by Ann Bridge
The very next day they were to dine at the Kiosk, an informal supper with no other guests but a couple of Aides-de-Camp. All the same Fanny put on one of her prettiest frocks, Féridé noticed, and had obviously taken a lot of trouble with her hair. When they arrived Féridé watched the greeting that passed between her guest and her host closely. It all sounded natural enough—“Well, and how goes it after your adventure of yesterday? I am not sure if you must ride Nazli again; it seems that your presence makes her lose her head!” The talk at dinner was of the tour—it was the first time they had all been together since their return, and Kemal Pasha wanted to hear their impressions. Fanny made a lively tale of the remarks they had overheard in the crowd while they waited for his arrival, and he laughed out when she reproduced, with a strong country accent, the words about “those blokes in Ankara”; her enthusiasm pleased him. After dinner he went as usual to the piano—“Now, will you sing for us?”—and to Féridé’s anxious ears there seemed to be an almost caressing note in his voice.
The A.D.C.s had disappeared when the meal was over, but as Féridé rose to leave Kemal rang the bell and told a servant to fetch Murad Bey; when the young man appeared, “Listen, Tjojukum,” (my son) he said pleasantly, “go please to my study, and bring a small package which you will find on my desk.” The young man hurried away and returned with a small flat white parcel. As they went out to the car and Goodnights were being said Kemal handed it to Fanny—“A little token of esteem for a good friend of my country, which I ask you to accept, Fani Hanim.” Fanny took it a little consciously, but said the correct words of thanks.
“Well, what has he given you?” Dr. Pierce asked cheerfully as thev drove away.
“It’s no good undoing it in the car—it’s too dark to see,” Fanny temporised.
“Here is the light!” said Orhan, switching it on.
“I bet you know what it is, anyhow, Orhan my boy,” Dr. Pierce said.
“Indeed I do not! This is something he has done quite by himself,” Orhan said—a little indignantly, the Doctor thought; perhaps Kemal Pasha’s social conscience felt that he ought to have been consulted. Meanwhile Fanny still sat with the package in her lap, making no move to undo it, a rather mutinous look on her little face. How tiresome of Uncle, how tactless and stupid of Orhan, switching on the light! It was her present—what business was it of theirs? Then Féridé spoke from her corner.
“We should all like to see the present that the Ghazi has made to the friend of his country, Fanny,” she said. Fanny almost jumped, it was so like Réfiyé Hanim speaking—the voice, the tone, and the implied command behind the courteous words. Forcing herself to smile, she undid the little parcel, and drew out a thin gold cigarette-case, beautifully made, with her monogram in one corner.
“Well, I call that very civil indeed,” said Dr. Pierce.
“Charming—it is quite charming!” said Orhan. “He has excellent taste.” He snapped off the light again. Neither Fanny nor Féridé said anything at all.
Chapter Twenty-two
The gift of the cigarette-case, coming on top of the episode (whatever it was) which she was convinced had taken place during the ride when Nazli bolted decided Féridé that she ought to talk to Fanny. She felt the greatest distaste for the task. Her pregnancy was beginning to trouble her; she slept badly, found it hard to eat, and felt irritable and nervous much of the time. To be nervous herself was a thing she had never known, and she was aware of a new compassion for poor Nilüfer, always so nervous, and what she must have suffered during those long hard days up in the citadel. But not to carry through a thing she had decided on was not in Féridé’s nature, and as she lay shifting uncomfortably on her bed after their return from the Kiosk she determined to do it next day. Poor little Fanny!
But it could not be done in the morning, for she had to go down to the town to do some shopping; she left Fanny, who never wanted to go into the new Ankara unless she had to, on the balcony with a book of Persian poetry which Dr. Pierce had recently acquired. The days were getting cooler now, and the glass doors could be left open—Fanny sat under the yellowing vine-leaves, looking out over the slopes of the vineyards near at hand to the pallid distant gold of the hills. Now she read, now she put down the book and dreamed; once Féridé was safely out of the way, she ran up to her room and fetched the cigarette-case, to have in her lap, to touch with her ringers. Of course he had had to make that formal speech about being a friend of Turkey in front of them all—but it was for her, for her herself! That was not how he had spoken, how it had been in the little sun-filled glen by the spring. Oh, better not think too much of that, she told herself, with a little shiver— and turned to the book again. The Persian poet wrote of love in the rain—
And most on a wet day—oh, wet days are pleasant indeed—
‘Neath a propped leathern tent, with a girl, to beguile the slow hours.
Féridé did her shopping now by car, with a servant to carry her parcels. She noticed with interest that morning that there was a fair sprinkling of hats and caps about the streets. Waiting outside Carpic’s restaurant, while the servant was inside getting caviare, she was accosted by Mme T., who had recognised her car; she got in and sat with Féridé for a few minutes. In French, so that the chauffeur should not hear, Mme T. told her friend that some gossip was going round about the Ghazi and this pretty Miss Pierce, especially since the trip to Kastamonu—“and I hear he has given her a wonderful mare.”
“The mare was lent,” Féridé said; and they had all gone to Kastamonu twenty-four hours ahead of the President.
“Ah well,”—Mme T. was sure that there was no indiscretion on Mdlle Pierce’s side, but—“enfin, ma chère, one knows what he is!” She did it so nicely that Féridé could not be very annoyed with her, tiresome as it all was, but she decided to talk not only to Fanny but also to Orhan, and when he came in before lunch she took him aside into his study.
“Orhan, have you mentioned Fanny’s cigarette-case to anyone?”
“No—he asked if she liked it, and I said yes. Why?”
“Then please do not speak of it.”
“But my Life, why a secret? He makes these presents to scores of women.”
“Not usually to unmarried English girls. No, listen, Orhan—people are talking.” She told him of the gossip that was circulating—about Nazli the mare, and about Kastamonu.
“What nonsense!” he said with irritation—but he frowned all the same. “Was this why you opposed our trip?”
“Yes.”
“My Life, how often you are right when I am wrong. And you never tell me so!” He took her hand and kissed it. “But I do not think it is so serious,” he went on, “there is always gossip about him with one woman or another. He is quite indifferent to it.”
Féridé drew down her brows.
“All the same, we do not want any dedikodu with the Embassy. The English have different ideas on such matters.”
He stared. “The Embassy? How does the Embassy come into it?”
“This tiresome Fisher was here when the tesbih arrived, and saw it.”
“The devil he was! I did not know that.” He frowned again, thoughtful. “So what now?”
“I shall talk to her, and urge discretion.” This, in Féride’s opinion, was quite enough for Orhan. “But you see that it is better not to advertise the cigarette-case.”
“Yes—you are right.”
After lunch, when Orhan had returned to his bureau, and the Doctor gone off for one of his solitary walks, Féridé braced herself to her task. She had spent a lot of time, driving about the town that morning, considering the best line of approach, rehearsing circumlocutory phrases which would spare them both the discomfort of open speech, if Fanny would take the hint; that was how she would have dealt with such a matter with a Turkish friend. But as she sat now opposite the English girl, looking at her resolute mouth and candid eyes, and remembering her habitual open and decided speech, she was not so sure that that was the right w
ay with her—perhaps a directness that matched her own would serve better. Fanny would probably force her to speak openly in the end—the English were so fanatically, almost crudely outspoken. How difficult it was to decide!
While she thus cogitated Fanny, who was trying to crochet an oya, one of the silken roses which had so taken her fancy at Sitaré Hanim’s, looked up and saw her friend’s eyes on her. “You re very quiet today, Féridé,” she said—usually their afternoons passed in a burble of tranquil chatter.
“I am thinking,” Féridé said.
“Goodness, what an exercise!” Fanny gibed affectionately. “May one know what about?”
Féridé took the opening.
“About you,” she said. She saw a slightly startled expression come into the girl’s eyes; her face seemed to close up, as if shutters were drawn across a window.
“Do I need to be thought about?” she asked, still lightly and mockingly—but some of the warmth had gone out of her voice.
“I think so—yes,” Féridé said slowly. “Dearest Fanny, with you at least—my best friend, my first friend—I would not beat about the bush. I am concerned about you.”
Fanny was moved by that, she saw; but she was also put on the defensive. When she answered—after a pause—her voice was kind again, but she spoke lightly.
“Féridé, dearest, there is no cause for you to worry about me, I assure you.
Féridé plunged. “Fanny, is that true? I have the impression that you are perhaps becoming—well, interested in Mustafa Kemal Pasha.”
This, which from a Turk amounted to extreme bluntness, took Fanny by surprise. She bristled up at once.
“And if I were, what of it?” she asked. “Would it concern anyone but myself?”
Féridé looked straight at her.
“Your unhappiness would cause me great concern,” she said—“More almost than that of anyone but my husband—now.” Fanny knew that she thought of Ahmet. “And if this were so, it could only bring you unhappiness,”
“Why?” Fanny asked, looking obstinate.
“Because there would be nothing in it for you that you value—no reality. You want reality always; I know that. Listen to me, dearest,” she said pleadingly, as she saw Fanny’s small fingers fiddling impatiently with the silken thread. “I have no idea what has happened, or indeed if anything has. But Kemal Pasha has these engouements, these fantasies, for one woman after another, and they never last; they mean nothing to him. Latifé Hanim, it is true, made him marry her; she would not be his without marriage—but what came of that? A divorce. And yet she is the only woman he ever cared two little pins for!”
The thread in Fanny’s fingers snapped—but she said nothing.
“See, I am showing you the reverse of the medal,” Féridé went on earnestly. “This is his particular idiosyncrasy, his relations with women. They do not affect his greatness, his grandeur in other matters; indeed they do not affect him at all—that is the trouble.”
“I’m not sure that that is really so,” Fanny said at last without raising her eyes.
“Oh dear one, it is true, indeed it is! I know him so well. Do not be deluded.”
“He likes me,” said Fanny, stubbornly.
“Naturally! As he has liked hundreds of women! And you are something fresh; English, clever, fearless, instruite; quite different from the ones he is accustomed to. Of course he is taken with you—a new toy, that sings, even! But all the same it means nothing to him, nothing serious. Oh Fanny, do reassure me—tell me that it means nothing to you either.”
To her dismay Fanny burst into tears.
“But it does mean something to me,” she sobbed out.
“Oh dji-djim, no! Not him—do not say it.”
“I do say it. Of course it does; it can’t help it,” Fanny said confusedly, still crying. “He, and knowing him like—like this—is all part of it all.”
“Part of what?”
“You, Turkey, everything! I told you how I felt I had to come back and see if all that was what I’d thought it, was real,” said Fanny, wiping her eyes and speaking more rationally. “And before I came I was afraid that he and all he’d been doing—making it a Republic, and all these new laws and so on—would have spoilt it all. But he hasn’t—he’s added to it, because he’s doing it so wonderfully, and—well, because he’s so magnificent himself!” she ended, on a note, positively, of triumph.
Féridé was silent. In the face of that declaration, and Fanny’s shining eyes as she made it—eyes shining through her still-wet lashes—for the moment she could think of nothing to say.
“You’d better understand,” Fanny went on. “It’s not just—carelessness, lightness, if you like—in me, falling in love with him; yes, I have—of course I have! At least I suppose you’d call it that. All these years that Alec’s been asking me to marry him, I kept on saying No, not because I didn’t like him enough, then, but because of this business of not being sure if the most important thing in my life so far was real or not; and if it were real, if he could take it! Oh, I don’t see how you can understand!” the girl exclaimed, pushing back her hair with a gesture of desperation. “You weren’t at my school, you don’t know North Oxford! And it was all so long ago, Bebek and the yali, and you. But when I did promise to marry him, I felt I must come out again first, and see whether all that was really what I’d dreamed it to be, for such years; and if so, whether I could still marry him. You see Alec’s real, too; and I wanted to see if my two realities were—were compatible,” Fanny said, twisting her fingers together. “You’ll think that mad, but I couldn’t marry him without doing that.”
“And were they compatible?” Féridé asked, seizing on the clearest point.
“Yes, at first. I realised, when I’d seen you again, and got to know you as you are now, that you and Alec would never have much to say to one another; but they were compatible in me, and that was the important thing. As far as that went, I could still have got married to Alec all right.”
“But,” Féridé began—and then paused, held up by the words “I could have,” the fatal sound of the past conditional tense. “But you are still engaged?” she amended, trying to conceal her dismay.
“Yes—I mean, I’ve done nothing about it. I suppose I must break it off, now. The fact is, I haven’t been thinking much about it!” said Fanny frankly, with a rueful little smile at her friend.
“Do not! Oh, do not do such a thing!” Féridé exclaimed.
“But dji-djim, I must. It wouldn’t be fair not to. I can’t marry Alec now.”
“Oh yes, you can. You must! Go away, quickly—yes, I who love you tell you to do this. Go away, and forget, and marry your Alec and be happy.”
“Féridé, I know that that’s not possible,” Fanny said slowly.
“Why not? Fanny, do you not believe what I have been telling you about Kemal Pasha? There is nothing here for you!”
“Yes, I do believe it in a way—though I think he may like me more than you think. But even if what you say about him and other women is all true, and I am just one of a crowd, what I’ve got with him is something bigger, more valuable than anything I’ve ever had, or ever could have with anyone else, just because he is so much bigger and more important. Goodness, do I have to come and tell you that he is one of the great men of all time?” Fanny burst out passionately. “And here and now, at any rate, I know something of what his love can be, although to him it may be only a fantasy, as you call it. Well, I don’t call that a disaster, even if it does prevent me from making an ordinary humdrum marriage. I think I am enormously lucky. There!”
This declaration moved Féridé, but it exasperated her too, and exasperation got the upper hand.
“Really, you talk like a Turkish woman!” she exclaimed.
“Oh Féridé, don’t be too vexed with me,” Fanny pleaded. “I know it sounds awful, and you think me crazy, but I can’t feel otherwise about it. It has just happened, that’s all.”
“It can pass. It wil
l pass, if only you will be reasonable, be right-minded,” Féridé said more gently, but still urgently.
“No, it won’t pass,” Fanny said. “I don’t want it to, either. Why should I throw away the biggest thing that has ever come into my life— into almost any woman’s life? What happens to me over it all is my affair—breaking off my engagement and all that; but at this moment this thing is mine, and I mean to hold onto it.”
Féridé sat looking at her with an expression on her face that Fanny had never seen, and at first could not fathom.
“Are you serious?” she asked at last.
“Perfectly serious.”