Pure Juliet

by Stella Gibbons

  It was a rose, of so dark a red as to be almost black, and drenched in some spice-like scent. She deftly caught it, with something of the quickness of her youth. And then a soft, continuous striking together of dark palms began – the Qu’aidans were not precisely clapping, the gesture and sound were too languid to be expressed by the Western word. But undoubtedly it was an approving noise; undoubtedly it was admiring.

  ‘Could anyone have had a lovelier welcome!’ Emma exclaimed. ‘Juliet, aren’t you thrilled?’

  Juliet breathed in the scent of her rose and did not reply.

  ‘I hope we are to have the pleasure of meeting His Highness,’ Frank was saying to Mr Audley. ‘You must forgive us if we’re rather overwhelmed – it’s like walking into The Arabian Nights.’

  Mr Audley, who seemed sleepy, said that the first sight of Qu’aid was apt to leave that effect upon the hundred tourists who were allowed, by ballot, into the city every year, and then suggested that they might like to go to their quarters.

  ‘Should I not! I’m one mass of sand,’ but Alice’s smile glided off Mr Audley’s somnolent features without return.

  ‘Well, Audley, I’m off,’ said the driver and, with a sweeping gesture that included the whole party, a pause, and a lower inclination to Juliet, his white robes vanished into the mass of green, blue and silver.

  ‘Odd type,’ observed Hugh.

  ‘Mum, did you see the old man?’

  ‘No.’ They were following the aide down the curving narrow street lined by the softly clapping crowd. ‘Was there one?’

  ‘He put the Rolls away’ (Piers’ interest in the Rolls was decidedly anthropomorphic) ‘in a sort of shed made in that wall. Cripes! He nipped down that ladder like a kid. I expect he looks after the Rolls and the gate. That’s the kind of job I’d like – but fat chance,’ he ended resignedly.

  Juliet walked on, over cobblestones flattened to smoothness by a thousand years of footsteps. The smell of her rose pleased her, the subdued clapping flattered her, the heat warmed her cool blood, but she was wondering how Hrothgar fared, and thinking that in the hawthorn hedges of Leete the berries must be red. This place did not seem real to her.

  ‘This is all jolly well’ – as in a dream, she heard Edith’s incisive voice behind her – ‘but you just let one of their own women try it on, some piece of intellectual work I mean, and see what she gets.’

  ‘Oh Edith, do shut up.’

  The narrow lane was opening into a vast paved square under the full blaze of the open sky. The continuous soft clapping sounded like the beating of birds’ wings in the dreaming, blazing air.

  ‘What’s that, in the middle there?’ Hugh demanded of Mr Audley, pointing; he was anxious to stop Edith continuing her severe enquiries into the rules governing, and the privileges permitted to, unmarried young women. Mr Audley was looking faintly hunted.

  ‘Those are the wells,’ he said, turning to Hugh with an air of relief. ‘It is His Highness’s wish that all tourists – visitors to Qu’aid – should see the wells before going to their resting places, because without the wells, Qu’aid could not exist, would never have been built. But of course, in your case, if you are all very tired—’

  ‘We are tired, but it’s all so marvellous that we don’t feel it,’ Frank said.

  In a few minutes they were peering wonderingly down into a hollow some forty feet deep; steps cut in the grey-rose rock led to a swiftly running stream, greenish and ice-clear, which sent up a fresh hissing sound. From a little platform cut in the stone above it, two women were lowering jars into the current.

  ‘I suppose it’s been there for hundreds of years.’ Alice’s voice echoed back from the cool, resonant pit.

  ‘Thousands.’ Mr Audley smiled down at her lifted face.

  ‘Yes – Qu’aid was built in 950BC,’ Edith cut in. ‘Surely you know that – and Godfrey de Bouillion – only the Crusaders never got here —’

  ‘Oh blow all that – I never thought I’d hear about him and his lot for the next ten days – cripes, what a ravvy camel,’ said Piers.

  Mr Audley turned towards a second well, resembling the first save that it was deeper; a superb white camel saddled in green and silver was tethered by a white cord to an iron ring sunk in the surrounding circular wall, moving its arrogant great head up and down, and implying, to the fanciful, a sulky contempt for everything in the universe.

  ‘That’s the leader of His Highness’s herd,’ Mr Audley said. ‘They are brought down here to be watered every morning at this time. The people like to see them. Here come the rest.’

  Juliet withdrew her head from a prolonged stare down into the cool shaft, where miniature green ferns sprang from the rocky sides, and gazed at the approaching camels.

  The procession of twenty or so, some of the mares accompanied by high-stepping small clones of themselves, was advancing across the square. The clapping grew louder.

  ‘This herd, too,’ Mark Audley explained, ‘has been in Qu’aid since “time immemorial”. There are legends—’

  ‘Oh do tell us!’ from Emma.

  But Mr Audley was, not effectually, concealing a yawn. ‘The legends are long and complicated,’ was all he said, adding more quickly, ‘His Highness believes that the Qu’aidans draw a – a sense of their own history and importance from the wells, and also that they like to look at the camels. Which are very beautiful,’ he added dreamily, staring at the ground.

  ‘Yes,’ Juliet said. ‘I like them better than the wells,’ she concluded, and Frank dared not glance at his wife.

  When they had seen the third well, which was set between the others and had retained its original rim of uncarved rock, perhaps the remnant of prehistoric mountain rocks which had protected it when it lay in open desert, Mr Audley appeared to observe the general air of droop surrounding the party and said, with as much briskness as his languid voice could manage: ‘Now you must want to rest; it’s only fifty yards or so to the palace.’

  ‘One camel—’ began Piers with the suspicion of a whine, due, his mother thought, to lack of sleep, heat and over-excitement. ‘One of those camels,’ he repeated, ‘looked at me as if he meant to be rude. Of course, I know he can’t help it, his face is – is made like that – but some people – Mum, I’m so thirsty.’

  ‘Ssh, love – in a minute.’

  Clemence was relieved at this point to enter the shadow of a building which filled one entire side of the square.

  It was a palace of dark-rose rock, its myriad windows veiled in lacy white stone, its roofs, placed at differing heights, crowned by white crenellations. Doves swooped and crooned, white as flour, against the rich warmth; every window was a gracious half circle. There were crenellations from which the summits had crumbled, broken fretwork, streaks of darkness from some unknown source down the walls. The place breathed a gentle, sensuous mystery.

  ‘Seems in pretty bad shape,’ said Hugh, as they drew near. ‘Pity, it’s a marvellous piece of architecture.’

  In a moment two soldiers in worn, faded silver uniforms swung open a door of dark wood carved with every intricacy of loop, curve and triangle that geometry would permit, and the party entered a cool courtyard where tall dark green trees rustled and water fell into a wide basin.

  ‘Your rooms are here,’ Mr Audley said, pointing to a circular doorway leading to a stone passage pierced with rays of sunlight. ‘I’ll look in about seven – it’s two now – and take you to dine with His Highness. That is, if you feel up to it.’

  ‘We’d love to!’ Alice exclaimed.

  ‘You were an ass,’ said Edith, when they had gone down the passage into a room whose walls were fretted with intricate patterns of blue, yellow and brown mosaic. ‘It would have been more fun to explore the city. Who wants a sort of Lord Mayor’s banquet?’

  ‘I want something to drink,’ announced Piers. ‘Where’s Mr Audley? Doesn’t seem to be a bell or anything. I suppose we just clap our hands like they do in books—’ and before anyone could sto
p him, he clapped.

  ‘Piers!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘That may have been very rude.’ But a green-robed figure was bowing before them and beaming and staring from one face to another with liveliest curiosity.

  ‘Er – do you speak English?’ Frank began. The general lack of conventional formality, mingled with dream-like beauty, was beginning both to irritate and confuse him.

  ‘Surely, my lord.’ Now the smile was undoubtedly mocking.

  ‘We should like to bathe, please.’

  ‘This way,’ and he glided through a doorway at the other end of the room.

  They followed him through a series of dim, cool, silent chambers, spread with carpets woven in red and turquoise, their walls hung with others in tints of ginger and apricot, to where the greenish water of a sunken bath glimmered.

  ‘I say,’ called Piers, who had darted ahead to explore, ‘do you know what the loo is? You just—’

  ‘Yes, we can imagine. That will do,’ his father said. ‘Thank you – er—’ to the green-clad figure.

  ‘Hassan, my lord.’ A giggle.

  ‘Thank you, Hassan. Er – where is our luggage – bags?’

  Hassan clapped, and a boy not much older than Piers staggered in under the load of their possessions.

  If only they’d go away, I could get at the soap, thought Clemence, as the man and boy remained, smiling, bowing, and frankly staring. She took a hold of herself and said, in a memsahib voice traceable to some far-off ancestress, ‘Thank you, you may both go now. When we have bathed, we should like something to eat.’

  ‘It will be ready, lady. In the room you saw the first time.’

  ‘We will . . . er . . . clap when we want anything,’ Clemence added, with some discomfort. She was being mocked, and did not know what the joke was.

  ‘And I will come,’ said Hassan, with a winning smile that was not in the least deferential and, with a gesture to the staring boy.

  When they both departed, Clemence sighed, ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Very peculiar,’ said Hugh. ‘Mum, flip a coin for first bath?’

  ‘Girls go in first. I’ll collapse if I don’t get this sand off me. What gorgeous towels,’ as they rapidly undressed. ‘They must be two inches thick. Juliet? Not coming in?’

  There followed blissful shrieks and splashing.

  ‘I’ll wait till you’ve finished,’ Juliet said. She took a walk round the edge of the pool, examining the wall tiles and avoiding glancing at the white shapes in the water.

  ‘Where’s Juliet?’ asked Frank quickly, as his freshly washed females returned to what they already thought of as the living-room.

  ‘Calm yourself, Pa, she’s bathing. She didn’t want to bathe with us,’ said Alice.

  ‘I’m not fussing,’ Frank said irritably, as they arranged themselves upon cushioned divans, ‘but she’s hardly spoken since we left El Oued.’

  ‘She’s homesick,’ Emma said.

  ‘She’s what?’

  ‘Homesick? Juliet? How on earth do you know?’

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘Told you? Juliet?’

  ‘Yes. When we were going across the courtyard to those wells. She said, “I wish I was back home, Emmie.” I could smite anyone who calls me Emmie,’ she added mildly.

  ‘Well,’ Clemence shook her head. ‘How – very surprising.’

  ‘But very satisfactory,’ muttered Frank.

  30

  Juliet dressed slowly, enjoying the sensation of clean clothes against her de-sanded skin. She liked, too, listening to the silence, unbroken save for the far-off ripple of a fountain, and breathing the scent of dried flowers and spices and sun-warmed stone.

  But she was thinking of her birds and animals at home; it was not anxiety, but an intent, hovering interest which made her present surroundings appear unreal.

  She smoothed her greying hair into its accustomed knot; she felt very tired.

  ‘You didn’t mind our beginning, did you – we were all starving,’ Clemence said, with a vague feeling that deference should be paid to the award-winner.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ Juliet said, as she settled herself next to Emma and at the trays of food.

  There were piles of thin pastry a foot wide, strips of what looked like cold roasted meat, delicate little bowls full of sugar-powdered sweetmeats, and the last tray was laden with peeled apricots and peaches. Dates there appeared to be none.

  ‘You must eat something,’ Clemence said. ‘You’ll need your strength.’

  ‘I’m going to explore,’ said Piers, and bounded away. In a few minutes, to the secret relief of his mother, he was back.

  ‘I say, there are a lot of little rooms like cells in a nick, only they’ve got cushions on the floors. I’ve bagged mine; it’s got a horse on the wall.’ He stood on his head and waved his legs.

  ‘Mum, can’t we go to sleep until it’s time for the Emir’s “do”? I’m nearly asleep now,’ Emma said.

  ‘Yes, if you leave time to make yourselves look really nice – I don’t want us to disgrace the occasion.’

  Clemence was too full of food and too sleepy to heed Edith’s mutter about ‘sexist rubbish’, and soon the silence in the guest chambers was complete, save for that far-off falling of water upon water that recalled all the music of Vivaldi and Couperin.

  As they followed Mark Audley down the corridor some hours later, awe gradually checked all comment.

  Darkness had fallen: through the half circles of the windows they could see a pale sky neither blue nor violet where the round stars burned; the rooms and corridors traversed were lit by single lamps in pottery containers of antique shapes, or left in deep shadow. Hassan followed at the end of the procession, in silence. They saw no other servants.

  Juliet had, without persuasion, put on a long skirt, as had the other women. As usual, hers was ‘sandy or tan or something’, as Alice had resignedly muttered, but the stiff, full folds gave an amplitude to her narrow body, and the blouse was flecked with gold threads. Clemence, Alice, Emma and Edith had all hung over her while she screwed up her hair; not a wisp protruded. Clemence, watching her hastily twist it up, thought rather sadly that no one, seeing the scanty handful, would guess at its beauty when Juliet was seventeen.

  Mark Audley pushed open a door and they followed him, as he stood politely aside, into the most beautiful room they had yet seen.

  Small, oval, yet lofty, its long windows opened on the darkening sky, in which the very crescent of Islam was now riding; the ceiling was intricately carved white woodwork and the walls of turquoise mosaic.

  In this setting, the purple robes of eleven old men seated about a wide, low table glowed as if incandescent: six were on one side of a slight young man in fiery green, and five on the other, and all wore abundant or scanty white beards. Mr Audley wore a white suit which (thought Clemence, with satisfaction) needed pressing.

  ‘Miss Slater and her family, Your Highness,’ drawled the aide, and the young man slowly and deeply inclined his picturesque head, in such a manner as to convey the impression that he had risen to his feet.

  The Emir spoke rapidly and smilingly, and Mark Audley turned to Frank.

  ‘His Highness welcomes you to Qu’aid. He hopes that you are refreshed. He asks me to tell you that these – er – gentlemen are the learned doctors of the University of Qu’aid.’

  He paused as the Emir paused, and there followed an exhaustive list of the doctors’ full names and titles.

  Clemence had been wondering where they were to sit.

  At the conclusion of Mr Audley’s recitation – ‘and the most Venerable and Learned Ayatollah Khalid Lebardi, Ruler under Allah the All-Merciful of the University of Qu’aid’ – she suddenly noticed a smaller table with attendant cushions at the side of the doctor on the extreme right.

  His speech concluded, Mr Audley was silent, and she found servants – appearing as usual from nowhere – gently ushering mother and daughters towards it. Mr Audley had put two fingers under Frank’s
elbow, and was steering him towards the empty place beside the Emir.

  ‘Tomorrow evening, when she has received her doctorate, Miss Slater will take the seat, now empty, at His Highness’s right hand,’ Mr Audley was murmuring as they went, and Frank, trying to avoid falling over numerous cushions, managed to mutter that it was a great honour.

  ‘Mum! They’ve put us by ourselves at that little table because we’re women! It’s an insult – can’t you tell that Audley—’

  ‘Edith! Be quiet at once.’ And Edith, who was (in spite of ardent feminism, and an unusually good brain, and an obstinacy amounting to a form of genius) only fifteen, was quiet.

  And then, to Clemence’s relief, they were comfortably seated and Frank was settled on the right of the Emir, with Hugh a few places away and Piers . . . why, Piers had been shown to a little table where sat a boy of his own age, all green robes and sparkling inquisitive eyes. Hands were before her own eyes, holding out food on trays which (and her eyes took nearly a minute to take in the fact and to believe it) were made of gold.

  So was the fretted surface of the table. Clemence clawed a small handful of something exotic out of the great tray and put a piece of it into her mouth, and wished that she were at home, reading Mrs Pepperpot to Josh. The feast proceeded, for her, like a dream, beautiful to look at and disagreeable to experience. Edith muttered indignantly at intervals, Frank was conversing animatedly and apparently interestedly with the Emir, Piers and his bird-eyed companion were exchanging sentences and grins. Dish after dish appeared, was tasted, and vanished. The air remained cool; the stars burned larger, and the doctors continued to stare at Juliet, composedly eating, and she stared back.

  Finally, sweetmeats and bowls of scented water appeared. When all had nibbled, and dried their fingers on fine linen napkins, the Emir rose, bowed to the party from the West, and left, followed by the doctors in a tottering procession with no signs of farewell to anyone.