He saw two other persons kneeling above that fire on the desert floor, two persons familiar to him, yet whom he could not wholly recognise. In that amazing second, while his heart stopped beating, it seemed as if thought in anguish cried aloud: ‘So, there you are! I have the proof!’ while yet all verification of the tragic ‘you’ remained just out of reach and undisclosed.
He did not recognise two persons whom he knew, while yet some portion of him keenly, fiercely searching, dived back into the limbo of unremembered time.… A thin blue smoke rose before his face, and to his nostrils stole a delicate perfume as of ambra. It was a picnic fire no longer. It was an Eastern woman he saw lean forward across the gleam of a golden brazier and yield a kiss to the lips of a man who claimed it passionately. He saw her small hands folded and clinging about his neck. The face of the man he could not see, the head and shoulders being turned away, but hers he saw clearly — the dark, lustrous eyes that shone between half-closed eyelids. They were highly placed in life, these two, for their aspect as their garments told it; the man, indeed, had gold about him somewhere and the woman, in her mien, wore royalty. Yet, though he but saw their hands and heads alone, he knew instinctively that, if not regal, they were semi-regal, and set beyond his reach in power natural to them both. They were high-born, the favoured of the world. Inferiority was his who watched them, the helpless inferiority of subordinate position. That, too, he knew… for a gasp of terror, though quickly smothered terror, rose vividly behind an anger that could gladly — kill.
There was a flash of fiery and intolerable pain within him.…
The next second he saw merely — Lettice! — blowing the smoke from her face and eyes, with an impatient little gesture of both hands, while in front of her knelt Tony — fanning a reluctant fire of sticks and paper with his old felt hat.
He had been gazing at a coloured bubble, the bubble had burst into air and vanished, the entire mood and picture vanished with it — so swiftly, so instantaneously, moreover, that Tom was ready to deny the entire experience.
Indeed, he did deny it. He refused to credit it. It had been, surely, a feeling rather than a sight. But the feeling having utterly vanished, he discredited the sight as well. The fiery pain had vanished too. He found himself watching the semi-comical picture of de Lorne and Lady Sybil flirting in dumb action, and Tony and Lettice trying to make a fire without the instinct or ability to succeed. And, incontinently, he burst out laughing audibly.
Yet, apparently, his laughter was not heard; he had made no actual sound. There was, instead, a little scream, a sudden movement, a scurrying of feet among the sand and stones, and Lettice and Tony rose upon one single impulse, as once before he had seen them rise in Karnak weeks ago. They stood up like one person. They looked about them into the surrounding shadows, disturbed, afflicted, yet as though they were not certain they had heard… and then, abruptly, the figure of Tony went out… it disappeared. How, precisely, was not clear, but it was gone into the darkness.…
And another picture — or another aspect of the first — dropped into place. There was an outline of a shadowy tent. The flap was stirring lightly, as though behind it some one hid — and watched. He could not tell. A deep confusion, as of two pictures interfused, was in him. For somehow he transferred his own self — was it physical desire? was it spiritual yearning? was it love? — projected his own self into the figure that had kissed her, taking her own passionate kiss in return. He actually experienced it. He did this thing. He had done it — once before! Knowing himself beside her, he both did it and saw himself doing it. He was both actor and onlooker.…
There poured back upon him then, sweet and poignant, his love of an Egyptian woman, the fragrance of remembered tresses, the perfume of fair limbs that clung and of arms that lingered round his neck — yet that in the last moment slipped from his full possession. He was on his knees before her; he gazed up into her ardent eyes, set in a glowing face above his own; the face bent lower; he raised two slender hands, the fingers henna-stained, and pressed them to his lips. He felt their silken texture, the fragile pressure, her breath upon his face — yet all sharply withdrawn again before he captured them completely. There was the odour of long-forgotten unguents, sweet with a tang that sharpened them towards desire in days that knew a fiercer sunlight.… His brain went reeling. The effort to keep one picture separate from the other broke them both. He could not disentangle, could not distinguish. They intermingled. He was both the figure hidden behind the tent and the figure who held the woman in his arms. What his heart desired became, it seemed, that which happened.…
And then the flap of the tent flung open, and out rushed a violent, leaping outline — the figure of a man. Another — it seemed himself — rushed to meet him. There was a gleam, a long deep cry.… A woman, with arms outstretched, knelt close beside the struggling figures on the sand. He saw two huge, dark, muscular hands about a bent and yielding neck, blood oozing thickly between the gripping fingers, staining them… then sudden darkness that blacked out the entire scene, and a choking effort to find breath.… But it was his own breath that failed, choked as by blood and fire that broke into his own throat.… Smothered in sand, the centuries roared past him, died away into the distance, sank back into the interminable desert.… He found his voice this time. He shouted.
He saw again — Lettice, blowing the smoke from her face and eyes with an impatient little gesture of both hands, while Tony knelt in front of her and fanned a reluctant fire with his old felt hat. The picture — the second picture — had been instantaneous. It had not lasted a fraction of a second even.
He shouted. And this time his voice was audible. Lettice and Tony stood up, as though a single person rose. Both turned in the direction of the sound. Then Tony moved off quickly. Tom’s vision had interpenetrated this very action even while it was actually taking place — the first time.
‘Why — I do declare — if it isn’t — Tom!’ he heard in a startled woman’s voice.
He came down towards her slowly. Something of the ‘pictures’ still swam in between what was next said and done. It seemed in the atmosphere, pervading the three of them. But it was weakening, passing away quickly. For one moment, however, before it passed, it became overpowering again.
‘But, Tom — is this a joke, or what? You frightened me,’ — she gave a horrid gasp— ‘nearly to death! You’ve come back —— !’
‘It’s a surprise,’ he cried, trying to laugh, though his lips were dry and refused the effort. ‘I have surprised you. I’ve come back!’
He heard the gasp prolonged. Breathing seemed difficult. Some deep distress was in her. Yet, in place of pity, exultation caught him oddly. The next instant he felt suddenly afraid. There was confusion in his soul. For it was he and she, it seemed, who had been ‘surprised and caught.’ And her voice called shrilly:
‘Tony! Tony…!’
There was amazement in the sound of it — terror, relief, and passion too. The thin note of fear and anguish broke through the natural call. Then, as Tony came running up, a few sticks in his big hands — she screamed, yet with failing breath:
‘Oh, oh…! Who are you…?’
For the man she summoned came, but came too swiftly. Moving with uncertain gait, he yet came rapidly — terribly, somehow, and with violence. Instantaneously, it seemed, he covered the intervening space. In the calm, sweet moonlight, beneath the blaze of the steady stars, he suddenly was — there, upon that patch of ancient desert sand. He looked half unearthly. The big hands he held outspread before him glistened a little in the shimmer of the moon. Yet they were dark, and they seemed menacing. They threatened — as with some power he meant to use, because it was his right. But the gleam upon them was not of swarthy skin alone. The gleam, the darkness, were of blood.… There was a cry again — a sound of anguish almost intolerable.…
And the same instant Tom felt the clasp of his cousin’s hand upon his own, and heard his jolly voice with easy, natural laughter in it: ‘But, To
m, old chap, how ripping! You’re really back! This is a grand surprise! It’s splendid!’
There was nothing that called upon either his courage or control. They were overjoyed to see him, the surprise he provided proved indeed the success of the evening.
‘I thought at first you were Mohammed with the kettle,’ exclaimed Madame Jaretzka, coming close to make quite sure, and murmuring quickly — nervously as well, he thought— ‘Oh, Tom, I am so glad,’ beneath her breath. ‘You’re just in time — we all wanted you so.’
Explanations followed; Tony’s friends had postponed the Cairo trip at the last moment; the picnic had been planned as a rehearsal for the real one that was to follow later. Tom’s adroitness in finding them was praised; he became the unwilling hero of the piece, and as such had to make the fire a success and prove himself generally the clou of the party that hitherto was missing. He became at once the life and centre of the little group, gay and in the highest spirits, the emotion accumulated in him discharging itself in the entirely unexpected direction of hilarious fun and gaiety.
The sense of tragedy he had gathered on his journey, if it muttered at all, muttered out of sight. He looked back upon his feelings of an hour before with amazement, dismay, distress — then utterly forgot them. The picture itself — the vision — was as though it had not been at all. What, in the name of common sense, had possessed him that he could ever have admitted such preposterous uneasiness? He thought of Mrs. Haughstone’s absurd warnings with a sharp contempt, and felt his spirits only rise higher than before. She was meanly suspicious about nothing. Of course he would give Lettice a hint: why not, indeed? He would give it then and there before them all and hear them laugh about it till they cried. And he would have done so, doubtless, but that he realised the woman’s jealousy was a sordid topic to introduce into so gay a party.
‘You arrived in the nick of time, Tom,’ Lettice told him. ‘We were beginning to feel the solemnity of these surroundings, the awful Tombs of the Kings and Priests and people. Those cliffs are too oppressive for a picnic.’
‘A fact,’ cried Tony. ‘It feels like sacrilege. They resent us being here.’ He glanced at Madame Jaretzka as he said it. ‘If you hadn’t come, Tom, I’m sure there’d have been a disaster somewhere. Anyhow, one must feel superstitious to enjoy a place like this. It’s the proper atmosphere!’
Lettice looked up at Tom, and added, ‘You’ve really saved us. The least we can do is to worship the sun the moment he gets up. We’ll adore old Amon-Ra. It’s obvious. We must!’
They made themselves merry over a rather sandy meal. She arranged a place for him close beside her, and her genuine pleasure at his unexpected return filled him with a joy that crowded out even the memory of other emotions. The mixture called Tom Kelverdon asserted itself: he felt ashamed; he heartily despised his moods, wondering whence they came so strangely. Tony himself was quiet and affectionate. If anything was lacking, Tom’s high spirits carried him too boisterously to notice it. Otherwise he might possibly have thought that she spoke a little sharply once or twice to Tony, neglecting him in a way that was not quite her normal way, and that to himself, even before the others, she was unusually — almost too emphatically — dear and tender. Indeed, she seemed so pleased he had come that a cynical observer, cursed with an acute, experienced mind, might almost have thought she showed something not far from positive relief. But Tom, too happy to be sensitive to shades of feminine conduct, was aware chiefly, if not solely, of his own joy and welcome.
‘You didn’t get my letter, then, before you left?’ she asked him once; and he replied, ‘The answer, as in Parliament, is in the negative. But it will be forwarded all right.’ He would get it the following night. ‘Ah, but you mustn’t read it now,’ she said. ‘You must tear it up unread,’ and made him promise faithfully he would obey. ‘I wrote to you too,’ mentioned Tony, as though determined to be left out of nothing. ‘You’ll get it at the same time. But you mustn’t tear mine up, remember. It’s full of advice and wisdom you badly need.’ And Tom promised that faithfully as well. The reply was in the affirmative.
The bivouac was a complete success; all looked back upon it as an unforgettable experience. They declared, of course, they had not slept a wink, yet all had snored quite audibly beneath the wheeling stars. They were fresh and lively enough, certainly, when the sun poured his delicious warmth across the cloudless sky, while Tom and Tony made the fire and set the coffee on for breakfast.
Of the marvellous beauty that preceded the actual sunrise no one spoke; it left them breathless rather; they watched the sky beyond the hills change colour; great shafts of gold transfixed the violet heavens; the Nile shone faintly; then, with a sudden drive, the stars rushed backwards in a shower, and the amazing sun came up as with a shout. Perfumes that have no name rose from the desert and the fields along the distant river banks. The silence deepened, for no birds sang. Light took the world — and it was morning.
And when the donkey-boys arrived at eight o’clock, the party were slow in starting: it was so pleasant to lie and bask in the sumptuous bath of heat and light that drenched them. The night had been chilly enough. They were a tired party. Once home again, all retired with one accord to sleep, remaining invisible until the sun was slanting over Persia and the Indian Ocean, gilding the horizon probably above the starry skies of far Cathay.
But as Tom dozed off behind the shuttered windows in the hotel towards eleven o’clock, having bathed and breakfasted a second time, he thought vaguely of what Mrs. Haughstone had said to him a few hours before. It seemed days ago already. He was too drowsy to hold the thought more than a moment in his mind, much less to reflect upon it. ‘It may be just as well to give a hint,’ occurred to him. ‘Tony is a bit too fond of her — too fond for his happiness, perhaps.’ Nothing had happened at the picnic to revive the notion; it just struck him as he fell asleep, then vanished; it was a moment’s instinct. The vision — it had been an instantaneous flash after all and nothing more — had left his mind completely for the time.
But Tom looked back afterwards upon the all-night bivouac as an occasion marked specially in memory’s calendar, yet for a reason that was unlike the reasons his companions knew. He remembered it with mingled joy and pain, also with a wonder that he could have been so blind — the last night of happiness in his brief Egyptian winter.
CHAPTER XX.
He slept through the hot hours of the afternoon. In the cool of the evening, as he strolled along the river bank, he read the few lines Lettice had written to him at Assouan. For the porter had handed him half-a-dozen letters as he left the hotel. Tony’s he put for the moment aside; the one from Lettice was all he cared about, quite forgetting he had promised to tear it up unread. It was short but tender — anxious about his comfort and well-being in a strange hotel ‘when I am not there to take care of you.’ It ended on a complaint that she was ‘tired rather and spending my time at full length on a deck-chair in the garden.’ She promised to write ‘at greater length to-morrow.’
‘Instead of which,’ thought Tom with a boy’s delight, ‘I surprised her and we talked face to face.’ But for the Arab touts who ran beside him, offering glass beads made in Birmingham, he could have kissed the letter there and then.
The resplendent gold on the river blinded him, he was glad to enter the darker street and shake off the children who pestered him for bakshish. Passing the Savoy Hotel, he hesitated a moment, then went on. ‘No, I won’t call in for Tony; I’ll find her alone, and we’ll have a cosy little talk together before the others come.’ He quickened his pace, entered the shady garden, discovered her instantly, and threw himself down upon the cushions beside her deck-chair. ‘Just what I hoped,’ he said, with pleasure and admiration in his eyes, ‘alone at last. That is good luck — isn’t it, Lettice?’
‘Of course,’ she agreed, and smiled lazily, though some might have thought indifferently, as she watched him arranging the cushions. He flung himself back and gazed at her. She wore a dre
ss of palest yellow, and the broad-brimmed hat with the little roses. She seemed part of the flaming sunset and the tawny desert.
‘Well,’ he grumbled playfully, ‘it is true, isn’t it? Our not being alone often, I mean?’ He watched her without knowing that he did so.
‘In a way — yes,’ she said. ‘But we can’t have everything at once, can we, Tom?’ Her voice was colourless perhaps. A tiny frown settled for an instant between her eyes, then vanished. Tom did not notice it. She sighed. ‘You baby, Tom. I spoil you dreadfully, and you know I do.’
He liked her in this quiet, teasing mood; it was often the prelude to more delightful spoiling. He was in high spirits. ‘You look as fresh as a girl of sixteen, Lettice,’ he declared. ‘I believe you’re only this instant out of your bath and bed. D’you know, I slept like a baby too — the whole afternoon — —’
He interrupted himself, for at that moment a cigarette-case on the sand beside him caught his eye. He picked it up — he recognised it. ‘Yes — I wish you’d smoke,’ she said the same instant, brushing a fly quickly from her cheek.
‘Tony’s,’ he exclaimed, examining the case.
He noticed at the same time several burnt matches between his cushions and her chair.
‘But he’d love you to smoke them: I’ll take the responsibility.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I’m sure they’re good — better than yours; he’s wickedly extravagant.’ She watched him as he took one out, examining the label critically, then lighting it slowly and inhaling the smoke to taste it. There was a faint perfume that clung to the case and its contents. ‘Ambra,’ said Lettice, a kind of watchful amusement in her eyes. ‘You don’t like it!’
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 181