The short-lived sunset was over. The sky in the east was dark, whilst the colours in the west were fading rapidly from vivid reds and golds to a vast wash of pearly pink. The very land seemed to have changed colour, darkening mysteriously. The river glittered like a winding silver ribbon in the distance. Several huge birds of prey wheeled and hovered high in the still air. Rainsford spoke rapidly.
‘Sheldon? We really must go.’ Sibyl Rainsford appeared along the colonnade.
‘Why?’ Harry asked, quietly, as they followed the others to where the saddled ponies waited. ‘Why, if you feel so strongly about the British position in Egypt, are you willing to help?’
The older man stopped. ‘If there’s one thing I hate more than the arrogance of the European powers in believing they can carve up Africa to suit their own plans and pockets,’ he said, ‘it’s the cruelty of brother enslaving brother. Had it simply been a case of the guns for the Dervishes I would not have told you what I know. The British army is perfectly capable of looking after itself. The Sudanese who are being enslaved and sold cannot; anything I can do to help them I will.’
Harry nodded, held out his hand. ‘Thank you anyway, Sir. I’m grateful.’
‘Be careful.’
‘I will.’
They rode through the warm evening beneath a sky that still showed the last drifts of colour painted by the glorious sunset. The town ahead of them looked magical in the dying light, its minarets and domes drawn dark against the pale sky, mysterious and enticing, a scene from The Thousand and One Nights. Hannah, suddenly oddly restless, kneed her pony forward to ride beside Harry. ‘You’re very quiet, Captain?’
He shook his head, smiling, but did not speak. Hannah, not, she was aware, for the first time, found herself watching him; the sharp, clear-cut profile, the set of his shoulders. Her own lips twitched to a self-deprecating smile and she looked away, into the wide distances of the desert. That would never do. Most certainly not. Laila looked at Harry so, when she thought no-one was watching. Practical Hannah Standish had much more sense. She must beware these wonderful Egyptian evenings – their effect obviously might be felt by the most unromantic of souls.
‘Why, look,’ Mr Rainsford pointed, ‘there’s a steamer arrived. Moored a little further upriver, see it?’
The steamer was lit festively, lanterns swinging from awnings and strung about the decks. An hour later the party rode past it towards the dahabeeyahs moored snugly in the shadows downstream. Music drifted across the water and there was much talk and laughter. A group of people standing by the rail with glasses in their hands waved energetically. ‘Cooee!’
Mrs Rainsford, dutifully waving back, said in heartfelt tones, ‘Goodness. How very noisy. I am so glad we decided to travel under sail.’
They approached the dahabeeyahs, the Ra moored before the Horus. They handed the ponies back to their patiently waiting owners, stopped for goodnights, decided against the offer of a nightcap aboard the Ra. A good steady wind was blowing; the boats with any luck could sail at dawn.
The Horus was moored in shadow. On the lower deck a small group of cross-legged men talked and smoked their pipes. A single lantern gleamed beneath the awning of the passenger deck. A couple of the crew hurried to help them aboard. One of them said something which Hannah did not catch, pointing to the passenger deck. Abdo was nowhere to be seen. The sounds from the steamer, softened by distance, echoed in the darkness.
‘So there you are at last.’ The soft voice came from above. All three looked up. Leaning against the railing of the passenger deck was a smiling, lush-figured vision in ivory satin. Fair hair and pale skin gleamed in the light of the lantern. The earrings she wore swung, striking fire, beside the creamy smoothness of her neck; the cunning cut of her evening gown revealed a provocative shadow between full breasts.
‘Harry, my dear,’ Fenella Hampshire smiled, brilliantly and beguilingly, delighted with the small drama she had so effectively created. ‘Cairo was just too, too boring without you. I couldn’t stand it a moment longer!’ She let her large eyes drift with calculatingly insulting indifference to Hannah and then, for a longer and much more malicious moment, looked down into Laila’s pretty, bewildered face. ‘See what a mischief I am!’ She extended a hand glittering with rings towards Harry. ‘I’ve come to join your harem!’
Chapter Sixteen
‘Mischief’s the word!’ Hannah said, straightfaced, a bruising half-hour later, after their uninvited guest, escorted by an openly terrified crewman, had stormed back to the steamer that had brought her to Osyut. ‘Mrs Hampshire is, I fear, a very angry lady.’ She cocked a warily amused eye in Harry’s direction. ‘She’s a very – forceful person, isn’t she?’
Harry winced and hunched further into his cushioned wicker chair, hands cupped firmly about his second extremely large glass of brandy.
‘I hope,’ Hannah continued after a moment, mildly, ‘that I was not too –’ she considered for a moment ‘– forthright? Mrs Hampshire is, after all, an old friend of yours.’
Harry dismissed any thought that the gleam in her eyes could be laughter. ‘Good heavens, no. You were quite splendid. There aren’t many who can stand up to Fenella like that.’
‘Perhaps she won’t,’ Hannah said.
‘Won’t what?’
‘Be waiting in Luxor.’ Too innocently Hannah echoed their departing guest’s sweetly venomous parting shot.
This time he glanced at her more than sharply. ‘Hannah! This really isn’t funny, you know!’
Hannah made grave but wholly ineffective effort to discipline both her uncharitable amusement and the unexpected flicker of pleasure that his unthinking use of her Christian name had brought. ‘No. Of course not. Or at least it certainly wouldn’t have been had she succeeded in her aim of joining us! Mrs Hampshire doesn’t strike me as being the most peaceful of travelling companions, and the poor little Horus would have been quite overwhelmed by her presence, I think.’
Harry groaned.
She laughed outright. ‘It’s all right. She’s gone; I don’t suppose she’ll come back.’
‘But she’ll be waiting in Luxor.’
The gloom in his voice brought another small peal of laughter.
‘I do wish you’d stop laughing!’
‘I can’t help it! Oh, Harry – you don’t mind if I call you Harry, do you? You just called me Hannah perfectly naturally and all this Captain Sherwood and Miss Standish business, at least in private, is really very silly, don’t you think? – Harry, just think about it. Of course it’s funny!’
He resisted a moment longer, then, half-hidden in the darkness, she caught the sudden flash of his smile, though he quickly sobered. ‘It won’t be funny if her husband takes it into his head to question what suddenly prompted a woman who has as much interest in Ancient Egypt as she does in training elephants to steam up the Nile on one of Mr Cook’s steamers!’
Hannah stood up, shaking out her skirt. ‘If the man were going to question his wife’s activities at all,’ she said, tranquilly, eyes steady and still caustically amused beneath raised brows, ‘I should have thought he would have done it before?’
Harry had the grace to flush, very slightly.
‘Now –’ Hannah decided she had extracted as much fun out of his discomfiture as was kind ‘ – why don’t you finish your drink and read your letter? I’m off to bed.’
Harry lifted his head. His smile was warm. Floored as he had been by Fenella’s sudden alarming appearance, he had to admit that without Hannah’s resolute and courteous calm under fire the situation might well have resolved itself differently, and the Horus might have been carrying another, and unwelcome, passenger. ‘Goodnight, Hannah,’ he said. ‘And thank you. You ought to be recommended for a medal. In fact you ought to be recommended for several!’
She watched him, smiling, for a long moment, surprised at the words that hovered upon the tip of her tongue, before, ‘Goodnight,’ she responded, and left him.
Harry turned
the letter – the delivery of which had been Fenella Hampshire’s flimsy excuse for tracking him down – over in his hands. It was lucky that Fenella had actually given it to him before she had realized that, astoundingly, she was not going to get her own way; it was certainly not beyond her to have destroyed it in a fit of temper. He frowned a little, oddly reluctant to open it. It was unusual for Mattie to have written twice in a month. A faint disquiet stirred; with a sudden movement he slipped a long finger beneath the flap of the envelope and tore it open.
Below decks Hannah followed her well-organized bedtime routine as usual; the water that had been put out for her had cooled, but the evening was warm and she did not bother to call for more. She slipped into a loose and comfortable silken robe she had bought in one of the bazaars at Benisuef – it was the most glorious shade of green, and in a rare moment of self-awareness she had known how well it became her bright hair and pale skin – and perched upon the stool in front of a mirror, brush in hand, lifting her eyes to those of her reflection.
Her movements stilled.
For a surprisingly long time she sat so, her gaze thoughtful, a small furrow between her brows. Then with a small, impatient, almost angry movement, she shook her head, lifted the brush to attack the wiry shock of her red hair with an energy that made it crackle.
A little later, as always, before she crept beneath the mosquito netting that tented the narrow bunk, Hannah stood for a moment looking out over the Nile. The waters swirled darkly, wide and peaceful; a great silvered moon glowed in the southern sky, casting enticing shadows across the desert wilderness, gilding the shapes of the palm trees that edged the water. A sleepy bird called, and was quiet. Her calm restored, she slipped the green silk robe from her shoulders and, ignoring the muslin nightdress that lay very properly draped and ready over the chair – thanking as she did so the gods that had inspired her to leave the easily scandalized Mary in Cairo – she slid swiftly beneath the netting and into the bunk. In a pleasant ten minutes she was sound asleep.
* * *
She was woken by the splintering of glass.
She sat up, holding the cotton sheet to her shoulders, startled and disorientated.
Someone called, was answered, and fell to silence.
Hannah waited, listening.
From above her head came the sound of an uncertain footstep, a small, scrambling crash, a muttered curse.
She slipped from her bunk and reached for her robe.
It was dark on the passenger deck; the single lantern had burned low. In its dim light she saw the figure that leaned tensely, hands curled hard about the rail, head bowed; saw too the empty brandy bottle, and the glass lying shattered upon the table beside it.
‘Harry?’ She moved towards him, concerned. ‘Harry – whatever’s wrong?’
He appeared not to hear her. He neither turned nor moved.
She stepped further into the pale, deceptive light. ‘Harry, what is it?’
In his clenched hand he held, crumpled, the letter that Fenella had brought.
She walked on bare, silent feet to his side. After a moment he turned his head to look at her. His black hair fell untidily across his forehead, the handsome face was bleak, and looked pale in the uncertain light, drawn by an emotion she could not in the shadows decipher. At first she took it for grief, then realized it could as well have been simple, black rage.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘My mother,’ he said. ‘My mother is the matter.’
‘Your – mother?’ she repeated, and heard the stupid surprise in her own voice.
He turned on her. ‘Yes, Hannah – my mother! I do have one, you know, as do most people. I wasn’t washed up onto the beach at Brighton at high tide! Though by Christ I sometimes think I’d be better off if I had been!’
‘Harry!’
He had flung away from her again, was leaning, elbows on the rails, glaring out across the water into the moonlit darkness.
Hannah waited for a long moment for him to speak, then asked quietly, ‘What’s happened? She isn’t –?’ She stopped.
He did not move. ‘Dead?’ he asked, bitterly. ‘Oh no. She isn’t dead.’
Hannah was becoming more puzzled by the moment. She had already realized that despite the clarity of his speech Harry was well on the way to being very drunk indeed. ‘What, then?’
He struggled with the words. ‘She’s – she’s – oh, here!’ With a sudden violent movement he thrust the letter into her hands. ‘Read the bloody thing yourself. Where the hell’s that other bottle?’ He blundered across the deck to the small table beside the bookshelves.
Hannah took the paper, smoothed it, moved towards the lantern. The long silence that followed as she read the pleasant, serenely lucid words not once, not twice, but three times was broken only by the clink of glass upon bottle as Harry poured himself another half-tumbler of brandy.
At last she smoothed the letter, folded it very precisely, laid it upon the table and lifted her head to look at him.
He avoided her cool gaze.
‘Your mother is getting married,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘To a man of whom she is evidently extremely fond and who presumably loves her?’
He said nothing.
‘And you are too spoiled, too possessive a child to be happy for her?’ There was not the faintest trace of the usual sympathy or camaraderie in her voice or face.
The scathing words stung him. ‘You don’t understand!’
‘No. I don’t. And I don’t think I ever could, so there seems little point in our discussing it.’ She turned to leave.
Perversely, since his first reaction upon seeing her had been one of irritation, Harry put out a hand to stop her. ‘Wait.’
She waited, but with obviously strained patience.
‘You don’t understand,’ he said again, at last, well aware of and angry at the pathetic ineffectiveness of the childish words.
‘Npthing you have said so far encourages me to understand.’ It was said pleasantly enough, but he flinched a little, turning from her, reaching for the tumbler of brandy.
Hannah watched him dispassionately as he poured it down his throat. ‘I do hope you aren’t poisoning yourself,’ she said. ‘Abdo wasn’t at all sure of the quality of that stuff. He said it was probably made from camel dung.’
‘Abdo,’ Harry said with sudden fierce clarity, ‘can go hang.’
She shot him a look of pure dislike. She was at the stairs when he called her back. ‘Hannah!’ he hesitated. ‘Please.’
For a moment she almost ignored the plea. Then with a small sigh she turned back. ‘Harry, I really don’t think you’re in any fit state to talk tonight. Obviously you’re upset and angry, though I can’t for my life see why. Your mother has neither passed away nor is she ill. She hasn’t squandered the family fortune and she hasn’t disgraced the family name. After –’ she cast her mind back to the letter ‘– after being a widow for the thirty-three years of your life, she has decided to marry an eminently respectable, kindly and apparently erudite man. All of this would seem to me – as it obviously seems to your mother – a cause rather for some small celebration than for –’ she allowed a moment’s deliberation ‘– rather than for what I can only describe as a childish display of pique. I simply can’t imagine why this news should have upset you so. I have never once since I have met you heard any mention of your mother. You have, so I believe, been a soldier for many years, so it cannot be that you feel the jealousy that might be experienced by a son who lived at home? Why should you begrudge your mother her happiness?’
The line of Harry’s jaw was grim. The anger – the utterly unexpected, savage fury – that had exploded within him at reading Mattie’s news seethed in his belly, in his brandy-fuddled brain, drew the sinews of his hands to fists.
Hannah had tilted her head a little to look at him, but his face was in shadow. She saw, though, the tension that held him, knew the man well enough
suddenly to wonder if this after all were not, despite her harsh words, something more than the mawkish and drunken outburst it appeared. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, quietly, ‘I had no right to say that and it really isn’t any of my business. You no doubt have your reasons for feeling as you do. I can’t help thinking it’s a pity. Whatever lies between you and your mother that makes you wish her ill is nowhere evident in that letter. She loves you. It’s clear in every line. She wants your blessing.’ She laid a light hand upon his arm. ‘Harry, of one thing I’m certain. In the end this bitterness, whatever its source, will harm no-one but you. Can you not let the past die and send her a word of happiness and approval?’
In the silence that followed, a felucca drifted like a ghost past the Horus, the tall, pale triangle of the sail glimmering in the darkness. Moments later the small waves of her wake slapped gently against the side of the dahabeeyah. In the reeds a bird twittered a sleepy complaint. Further up the bank the lights still glittered upon the steamer, and music drifted out across the water.
Harry said nothing. Hannah waited for what seemed a very long time, then, taking his silence as dismissal, once more turned to leave him.
Her bare foot was on the first step when she heard a small, choked sound from behind her. She turned her head.
Harry had hunched himself furiously against the tears that had so shockingly ambushed him. He stood where she had left him, leaning with his back against the rail. As she watched he bowed his face into his hands, shoulders shaking, though he made no other sound.
For the first time in her life Hannah Standish was utterly unnerved. Unlike most of her sex, she had seen men cry before; the bravest could be brought low by the torture of the surgeon’s saw or the slow, gangrenous corruption of living flesh after a wound in battle. Nothing in her experience or upbringing, however, had prepared her for this, the sight of a man weeping in sheer emotional distress. She hovered for a moment, tempted to take the coward’s way and pretend she had noticed nothing. She had taken another step down the stairs before she turned and walked swiftly back to him.
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