The Wave: An Egyptian Aftermath Part 23

He had written once to say that all was well, but no word had yet come from her; she was resting, he was glad to think: Tony was away at Cairo with his friends; there might be a letter for him in the morning, but that could be sent after him. Joy and impatience urged him. He chuckled happily over his boyish plan; he would not announce himself; he would surprise her. He caught a train that would get him in for dinner.

And during his journey of six hours he rehea.r.s.ed this pleasure of surprising her. She was lonely without him. He visualised her delight and happiness. He would creep up to the window, to the edge of the verandah where she sat reading, Mrs. Haughstone knitting in a chair opposite. He would call her name 'Lettice. . . .' Her eyes would lighten, her manner change. That new spontaneous joy would show itself. . . .

The sun was setting when the train got in, but by the time he had changed into flannels at his hotel the short dusk was falling. The entire western sky was gold and crimson, the air was sharp, the light dry desert wind blew shrewdly down the street. Behind the eastern hills rose a huge full moon, still pale with daylight, peering wisely over the enormous spread of luminous desert. . . . He drove to her house, leaving the _arabyieh_ at the gates. He walked quickly up the drive. The heavy foliage covered him with shadows, and he easily reached the verandah un.o.bserved; no one seemed about; there was no sound of voices; the thick creepers up the wooden pillars screened him admirably. There was a movement of a chair, his heart began to thump, he climbed up softly, and at the other end of the verandah saw--Mrs. Haughstone knitting. But there was no sign of Lettice--and the blood rushed from his heart.

He had not been noticed, but his game was spoilt. He came round to the front steps and wished her politely a good-evening. Her surprise once over and explanations made, she asked him, cordially enough, to stay to dinner. 'Lettice, I know, would like it. You must be tired out. She did not expect you back so soon; but she would never forgive me if I let you go after them.'

Tom heard the words as in a dream, and answered also in a dream--a dream of astonishment, vexation, disappointment, none of them concealed.

His uneasiness returned in an acute, intensified form. For he learned that they were bivouacking on the Nile to see the sunrise. Tony had, after all, not gone to Cairo; de Lorne and Lady Sybil accompanied them.

It was the picnic they had planned together against his return.

'Lettice wrote,' Mrs. Haughstone mentioned, 'but the letter must have missed you. I warned her you'd be disappointed--if you knew.'

'So Tony didn't go to Cairo after all?' Tom asked again. His voice sounded thin, less volume in it than usual. That 'if you knew' dropped something of sudden anguish in his heart.

'His friends put him off at the last moment--illness, he said, or something.' Mrs. Haughstone repeated the invitation to dine and make himself at home. 'I'm positive my cousin would like you to,' she added with a certain emphasis.

Tom thanked her. He had the impression there was something on her mind.

'I think I'll go after them,' he repeated, 'if you'll tell me exactly where they've gone.' He stammered a little. 'It would be rather a lark, I thought, to surprise them.' What foolish, what inadequate words!

'Just as you like, of course. But I'm sure she's quite safe,' was the bland reply. 'Mr. Winslowe will look after her.'

'Oh, rather,' replied Tom; 'but it would be good fun--rather a joke, you know--to creep upon them unawares,'--and then was surprised and sorry that he said it. 'Have they gone very far?' he asked, fumbling for his cigarettes.

He learned that they had left after luncheon, taking with them all necessary paraphernalia for the night. There were feelings in him that he could not understand quite as he heard it. But only one thing was clear to him--he wished to be quickly, instantly, where Lettice was.

It was comprehensible. Mrs. Haughstone understood and helped him.

'I'll send Mohammed to get you a boatman, as you seem quite determined,'

she said, ringing the bell: 'you can get there in an hour's ride.

I couldn't go,' she added, 'I really felt too tired. Mr. Winslowe was here for lunch, and he exhausted us all with laughing so that I felt I'd had enough. Besides, the sun----'

'They all lunched here too?' asked Tom.

'Mr. Winslowe only,' she mentioned, 'but he was a host in himself.

It quite exhausted me----'

'Tony can be frightfully amusing, can't he, when he likes?' said Tom.

Her repet.i.tion of 'exhausted' annoyed him furiously for some reason.

He saw her hesitate then: she began to speak, but stopped herself; there was a curious expression in her face, almost of anxiety, he fancied.

He felt the kindness in her. She was distressed. And an impulse, whence he knew not, rose in him to make her talk, but before he could find a suitable way of beginning, she said with a kind of relief in her tone and manner: 'I'm glad you're back again, Mr. Kelverdon.' She looked significantly at him. 'Your influence is so steadying, if you don't mind my saying so.' She gave an awkward little laugh, half of apology, half of shyness, or of what pa.s.sed with her for shyness. 'This climate--upsets some of us. It does something to the blood, I'm sure----'

'You feel anxious about--anything in particular?' Tom asked, with a sinking heart. At any other time he would have laughed.

Mrs. Haughstone shrugged her shoulders and sighed. She spoke with an effort apparently, as though doubtful how much she ought to say.

'My cousin, after all, is--in a sense, at least--a married woman,' was the reply, while Tom remembered that she had said the same thing once before.

'And all men are not as careful for her reputation, perhaps, as you are.'

She mentioned the names of various people in Luxor, and left the impression that there was considerable gossip in the air. Tom disliked exceedingly the things she said and the way she said them, but felt unable to prevent her. He was angry with himself for listening, yet felt it beyond him to change the conversation. He both longed to hear every word, and at the same time dreaded it unspeakably. If only the boat would give him quickly an excuse. . . . He therefore heard her to the end concerning the unwisdom of Madame Jaretzka in her careless refusal to be more circ.u.mspect, even--Mrs. Haughstone feared--to the point of compromising herself. With whom? Why, with Mr. Winslowe, of course. Hadn't he noticed it? No! Well, of course there was no harm in it, but it was a mistake, she felt, to be seen about always with the same man. He called, too, at such unusual hours. . . .

And each word she uttered seemed to Tom exactly what he had expected her to utter, entering his mind as a keenly poisoned shaft. Something already prepared in him leaped swiftly to understanding; only too well he grasped her meaning. The excitement in him pa.s.sed into a feverishness that was painful.

For a long time he merely stood and listened, gazing across the river but seeing nothing. He said no word. His impatience was difficult to conceal, yet he concealed it.

'Couldn't you give her a hint perhaps?' continued the other, as they waited on the steps together, watching the preparations for the boat below. She spoke with an a.s.sumed carelessness that was really a disguised emphasis. 'She would take it from _you_, I'm sure. She means no harm; there is no harm. We all know that. She told me herself it was only a boy and girl affair. Still----'

'_She_ said that?' asked Tom. His tone was calm, even to indifference, but his eyes, had she looked round, must certainly have betrayed him.

Luckily she kept her gaze upon the moon-lit river. She drew her knitted shawl more closely round her. The cold air from the desert touched them both. Tom shivered.

'Oh, before you came out, that was,' she mentioned; and each word was a separate stab in the centre of his heart. After a pause she went on: 'So you might say a little word to be more careful, if you saw your way.

Mr. Winslowe, you see, is a poor guide just now: he has so completely lost his head. He's very impressionable--and very selfish--_I_ think.'

Tom was aware that he braced himself. Various emotions clashed within him. He knew a dozen different pains, all equally piercing. It angered him, besides, to hear Lettice spoken of in this slighting manner, for the inference was unavoidable. But there hid below his anger a deep, dull bitterness that tried angrily to raise its head. Something very ugly, very fierce moved with it. He crushed it back. . . . A feeling of hot shame flamed to his cheeks.

'I should feel it an impertinence, Mrs. Haughstone,' he stammered at length, yet confident that he concealed his inner turmoil. 'Your cousin-- I mean, all that she does is quite beyond reproach.'

Her answer staggered him like a blow between the eyes.

'Mr. Kelverdon--on the contrary. My cousin doesn't realise quite, I'm sure--that she may cause _him_ suffering. She won't listen to me, but you could do it. _You_ touch the mother in her.'

It was a merciless, keen shaft--these last six words. The sudden truth of them turned him into ice. He touched only the mother in her: the woman-- but the thought plunged out of sight, smothered instantly as by a granite slab he set upon it. The actual thought was smothered, yes, but the feeling struggled horribly for breath; and another inference, more deadly than the first, stole with a freezing touch upon his soul.

He turned round quietly and looked at his companion. 'By Jove,' he said, with a laugh he believed was admirably natural, 'I believe you're right.

I'll give her a little hint--for Tony's sake.' He moved down the steps.

'Tony is so--I mean he so easily loses his head. It's quite absurd.'

But Mrs. Haughstone did not laugh. 'Think it over,' she rejoined.

'You have excellent judgment. You may prevent a little disaster.'

She smiled and shook a warning finger. And Tom, feigning amus.e.m.e.nt as best he might, murmured something in agreement and raised his helmet with a playful flourish.

Mohammed, soft of voice and moving like a shadow, called that the boat was ready, and Tom prepared to go. Mrs. Haughstone accompanied him half-way down the steps.

'You won't startle them, will you, Mr. Kelverdon?' she said. 'Lettice, you know, is rather easily frightened.' And she laughed a little.

'It's Egypt--the dry air--one's nerves----'

Tom was already in the boat, where the Arab stood waiting in the moonlight like a ghost.

'Of course not,' he called up to her through the still air. But, none the less, he meant to surprise her if he could. Only in his thought the p.r.o.noun insisted, somehow, on the plural form.

CHAPTER XIX

The boat swung out into mid-stream. Behind him the figure of Mrs.

Haughstone faded away against the bougainvillaea on the wall; in front, Mohammed's head and shoulders merged with the opposite bank; beyond, the spectral palms and the shadowy fields of clover slipped into the great body of the moon-fed desert. The desert itself sank down into a hollow that seemed to fling those dark Theban hills upwards--towards the stars.

Everything, as it were, went into its background. Everything, animate and inanimate, rose out of a common ultimate--the Sea. Yet for a moment only.

There was this sense of preliminary withdrawal backwards, as for a leap that was to come. . . .