by Isobel Chace
He raced her down the passageway, scattering people to either side as they tried to get out of his way. A Bedouin woman, her face tattooed, and dressed in scarlet silk, scowled at him and shook her fist, but he called out something to her in Arabic and her frowns changed to laughter. Katherine hurried after him. She was frightened of losing him in the crowds and she was frightened of tripping on the rough ground.
Chantal stood and waited for them to catch up with her, an enigmatic little smile just playing on her lips.
“There was no hurry, mon cheri,” she greeted the doctor, presenting one cool cheek for him to kiss. “I would have waited for you.”
I’ll bet! Katherine thought viciously. She wished that she didn’t feel cheated, that she didn’t resent the other girl’s easy relationship with the doctor. What did he matter after all? He was only one person.
“And Kat-terine also!” Chantal went on, her eyes flickering up from Katherine’s dusty shoes to her face that was hot with hurrying. “Guillaume was wondering what had happened to you. Could you not have told us if you meant to leave the hotel?”
Katherine found herself apologising, though she didn’t see why she should. She wasn’t answerable to these two for her actions!
“As it happened,” the French girl added graciously, “I was able to tell him where you were, because it was I who asked Peter to show you round.” She clung to his arm. “He makes a good guide, does he not?”
“Very good,” Katherine agreed. She knew she sounded ungracious, but she couldn’t help it. “We had just reached the beginning of the Souk El Attarine,” she rushed on. “It looks very
— very interesting.”
Chantal’s expression mocked her.
“Oh, it is!” she assured her. “Now that I am here we can all see it together.” Her pale blue eyes rested on Dr. Kreistler’s broad shoulders for an instant. “I need some more perfume,” she complained softly. “It will be good for Katherine to see it being made, don’t you think, Peter?”
“It is a pleasant sight,” he agreed. His accent seemed to be more pronounced now that the other girl had arrived, and he looked faintly cross as though there were other things that he could think of to do with her — things that didn’t include taking Katherine as well. “You could go together and start the proceedings,” he suggested. “I have to go to the Kasbah to pick up some facts and figures for an article I am writing. I will return in a few minutes.”
Chantal sighed.
“If you must!” she said tautly. “But I should have thought you could have forgotten about your work for one morning.”
He smiled suddenly.
“You do your best to tempt me,” he retorted. “And I might, if it were not Friday. But all the government offices close this afternoon for prayers and I must be getting back to Sidi Behn Ahmed.”
“Of course,” Chantal agreed coldly. “We shall be at the usual shop.”
She walked away from him without a backward glance, her skirt swinging gently as she went. She certainly knew all that there was to know about dress, Katherine thought. And she wore her clothes with a confidence that made them seem even better than they were.
It was odd too, for the doctor looked faintly relieved as she went. For a man who had been so pleased to see her a few minutes earlier, he seemed quite as pleased to see her go.
Chantal stood at the entrance to one of the little shops and waited for Katherine to come up to her. She was still smiling that same enigmatic little smile.
“It will be a good thing for your happiness if you remember that Peter is mine,” she said in quite friendly tones. “Absolutely mine!”
Katherine looked amused.
“So your brother told me last night,” she said, and an unfortunate little devil crept up inside her. “I must say,” she added, “I can’t see Dr. Kreistler being absolutely anyone’s! He seems to be dedicated to his work also.”
Chantal treated that remark with the contempt that she obviously thought it deserved.
“A little hospital in the middle of nowhere? He will not be content with the Hospital of Fatima for very long, but a refugee must start somewhere and slowly gain people’s confidence. One day we shall go to America and he will become a great man!”
“But surely —” Katherine began, and then stopped. It was none of her business. But she was sure that Guillaume had told her that Peter had been working for W.H.O. and had left to supervise the oasis hospital. If he had been as ambitious as Chantal made out, surely he would have done it the other way round? In that instant, and for the first time, she felt sorry for Chantal de Hallet.
The French girl was greeted as an old customer by the perfumier. He knew immediately which bottles to reach for and he started mixing the various ingredients together with all the care of a scientist.
It was a fascinating shop. Baskets full of henna powders, desiccated mint and verbena stood, spilling out, on the doorstep. Sticks of incense chips mixed with dried cloves gave a pungent spice to the atmosphere that was already full of the softer scent of rose-petals and beads fashioned out of ambergris and powdered Comoro-wood, with perhaps a dash of musk and one of true amber, the perfume fixed with civet. There was sandalwood too, apparently the favourite soap of the neighbourhood, and the array of brightly coloured bottles that were the extracts of a hundred different flowers; the gold of roses; the red of jasmine; the saffron yellow of verbena; and a dozen others.
Katherine looked at the prices on some of the jars and blinked.
They may have been cheap by Paris standards, but they were still a great deal more than she had ever paid for a bottle of scent.
“I buy all my perfume here,” Chantal told her. “Peter gave me the first lot and it has become a tradition now.”
Katherine looked at the prices again. It hadn’t occurred to her previously to wonder what Chantal did for money, but now she was frankly curious. Perhaps Guillaume made her an allowance from the money he received from the French estates, or perhaps her uncle had kept her? Katherine hoped not. It would make things even more awkward if she had to be tactful about that as well as everything else!
The perfumier measured out the last ingredient and held out the minute phial to Chantal.
“I can create something very special for your friend?” he suggested eagerly. “Something not too heavy —”
Katherine shook her head.
“I don’t use a lot of perfume,” she said.
Chantal made a face at her.
“No,” she agreed. “I imagine surgical spirit would be more in the line of the dedicated little nurse!”
Katherine bit her lip, determined not to show that the other girl’s barbs were getting home. She was beginning to wonder how she could live in the same house as the de Hallets, and that would never do. She had to do it. She had to because Edouard de Hallet had expected it of her and he wouldn’t have left her his properties for nothing.
“Aren’t you going to pay for the perfume?” she asked quietly.
Chantal shrugged.
“Peter will pay when he comes,” she said indifferently.
But for some reason Katherine was determined that that shouldn’t happen. She opened her purse and handed over a note to the perfumier, receiving a few odd coins in exchange.
“Am I expected to thank you?” Chantal demanded.
“No,” Katherine replied tautly. She couldn’t explain her motives, they were too mixed up. But Peter Kreistler couldn’t be a rich man. His salary would not be a very large one, working at a small hospital right down in the south of the country. And the perfume was so expensive. She didn’t see why he should have to pay for it.
“It’s a small present from me,” she added pacifically.
Chantal looked first surprised and then amused.
“Then I suppose I ought to thank you,” she said. “Or should I say: thank you, Uncle Edouard?”
Katherine looked her straight in the eyes.
“Whichever you please,” she said calmly.
They stood in silence after that, one of them on either side of the doorway, waiting for Dr. Kreistler. It was so silly not to find something to talk about, and yet the more Katherine struggled to find a subject that was not labelled Dangerous, the less she could think of anything to say at all. It was with desperation that she finally managed:
“What are these baskets used for?” She pointed blindly at the satin-covered, padded baskets that hung in profusion over the doorway, and missed the fact that Dr. Kreistler had rejoined them until he said sharply, his accent more apparent than ever:
“Well, tell her, Chantal!”
The French girl opened her pale blue eyes very wide and smiled a secret smile.
“They are used at weddings,” she said obligingly. “The bridegroom brings his presents for his bride in it.”
“And afterwards they use it for the first-born child,” the doctor supplied.
Katherine looked at one of the baskets more closely.
“They wouldn’t last the child for long!” she said.
Dr. Kreistler looked at her with faint contempt.
“And how many babies have you had, Miss Lane?” he asked nastily.
Katherine chuckled.
“Me? Hundreds!” she said airily. It wasn’t really a lie when she thought of all the babies that had come into the world under her care, but she found she couldn’t quite meet Dr. Kreistler’s eyes for all that. What a fool he would think her! And what a fool she was! Making conversation when she had always known that the Wise were Silent!
Dr. Kreistler had a Land Rover. The back seats and most of the floor space were piled high with the medical supplies he had come up to Tunis to collect. Chantal took one look and said she
would take a taxi back to the hotel.
“You had better come with me,” she said to Katherine, taking it for granted that the English girl would fall in with whatever plans she made. “Shall we see you at lunch, Peter?”
The doctor shook his head.
“I’ll see you next time I come north.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek and then turned to Katherine. “And you?”
Katherine took a deep breath to give herself courage.
“If I came to Sidi Behn Ahmed, could I help in the hospital?” she asked him urgently.
He bowed and kissed her hand, very much in the foreign manner.
"If you come I expect we could find you a job of some sort. But you won’t come, Miss Lane. The Sahara is not for pretty-complexioned girls like you! Take my advice and stay at Hammamet.” He turned abruptly and jumped up into the driving seat. “Au revoir!”
The two girls stood on the pavement and watched his car join the busy streams of traffic. Chantal sighed, and, to Katherine’s dismay, two large tears rolled slowly down her cheeks.
“It is so sad to see him so seldom!” A fragile lacy handkerchief was brought out of her handbag, and with it the phial of perfume, that hit the pavement and splintered into a thousand pieces.
“Oh, look what I have done!” Chantal screamed.
Katherine stood by in silence, bitterly hurt. For an instant, so rapid that she might have imagined it, she had seen the look of triumph on the French girl’s face as she had dropped the perfume.
To be hated that much was a frightening thing.
“Never mind,” she heard herself saying automatically. “We can easily get some more.”
Chantal wiped her eyes carefully on the edge of her handkerchief so as not to disturb her mascara.
“There is no time now!” she said with finality. “We leave straight after lunch.”
She hailed a taxi and sat in the back seat, leaving it for Katherine to go round to the other side.
“By the way,” she said silkily, “I forgot to tell you. I met some friends of ours this morning — Monsieur and Madame Verdon — and they wanted to travel home with us. I knew you wouldn’t mind going in the estate car. It will be much easier for you really, not having to talk to us all the way.”
Katherine said nothing. But at that moment she had never felt so alone in her whole life.
CHAPTER THREE
BECAUSE the hotel was not full, Katherine had been allowed to leave her suitcases in her room until after lunch. The bed had been stripped, however, and the shutters and window were as tightly closed as ever. She opened them, feeling a little guilty, but glad of the light breeze that played against the curtains, bringing the smell of distemper and sunshine into the room.
It was now, she thought, that she needed a solicitor. She needed some firm, masculine advice on what she should do. But, mo re than anything else, she needed someone to explain to her exactly what her position was, and more particularly, exactly what she ought to do about Chantal.
She didn’t often smoke, but she smoked a cigarette now, very slowly, enjoying every moment of it. Then she washed her face and hands, re-did her hair, and went down to lunch.
Chantal made a very good hostess. She divided her time equally between her two guests, and if she was inclined to ignore Katherine’s presence at the table, it wasn’t made at all obvious. And Katherine had to admit that she liked her friends. Monsieur and Madame Verdon were a charming couple. They had lived in Tunisia since long before the war and had suffered with the local people when first the Germans and then the Allies had overrun their land. After the war they had rebuilt their farm and by dint of hard work and good judgment they were now both contented and very well off.
“We live not far from Hammamet,” Madame Verdon told Katherine with a kind smile. “Chantal must bring you over to visit us.”
Monsieur Verdon nodded his agreement.
“You have a very good man running your place,” he told her thoughtfully, “but you might be glad of another opinion sometimes. You can always call on me.” He smiled a trifle sadly.
“Edouard was a friend of mine,” he added quietly.
Katherine was terribly grateful to them both. She had always been accustomed to making friends quickly and easily, and these two seemed to be the first people in Tunisia who had been willing to like her at all.
She listened now eagerly as he told her all about the scheme Edouard de Hallet had had of introducing a small canning factory to cope with the excess of fruit that was grown.
“The idea was to have it on a co-operative basis, rather like the olive oil presses. There’s quite a market for tinned fruit juice, and anyway it’s much better than letting it rot round the trees as we have to do now whenever the market is glutted.”
“Much better!” Katherine agreed. One did not have to be an expert to see that! “But why isn’t the idea being carried out?”
Monsieur Verdon sighed.
“We needed Edouard’s capital,” he confessed. “The government were interested too, but with the vast expansion projects they have in hand they couldn’t possibly help much. None of the rest of us has anything like the reserves needed.”
“I see,” Katherine said thoughtfully. Impulsively she touched him on the sleeve. “Perhaps we could still do it!” she exclaimed. “I don’t really know what the estate consists of yet, but if the money was there before I presume it still is.”
There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence all round the table. “Edouard spent the money in his last year,” Madame Verdon said at last. “And who could blame him? If ever a man loved life, it was he! He wanted to live more than anything else, and so it went, on doctors’ bills and nursing homes, and things like that.” But it didn’t! Katherine longed to protest. If he had said that, he must have been lying. He had spent some money, yes, but not all that. Didn’t they know about the National Health Service in England? She allowed her eyelids to veil her eyes so that the others couldn’t see what she was thinking. She had thought at the time that that was why he had gone to Britain at the end, because he couldn’t afford the fantastic costs of being ill in a place like America, for instance. She had thought that he was an old, tired man who had been cast off by his family. A rich old man who had been too mea
n to spend his money on his own health and yet,
on the other hand, wanting the very best of medical services. Silently, she apologised to him now. He must have had other reasons of his own for hiding the real way the money had gone, but that had been his own business and she could do nothing less than respect his wishes.
“Perhaps if we made economies it could still be done,” she said hopefully.
It was Chantal who answered her. Her laugh, light and pretty, came floating across the table.
“And how should we live, my dear?” she asked. “Remember it is not only you that the estate supports!”
Katherine flushed, and was cross because she never had had any control over the rich, warm colour that flooded her cheeks at the slightest provocation. How could she ever forget? And she imagined that supporting Chantal was quite an expensive business.
“We can discuss it again when you have settled in at Hammamet,” Monsieur Verdon said kindly. “We shall hope to see a great deal of you there.”
Katherine flushed again, this time with happiness. She liked the Verdons immensely, and they seemed to like her too. If the other people at Hammamet were as nice, perhaps Chantal’s attitude wouldn’t matter so much. Perhaps she would even grow to like her!
She felt lonely again, though, when she stood on the steps of the hotel and watched the others get into Guillaume’s car, ready to depart. The Verdons had been surprised that she was not to accompany them.
“There is plenty of room for three in the back,” Madame had said.
Katherine had thrown Chantal a look of appeal that had been met by a stony stare.
“It — it isn’t that,” she had stammered. “It’s just that I want to see the place on my own the first time. You know how it is.”
Madame Verdon had plainly not known how it was, but she had accepted Katherine’s explanation at its face value and had got into the back seat of the car.
They all waved as they left, except Chantal. She was far too busy investigating the corner of one of her nails. But Guillaume’s bright blue eyes twinkled up at her reassuringly.
“The estate car is calling for you in a quarter of an hour,” he told her above the roar of the traffic, and then, with one last wave, he pulled the car out into the middle of the avenue and they were gone.