She doesn't want to see you. I have to respect her wishes. I can't tell you her whereabouts."

"But why is she behaving like this?" Jack had demanded. "She must have given a reason! One minute everything was all right-the next she bolted. The letter she left me explained nothing except that she'd had second thoughts about marrying and was ending our relationship."

"Where relationships are concerned," her father had said, with an edge to his voice Davina had never heard before, "women often do the most inexplicable things."

The tram was now trundling toward Abdin Palace. She wondered whether her father, who had been meeting with King Fuad earlier in the day, was still at the palace, spending time with Prince Farouk.

"You are the very best kind of Englishman," the King had once said to Ivor. "And I want my son to grow up emulating all that is best in the English character."

If any good had come out of Petra's return to Cairo, it was that she had become more aware of what a remarkable man their father was.

"I don't believe he's ever wanted to be in Egypt any more than Delia has," she had once said. "He's here simply because he feels it his duty to help Egypt find her way into the twentieth century."

That Petra now nearly always referred to their mother by her Christian name was one of her newfound oddities. Another had been her decision to learn shorthand and typing.

"Because I'm not going back to London-and if I'm going to remain in Cairo I have to fill up my time with something other than parties," she told Davina. "Kate taught herself shorthand and typing and she's going to help me. Until I become proficient enough to find a job as someone's secretary, Sir Percy is letting me act as a general dogsbody at the residency."

And that was what she was still doing. Her social life was now spent exclusively with the other girls who worked at the residency and Davina rarely saw her.

As the tram rattled toward the Ezbekiya Gardens stop Davina rose to her feet and forged a way to the door. Not only did she now see very little of her sister, she saw even less of her mother. Although Delia had returned to Cairo at the end of last year's season, she had stayed for only a couple of months. At the end of October she had gone back to London where the Bazeljettes were in the middle of their divorce, had come only briefly for Christmas in Cairo, and had then returned again to London.

"She enjoys a different life in London," Petra said when Davina had asked why their mother was now spending so much time in England. "Instead of mixing with Papa's friends-such as Sir John Simon, the Digbys, and Margot Asquith-she's become friends with the Prince of Wales. She and the Prince have always been chummy. There are only a few months' difference between them in age and though some of his friends are a good bit younger than she is-Baba Metcalfe, for instance, is only thirty and Delia is forty-one this year-it doesn't seem to make any difference. She's unconventional enough to fit in very well."

There had been such an odd inflection in her voice when she had uttered the last sentence that Davina was totally bewildered. It was almost as if Petra didn't like their mother much anymore.

Putting on her wide-brimmed sun hat, Davina began walking toward Shepheard's Hotel. Besides being the most popular meeting place in British Cairo, it also boasted the finest English bookshop in the city. The owner had called that morning saying a book she had ordered had arrived.

Once it was tucked under her arm, she didn't linger. The distance between Shepheard's and Garden City wasn't far, but in the hot, noisy city it took long enough on foot-and unlike anyone else she knew, Davina far preferred to walk everywhere. It was her way of keeping in touch with what she always thought of as the real Cairo. And to Davina, the real Cairo was Egyptian, not British. As she made her way down Ibrahim Pasha Street, toward its junction with Fouad el-Auwal, she pondered the difficulty of living between a world of grinding poverty and a world of luxury and privilege.

The only other person she knew who had a foot firmly in two such very different ways of life was Darius. Darius's loyalty was to the most extreme wing of Wafd, the political party that wanted to negotiate the British out of Egypt. In private he expressed nothing but contempt for King Fuad. "He's a mere puppet of your government," he often said. "And the reason your father spends so much time with the Prince is to ensure that when he inherits the throne, he, too, will dance to Britain's tune."

She'd long been aware that her father's unofficial role in Cairo was to tutor and mentor Farouk. She wasn't happy about it, but she didn't think it was going to matter too much if, under her father's influence, the fourteen-year-old Prince grew up as pro-British as his father. She was quite sure that by the time he was king, Wafd would have peaceably freed Egypt from British rule.

Her thoughts were diverted by a rumpus in front of her. In the midst of a sea of cars, motorbikes, and gharries, a bullock had come to a sudden and very determined halt. Half a dozen men were pushing on its haunches. As a gang of barefoot boys whooped their way through the traffic to join the fun she began walking faster, well aware that if she didn't get a move on she wasn't going to be ready when Zubair Pasha's chauffeur brought Fawzia to Nile House so they could go to the club together.

There was a surprise waiting for her when she walked into the marble-floored hallway. "Your mother has just arrived!" Adjo announced, a smile nearly splitting his face. "How long for, Missy Davina, I do not know. She's out in the garden. I think you are going to need to explain about the donkey."

Davina had rescued the donkey a few weeks ago when, after being furiously whipped, it had collapsed in the street. She'd paid its owner and, not knowing what else she could do with the starved animal, she had hired another donkey cart and had paid the driver to take his cargo to Nile House.

Fortunately her father had been out when the cart and its pathetic load had rattled through the gates. By the time he had returned, the donkey was installed on the long sloping rear garden beneath the shade of the jacaranda trees, water and alfalfa gra.s.s within easy reach.

By now, six weeks later, its ribs were not nearly so visible, but Davina hadn't the slightest intention of exposing it again to life on the Cairo streets. What she could do for the countless other donkeys suffering similarly she didn't yet know, but she knew that she was going to do something.

As she burst out of the house and into the garden she saw that her mother, still in her traveling clothes, was regarding the donkey as fixedly as the donkey was regarding her.

"Mama!" Davina shouted, running across the velvetsmooth lawn. "How smashing! Why didn't you let anyone know you were coming?" Breathlessly she hurtled into her mother's arms.

Laughing with pleasure her mother hugged her tightly. "I a.s.sume you're responsible for this animal's presence in the middle of my garden. He can't possibly stay here, Davina. Nile House isn't a zoo."

"No, it's a home. And a home is a sanctuary. And that is what this donkey-and others like it-need."

Her mother who had often expressed horror at the condition of the city's donkeys, looked at the animal.

The donkey looked at her mother.

It was a battle Davina knew was already won.

"There's someone I must put you in touch with," her mother said thoughtfully, stroking the donkey's muzzle. "Her name is Dorothy Brooke. She came to Cairo a few years ago when her husband, an army general, was posted here. Finding that former cavalry horses were living out their lives on the streets as exhausted, emaciated beasts of burden came as a pretty nasty shock to her. She's organized a committee to raise funds to buy those in the last stages of collapse so that they can die peacefully. And yes, before you ask, I've already sent her a hefty donation. The thing is, Davina, if she feels so pa.s.sionately about the cruel treatment of old cavalry horses, she'll be equally impa.s.sioned about the condition of the city's donkeys."

Delia tucked her daughter's arm in her own. "Donkeys, however, are not what I came back to Cairo to talk to you about."

Davina felt her heart sink. "If it's about my having a London season I simply don't want one."

"I know you don't, darling." Her mother began walking down the garden, toward the broad glittering river. "And though you slid out of going to finishing school last year, you're not going to slide out of having a season this year." She raised her free hand to silence all protest. "I'm sorry, honey, but it's absolutely essential. You don't know anyone of your age in London society-and you can't go through life that way. By the end of your season you will have made enough friends to see you through the rest of your life."

"I have friends already. I have Fawzia and Darius and the people I work with at the orphanage-"

"Those are Cairo friends-and quite honestly they are not all suitable, but we'll talk about that later. What I want to talk to you about now is making sure you always have plenty of invites to weekend house parties and b.a.l.l.s and having a coterie to go with to point-to-points and to Ascot and Cowes-"

"But I'm never going to want to go to house parties and b.a.l.l.s and race meetings! I'm just not like that! I don't see the sense in spending three months in London attending dances that I don't want to go to. And I certainly don't want to suffer the silly rigmarole of curtseying to the King with feathers stuck in my hair. Petra may have enjoyed it, but I won't."

"It isn't a silly rigmarole, Davina. It's ceremonial. There's a difference."

"Well, if there is, I honestly don't see it."

They came to a halt, staring out across the river, Davina mutinous, Delia resolved. From across the water there came the sound of lions roaring in the zoo on Gezira Island.

Her mother finally said pleasantly, but with underlying steel in her voice, "When I leave Cairo in four weeks' time, you will be coming with me. And now, if I am to bathe and change before going to this evening's tennis tournament, I have to hurry. Adjo tells me you are going with Fawzia."

"Yes." Davina nodded, knowing that though she had won the battle over the donkey, she had lost the one that counted. When her mother made up her mind to something there was no moving her. However much she hated the thought of it, Davina was going to have to endure a season in London doing all the things she most loathed. The only good thing about it was that she still had four weeks in which to get in touch with Mrs. Dorothy Brooke.

"But you're so lucky!" Fawzia said as they drove across the Kasr el-Nil Bridge onto Gezira Island. "I'd give anything in the world to be presented to King George and Queen Mary at Buckingham Palace! Think of all the parties! Think of all the rich, handsome young men you will meet!"

"I am thinking of them and I'm fairly certain that they will bore me to tears."

Fawzia, wearing a knife-straight scarlet silk dress with a heavy gold belt cinching her waist, shook her head disbelievingly. "You can't mean it, Davina. No one could mean it. Not if they were in their right mind."

"Then perhaps I'm not in my right mind," Davina said equably, knowing that Fawzia was never going to think the way she did no matter how many years they were friends. "Why don't you ask your father if you can come to London with me? It would make it a bit more bearable for me and it's about time you saw British high society in action."

Fawzia gasped, overcome at such a dizzying prospect. "Oh, Davina! That would be marvelous! I'd so love to see London. And Jack is there now, isn't he?" Her face fell as another thought struck her. "But will my father agree to it? I'd have to be chaperoned. He never lets me go anywhere without being chaperoned. I know how you hate turning up at the club in a chauffeured car, but it's the kind of thing my father insists on. And don't take offense, but he doesn't think much of your mother's chaperoning skills-that you are allowed to wander around Cairo on your own shocks him to the core-and so he might very well not let me go."

"Then we'll just have to a.s.sure your father that it won't be my mother, but my aunt, Lady Pugh, my father's elder sister, who will take care of you."

Hope flooded Fawzia's delicately boned face. Her father's admiration for Lord Conisborough was boundless and would extend to his blood relations. He was almost certain to approve of Lady Pugh as a chaperone.