So life led them on in tranquil fashion until it became obvious that he would soon, by pure gravitation, rise to a rank which entailed responsibility as well as hard work – neither were really to his taste. And in the more recent years they had both rediscovered Egypt and found that Cairo had begun to occupy a much larger place in their thoughts than hitherto. It was not to the detriment of London, far from it, it was simply that they both felt the need of a change of scene. They wintered as often as possible in Upper Egypt, and always left it with a pang. Perhaps a new posting? He tried to lobby himself something in Alexandria, but failed. There remained a distasteful choice between the Embassy in Moscow or the one in Pekin – neither tempted him. Then the brilliant notion dawned – why not become a private man again and really take in hand his large property holdings, together with the three or four old palaces which his father had left him, for the most part tumbledown edifices in handsome gardens lying along the Nile? The single one they had done up for themselves largely satisfied their ambitions and their needs. With the others, she had started to play – for her architecture was a game, an eternal improvisation, and he loved to see her haphazard fairy-tale palaces being realised on a more modest scale in mud brick and cement. Business, too, diverted him in such a slippery capital as Cairo. He had a marked aptitude, he discovered, for bluffing and performing confidence-tricks – all business in the Middle East is a variety of poker. It was a relief, too, to finish with protocol and precedence, the ramifications of which he had found so silly. For example, the courtesy rule which forced one to keep a person of superior rank always on one’s right, even walking down a street, even in a taxi. One had always to be scuttling round people or cabs to see that this silly custom was observed – or else your visitor treated you with marked coldness, or went downright into a diplomat’s huff. Phew! All that was over. He could play cards all night, even cheat if he wanted. One of his first civil acts was to win a large sum (by cheating) off Lord Galen who fancied himself as a brilliant courtier and card-player but who was as innocent of guile as a newly born child.
The last kilometre or so before they entered Victoria was taken at a walking pace – why, nobody could tell him, but it was so. This enabled Selim to walk along the platform beside his carriage, however, and make agreeable miming faces. The Embassy had sent a car for old time’s sake, and Selim who was acting as chargé came with it to bring him his correspondence. He held up three magenta envelopes which contained letters from the Princess and smiled broadly. Selim of the quiet studious foxy expression was a Copt and had all the reserve and resilience of that enigmatic race or sect. He smiled rarely, and always grimly, for preference at the discomforture or defeat of others less wily than he. But he was an admirable diplomat. They chatted like old friends in the car on the way to Brown’s, and the Prince delivered his news which Selim was burning to hear. “As I told you in my telegram from Geneva – not the one en clair – Lord Galen committed an incoherence in Germany, but it was useful to me. I have it from the highest authority that they will not move for a while yet. These peace parleys and last-minute attempts to find a solution will be allowed to fizzle away for a while. Then …” He cut the air with his palm. “As for the Italians they have orders to do nothing for fear of upsetting Arab opinion. The build-up is purely a defensive act; even the British are not unduly alarmed. They know the Italian capacity for making mud-pies.” So the talk went on, and the gloating Selim was delighted by Hassad’s lucidity and the compactness of his mind. There were at least two long telegrams in the matter.
Meanwhile Abdel Sami Pasha, now long retired, had asked him to lunch at his club, and all that remained was to ask for official permission to send a private telegram en clair to his wife. There was nothing to fear about this either, in spite of the dramatic overloading of the wires due to the war situation. “The only thing,” said Selim, “is, I did not ring the verger of St. Mary’s – it looks like rain today.” The Prince said that he would do that himself after lunch with Sami; Selim bowed his head, and after consulting a pocket memorandum said that that was all the business he had for the Prince. “How long will you stay?” he asked. “Just a couple of sunsets! After that I must get back to Provence and get the P. and O. to cart all my affairs back to Egypt. It’s all arranged. And Farouk is sending the royal yacht to Marseille. No problems at all, as you see, my dear Selim.”
They embraced warmly, with genuine warmth, for had they not been brothers in arms “in the Diplomatic”?
It did not take Hassad long to arrange his possessions in the Hotel and then to take a taxi to the gloomy old reception rooms of Sami’s club in Burlington Street. They had not met for quite a time and the older man had become very white and frail. The Prince greeted him tenderly and said: “Excellence, you have venerable-ised and so have I.” It was the polite way of dealing with the matter in Arabic. They talked shop for a while and his European news was duly delivered and debated. For his part the old man announced that the British would buy the whole cotton crop for that year – one problem less. “But,” he went on sadly, “poor Egypt, so divided! Everyone is on a different side. Everyone hates the English, yes, but who loves the Germans except Maher? Farouk favours the Italians, but only because they are weaker even than us. … What a business!” They ate their slow lunch to the tune of a good wine. “As for you, young man,” said the old diplomat, “I do not wish to reproach you, but from what I hear your life has become very … very vivid!” The word was exquisitely apt. Sami prided himself upon the fine apposite Arabic of his despatches. “Vivid is the word,” the Prince admitted, and hung his head. “What does Fawzia think?” said Sami – he loved them both like his own children. The Prince said: “She gave me a terrible shock and that started everything off.” He sighed heavily. Sami said: “Was she untrue to you?” The Prince reflected deeply and laid down his knife and fork before he answered. Then in a low choked voice he said: “She became a journalist.”
Sami was silent – a silence of sympathy and commiseration. “Goodness!” he said at last. “Under her own name?” But here the Prince shook his head; at least it had been under a pseudonym. But the basic fact was there. “We drifted apart after that, I don’t know why. In Geneva they tell me it is the menopause, that it will last three years, and then go away.”
“That is quite different,” said Sami with relief. “If it is an illness. Now my prostate …”
The conversation prolonged itself over coffee and cigars until it came time to say goodbye which they did with a tender sadness – who knew when they might see each other again in this uncertain world? Rain had begun to fall, a light spring rain, and the whole prospect became blurred like a window-pane. The porter’s taxi drew up and the Prince got into it ordering the cabby to drive to Battersea. It was a very unpromising weather for tea-time and he hesitated a moment, wondering if he should not rather go to Simpson’s for a crumpet and an Indian Tea. But he wanted to read his beloved’s letters at St. Mary’s, so that he could tell her so in the long cable Selim would send to her tonight. The place would most likely be locked, but if by luck the key was in the ’ole … It was! The creaky lock turned and admitted him to the empty church which smelt of varnish and industrial floor-polish. He tip-toed in, why he did not rightly know; perhaps so that he should not disturb old ghosts? The rain rustled on the roofs and on the water of the river. A wind shook the foliage of the trees. There was only just enough light to see. He sat in the Master’s chair to read his precious correspondence which was full, not only of the unwavering affection of this model wife, but also with the delicious small-talk of family life – essential information about children’s teeth and examinations and local scandals. The Nile had behaved very capriciously and had risen by fifteen feet in a night, washing away the little turret and hexagonal tower which she had been building for him – somewhere where he could “get away from everything and just sit and think”. “Drat!” said the Prince. It was an old-fashioned expression he had picked up from his nanny. “Drat!”
Ruefully he thought of the period when he himself had been just as zealously faithful to her, just as single-minded. For years. Then suddenly in middle life shadows had fallen upon him; irrational fears of impotence, of glandular disorders, had been among them – and others less tangible. But he felt that he could not discuss such matters with anyone in any detail – unless it be a psychoanalyst of equal social rank to himself. And where to find such a person? It was a real dilemma! He had even consulted witches: to no purpose. Ordinary doctors gave him ordinary advice, prescribed tonics with unnerving names. But he hoped that they at least would be proved right, and that this period of delightful frenzy would come to an end and leave him in peace once more.
He read on slowly, voluptuously, and as he did so the evening outside suddenly lightened with some rays of unexpected sunlight. Tucking the letters back in their envelopes, which smelt of frangipani, he crossed the church with his light step and threw open the door. The whole sky was a sheet of flame! It was as if Turner himself had come back to welcome him, to give him a last sunset before the end. It might be years yet before he saw another. He did not take the heavy chair but sat upon the steps to inhale the dying light of the sun as it bobbed down to the rim of the horizon. It was like watching a stained-glass window being slowly shattered. And it was for him he felt, – for them both. He took the letters out and kissed them for the sake of old memories. A line came into his head, “An Empire upon which the sun never sets.” It was setting now over England! And by the same token, towards the north a balloon was going up – lurching heavily, greasily, awkwardly, up above the river. But what nonsense! The real Empire was in the primacy of the human imagination and that must always outlast the other kinds, or so he had believed. The sun was setting, the balloon was going up. He must return to his hotel and make his plans for the end of the week. He replaced the key reverently in the ‘ole and walked back to the bridge.
At the hotel he found that Sami had sent his manservant with a bottle of medicine for him – for his “condition”, so the visiting card said. It had a terrifying Arabic label and was clearly full of sherbert, the standard Cairo cure for impotence. It was called SFOUM, and that was roughly the noise it made when water was poured on it. One dose was enough. The rest he emptied down the sink. That night he walked a while in the park and then took a cab for half an hour to see the sights, Piccadilly, Oxford Street, the Palace. Who knew how long before he might see them again? But his long cable to his wife went off punctually, as Selim had promised.
* See Appendix.
EIGHT
Lord Galen’s Farewell
DIRECTLY UPON HIS ARRIVAL IN PROVENCE LORD Galen, with a characteristic gesture, invited everyone to dinner – as one might call a committee-meeting to announce a bankruptcy. It was rather fine of him; one saw his essential kindness and innocence. He did not wish to disguise his shame; he stood in front of his own fireplace, empty in the summer save for a basket of blue sea-lavender which gathered dust but withered not, and he allowed a tear to course down his tired cheek as they came into the room, Felix, Constance, Blanford, and Sam resplendent in his “heroics”, as he called his service-dress. The old man held out his two hands, asking only that they should be pressed in sympathy after his tragic blunder. Blanford found it moving so to demand the silent commiseration of friendship from them, and his heart went out to Galen. Max blew his violet nose in noisy sympathy and prepared them drinks – whisky mostly, from the ancient cut-glass decanter which had been the gift of a business friend with good taste. The Prince had not yet arrived. Galen hoped he wouldn’t suddenly give his eldritch chuckle during dinner.
“I do not need to tell you about my mistake,” he said meekly, without theatre, “for you know already! The Prince and I escaped just in time. I have lost a fortune and betrayed my own folk. Nobody will ever speak to me again in Manchester.” He hung his head.
He had actually prepared them for this dénouement in the document he had sent Constance by way of a dinner invitation. There was nothing to say; he was most lovable at that moment.
He turned, sighing, to place his glass upon the mantelshelf; the remains of his old cat Wombat gave a low gasp. It reminded him for a moment of the Prince’s chuckle, and he frowned upon the memory. “It has been a calamity,” he admitted, “and the whole thing my fault. Crest-fallen is the word. Yes, I am quite crest-fallen!” He bowed his head briefly and in some mysterious way managed to give the impression of an old rooster with bowed crest.
Shyly, from the depths of their youth, they raised their friendly glasses to toast him and to register their concern and affection; and at that moment there came the characteristic rumble of the Prince’s coach as it drew up before the house, all its damascened paintwork glittering with high polish, and even its horses burnished and cockaded in the best pantomime tradition. Blanford had last seen this sort of thing at the Old Vic, when Cinderella was carted off to the ball in her transmogrified pumpkin. Quatrefages rode with the little man. He had become very friendly with the Prince, who for his part treated him with affectionate familiarity, often throwing an arm round his shoulder as he talked. (“Il est redoutable, le Prince” explained the lean youth to Blanford during the evening; “il connaît tous les bordels de la région.”) It was not surprising, for the Prince like a good Egyptian had taken the precaution of calling on the Chief of Police during his first week in the city, and of inviting him for a ride in his coach. His knowledge now (compared to the limited knowledge of Quatrefages) was all but encyclopaedic. Lord Galen, however, while full of respect for the blue blood of the Prince, steadfastly refused to share the pursuits of the royal amorist. “He must have his little spree,” he might say, cocking his head roguishly, “but I need my eight hours!” Nor did the Prince insist, for he had all the tact of a gentleman of the old school. He went about on his lawful occasions, secure in the knowledge that apart from the factor of diplomatic privilege accorded him, he also enjoyed the esteem and respect of the Chief of the Police des Moeurs, who was not above giving him a ring at the hotel to pass the time of day. But he had, in a relatively brief delay, accumulated a lot of new acquaintances whose appearance was not somehow altogether reassuring to Lord Galen. There is an indefinable something which makes a gentleman who belongs to the milieu. It exudes from his person – some of the heavy slothful quality that emanates from the person of a great banker, or a promoter of national schemes which collapse in dust, or of an international criminal, a diplomat, a Pope. The Prince’s hotel was now full of sinister silent oracular personages, who spent hours locked up with him, discussing business or (who knows?) pleasures as yet to be experienced. There was a heavy air of mystery which hung about the velvet-lined double suite of the Prince. The telephone was always going. They smiled, these dark hirsute people, but the smile was not full of loving kindness; the smile was like the crêpe on a coffin.
“I wonder who all these new people are,” said old Galen in perplexity. “I ask him but he just says they are associates.” He was a little bit put out by the Prince’s discretion, and also a tiny bit anxious lest promising business mergers might be taking place just behind his back. At any event it was past worrying about, as he had decided that, in the light of the general war situation, his best move was to return home and brave the critics. After all, not everyone might be abreast of his activities; and this fearful mistake might as yet be hushed up. But he was very sad, he lay awake at nights and brooded; and in the deepening twilight of peace, dissolving now all round them, he felt the renewed ache of his missing daughter. So far all his expensive researches had yielded nothing concrete, though at times Quatrefages hinted that fruitful discoveries were just around the corner, not only on this topic but on the more challenging one of the Templar treasure – that mouth-watering project which, though he could not foresee it now, was to cause him the unwelcome attentions of the Nazis who were to prove hardly less romantic in their intellectual investments than Lord Galen himself.
But all this lay in
the fastnesses of the futurity; tonight was a quiet and sedate affair, imbued with a valedictory atmosphere. He bade them welcome to one of the finest dinners one could command in the region and the amateur gourmets of Tu Duc did ample justice to it. But they were sorry when the old man said: “I have just decided to return to London the day after tomorrow. Things are slowly going from bad to worse and I feel that I must be at my post in the old country if the die is cast and England finds herself at war.” It was true, he was moved by a patriotic impulse, but it was mixed with the feeling that it would be more prudent to be nearer his investments. (As a matter of fact, as the Prince explained to Quatrefages, he was not going to London at all, but to Geneva.) He was just naturally secretive, he did not want gossip. And yet, with half his mind, he felt the welling up of warm sentiments for the Old Country. Tonight he talked in a warmly human way of what might be expected to happen after the hypothetical war – for even now the whole thing seemed such madness that one half expected a last-minute compromise or perhaps an assassination to change the trend of things. “We must move steadily towards greater justice and great equality of opportunity,” said the old man, appearing to be unaware that such sentiments had been expressed before. He filled them with his own pure and innocent conviction. At such times he would actually inflate his breast, almost levitate, with idealism and emotion. He wished the whole world to have a second helping. Usually this was after dinner over a fine à l’eau and with his Juliet drawing smooth as silk.
The Prince also seemed a little sad and withdrawn into himself; he did not like partings and there were partings in the air now – just when he had stumbled upon several very promising lines of activity with his new associates. When Galen first probed him he did not reply directly in order not to shock the old man unduly. It was also a bit from a desire to keep his new friends as far as possible to himself. He had been carefully and conscientiously studying their portraits in the police files which had been placed at his disposal by the head of the Gendarmerie, who had himself been offered a marvellous job in Cairo at an excellent salary, in order to train the Egyptian police. The whole situation was full of promise – only this wretched war threatened to compromise his initiative; if only one could be sure that France would remain free. … He thought of the great gallery of photographs of his new friends: Pontia, Merlib, Zogheb, Akkad.… Such prognathous jaws, such cuttlefish regards, such jutting forelocks, such rhinoceroid probosces! It was wonderful! Yet they all looked just like great religious figures, like Popes in mufti. He stroked their images mentally like so many imaginary cats. Perhaps he should tease Galen? He gave his dry little clicky chuckle, and saw his host stiffen with pain. “You ask about my new associates?” he said. “I wonder if you would be surprised if I told you they were all bishops and abbots and chaplains and parish priests – all religious men?” Galen looked really startled and the Prince released another dry click of a chuckle, though this time he softly struck his knee and followed it up with a laugh, a small laugh, aimed at the ceiling. He looked like a chicken drinking. Quatrefages, who was in the secret, gave a hardly less wounding guffaw. But Galen could now see that his leg was being pulled. “Indeed so?” he said, slightly huffed, slightly pipped.
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