by Jane Jakeman
Had he known it was there? How could he not have done so — he had visited that fort on previous occasions. That much was clear from the evident familiarity with the tower which he had displayed. And if he had known about the missing beams, then quite deliberately he had taken me into a death-trap.
The second reason for my mistrust was more difficult to pinpoint. It was somehow in the way Casterman looked at Rahaba. Forced as I was in my present surroundings to try and communicate with gesture and expression, I had become more sensitive, I believe, to the language of look and movement, in a way in which our free and easy ways at Westmorland Park had never constrained. I had been a lively, thoughtless young person — I had to confess this — but I had also been open and confident in my nature. Now I was forced to study my surroundings and my companions as never before, for I realised that those trusting days were gone: I had to become thoughtful, wily, subtle in my dealings with the world.
So I observed, with my eyes downcast, the glance which Casterman gave to Rahaba, who now held an organza scarf up to her face as her sobs subsided into a kind of hopelessness. I tried to think of how the look on Casterman’s face might be described and a strange word sprung into my mind. Miserly. That was it. Like a man staring at his wealth.
Why did I think that? I cast my mind back and suddenly recalled an incident that had occurred when I was about thirteen years of age and had been passing through Callerton town on market day, with my mother. We were in the carriage which was pressing its way through the town square and I observed through the window an exchange which I only partly understood. An old man with a beard was pushing a woman forward with one hand and with the other was taking a gold coin from the outstretched palm of a farmer. The farmers face was red and a stench of ale reached me on the breeze which blew through the open carriage window. The old man’s face was fixed, not upon the woman, but upon the coin and had stamped upon the features the expression which I now saw upon Casterman’s as he gazed at Rahaba. Most men would have been transfixed by her beauty.
Casterman was like a miser staring at his gold.
I turned the thought over, watching them, and another word came to mind. Covetous. That was it. I had heard it in church. I repeated the word to myself, trying it out as a description of his face. It fitted exactly. Covetous.
I no longer trusted Casterman because I had learned to observe. No, I thought, he was not to be believed, not for myself, not for Rahaba, yet, as I had learned wisdom and caution in my captivity and to restrain the impulses on which I had always previously acted, I said nothing then. I thanked him as if I were in my mother’s drawing room and there was nothing in the slightest degree amiss. He bowed and took his leave and left us to our captivity.
And as for his promise of conveying my letters to my friends, that was all very fine but writing materials were never sent up to me as he had promised, so how was I to write without pen, ink or paper? None was brought and though I ransacked all the fragile pretty cupboards and caskets in the harem I found nothing to serve my purpose of trying to find some saviour in the outside world. Piles of silks, tinted muslins that fluttered as I opened the ivory-inlaid doors of a press, jars of perfume, boxes of sandalwood — but not a single object of any practical use.
On the second day after Casterman’s visit I determined to try something. Racking my brains for some means of communication with the outside world, I followed after the girl who brought the trays of food.
“Please, I need your help!”
The face was concerned but uncomprehending. The two of us had not a word of any language in common.
I made writing gestures with one hand, and this the girl evidently understood but a look of fear came into her eyes and she shook her head vehemently. No, she would not help me to obtain any writing implements, that was obvious.
In despair, I clung now to the name of the one person in Cairo whom I believed could help me. Mr. Sholto Lawrence had left for England and I could not count upon his aid. And Jennet loved me dearly, of that I was sure, yet danger was obliging me to think like an adult and not like the child who had clung to Jennet’s skirts; she had advised me to the best of her abilities, and that well-intentioned advice had been that my Uncle Micah doubtless had my welfare at heart! Devotion, I understood suddenly, is not always more desirable than judgement. No, Jennet would not see through the traps that had been laid by cunning hands; she would no doubt be more fearful and anxious than was I myself. I was troubled sorely for her, but under no illusions that she could assist me. Yet one person still remained in Egypt who would surely come to my assistance, if he could but be alerted to my plight; had he not said that he would act as my protector if I should ever need him?
“Lord Ambrose Malfine,” I said to the girl. “Please go to Lord Ambrose.”
Surely he would be well known in Cairo — he was such a distinctive creature! At any rate, anyone in the European community would certainly know of him.
“Lord Ambrose,” I said again, and then suddenly, on an impulse, I unfastened my gold and silver brooch, the galloping horse within the crescent moon and pinned it to the girl’s garment.
“Help me! Please!”
The girl was gone.
*
Several tedious days and nights followed, during which we continued to lead our lives of outer luxury and inner despair. The monotony seemed unbroken, though I tried to pass the time by learning a little Arabic from Rahaba, but was unable to make sufficient progress to discover anything about her situation, or whether she in her turn had learned aught about this strange household. Somehow, I could not find it in myself to enjoy the delights of the exquisite food with which we were served, the girl who brought them being as impassive as ever, though after two or three days her place was taken by another, so that even a familiar face was denied to us. These delicacies that were sent up from unseen regions of the house as if in a magician’s feast, orange sherbet, dried raisins soaked in anise, apricots, dates stuffed with marchpane — all these dishes seemed to taste of dust. Trays of food were taken away scarcely touched from our sad and silent rooms behind the high window-screens. Rahaba divided her time between pacing up and down or peering hopefully out of the windows at any slight disturbance in the half-perceived world below.
One day at last there came an excitement into our routine. There was a bustle in the courtyard beneath our windows and, peering out, I saw the figure of Casterman, attended by several other men, one of whom appeared to be arguing violently with him. The situation was maddeningly frustrating, for Rahaba was clearly alarmed by what she had heard but although she turned towards me and was trying to convey something urgently, it was impossible to make anything of what was passing in the courtyard below.
Suddenly the door of our apartments flew open and two men, not in robes and turbans but in Western dress, seized Rahaba. Casterman followed them into the room and did nothing to prevent them from dragging the girl away, screaming piteously though she was.
And then something changed. I was puzzled utterly. Rahaba was at first resisting her tormentors, but a few words were exchanged which seemed to alter the case completely. A word which I could not catch recurred several times and Rahaba repeated it in a low voice, with the most fearful tone I thought I had ever heard issuing from a human throat.
“Aywa” said one of the men very gravely, and again, “aywa.” I knew this meant “yes” in the Arabic of Cairo.
What Rahaba plainly feared was being confirmed, but, whatever it was, the enemy was elsewhere and not in this room, for to my astonishment the girl stopped her struggles and began to accompany her captors willingly. She was given a long cloak and a kind of hood to throw over herself, which completely concealed her distinctive dress and features.
When she saw that I was not to accompany her, however, for the guards made no attempt to take me along with them, Rahaba turned back towards me, beckoning and calling my name, but I was not to be permitted to go with them. Casterman barred my way.
“No, Miss Lilian, you are not to accompany them. Oh, no harm will come to her — she is merely being taken home, I assure you, and she will be delighted to see her family once more. We are acting entirely in her own interests and she understands that now. And if you will be patient but for a few more days, you too will join your friends again, I promise you, for my arrangements in Cairo are now complete and my business is nearly done.”
Before I had the opportunity to say anything more, Casterman vanished through the door at the end of the women’s rooms. I heard their voices all growing fainter, Casterman’s deep baritone among them, as they descended the staircase.
Through the shutters, in the fragmented mosaic that was my view of the outside world, I saw Rahaba being helped on to a mule that was standing in the courtyard; her guards climbed on to their mounts also and with a sharp clatter of hooves the whole little procession swept out of the gate and beyond my sight.
I struck the shutters with the palms of my hands, in frustration at being deprived of the only human society which had been permitted to me, but the sound echoed round and round the walls and there was no response: only silence and dreary emptiness.
I passed a fearful and solitary night, barely realising that no food had been brought in the evening, and still the next day no one appeared.
At length I went to the door that led to the stairs, where usually sat the turbaned and scimitared figure who was on guard. I cautiously tried the handle of the door.
*
It did not move. The door would not yield. It was locked fast. I was a prisoner with absolutely no means of communication with the outside world.
I longed at first to give way to despair and wanted no more than to lie on my bed and weep, but I forced myself to try and make sense of my situation. Why was I locked in here alone like this? And how long would this solitary captivity last?
To none of these questions could I arrive at any sensible answer, but I comforted myself with the thought that, however frightful my entrapment might be, relief must come before long. Casterman could not go too far in mistreating me, nor could he utterly neglect me, for so many people knew that I was in his charge and he must ultimately answer for my safety. Why, all the guests at Hills Hotel must have heard about my precipitous departure in Casterman’s wake, and somewhere out there was Jennet, who would surely never abandon the search for me, come what may!
Thus I tried to buoy up my hopes. I sat on the soft couches of the harem and pictured the scenes in my mind’s eye. The hunt for me — the bustle, the alarm! Jennet would surely alert the British Consul in Alexandria if her young mistress did not appear.
A noise in the courtyard beneath intruded into this pointless revery of escape and safety. There were still servants in this strange household, it seemed, for suddenly a woman dressed in dusty black erupted into the courtyard. Four men in robes and turbans emerged after her and they were carrying what looked like a makeshift stretcher upon which lay a long and motionless shape covered by a white cloth.
The woman began that strange sound that I had heard once before, and that Casterman had told me was called ululation: it was broken with sobs and weeping. In a display of the greatest grief she tore her face with her nails and flung herself forward to the stretcher, but the turbaned men would not suffer her to touch it and another woman emerged from the doorway and caught the first mourner in her arms.
I suddenly took in the garb of the bearers; swathes of veiling were thrown around their mouths. Not only that: their hands were gloved.
I shuddered, not stopping to analyse my sensation of extreme fear.
The strange little procession disappeared below, but I could still hear weeping in some part of the building.
It was a long, hot afternoon in the palace-prison. A yellowish dust hung in the air; waves of heat swept over me like washes of warm water. From time to time I turned to an ewer, poured a little of the perfumed water out into a silver basin, and splashed it on my face and arms, yet it seemed to bring me no relief. Every few minutes the cries of women broke out, now from one side of the walls, now from another, and they seemed to echo in all the alleyways around.
Finally, as the afternoon at last grew a little cooler, I heard a new commotion beneath the window and, looking out into the courtyard, saw now a number of stretchers — perhaps five or six — were lying on the dusty ground and on each there was a recumbent form. Some seemed alive, judging by their feeble movements; with others, a white shawl or cloth laid over the whole form, including the face, indicated that the end of this world’s torments had at last arrived for the poor wretch beneath the shroud.
I shrank back into the room, too horrified to continue watching.
Shortly after, I heard a sound at the door, as of the key being turned in the lock. I rushed forward, and heard footsteps retreating down the stairs, and I was almost sure that I recognised Casterman’s step. Had I perhaps misjudged him? Was he releasing me at last from my captivity?
The door that had so long kept me prisoner was standing open.
*
Yet I hesitated, on the very threshold of freedom. From the depths below there came only silence.
I longed for freedom — of course I did! But something whispered that this was a trap: that I was being offered a delusion of liberty for some other, sinister, purpose, as a man may release an animal from a trap, not in mercy, but because he wishes to bait it further.
But there was little choice.
I set my foot on the first stair and began the descent.
Suddenly, there was a scream from below, a man’s scream, deep in the throat.
Should I after all prefer safety above, in that gorgeous desolation? If something terrible was happening in this house, was not the safest thing to pretend that I knew nothing about it, to stay up in those luxurious quarters as if unaware of what threats and torments lay below?
I found myself continuing down the stairs with a part of my brain telling me that I was a fool and yet my feet seemingly carrying me on into a display of idiot courage. Lord Ambrose told me later that was how men are in battles: every ounce of intelligence counsels flight and yet something drives the body on towards its own destruction.
The scream did not come again. All the way down, the only sound I could hear was a low weeping. At the bottom of the staircase, the room opened out to the left closed off only by a curtain. I pushed the heavy folds aside.
There was a mattress on the floor and on it lay a man with his face turned away from the door. But as I entered he seemed to roll towards me in some great spasm, though I saw that he could not be seeing me, for he was blind. Must have been blind, because his eyes were covered by great festering sores, which massed likewise over his face and throat. He gave a sudden convulsion and watery blood gushed from his mouth and nose.
With fresh horror, I saw that as if the torments of his malady were not enough, other cruelties had been inflicted. His hands were tied down to his sides, making it impossible for him to aid himself in any way, impossible to reach the cup and ewer that stood at his side, like the tortures that afflicted Tantalus. But a woman appeared from the shadows across the room. It was the same woman I had seen weeping in the courtyard, her cheeks bearing the long gashes inflicted by her own nails. She pulled my away, and moved towards the man. Then she lifted the ewer and poured a stream of water into the cup and then, cradling the poor diseased head in her arm, gently dropped a little liquid between the scabbed and blistered lips.
With an instinctive start of sympathy — it was not bravery, for whatever courage my animal spirits had possessed upon the staircase they failed me now — I moved towards them.
THIRTEEN - The Further Narrative of Lord Ambrose Malfine
I arrived in Cairo without mishap and went straightaway to join my sister Ariadne and her husband, Charles, on board their houseboat the Zubeida, which was moored on the bank of the Nile near Rodah Island. I had sent word ahead from Alexandria so that they would be forewarned of my coming.
It was my purpose to keep my movements unknown to the chattering British society centred at Hill’s Hotel, for, as far as Casterman was concerned, I desired to be the watcher rather than the watched. I could best serve Miss Lilian by remaining concealed from her and those around her.
As I neared the bank of the Nile I could see Ariadne leaning back in her chair and contemplating the magnificent view beyond the polished deck of the boat, where she was sitting beneath a white canvas awning lined with blue. On one side, the minarets and domes of the city of Cairo reached up into the purplish haze above. On the other, across a narrow stretch of water, was a fringe of brilliant-green vegetation and the lush gardens of Rodah. The heat hung all around, like a warm veil.
I recognised her straight away, though I had not seen her for a decade and a half at least, and then she had been a plump child about ten years old, running about at Malfine on a visit home one summer. She was not happy there, I sensed it, deprived as she was of the playmates to whom she had grown accustomed in London, and I could still remember the beaming happiness on her small face as she departed with her nurse.
My father was dead by then. He had never desired to have Ariadne under his roof, believing that her birth had caused the death of our mother; I think the aunts who were caring for Ariadne in some corner of Belgravia thought that the child should become acquainted with her ancestral home, but the visit was not a success. Ariadne did not return, though a room was kept for her at Malfine, and our mother’s clothes and jewels were at her disposal should she ever wish for them. All the time when I was running wild at Malfine or starving and fighting in Greece, Ariadne was growing up in London with those respectable old aunts, learning to be a proper young lady at Miss Primmish’s Academy, or some such institution. (My sister laughs now as I recall this — “Nay, brother, it was no such name! Miss Pintish!”)