This knowledge, as though surreptitiously obtained, Tom locked within his breast until the day when she herself should choose to share it with him.
He remembered another little conversation too when, similarly, he disturbed them in discussion: this time it was Mrs. Haughstone who was called away.
‘Behaving badly, Lettice, is she? Scolding you again?’
‘Not at all. Only she sees the bad in every one and I see the good. She disapproves of Tony rather.’
‘Then she will be less often deceived than you,’ he replied laughingly. The reference to Tony had escaped him; his slow mind was on the general proposition.
‘Perhaps. But you can only make people better by believing that they are better,’ she went on with conviction—when Mrs. Haughstone joined them and took up her parable again:
‘My cousin behaves like a child,’ she said with amusing severity. ‘She doesn’t understand the world. But the world is hard upon grown-ups who behave like children. Lettice thinks everybody good. Her innocence gets her misjudged. And it’s a pity.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on her,’ Tom said solemnly, ‘and we’ll begin this very afternoon.’
‘Do, Mr. Kelverdon, I’m glad to hear it.’ And as she said it, he noticed another expression on her face as she glanced down the drive where Tony, dressed in grey flannels and singing to himself, was seen sauntering towards them. She wore an enigmatic smile by no means pleasant. It gave him a moment’s twinge. He turned from her to Lettice by way of relief. She was waving her white-gloved hand, her eyes were shining, her little face was radiant—and Tom’s happiness came back upon him in a rising flood again as he watched her beauty.… He thought that Egypt was the most marvellous place he had ever known. Even Tony looked enchanted—almost handsome. But Lettice looked divine. He felt more and more that the woman in her blossomed into life before his very eyes. His content was absolute.
CHAPTER XVI.
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WITH TONY AS GUIDE THEY took their fill of wonder. The principal expeditions were made alone, introducing Tom to the marvels of ancient Egypt which they already knew. On the sturdiest donkey Thebes could furnish, he raced his cousin across the burning sands, Madame Jaretzka following in a sand-cart, her blue veil streaming in the cool north wind. They played like children, defying the tide of mystery that this haunted land pours against the modern human soul, while yet the wonder and the mystery added to their enjoyment, deepening their happiness by contrast.
They ate their al fresco luncheons gaily, seated by hoary tombs that opened into the desolate hills; kings, priests, princesses, dead six thousand years, listening in caverns underground to their careless talk. Yet their gaiety had a hush in it, a significance behind the sentences; for even their lightest moments touched ever upon the borders of an awfulness that was sublime, and all that they said or did gained this hint of deeper value—that it was set against a background of the infinite, the deathless.
It was impossible to forget that this was Egypt, the deposit of immemorial secrets, the store-house of stupendous vanished dreams.
‘There was a majesty, after all, about their strange old gods,’ said Tony one afternoon as they emerged from the stifling darkness of a forgotten kingly tomb into the sunlight. ‘They seem to thunder still—below the ground—subconsciously.’ He was ever ready with the latest modern catchword. He flung himself down upon the sand, shaded from the glare by a recumbent column of granite exquisitely carved, then abandoned of the ages. ‘They touch something in one even to-day—something superb. Human worship hasn’t changed so fundamentally after all.’
‘A sort of ghostly deathlessness,’ agreed Lettice, making a bed of sand beside him. ‘I think that’s what one feels.’
Tony looked up. He glanced alertly at her. A question flashed a moment in his eyes, then passed unspoken.
‘Perhaps,’ Tony went on in a more flippant tone, ‘even the dullest has to acknowledge the sublime in their conceptions. Isis! Why, the very name is a poem in a single word. Anubis, Nepthys, Horus— there’s poetry in them all. They seem to sing themselves into the heart, as Petrie might have said—but didn’t.’
‘The names are rather splendid,’ Tom put in, as he unpacked the kettle and spirit-lamp for tea. ‘One can’t forget them either.’
There was a moment’s silence, then Tony spoke again. He had lost his flippant tone. He addressed his remark to Lettice. Tom was aware that she was somehow waiting for it.
‘Their deathlessness! Yes, you’re right.’ He turned an instant to look at the colossal structure behind them, whence the imposing figures of a broken Pharaoh and his Queen stared to the east cross the shoulder of some granite Deity that had refused to crumble for three thousand years. ‘Their deathlessness,’ he repeated, lowering his voice, ‘it’s really startling.’
He looked about him. It was amazing how his little words, his gesture, his very atmosphere created a spontaneous expectancy—as though Thoth might stride sublimely up across the sand, or even Ra himself come blazing with extended wings and awful disk of fire.
Tom felt the touch of the unearthly as he watched and listened. Lettice—he was certain of it—shivered. He moved nearer and spread a rug across her feet.
‘Don’t, Tom, please! I’m hot enough already.’ Her tone had a childish exasperation in it—as though he interrupted some mood that gave her pleasure. She turned her eyes to Tony, but Tony was busily opening sandwich packets with hands that—Tom thought—shared one quality at least of the stone effigies they had been discussing— size. And he laughed. The spell was broken. They fell hungrily upon their desert meal.…
Yet, it was odd how Tony had expressed precisely what Tom had himself been vaguely feeling, though unable to find the language for his fancy—odd, too, that apparently all three of them had felt the same dim thing. No one among them was ‘religious,’ nor, strictly speaking, imaginative; poetical least of all in the regenerative, creative sense. Not one of the trio, that is, could have seized imaginatively the conception of an alien deity and made it live. Yet Tony’s idle mood or idler words had done this very thing—and all three acknowledged it in their various ways. The flavour of a remote familiarity was manifest in each one of them—collectively as well.
Another time they sat by night in ruined Karnak, watching the silver moonlight bring out another world among the mighty pylons. It painted the empty and enormous aisles with crowding processions of lost ages. Speaking in whispers, they saw the stars peep down between the soaring forest of old stone; the cold desert wind brought with it a sadness, a mournful retrospect too vast to realise, the tragedy that such splendour left but a lifeless skeleton behind, a gigantic, soulless ruin. That such great prophecies remained unfulfilled was somewhere both terrible and melancholy. The immortal strength of these Egyptian stones conveyed a grandeur almost sinister. The huge dumb beauty seemed menacing, even ominous; they sat closer; they felt dwarfed uncomfortably, their selves reduced to insignificance, almost threatened. Even Tony sobered as they talked in lowered voices, seated in the shadow of the towering columns, their feet resting on the sand.
‘I’m sure we’ve sat here before just like this, the three of us,’ he said in a lowered voice; ‘it all seems like a dream to me.’
Madame Jaretzka, who was between them, made no answer, and Tom, leaning forward, caught his cousin’s eye beyond her.… The scene in the London theatre flashed across his mind. He felt very happy, very close to them both, extraordinarily at one with them, the woman he loved best in all the world, the man who was his greatest friend. He felt truth, not foolishness, in Tony’s otherwise commonplace remarks that followed: ‘I could swear I’d known you both before—here in Egypt.’
Madame Jaretzka moved a little, shuffling farther back so that she could lean against the great curved pillar. It brought them closer together still. She said no word, however.
‘There’s certainly a curious sympathy between the three of us,’ murmured Tom, who usually felt out of his
depth in similar talks, leaving his companions to carry it further while he listened merely. ‘It’s hard to believe that we meet for the first time now.’
He sat close to her, fingering her gauzy veil that brushed his face. There was a pause, and then Madame Jaretzka said, turning to Tony: ‘We met here first anyhow, didn’t we? Two winters ago, before I met Tom——’
But Tony said he meant something far older than that, much longer ago. ‘You and Tom knew each other as children, you told me once. Tom and I were boys together too… but…’
His voice died away in Tom’s ears; her answers also were inaudible as she kept her head turned towards Tony: his thoughts, besides, were caught away a moment to the days in Montreux and in London.… He fell into a reverie that lasted possibly a minute, possibly several minutes. The conversation between them left him somehow out of it; he had little to contribute; they had an understanding, as it were, on certain subjects that neglected him. His mind accordingly left them. He followed his own thoughts dreamily… far away … past the deep black shadows and out into the soft blaze of moonlight that showered upon the distant Theban hills.… He remembered the curious emotions that had marked his entry into Egypt. He thought of a change in Lettice, at present still undefined. He wondered what it was about her now that lent to her gentle spirit a touch of authority, of worldly authority almost, that he dared not fail to recognise—as though she had the right to it. The flavour of uneasiness stole back. It occurred to him suddenly that he felt no longer quite at home with her alone as of old. Some one watched him: some one watched them both.…
It was as though for the first time he realised distance—a new distance creeping in upon their relationship somewhere.…
A slight shiver brought him back. The wind came moaning down the monstrous, yawning aisles against them. The overpowering effect of so much grandeur had become intolerable. ‘Ugh! I’m cold,’ he exclaimed abruptly. ‘I vote we move a bit. I think—I‘ll move anyhow.’
Madame Jaretzka turned to him with a definite start; she straightened herself against the huge sandstone column. The moonlight touched her; it clothed her in gold and silver, the gold of the sand, the silver of the moon. She looked ethereal, ghostly, a figure of air and distance. She seemed to belong to her surroundings—another person somehow—faintly Egyptian almost.
‘I thought you were asleep, Tom,’ she said softly. She had been in the middle of an animated, though whispered, talk with Tony. She peered at him with a little smile that lifted her lip oddly.
‘I was far away somewhere,’ he returned, peering at her closely. ‘I forgot all about you both. I thought, for a moment, I was quite— alone.’
He saw her start again. A significance he hardly intended had crept into his tone. Her face moved back into the shadow quickly beside Tony.
She teased Tom for his want of manners, then fell to caring for his comfort. ‘It’s icy,’ she said, ‘and you’re in flannels. The sudden chill of these Egyptian nights is really treacherous,’ and she took the rug from her lap and put it round his shoulders. As she did so, the strange appearance he had noted increased about her.
And Tom got up abruptly. ‘No, Lettice dear, thank you; I think I’ll move a bit.’ He had said ‘Lettice dear’ without realising it, and before his cousin too. ‘I’ll take a turn and then come back for you. You stay here with Tony,’ and he moved off somewhat briskly.
Then, instantly, the other two rose up like one person, following him to where the carriage waited.…
‘They’re frightening rather, don’t you think—these ancient places?’ she said presently, as they drove along past palms and the flat-topped houses of the felaheen. ‘There’s something watching and listening all the time.’
Tom made no answer. He felt suddenly unsure of something—almost unsure of himself, it seemed.
‘One feels a bit lost,’ he said slowly after a bit, ‘and lonely. It’s the size, I think.’
‘Perhaps,’ she rejoined, peering at him with half-lowered eyelids, ‘and the silence.’ She broke off, then added, ‘You can hear your thoughts too clearly.’
Tom was sitting back amid a bundle of rugs she had wrapped him in; Tony, beside her, on the front seat, seemed in a gentle doze. They drove the rest of the way in silence, dropping Tony first at the Savoy, then going on to Tom’s hotel. She insisted, although her own house was in the opposite direction. ‘And you’re to take a hot whisky when you get into bed, remember, and don’t get up to-morrow if you feel a chill.’ She gave him orders for his health and comfort as though he were her son. Tom noticed it, told her she was divinely precious to him, and promised faithfully to obey.
‘What do you think about Tony?’ he asked suddenly, when they had driven alone for several minutes. ‘I mean, what impression does he make on you? How do you feel him?’
‘He’s enjoying himself immensely with his numerous friends,’ she replied at once. ‘He grows on one rather. He’s a dear, I think.’ She looked at him, then turned away again. ‘Don’t you, Tom?’
‘Oh, rather. I’ve always thought so. I told you first long ago, didn’t I?’ He made no reference to the exaggeration about the friends. ‘And I think it’s wonderful how well we—what a perfect trio we are.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’
They both became thoughtful then. There fell a pause between them, when Tom broke in abruptly once again:
‘But—what do you feel? Because I think he’s half in love with you, if you want to know.’ He leaned over and whispered in her ear. The words tumbled out as though they were in a hurry. ‘It pleases me immensely, Lettice; it makes me feel so proud of you and happy. It’ll do him a world of good, too, if he loves a woman like you. You’ll teach him something.’ She smiled shyly and said, ‘I wonder, Tom. Do you really think so? He certainly seems fond of me, but I hadn’t thought quite that. You think everybody must fall in love with me.’ She pushed him away with a gentle yet impatient pressure of her arm, indicating the Arab coachman with a nod of her head. ‘Take care of him, Lettice: he’s a dear fellow; don’t let him break his heart.’
Tom began to flirt outrageously; his arm crept round her, he leaned over and stole a kiss—and to his amazement she did not try to stop him. She did not seem to notice it. She sat very still—a stone statue in the moonlight.
Then, suddenly, he realised that she had not replied to his question. He promptly repeated it therefore. ‘You put me off with what he feels, but I want to know what you feel,’ he said with emphasis.
‘But, Tom, I’m not putting you off, as you call it—with anything,’ and there was a touch of annoyance in her tone and manner.
‘Tell me, Lettice; it interests me. You’re such a puzzle, d’you know, out here.’ His tone unconsciously grew more earnest as he spoke.
Madame Jaretzka broke into a little laugh. ‘You boy!’ she exclaimed teasingly, ‘you’re trying to heighten his value so as to increase your own by contrast. The more people you can find in love with me, the more you’ll be able to flatter yourself.’
Tom laughed with her, though he did not quite understand. He had never heard her say such a thing before. He accepted the cleverness she gave him credit for, however. ‘Of course, and why shouldn’t I?’ And he was just going to put his original question in another form— had already begun it, in fact—when she interrupted him, putting her hand playfully over his mouth for a second: ‘I do think Tony’s a happy entertaining sort of man,’ she told him, ‘even fascinating in a certain kind of way. He’s very stimulating to me. And I feel—don’t you, Tom?’—a slight change—was it softness?—crept into her tone— ‘a sort of beauty in him somewhere?’
‘Yes, p’raps I do,’ he assented briefly; ‘but, I say, Lettice darling, you mischievous Egyptian princess.’
‘Be quiet, Tom, and take your arm away. Here’s the hotel in sight.’ And yet, somehow, he fancied that she preferred his action to the talk.
‘Tell me this first,’ he went on, obeying her peremptory tone: ‘do you thin
k it’s true that we three have been together before like that—as Tony said, I mean? It’s a funny thing, but I swear it sounded true when he said it.’ His tone was earnest again. ‘It gave me the creeps a bit, and, d’you know, you looked so queer, so wonderful in the moonlight—you looked un-English, foreign—like one of those Egyptian figures come to life. That’s what made me cold, I think.’ His laughter died away. He was grave suddenly. He sighed a little and moved closer to her. ‘That’s—what made me get up and leave you,’ he added abruptly.
‘Oh, he’s always saying that kind of thing,’ she answered quickly, moving the rugs for him to get out as the carriage slowed up before the brilliantly lit hotel. She made no reference to his other words. ‘There’s a lot of poetry in Tony too—out here.’
‘Said it before, has he?’ exclaimed Tom with genuine astonishment. ‘All three of us or—or just you and him? Am I in the business too?’ He was now bubbling over with laughter again for some reason; it all seemed comical, almost. Yet it was a sudden, an emotional laughter. His emotion—his excitement surprised him even at the time.
‘All three of us—I think,’ she said, as he held her hand a moment, saying good-bye. ‘Yes, all three of us, of course. Now good-night, you inquisitive and impertinent boy, and if you have to stay in bed to-morrow we’ll come over and nurse you all day long.’ He answered that he would certainly stay in bed in that case—and watched her waving her hand over the back of the carriage as she drove away into the moonlight like a fading dream of stars and mystery and beauty. Then he took his telegrams and letters from the Arab porter with the face of expressionless bronze, and went up to bed.
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