by Jane Arbor
“It didn’t occur to you,” sneered Leonore, “that he had to say it when he found an introduction to be inevitable? But it is more likely still that while he was courting Pilar clandestinely he found she was not a mere nobody to be taken up and dropped again at his pleasure when his leave ended, and so he saw the advantage to himself of getting my favour for the affair.”
“Advantage? What kind of advantage, señora?”
“Surely -? Financial. Social. Any inquiries he made would reveal that, through me, my sister-in law is no pauper and is certainly not a matrimonial prize to be despised.”
“Well, I’m sure it was not like that,” denied Emma, hotly. “Anyone could see that he is genuinely and deeply in love with Pilar and that, whatever her standing or prospects, it would make no difference to him. And I think you ought to know that before they parted at the Flower Ball, he asked her to marry him.”
Leonore flushed with anger. “She has told this to you, not to me? Well, it certainly proves my point that, as soon as he gauged what she might be worth to him, he lost no precious time? It’s fortunate, however, that I have the right to deal quite adequately with his outrageous impertinence in speaking to her before he had asked my consent!”
At the menace in her tone, Emma’s heart sank. “But surely you know that in England young people do arrange their own affairs like that?” she pleaded. “By our standards, John Nicholas has behaved perfectly honourably. And it you mean to forbid them to see each other, you may break Pilar’s heart. Or run the risk that she might be tempted to defy you about it.”
She should have known better than to threaten Leonore from a strength she did not possess. With a cold, level stare Leonore said: “Don’t you forget that Pilar has a long history of falling in with my wishes, at whatever discomfort to herself? If I rule that she is not to see this man again, I am not afraid that she will defy me. His leave ends in a few days more, I know. And if, after he has left Tangier, there is any secret traffic in the way of letters or messages, I shall hold you responsible and you must take the consequences. Pilar may not enjoy the backwash either -"
So John Nicholas returned to his ship without seeing Pilar again before he left. He wrote, only for Pilar obediently to turn over his letter, unread, to Leonore. He wrote to Emma next. But she had to tell him that anything she tried to do might only recoil harmfully upon Pilar. Meanwhile, her heart ached for the girl’s dumb misery which Leonore contrived to ignore. And there matters rested until, some time later, the climate of Leonore’s attitude changed completely.
The change coincided with a public event of some importance to the city. It was the occasion of a ceremonial visit by the Sultan of Morocco to his representative, the Mendoub, when his stay was honoured by ships of the British, American and French navies standing off Tangier for its duration.
The ships were dressed over all; gun salutes were fired on the first day and official parties were given on board at night. Leonore was invited to one of these, and upon her return she showed a new willingness, amounting almost to an anxiety, of Pilar’s romance with John Nicholas to go forward.
She wrote to him herself, inviting him to the villa as soon as he was free to come. And when he did come he was, in John’s own wry words, “granted an audience” and given gracious permission to woo Pilar.
At the interview, he reported afterwards to the two girls, Leonore had said: “I shall not allow Pilar to marry just yet, of course. But you may regard yourselves as bethrothed, and when you are not here you can be sure that she will be fully chaperoned.”
“As if,” claimed John, indignantly, “she thought I pictured Pilar carrying a torch for some other chap the minute my back was turned!” And then had to enlist Emma’s aid in translating “carrying a torch” for Pilar’s benefit.
“Dear, dear Juan,” Pilar murmured, “it is you who might meet someone far nicer than I am, in some other port!”
“And risk hearing my name twisted into something even more fantastic than ‘Juan’? No fear!” countered John. He turned to Emma. “Did you know? I have told her I won’t marry her until she has managed to call me ‘John’ just once! ”
“But I am practising! Listen - Ju-an. J-on. How is that?”
“Better, but not perfect,” he ruled. “J for jug, jag, jig. Not H for honk, hunk or hank. Don’t worry, though. I’ll try to get around to marrying you before my next English leave.”
“Oh, Juan - when will that be?”
“Not yet, though maybe before the señora is expecting it!” he grinned.
Pilar’s eyes widened in alarm. “But Leonore has said that she will not allow -!”
John dropped a kiss upon the palm of the hand he held. “All right, my sweet. Leave me to cope when the time comes. If not my next chance for home leave, then the next. One thing I am determined upon - when I next go back to England I shall take you as my bride. And no objections whatsoever will be sustained. Understood?”
“England! And married? Oh, I can hardly believe it is all happening to me!” For a moment, dismay at the prospect seemed to obscure even Pilar’s new-found happiness. She whirled round upon Emma. “You will stay with me, Emma? You won’t leave me until - until I am able to marry Juan?”
“I’ll try, Pilar,” said Emma gravely, though she saw she would have no power to keep the promise when Leonore’s caprice decided she had served her purpose at the Villa Mirador. And she doubted her own endurance if the return of Ramón Galatas from Spain should pose the same problems as before.
But she must leave that to the future. And meanwhile, with John staunchly behind her, Pilar was gaining confidence every day. She still deferred to Leonore’s opinion in every decision she had to make. But she did not abjectly agree with it nor always carry it out. And though she never openly discussed the cause of Leonore’s sudden face-about in the matter of John Nicholas, Emma suspected that Pilar knew it for the reassured snobbery which it really was, and that she despised Leonore a little for letting it count.
For it was clear now that Leonore had decided to smile on the affair when she learned - almost certainly at the reception on the British warship - that, instead of being an adventurer who was exploiting his chances with Pilar, John was heir to a considerable fortune and was, moreover, cousin to an English earl.
This she could have discovered easily enough from Pilar or from John. But Emma guessed that her habit of power impelled her always to reject out of hand anything which Pilar passionately craved, and while she was unsatisfied of any advantage to herself, it was not in her nature to give the girl the benefit of the doubt or to be kind.
Leonore had needed to create the impression that it was she who had arranged it all, and to have Pilar taken off her hands in marriage into the English nobility was a reflected glory in which she was quite willing to bask. And at least, Emma reflected thankfully, it afforded Pilar a standing and dignity in Leonore’s eyes which she had never known before.
When Leonore began to take Pilar about with her a great deal more, Emma expected that her own services might be dispensed with before long. But nothing was said on either side, and while her relations with Leonore did not worsen, she was glad to be able to stay.
One of the tasks she knew she would miss when she did have to leave was a self-imposed one which had nothing to do with Pilar but with Ayesha, Leonore’s Riffi maid.
Shortly after her installation at the villa Emma had been shocked by Leonore’s indifference - and even Pilar’s, too - to the fact that when Ayesha visited her parents in a village along the mountain road to Tetuan, the girl frequently walked the twenty-odd kilometres involved.
Emma’s arithmetic, grappling with the figure, worked it out as more than twelve miles. Yet Horeb, acting as Ayesha’s interpreter, assured her that she had indeed heard aright. And yes, Ayesha had smiled, it was true that there was a bus. But it was a rapido direct to and from Tetuan. It did not stop, except for great emergency, at the villages on the way. And though there was a stopping bus, it did not ru
n on the day of the week when, most often, the señora allowed her to be free...
Indignantly Emma had appealed first to Pilar, then to Leonore.
Pilar had said blankly: “Emma, don’t be cross. I am afraid I had never thought about it -" And Leonore had scoffed: “What of it? And how would she expect to pick up a bus, whatever day she goes, when she chooses to set out before dawn?”
“Before dawn, señora?”
“That’s what I said. These people think nothing of such distances, and they’d rather travel by night than not.”
“But surely Ayesha only does it to give herself a longer time with her parents and a decent rest before she has to walk back?”
“Well - ”
“Well,” Emma had persisted, “wouldn’t it be possible for her to start later if she were taken by car, and for her to be sent only on a day when she could catch a return bus?”
“Are you suggesting that I should arrange my convenience to suit my own maid and act as her chauffeur into the bargain?”
“Not at all, señora. But that I should - drive her out in the little car, I mean. And, if you could spare me the time, perhaps wait to bring her back if she ever had to go on a day when there was no bus back?”
To this Leonore, bored and indifferent, had agreed: “Please yourself, so long as it does not cut across your duties to Pilar.” And so, from time to time, throughout the summer, Emma had taken Ayesha out to her home village, sometimes leaving her there, sometimes exploring the village and the surrounding mountain slopes while waiting to bring her back.
Though she and the girl had to communicate mainly by smiles, nods and broken Spanish and English, Emma always enjoyed the drive. During the summer, flowers of many sturdy kinds - helichrysums, heaths and wild azaleas - had massed the open, stony country which climbed towards the yet stonier terraces of the hills on either side of the road, which itself climbed and doubled on its tracks towards the skyline and the far blue peaks of Atlas.
And though, with the coming of autumn, there was seasonal rain ahead and the trees were already dripping russet leaves, the long-dry beds of streams were still a glare of white stones and the stark anatomy of the mountains kept a beauty of its own.
Here and there, and within reach of the few native villages which clung like wasps’ nests to the mountainsides, some two-by-four patches of soil were scratched by hand tools and painfully cultivated. But Emma learned from Ayesha that there was no complete livelihood to be gained from such land. Ayesha’s mother, as well as her father, worked as a stone-breaker on the roads. And Emma was awed and a little shocked that, when Ayesha married a Riffi boy from Tangier, their future might be much the same.
Ayesha loved her Hassan dearly and usually brought back a gift for him - an unleavened spiced loaf or a basket of sun-warmed green figs. But one day, in October, she was particularly proud of three packets of American cigarettes which she exhibited gleefully to Emma before tucking them back into the mysterious bundle which travelled with her everywhere.
Emma smiled: “Hassan is going to be pleased!” and thought no more of the matter until their return journey brought them to the frontier police post between the Spanish and Tangier Zones.
Here they usually encountered no more than the formality of Emma’s showing her visa’d passport and getting it stamped. But today there was a different feeling in the air. They were both peremptorily ordered from the car; Emma’s passport was retained and Ayesha’s bundle was subjected to a search which appeared to be richly rewarded when the cigarettes were brought to light.
A spate of gesticulatory questions followed. Where had they obtained the contraband? Had they accomplices? How did they mean to dispose of it? Where was the rest?
the whole being threaded through, Emma believed, with threats of police action or perhaps worse.
She was disturbed but not frightened until she saw the effect of the questions upon Ayesha who shook her head dumbly or answered with a flood of Arabic which was either rejected or was not understood. Even to Emma, her wide-eyed fear of the guards seemed to spell guilt. But what she had really done Emma, hampered by language as she was, was at a loss to find out.
While the car was thoroughly searched she took Ayesha aside.
“Ayesha, where and how did you get those cigarettes?” she asked in Spanish.
“I - bought, señorita. Pay money - so!”
“But where? From a shop in your village?”
“No. From a merchant who stand on the bridge. I do not know him before. But when he show cigarettes, I buy. Hassan like cigarettes -”
“But were those three packets all you bought? All you have with you in the car?”
Ayesha turned a look of reproach upon her. “I have little money, señorita. How could I buy more?”
Baffled, Emma could not see the crime in taking a few cigarettes into the Zone, when the same brand was on sale in all the Tangier shops. But all the same, with dusk only a hour away, they were still held by the inability of Ayesha to satisfy the guards and by their retention of Emma’s passport until she did.
It looked like deadlock until Emma caught and understood a phrase or two of their talk which was not addressed to her.
The car. They were assuring each other that they had stopped the right car at least. So that was it! They were on the watch for a car which was indeed carrying contraband, and hers must match its description.
But how to convince them otherwise? Only by being able to offer credentials which they would accept, or by producing a sponsor whom they would have to believe.
A sponsor. That could only mean Leonore, and, reluctant though she was to be forced to appeal to that quarter, Emma asked at once to be taken to the frontier post’s telephone.
When she got through to the villa, however, Leonore was out. But while she was hesitating over her next step, Emma heard Horeb handing over the receiver, and Mark Triton came on the line.
“Emma?” he queried. “Well, Leonore is due back at any minute. But is there anything I can do for you myself? Where are you ringing from?”
Half dismayed, half thankful, Emma told him and explained their plight. “They have searched the car from end to end. They even discussed taking off the wheel hub-caps, though they didn’t get so far. And though it is quite patent that we aren’t carrying a load of cigarettes, they are still not convinced that we don’t know more than we have told.”
“But you have your passport with you? They have seen that?”
“Yes - and I can’t get it back. But as soon as I realized that it is the car itself which is suspect, I decided to ring the villa and to ask señora de Coria to come on the line in order to convince them that it is hers and to vouch for our bona fides.”
“Well, I can do that-”
“Please, if you would - May I bring someone to the phone?”
“No,” Mark returned crisply. “I’ll come out. I’ll be there in half an hour or so. Mention my name if you like. But don’t do anything further until I come.”
Emma thanked him warmly and returned to the car, where Mark’s name proved an “Open Sesame” which eased the tension at once. But he had said “Do nothing”, so she sat in the car with Ayesha until he arrived, well within the time he had set himself.
He questioned Ayesha closely in Arabic; spoke to the guards in Spanish; finally to Emma in English.
“You were right,” he told her. “It is the car which answers closely to the description of one which is being sought, also probably driven by a woman. It appears that, some time ago, there was a big haul of cigarettes stolen from the American base at Rabat, and it was believed that a lot of it might be brought into Tangier by roundabout routes. But there has been no sign of the bulk of it yet, and I’ve suggested to the guards here -and they are inclined to agree - that it’s more likely that it was becoming too ‘hot’ for the thieves to hold on to, so they are getting rid of it, piecemeal, to anyone they can. Market peddlers and the like. Hence Ayesha’s ‘merchant’, who’ll probably go
from village to village selling his stock without even knowing it was stolen.”
“I’m so glad Ayesha is cleared,” breathed Emma.
“Yes. They are turning a blind eye to the cigarettes, too. Meanwhile, here’s your own property -" He handed Emma her passport.
“Oh, thank you -" She turned the precious thing between her hands as she added hesitantly: “And not only for this. For - for your coming out in person when there was no real reason why you should have troubled.”
“No reason?”
“Well, was there? For instance, you could have considered you were doing enough by vouching for my good faith over the telephone.”
“Yes, perhaps. Except that I should have felt that I was shirking a little the role which Chance seems to have allotted to me in regard to you. I mean - however un- designedly, you do contrive to exert a claim to be cared for and worried about -"
Remembering how often she had turned to him, and never in vain, Emma blushed. “Do you believe, then, that I’m wanton over getting into difficulties, and that, when I do, I expect to be helped out?”
Her glance was compelled to slant away from some inscrutable quality in his. He said: “I didn’t say or imply that. But, as long as she doesn’t consciously exploit it, it’s a weapon in any woman’s armoury - the innocent power to convince a man that he could not let anything happen to her - And now, if you’re ready, shall we go?”
Emma returned to her driving seat and, when the concertina-like frontier barrier snapped back, she drove ahead. Mark followed in his car, keeping its speed down to the small car’s capacity all the way back to Tangier.
At the villa, while Mark stayed for drinks, Leonore was all bright interest and sympathy over the incident. She blamed red tape and official stupidity, and assured Emma - with a flattering glance at Mark - that she could not possibly have enlisted anyone more influential to speak for her. But as soon as he had gone she contrived to twist even all she had said herself into a sour diatribe to the effect that, between them, Emma and Ayesha should have prevented the unwelcome situation from developing at all.