The Wave: An Egyptian Aftermath Part 26

So Tom did not refer to the ambra perfume, nor to the fact that Tony had spent the afternoon with her. He said quite another thing--said it rather bluntly too: 'I've just got your letter from a.s.souan, Lettice, and I clean forgot my promise that I wouldn't read it.' He paused a second.

'You said nothing about the picnic in it.'

'I thought you'd be disappointed if you knew,' she replied at once.

'That's why I didn't want you to read it.' And she fell to scolding him in the way he usually loved,--but at the moment found less stimulating for some reason. He smoked his stolen cigarette with energy for a measurable period.

'You're the spoilt child, not I,' he said at length, still looking at her.

'You said you were tired and meant to rest, and then you go for an exhausting expedition instead.'

The tiny frown reappeared between her eyes, lingered a trifle longer than before, and vanished. She made a quick gesture. 'You're in a very nagging mood, Tom; bivouacs don't agree with you.' She spoke lightly, easily, in excellent good temper really. 'It was Tony persuaded me, if you want to know the truth. He found himself free unexpectedly; he was so persistent; it's impossible to resist him when he's like that--the only thing is to give in and go.'

'Of course.' Tom's face was like a mask. He thought so, at least, as he laughed and agreed with her, saying Tony was an unscrupulous rascal at the best of times. Apparently there was a struggle in him; he seemed in two minds. 'Was he here this afternoon?' he asked. He learned that Tony had come at four o'clock and had tea with her alone. 'We didn't telephone because he said it would only spoil your sleep, and that a man who works as well as plays must sleep--longer than a younger man.' Then, as Tom said nothing, she added, 'Tony _is_ such a boy, isn't he?'

There were several emotions in Tom just then. He hardly knew which was the true, or at least, the dominant one. He was thinking of several things at once too: of her letter, of that faint peculiar odour, of Tony's coming to tea, but chiefly, perhaps, of the fact that Lettice had not mentioned it,--but that he had found it out. . . . His heart sank.

It struck him suddenly that the mother in her sought to protect him from the pain the woman gave.

'Is he--yes,' he said absent-mindedly. And she repeated quietly, 'Oh, I think so.'

The brief eastern twilight had meanwhile fallen, and the rapidly cooling air sighed through the foliage. It grew darker in their shady corner.

The western sky was still a blaze of riotous colour, however, that filtered through the trees and shed a luminous glow upon their faces.

It was a bewitching light--there was something bewitching about Lettice as she lay there. Tom himself felt a touch of that deep Egyptian enchantment. It stole in among his thoughts and feelings, colouring motives, lifting into view, as from far away, moods that he hardly understood and yet obeyed because they were familiar.

This evasive sense of familiarity, both welcome and unwelcome, swept in, dropped a fleeting whisper, and was gone again. He felt himself for an instant--some one else: one Tom felt and spoke, while another Tom looked on and watched, a calm, outside spectator. And upon his heart came a touch of that strange, rich pain that was never very far away in Egypt.

'I say, Lettice,' he began suddenly, as though he came to an abrupt decision. 'This is an awful place for talk--these Luxor hotels----'

He stuck. 'Isn't it? You know what I mean.' His laborious manner betrayed intensity, yet he meant to speak lightly, easily, and thought his voice was merely natural. He stared hard at the glowing tip of his cigarette.

Lettice looked across at him without speaking for a moment. Her eyelids were half closed. He felt her gaze and raised his own. He saw the smile steal down towards her lips.

'Tom, why are you glaring at me?'

He started. He tried to smile, but there was no smile in him.

'Was I, Lettice? Forgive me.' The talk that was coming would hurt him, yet somehow he desired it. He would give his little warning and take the consequences. 'I was devouring your beauty, as the _Family Herald_ says.'

He heard himself utter a dry and unconvincing laugh. Something was rising through him; it was beyond control; it had to come. He felt stupid, awkward, and was angry with himself for being so. For, somehow, at the same time he felt powerless too.

She came to the point with a directness that disconcerted him.

'Who has been talking about me?' she enquired, her voice hardening a little; 'and what does it matter if they have?'

Tom swallowed. There was something about her beauty in that moment that set him on fire from head to foot. He knew a fierce desire to seize her in his arms, hold her for ever and ever--lest she should escape him.

But he was unable to give expression in any way to what was in him.

All he did was to shift his cushions slightly farther from her side.

'It's always wiser--safer--not to be seen about too much with the same man--alone,' he fumbled, recalling Mrs. Haughstone's words, 'in a place like this, I mean,' he qualified it. It sounded foolish, but he could evolve no cleverer way of phrasing it. He went on quicker, a touch of nervousness in his voice he tried to smother: 'No one can mistake _our_ relationship, or think there's anything wrong in it.' He stopped a second, as she gazed at him in silence, waiting for him to finish.

'But Tony,' he concluded, with a gulp he prayed she did not notice, 'Tony is a little----'

'Well?' she helped him, 'a little what?'

'A little different, isn't he?'

Tom realised that he was producing the reverse of what he intended.

Somehow the choice of words seemed forced upon him. He was aware of his own helplessness; he felt almost like a boy scolding his own wise, affectionate mother. The thought stung him into pain, and with the pain rose, too, a first distant hint of anger. The turmoil of feeling confused him. He was aware--by her silence chiefly--of the new distance between them, a distance the mention of Tony had emphasised. Instinctively he tried to hide both pain and anger--it could only increase this distance that was already there. At the same time he saw red. . . . Her answer, then, so gently given, baffled him absurdly. He felt out of his depth.

'I'll be more careful, Tom, dear--you wise, experienced chaperone.'

The words, the manner, stung him. Another emotion, wounded vanity, came into play. To laugh at himself was natural and right, but to be laughed at by a woman, a woman whom he loved, whom he regarded as exclusively his own, against whom, moreover, he had an acc.u.mulating grievance--it hurt him acutely, although he seemed powerless to prevent it. He felt his own stupidity increase.

'It's just as well, I think, Lettice.' It was the wrong, the hopeless thing to say, but the words seemed, in a sense, pushed quickly out of his mouth lest he should find better ones. He antic.i.p.ated, too, her exasperation before her answer proved it: 'But, really, Tom, you know, I can look after myself rather well as a rule--don't you think?'

He interrupted her then, a mixture of several feelings in him--shame, the pain of frustrate yearning, perversity too. For, in spite of himself, he wanted to hear how she would speak of Tony. He meant to punish himself by hearing her praise him. He, too, meant to speak well of his cousin.

'He's a bit careless, though,' he blurted, 'irresponsible, in a way--where women are concerned. I'm sure he means no harm, of course, but----'

He paused in confusion, he was no longer afraid that harm might come to Tony; he was afraid for her, but now also for himself as well.

'Tom, I do believe you're jealous!'

He laughed boisterously when he heard it. It was really comical, absurdly comical, of course. It sounded, too, the way she said it--ugly, mean, contemptible. The touch of shame came back.

'Lettice! But what an idea!' He gasped, turning round upon his other elbow, closer to her. But the sinking of his heart increased; he felt an inner cold. And a moment of deep silence followed the empty laughter.

The rustle of the foliage alone was audible.

Lettice looked down sideways at him through half-closed eyelids; propped on his cushions beside her, this was natural: yet he felt it mental as well as physical. There was pity in her att.i.tude, a concealed exasperation, almost contempt. At the same time he realised that she had never seemed so adorably lovely, so exquisite, so out of his reach.

He had never felt her so seductively desirable. He made an impetuous gesture towards her before he knew it.

'Don't, Tom; you'll upset my papers and everything,' she said calmly, yet with the merest suspicion of annoyance in her tone. She was very gentle, she was also very cold--cold as ice, he felt her, while he was burning as with fire. He was aware of this unbridgeable distance between his pa.s.sion and her indifference; and a dreadful thought leaped up in him with stabbing pain: 'Her answer to Tony would have been quite otherwise.'

'I'm sorry, Lettice--so sorry,' he said brusquely, to hide his mortification. 'I'm awfully clumsy.' She was putting her papers tidy again with calm fingers, while his own were almost cramped with the energy of suppressed desire. 'But, seriously,' he went on, refusing the rebuff by pretending it was play on his part, 'it isn't very wise to be seen about so much alone with Tony. Believe me, it isn't.' For the first time, he noticed, it was difficult to use the familiar and affectionate name. But for a sense of humour he could have said 'Anthony.'

'I do believe you, Tom. I'll be more careful.' Her eyes were very soft, her manner quiet, her gentle tone untinged with any emotion. Yet Tom detected, he felt sure, a certain eagerness behind the show of apparent indifference. She liked to talk--to go on talking--about Tony. 'Do you _really_ think so, really mean it?' he heard her asking, and thus knew his thought confirmed. She invited more. And, with open eyes, with a curious welcome even to the pain involved, Tom deliberately stepped into the cruel little trap. But he almost felt that something pushed him in. He talked exactly like a boy: 'He--he's got a peculiar power with women,' he said.

'I can't make it out quite. He's not good-looking--exactly--is he?'

It was impossible to conceal his eagerness to know exactly what she did feel.

'There's a touch of genius in him,' she answered. 'I don't think looks matter so much--I mean, with women.' She spoke with a certain restraint, not deliberately saying less than she thought, but yet keeping back the entire truth. He suddenly realised a relationship between her and Tony into which he was not admitted. The distance between them increased visibly before his very eyes.

And again, out of a hundred things he wanted to say, he said--as though compelled to--another thing.

'Rather!' he burst out honestly. 'I should hate it if--you hadn't liked him.' But a week ago he would have phrased this differently--'If _he_ had not liked you.'

There were perceptible pauses between their sentences now, pauses that for him seemed breaking with a suspense that was painful, almost cruel.

He knew worse was coming. He both longed for it yet dreaded it. He felt at her mercy, in her power somehow.

'It's odd,' she went on slowly, 'but in England I thought him stupid rather, whereas out here he's changed into another person.'

'I think we've all changed--somehow,' Tom filled the pause, and was going to say more when she interrupted.

She kept the conversation upon Tony. 'I shall never forget the day he walked in here first. It was the week I arrived. You'll laugh, Tom, when I tell you----' She hesitated--almost it seemed on purpose.

'How was it? How did he look?' The forced indifference of the tone betrayed his anxiety.