“Don’t be.” A smile softened his voice. “That’s the mood I want from you. There is an eye specialist in Alexandria, an Englishman named Blackmore who is retained by a wealthy panel of doctors. He’s one of the best in his line. Steve’s seen him and been told that an operation is not only possible but likely to be completely successful. Blackmore is a pompous, sententious devil, and he put over his usual formula; ‘Every eye operation is tricky. If this one were a success your eyes would be normal again, but there’s always a risk. Think it over.’ Steve decided against it.”
“Oh, but why?” she demanded in anguish.
“He saw it as a clear-cut choice between risking his sight and keeping it.”
“Is there a great risk?”
“There’s a small one, but Blackmore’s never slipped up yet. Miss Paget—” he paused, smiling seriously “—if Steve cares for you, you can influence him. Injustice to himself he should have the operation. It’s not a major affair.”
She was at the porthole, gazing desperately at a large iron ring sunk into the stone of the harbor. “I couldn’t change his mind. You see...”
“I saw him flaming because you strolled around Port Said.”
“He was always like that. It means nothing. He hasn’t again referred to being engaged, has he?”
“I put an offhand inquiry about a month ago and he said it was over. But I can’t help feeling that you’re important to him in some way. The cable from Henry Jameson telling him of your sailing date happened to be delivered while we were at lunch and I opened it in error. When he’d read it he tore it up. He was dead against bringing the Meridian to Alexandria, and it was through me that he came here this morning. Almost his last words before we came aboard were a threat to break my neck if I didn’t mind my own business.”
Her mouth trembled into a smile. “He’d be capable of it. What can we do?”
“I haven’t yet caught up with that problem. As I rushed back here I did get the harebrained notion that you could go ashore and accidentally miss the board, but he’d hardly be taken in by such a ruse. You do agree to leave the ship?”
“If it will do any good. I dread facing him, though.”
“We’ll go it together. He has a conference this afternoon. By the time he arrives home the next boat will have sailed and you’ll definitely be here till the next one. We have an excellent housekeeper, an Anglo-Egyptian.”
Melanie was appalled. “You surely don’t expect me to live in the same house. He’ll guess right away. He’s impossible to deceive.”
“Let him guess,” said Dr. Melford soothingly. “We’ll cross no bridges till we get to them.”
“He’ll be furious. As likely as not he’ll go to a hotel.”
“Admit you matter so much? Not he.” Dr. Melford rubbed his hands together almost joyfully. But he was grave as he told her, “It’s going to be hard for you. He may be cruel, you may even harden the resolve he’s already made. Don’t, for the love of heaven, build on too bright an ending.”
The green eyes glanced into his and her fine-boned face was somber as she answered, “I expect nothing. I can’t help but stay and try because I’d bear anything for Stephen, but I can’t imagine him doing for me what he won’t do for himself. I can’t pose with him.”
“Why should you? All I ask is that you be yourself, and that if he hurts you, you resist the temptation to hurt back.”
For several minutes the only sound inside the cabin was the gentle revolving of the air conditioner. Seabirds were dipping along the harbor and the-medley of hawkers’ cries, creaking chains and traffic noises was muted into a punctuated humming. The doctor seemed to be poised halfway to the door, and waiting. Melanie moved back from the porthole, unwittingly showing him a pure profile that had something of desolation in the downcast eyes and in the droop of her mouth. He felt compelled to cross the space that divided them and place a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Start packing. I’ll send you some sandwiches and black coffee. It will be necessary for me to have your passport and get it visaed for Egypt, and I’d better have a word with the purser or there’ll be a hue and cry for a young woman missing from her cabin! It’s half-past twelve. I’ll be back in half an hour. Keep busy, and don’t think too much.”
He had been gone some time before the entire enormity of what lay before her dawned on Melanie. Even if Stephen determined to tolerate her presence under the roof he shared with Bill Melford, he must suspect her motive. The instant he saw her he would know she loved him as certainly as if she had openly declared it. Simply by doing what the doctor required of her she was baring herself to the icy blast of Stephen’s contempt, and closing the door on the slenderest chance of real happiness.
Dr. Melford was clever and, in his way, rather ruthless. His concern was only for Stephen; if her suffering were a means to his end, she must suffer. Stephen was not only his friend; he was a man of superb brain and physique who, in the course of his duties, had developed a small defect that could and must be righted.
She had gained the impression that the doctor was unmarried, that he had never known an urge toward marriage. How, then, was he to judge that she was in some way important to Stephen? The evidence he had advanced seemed impossibly slim: Stephen had confessed to getting himself engaged, had written the letter to Colin after concluding that he would prefer to go through life as he was rather than risk some damage to his sight; he had come to the Meridian this morning against his will. Viewed objectively and dispassionately, Dr. Melford’s plan was a chance throw in a game that could not but go against her from the start.
“Be yourself,” he said. But was he honestly of the opinion that Melanie Paget, who had spent a night alone with a completely unroused Stephen, in his house at Mindoa, could persuade him, by propinquity and unfailing sweetness, to reverse his decision? She was embarking on a hopeless quest.
At that stage in her thoughts the stewardess came in with a tray. Doing the accepted thing from habit, Melanie told her she was leaving the boat and gave her a tip. A few minutes after the woman had made a soft-footed exit, Miss Hogg appeared. A plunge into a description of her adventures ashore was stopped by the sight of Melanie’s cases open upon the floor of the cabin.
Melanie forestalled her inquiries. “Some friends who live in Alexandria sought me out. They’ve asked me to stay with them till the next boat.”
“How very odd, but how lucky for you. If my funds hadn’t run low I’d stay on myself. I made a mistake in setting out on my world tour from the West. Well—” with a good-natured shrug “—it’s too late now. If I never see the pyramids, I’ve talked with a camel driver who’s lived near them so long that he’s taken their shape! I’ll help you pack.”
Miss Hogg was an expert packer; during the last few months she had had plenty of practice. As she folded garments and tucked an odd shoe here or there, she related her morning’s experiences.
“It’s an interesting town but not spectacular—they seem to have obliterated most of the old when they built the new. Your friends will be living in the eastern suburbs. Quite beautiful, I believe. You go there by a corniche road from the Place Muhammed Ali. There was a man who took me up into a tower and pointed out the landmarks and the western arm of the delta. Said he had seventeen children. Incredible, isn’t it?” This was merely an expression of opinion, for she continued, “Hardly any women were around—just one or two in the sidestreets wearing veils or those grim burkas. The rich people have men running their houses, so I suppose they keep their women solely for pleasure and childbearing. Simplifies life, doesn’t it? Think of the leisure you’d have in a potentate’s harem!”
Miss Hogg would keep up this kind of commentary for hours, so Melanie had little compunction in framing no replies. She locked the cases and rang for a steward to take them away, put cosmetics and other oddments into her handbag. The corridor had become noise with the hurried, clicking footsteps of returning sightseers. On deck the bell-like call to lunch was sounded, a
nd followed by the scamper of juvenile feet.
Melanie held out her hand. “Goodbye, Miss Hogg. I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the trip.”
“Goodbye, my dear. Get the best out of Alexandria. Life’s awfully short, you know.”
When Melanie emerged on deck few people were around. A straggler was hastening aboard with bead-hung hawkers in his wake, but most of the passengers were in the saloon, attacking a hearty lunch.
She stood looking over at the quay, seeing only the blur of color and unceasing movement. She was like gossamer borne on hot, uncertain winds and deposited wherever fate willed, to be whipped up again, possibly, and hurled somewhere else. She belonged nowhere.
She saw a taxi thrusting its way cautiously among the traders, saw it stop and Dr. Melford get out. With a conscious tensing of her sinews she went down the gangway to meet him.
“You’re ready? Good.” He took her arm, led her to the taxi, from which bowed the soiled fez of the driver. “Your luggage is at the customs office but they won’t release it without sight of your passport, and I had to leave that in town for the visa. It may be a couple of days before you get your things, but you can buy whatever you need. There’s plenty of stuff in the shops.”
They moved on, were bawled at by a dock policeman for bringing a car to a forbidden area, and eventually crawled away from the Meridian toward the center of the glaring white town.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They LUNCHED AT A magnificent restaurant that had a mosaic front yard beyond the sun lounge, and many grotesque and graceful palms to relieve the excessive azure of the sky. They were attended by a waiter in a white, enveloping uniform and a red fez.
As a companion in her distress, Dr. Melford was calming. He had dwelt in so many strange places that Alexandria, with its tincture of Europeanism, was no more peculiar to him than provincial England. He knew the streets and the people better than he knew those of present-day London, and, quite obviously, to him there was nothing extraordinary in eating sumptuous but indescribable food in the quiet, luxurious interior of what looked like a palace from an Eastern fairy tale.
His inner thoughts about the girl he had induced to come ashore remained obscure. When the powerful siren of the ship boomed over the city, he gave her an encouraging nod.
“Twenty-past two. There goes the Meridian! You’re safe.”
She knocked ash from her cigarette, helped it with a matchstick to disintegrate upon the small, decorated ashtray. “I’d feel safer on the edge of a volcano. This seems to me to be a ghastly mistake.”
“I’ve an idea that if it should be so, we’ll find it out very quickly. That wasn’t Steve you saw this morning, but it will undoubtedly be Steve you’ll encounter late this afternoon.”
“I still can’t think how you’re going to explain my presence in your house.”
“My explanation won’t matter; he’s more likely to concentrate upon what it hides.” His smile now was understanding. “I’m not so altogether cold-blooded about this as you think. I wouldn’t have put you up to it if I hadn’t been fairly certain of your ability to stand it. You’re convinced he doesn’t love you; I’m banking on the reverse being the case. If I’m wrong, you’ll at least have learned the worst.”
“I learned it at Mindoa.”
“Well, we’ll verify it. There’s one thing I’ve omitted. For the love of Mike don’t refer to the eyestrain unless he does.”
“It looks as if it’s going to be dangerous to talk at all.”
“Perhaps, at first. Let him deal with everything in his own way.” He got rid of his cigarette. “I’ll take you for a walk. We’ll use up an hour or so.”
Melanie’s zest for knowledge and experience had waned. Incuriously she threaded the wide, dazzling streets with him. Had she come straight from Europe the impact of this polyglot humanity, the modern, semi-Oriental buildings, the minarets and cupolas seen at the end of narrow byways against a theatrical sky, might have been bewildering. But she had toured Bombay and Port Said, lived on the overpopulated island of Mindoa.
They turned into one of the narrower alleys, where biblical-looking old men with beards and white turbans squatted in cafe doorways, and lively brown children laughed and stared and begged for coins to buy oranges from the ragged vendor who knelt there, arranging his fruit upon a palm-leaf mat. Without intentionally listening, Melanie heard Dr. Melford describe some of the diseases prevalent among the poor. Here, where it was warm and dry, the children could be disgracefully undernourished and yet draw sustenance from the sun. But if illness caught up with them it was too often fatal.
They reached a main thoroughfare and he waited while she visited a store to buy immediate necessities. She had only English money, but it was accepted with such eagerness that she left the shop knowing she had paid about twice the amount the purchases were worth.
Dr. Melford called a taxi. “Now we’ll go to the house,” he said. “There’s nothing so effective as a cup of tea in a cool room to steady the nerves. Steve won’t be there till after five.” Long, ornamental gardens lay along each side of the road out of town. Tall, balconied houses peeped between date palms and nut trees, and the sandy soil of the flower beds was hidden under a weight of scarlet, white and purple blossom. Dr. Melford’s house was similar to the others, much too large for one man, roomy even for a sizable family. But the company was generous to its executives, Melanie remembered wryly. The taxi angled between white pillars, curbed between clipped cypresses and stopped in front of a covered, columned portico. Dr. Melford settled with the driver, got out his key.
Since leaving England about ten months ago, Melanie had entered many tiled halls, all of them beneficently cool and slightly forbidding. This one was no exception. The doors from it were tall and painted white, and the staircase was doubtless concealed behind one of them.
Melanie heard a grunt from the doctor, looked, with him, at the felt hat upon the gleaming brown table. Beside the hat lay a pair of dark glasses. Her heart moved in her breast, and she stared in frantic and mute appeal at the doctor.
“Stay here,” he whispered.
The injunction was unnecessary. Seized with paralysis, she watched him go to the nearest door, open it and enter the room. She heard him say, “You’re home early, Steve. Was it a short meeting?”
Stephen’s voice came crisp and clear. “I don’t know. I didn’t attend.”
“But weren’t they to discuss the new site at Mat-Shenaba?”
“I believe so.”
“They can’t set about that without you.”
“They’ll have to. I’ve had enough of sites, past and future.”
“That’s a new slant, from you. Not resigning, are you?”
“Not yet.”
There was a silence, timed by the pounding of Melanie’s heart. Her fingers were gripped hard on the white handbag, and unconsciously her eyes picked out the floral gilt edging of a mirror hung too high on the wall to be of service to a woman. Bill Melford spoke again. “Have you been in all day?”
“No. I got back about half an hour ago. I’ve been to see Blackmore.”
Melanie’s breathing became stifled. Blackmore was the specialist. Surely... surely not—”
The doctor was asking steadily, “Did you go by appointment?”
A chair creaked as Stephen shifted. His tone altered, but the change in it baffled Melanie.
“When I left you this morning I telephoned him and arranged to go along after lunch.”
“For an examination?”
Stephen must have nodded. During the second silence Melanie’s nerves screamed. Why didn’t the doctor tell Stephen that she was a few feet away? Had he forgotten her, or was this his usual manner with Stephen—the slow, careful approach? How were they looking in that room? Stephen she could imagine in a lounge chair, his head back, his eyes half-closed, his mouth enigmatic. Dr. Melford would be standing somewhere between Stephen and the door, watchful, under those protruding brows, but singularly without emo
tion. Both knew what it was that lay unspoken between them, yet for the moment neither would yield.
The next query, of course, came from Bill Melford. “Well, what was the verdict this time?”
“Like the last, but the condition of strain has improved. Those damned glasses you got me seem to have done some good, but I’m not wearing them anymore. Blackmore’s going to do the job tomorrow.”
What was said after that did not penetrate Melanie’s consciousness. But for the fear that she might be seen from a window she would have run from the house. Bill Melford’s plan, her anguish of indecision, the stiffening of her courage to snapping point, all had been futile. Her presence in this house was a mockery. She to persuade Stephen; she to be the center of his existence, the purpose in his life. It was funny, heartbreakingly funny. That he was wholly independent was truer now than it had ever been: Against her will she had allowed the doctor to take command; not only against her will but against her knowledge of Stephen. How could she bear to confront him now?
The defensive instinct dies hard. She twisted and went soundlessly to another of the doors, slipped into a darkened room and pulled the door closed behind her. For a minute she stood still to get her bearings. This was a lounge with the blinds drawn; Melanie took in no more than that. The nearest piece of furniture was a divan with an upholstered stool drawn up to it. Melanie sat on the stool, took off her white felt hat and leaned her bright head upon the arm of the divan.
The doctor would come to her. He must help her to escape from the house to a hotel, to keep the fact that she was in Alexandria from Stephen. It was the smallest thing he could do for her.
But the minutes ticked away, leaving her more weary, more depleted. The room was airless; it smelled as if it had been shut up a long time. That room in which the men had talked would be the lounge they used. No one would expect to find her in this unventilated room, but she hardly cared.
Stormy Haven Page 19