The Weeping Ash

by Joan Aiken

  Half carrying, half leading, he took her to the window, where Cameron and Miss Musson were engaged in eager argument. Cameron turned with an exclamation of approval at the sight of Scylla on her feet and said to Miss Musson:

  “There, you see, ma’am! Now the fever has left her, she will be herself again directly. A sea voyage will be all she needs to complete the cure—”

  “A sea voyage?”

  Scylla looked out of the window and gasped, almost with disbelief. Below her, flat white roofs interspersed with palm heads and brilliantly flowered creepers fell away steeply. Beyond the roofs, more palms, green and feathery. And beyond those a dazzling background of blue that was almost green, green that was almost blue, stretching to the horizon—

  “Is that the sea?” she whispered, and Cameron laughed indulgently.

  “Poor little land babe! Have you never beheld it before?”

  “How could I?” Unaccountably, Scylla felt a rush of weakness and the pricking of tears behind her eyelids. The shock was too great. She had longed, above everything, for the end of their interminable journey, but now the end was here, she was not ready for it. And Cameron had accepted her recovery so matter-of-factly; had not even congratulated her.

  “Help me back to bed,” she whispered to Cal. “I must lie down again.”

  “That’s the dandy; you will have to take things carefully for a day or two—”

  Cal disposed her against her pillows and gave her little Chet to hold.

  “I have been such a burden to you all,” she muttered.

  “Well, yes, we did wonder if you were going to die,” Cal said cheerfully. “But Rob brought you to an old fellow in Baghdad who gave you a great dose of hasheesh or some such stuff; and after that you began to mend. And in a way your illness speeded us on our journey, for in some places folk believed you had the plague, so they were not disposed to be too particular at the customs posts.”

  “Miss Amanda, there is plenty of money left,” Cameron was saying earnestly, by the window. “Enough to pay all your passages—rig you out in the first stare of the mode—”

  “I cannot decide so quickly. I must take time to think.”

  For once, Miss Musson appeared to have lost her power of forming rapid resolutions.

  Scylla murmured to Cal, “But what is the plan? Are we to go to New Bedford? Is not that in America? I thought Miss Musson was to come to England with us?”

  Cameron said rather impatiently to Miss Musson, “Ma’am, I informed the captain that I would give him your decision tonight. He must know directly. He has half a dozen applications for places on his ship; since the Mediterranean has been cleared, everybody wishes to take passage.”

  “What has happened?” Scylla asked Cal.

  “It seems there has been a great sea battle off Egypt; Rear Admiral Nelson defeated the French at Aboukir Bay.”

  “But then—oh, I do not understand!”

  All these rapid developments were too much for Scylla; two large tears of weakness rolled down her cheeks. She bowed her head over little Chet.

  Cameron, looking at her, said calmly:

  “That child should rest again, Cal; we are out of place in this chamber. Miss Amanda, I will await your decision on the terrace.”

  When they had gone, Scylla, already ashamed of her weakness, said, “Ma’am, pray tell me, where are we?”

  “We are in the port of Acre, child. Rob thinks we should not remain here too long, however, for he has heard that the French are marching this way and plan to besiege it—Oh, it is so hard to know what to do for the best!”

  “And is there really a ship going to America?”

  “Yes, to New Bedford; which means that in a little over four months I could be with my brother Henry in Boston. And your voyage to England would be equally easy to arrange, Rob says; you and Cal have only to take passage on some coastal vessel to Alexandria, where there are gracious knows how many French ships that were captured by Admiral Nelson in this battle at the mouth of the Nile; when they have been made seaworthy again, some of them will be dispatched to British ports.”

  “I see; how very simple it all is.”

  And how very relieved Miss Musson and the colonel are to get rid of us, Scylla thought, well aware that the pain she felt at this brisk disposal of her affairs was quite unreasonable; but feeling it nonetheless. Now Miss Musson could set sail to her brother, and Cameron could return to help his friend Mahmud in Afghanistan, and neither of them need waste any more concern on the Paget twins.

  “Of course you must sail on that ship to New Bedford, ma’am,” she said steadily, trying to keep all these feelings out of her voice. “It—it is a chance not to be missed. It—it seems like the finger of Providence.”

  “Well—perhaps it does.” The older women walked about restlessly, then came to sit on a stool by the bedside. Absently she picked up little Chet and pressed his smooth cheek against her own. Her deep-set gray eyes looked past Scylla into the distance. She said:

  “I do not like to leave you in such a weak state, my dear child. Do you really think you can manage?”

  “Certainly I do,” Scylla lied stoutly. “Cal will help me—you know how good he is—” A terrifying world of emptiness and desolation opened ahead of her. She gulped and went on. “I daresay there will be English ladies traveling on some of these ships; I might offer my services to one as a companion or nursemaid. And when we reach London we will take little Chet to the Maharajah’s cousin—”

  She spoke almost with irony, but Miss Musson’s tone of reply was absently approving.

  “That’s my good child. I knew you would be able to go on just as you should. I must tell you that I have a reason for wishing to reach America as soon as may be; if you feel confident that you and Cal can contrive to make your way—” Sighing, Miss Musson stood up, then stooped and kissed Scylla’s forehead, returning little Chet to her arms. “Be brave, child; take up each duty as it comes to you; here is the first…” And, with rather a hasty step, she left the room and could be heard, somewhere not far off, saying to Cameron:

  “Rob, I have decided; tell Captain Coffin that I should like a berth on his ship.”

  Scylla noted the approving tone of his lower-pitched reply but could not catch the words; she had turned her head sideways on the cushion and was struggling with a great sob that threatened to overwhelm her. She dared not let it out, lest Miss Musson return; convulsively she hugged little Chet instead.

  * * *

  Two days later she stood on the white-walled terrace of their hired house, watching through a blur of tears while the brown topsail of the Lucy Allerton dwindled and disappeared over the horizon. Cameron had forbidden her to come down to the harborside, saying that she was not strong enough yet.

  Feeling as if all of childhood had been withdrawn from her reach, Scylla shook herself and turned to amuse little Chet with some pottery animals that Cal had brought him. After an hour or so Cal himself returned to report that Cameron had found berths for them on a Lebanese coaster which would be setting sail next day for Alexandria with a cargo of timber.

  “Admiral Nelson wants all the timber in the Middle East, it seems, to mend his ships. It will be rather famous to see half the British navy there! You will be well enough to sail, will you not?”

  “Oh yes, I daresay,” replied Scylla listlessly. “And I am sure Colonel Cameron will be happy to see us disposed of.”

  “He has had a capital notion,” said Cal. “It seems he is acquainted with a certain Captain Capel, whose ship is reported to be at Alexandria now; she is a sloop, a fast vessel used for carrying dispatches; Rob has given me a letter of introduction to Captain Capel—whose life he once saved, or some such thing—”

  “So that we might travel to England on his sloop?”

  “No, no, sapskull!” Cal exclaimed impatiently. “They would not take passe
ngers in a sloop! Or only very important ones. But Rob feels certain that captain Capel would carry a letter for us, to apprize Cousin What’s-her-name Paget that we shall be with her in the space of a few months. And so I have formed a famous plan. I have not been idle while you lay raving in your fever; I have made fair copies of all my poems, and I intend to entrust them to this Captain Capel—Rob says he is a very good-natured, obliging fellow—and ask him, when he reaches London, to have them delivered to John Murray’s, the publishers—they are those fellows with whom Uncle Winthrop used to correspond, if you recall, they issue a monthly magazine and many volumes of poetry; so, with luck, by the time we ourselves reach England, they will already have my work in process of publication, and I shall be in a fair way to becoming famous.”

  “Gracious,” said Scylla weakly. A hundred possibilities for the disappointment of Cal’s expectations occurred to her; she had not the strength to voice one of them. When Cal went on eagerly, “Do you not think that an excellent scheme?” She replied, “Yes; I daresay it will answer very well,” in such a lackluster manner that Cal, studying her closely, exclaimed:

  “I see how it is! You are blue-deviled with having little Chet on your hands for so long. I will take him off to look at the ships. Come, baby!” And he slung the willing Chet over his shoulder and walked off whistling down the steps. Scylla gazed after him with envy. He seemed to have quite forgotten his unappeasable love for Sripana; or, in some way, dispersed it into his poetry. She wished she had a similar outlet.

  Half an hour later, hearing a step ascending the stone stairs, she looked over the parapet, expecting to see Cal returning, but found that it was Colonel Cameron, who climbed slowly up, looking hot and discontented (the month was now August, the weather exceedingly torrid) and dropped down in a basket chair, after glancing about.

  “Where is your brother?”

  “He has taken the baby to see the ships.”

  “Oh.” After a moment he grunted, “Very obliging of him.” Then there was a protracted silence. Scylla felt too weak and sad to attempt engaging Cameron’s interest with any remarks. She reflected that it was probably the first time she had been alone with him for many weeks—perhaps since that abortive scene in the Holy Pir’s cave. And when, she wondered, would she ever be alone with him again? Perhaps never.

  “Are you in truth well enough to set sail tomorrow?” he asked abruptly.

  She tried for a light tone. “Oh, mercy, yes! What is a sea voyage, after all, compared with camel travel? We shall have nothing to do but loll about on deck and enjoy ourselves.” She went on, gathering resolution, “Colonel Cameron, I have long been intending to say this—I fear that I have been nothing but a nuisance and a burden to you from first to last…indeed, the very first time that we met you had to save my life—”

  Momentarily, a half smile twitched his red mustaches at the recollection.

  “Very true! And little did I know then—” he murmured musingly, but did not complete the sentence.

  Scylla continued with difficulty. “I would not wish you to think, sir, that I and my brother are insensible of how great a debt we owe you. I am very sorry indeed that, owing to my stupid carelessness, you have been obliged to travel so far out of your way—”

  He interrupted, with a note of impatience and anger in his voice. “My way? My way? What is my way? I do not have one. My life—compared with any of yours—is unplanned as that of a desert nomad. Miss Musson travels off to look after her brother—and whatever other duty, other purpose, she has in mind. Your brother applies himself to his poems—whether they are good or not I cannot judge, I know nothing of such matters, but he seems very dedicated to the business, I daresay he will make a name for himself. And you, indubitably—for you have the same driving energy—will achieve your ambition of going to London, meeting the great men of the day, mixing with high society—”

  He sounded so bitter that she felt obliged to defend herself. “I can see that you think poorly of such an aim, Colonel. But what is a female to do? We cannot command armies or go to the rescue of princes—we can take no hand in the direction of public affairs. All we may do is go where we can hear such matters discussed. While you are rescuing your friend the Amir Mahmud, I, perhaps, shall be sitting in some London drawing room, listening to gossip about Buonaparte. Is it true that he is about to march for India, to overthrow the British there?”

  “So I have heard it said. It is also said that a French force has landed in Ireland and is about to invade England.”

  Cameron looked at her irresolutely and added, “I did not tell Miss Musson this rumor, in case it might have inclined her to postpone her journey to America. But I am wondering if I do right in encouraging you and your brother to sail to England just now. There might be more safety for you in remaining here.”

  She tried to laugh. “Oh, good heavens, Colonel Cameron, what a poor-spirited pair you must think us. Pray what should we do here? How should we earn our living? We cannot continue to live on your bounty, after all.”

  “How will you earn your living over there?”

  Pretending a confidence she did not feel, she said, “Oh, a dozen different ways, I daresay. I can offer my services to the East India Company as an instructress in Urdu and Punjabi. Besides, Cal is going to make our fortune with his poems. And furthermore, we have our cousin Juliana, whose letter you brought me, who seems so benevolently disposed toward us.”

  “It is now over a year since she wrote the letter. Many things may have happened in the meantime. I would place no dependence on her bounty.”

  “Well, at all events, she may give us introductions—find us openings by means of which we may be enabled to support ourselves.”

  “So that you may contract a rich marriage, you would say?” he said sharply. “You plan to marry some wealthy nobleman and thus contrive to support your brother?”

  “I meant no such thing!” she retorted angrily. “And you take an unwarrantable liberty in supposing it, Colonel Cameron!”

  He replied, irrelevantly and, as it seemed, reluctantly, “Your brother may go and sample the cultural and intellectual life of London if he chooses. I think it would be by far the best thing, Miss Paget, if you remained here and married me. You would be nothing but a lamb among lions there; he will not take much harm, I daresay, but you would fall prey to the first raptor that comes your way.”

  “Colonel Cameron, I am greatly obliged far your charitable impulse, but please understand that such a piece of self-sacrifice is not required of you. Fortunately! I daresay you mean very kindly, but I would wish you to understand that my brother and I will go on perfectly well without your finding it necessary to enter into what must be a most repugnant alliance to you.”

  A flush of red appeared on his cheekbones.

  “It would not be repugnant. You mistake! If my sometimes hasty temper has ever given you the impression—”

  “It would be repugnant to me!” declared Scylla impetuously. “I must always consider myself under a heavy obligation to you, Colonel Cameron, for having come so far out of your way—having done so much, but—but—but”—she was stammering with indignation and the difficulty of expressing herself with proper dignity—“but I am not prepared to be united with somebody whose only motive is a k-kind of reluctant philanthropic—philanthropy! You need not marry me to save me from abduction by amirs, Colonel Cameron, or from any other kind of alliance either—I can manage my own affairs very well, I thank you! In fact—if you were the last man on earth I would not marry you for such a reason—”

  Her voice trembled dangerously.

  “Say no more, ma’am!” He was pale with mortification. “I only regret having embarrassed you with an offer that—that you find so wholly repugnant. I assure you, however, that it was made with the best of intentions.”

  Scylla could not speak; her throat had closed up.

  He said, “Since
nothing but embarrassment can attend upon any future meetings between us, I will arrange to take my departure from here without delay, for I have various arrangements to make with my friends in Baghdad.”

  “Pray feel free to take your departure whenever you wish, Colonel,” she achieved. “I am sure that you must have been impatient to set out for many days past.”

  “I will bid you good-bye, then. I have already portioned out our financial resources between your brother, Miss Musson, and myself,” he added as an afterthought. “I think you will find the funds adequate to get you to England. The rent of the house is paid up to the end of the week.”

  “We—we are obliged for your generosity, Colonel. When—when we reach England we shall be wishful to repay you. Can you give me some direction—”

  “Oh,” he said hastily, “in care of Baba Mustapha at the Street of the Sandal Makers in Baghdad will always find me sooner or later. But no repayment is necessary, I assure you. The funds were intended for us all and have been so shared out. Farewell, Miss Paget.”

  Slowly, she put her hand into the one he extended. Her arm, which had been so swollen with the inflammation, was now thin, weak, and blue-veined; the camel-hair ring Khalzada had given her continually slipped down her finger in spite of its woolen wrappings. She thought he was looking at the ring, but his eyes were on the two little crisscross wounds, still sore and angry-looking, that he had made with the point of his knife on her wrist and hand.

  “I trust that the scars will not remain for too long a period,” he said shortly, gave her hand a brief, firm pressure, turned on his heel, and strode into the house. A moment later she heard a door slam inside; then there was silence.

  Thank heaven that is over, Scylla said to herself.

  In token of her relief, she leaned against the terrace wall, laid her head on her arms, and cried as if her heart were broken.

  Fifteen