“No !” Donette shook her dusky head and made her jade eardrops swing against her cheeks. She looked not unlike an Eastern harem slave, Madeline thought, glancing up briefly from the volume of translated Arabic stories which Max Berault had lent her. The hint of gipsy amber in Donette’s skin, combined with the dark allurement of her eyes, added to the impression.
“Max says it’s dangerous for you to ride alone.” Amalia sat cooling herself with a fan attached to an olive-wood handle.
A gentle borzoi hound with a silky white and yellow coat sat near his mistress, patting her brocaded knee every now and again with an affectionate paw. “Some rather fierce creatures do come into Marrakesh from the desert, Donette, and your father would never forgive me if you ran into trouble while you’re staying here at the villa.”
The girl’s father, Madeline had learned, lived and worked in Paris; her mother had been dead for several years. Donette didn’t work and obviously had little intention of ever doing so.
“You worry to no purpose, Tante Amalia.” Donette took a sip at her drink, her red mouth clinging to the rim of the glass.
“I do not go beyond the palm groves just outside the city, and Victor is often about at that early hour, before he drives to the hospital.”
“But Victor has been away on a medical tour for the past few days,” Amalia said frowningly.
“I am aware of that, Tante.” Donette smiled and stretched like a petted kitten. “I always know what he is doing, and with whom.”
Brooke was sitting near Madeline with his ankle resting on a footstool, and at this significant remark of his cousin’s he caught Madeline’s eye. He lowered her a wink, then ran his admiring glance over her supple young figure in white. A deep, soft wave fell forward on her forehead as she lowered her gaze to the book on her lap. She was seated near some crimson blossoms massed in a big pottery vase.
She was modestly unaware of how attractive she looked, but she did hear Brooke give a quiet groan and she vaguely guessed what was going through his mind. She knew that he was making plans to make love to her sometime in the future.
“Look, why don’t you two girls go riding together?”
Amalia suggested. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Madeline?”
Brooke gave a slight guffaw over his rum and lemon, while Madeline’s hands clenched on her book as she wondered how to answer her employer. Amalia seemed quite unaware that a state of hostility existed between her niece and her secretary, for Donette was always careful not to be insolent to Madeline in front of her aunt. Then again where Donette and Brooke were concerned, Amalia was foolishly fond and tolerantly blind to whatever faults they had.
“You have not answered Tante Amalia,” Donette purred at Madeline. “Do you not care to go horseback riding with me
let us say tomorrow morning?”
Their eyes met and held. Donette’s lazily drooped eyelids gave her a consciously mocking look, and Madeline felt sure the other girl was challenging her to take another chance on being clawed when she least expected it.
“Yes, I’ll ride with you.” Madeline’s chin was firmly set.
“Have you a horse I can use?”
“There is Hassan, Brooke’s mount,” Donette replied, an excited glitter in her dark eyes.
“Madeline,” Brooke’s grin had suddenly left his face, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go riding you might end up with a broken bone in your ankle.”
“You were being reckless, Brooke,” his aunt said. “I think it might be a good idea for Madeline to ride Alina. She’s a little silver-grey mare, honey. She could do with some exercise and I know you’ll treat her gently.”
“Thank you,” Madeline said, very aware of Donette’s smile and Brooke’s air of moodiness. He knew his cousin was not to be trusted, but she had said she would go riding with the girl, and she couldn’t back out now.
It was a relief, and a stab of surprise, that the salon door should open in that moment to admit a couple of unexpected visitors Max Berault, dapper in a tropical lounge suit, accompanied by Victor Tourelle, whose shoulders stretched their hard strength under grey suiting.
“My, but this is a delightful surprise ! ” Amalia rose from her chair with such eagerness she quite startled the borzoi, who put back his ears and gave a bark at the newcomers.
“Bon soir to you! ” Max grinned. He advanced to Amalia with outstretched hands, took hers and kissed them. “Victor returned from his sojourn in the desert just today, and I persuaded him to come and seek diversion at your ever-pleasant villa, Amalia.”
“You’re both entirely welcome,” she assured him. “How was the trip, Victor? Have you cured dozens of your desert dwellers?”
Victor’s tawny glance dwelt on Amalia’s ample figure in loose-jacketed brocade, a conch shell of diamonds flashing on the collar. “As always there was much to do, but these trips are very worthwhile.” He flashed a glance in Madeline’s direction, humour of a caustic nature glinting in his eyes. “There were teeth to pull, but perhaps I should not dwell on that aspect of my tour.”
Madeline broke into a spontaneous smile, but right away he had switched his attention to Donette, who uncurled off her divan with feline grace and asked the two men what they fan-cied to drink. Max brought his brandy and soda to the arm of Madeline’s chair, where he sat talking to her about the book of Arabian tales. Soon the discussion had become general and the two Frenchmen had interesting facts about the East and its people at their fingertips. A bullet froid was brought in by a servant, and after they had eaten, at Donette’s suggestion, they switched on the radio, made contact with some dance music and rolled back the silky-haired Moroccan carpets.
Donette slipped her arms about Victor’s neck. “Come along, my barbarian,” there was a seductive note of invitation in her voice, “I am sure you learned how to dance while you were a medical student in Paris. All medical students enjoy themselves before settling down to their travail.”
“That was some time ago,” a smile slashed his sun-bitten cheek, “therefore if I crush your feet, Donette, then you have asked for it.”
But like many big men he had a natural grace of movement, Madeline noticed, watching him circle the salon with Donette in his arms. The daring back cleavage of her lame top made it impossible for him to avoid touching the creamy smooth-ness of her skin, where a tiny mole gleamed dark near her spine.
Madeline gave a little start when Max bent over her with a coaxing smile. “You dance, I am sure, Miss Page,” he murmured, drawing her up into his arms. They circled the smooth parquet of the floor a couple of times, Brooke’s rather cynical eyes fixed upon them, and Madeline didn’t object when her partner handed her out on to the graceful fan-shaped terrace beyond the long glass doors of the salon.
The feathery crests of the palms salaamed gently in a fragrant breeze, cicadas throbbed in the deep heart of the big garden, while the velvety sky was pricked by bright points of radiance, as though heaven spilled through. The peacefulness was somehow intensified by the crooning of dance music behind them.
“A land of extremes,” Max remarked, drawing in a deep breath of the spiciness the very earth seemed to exude. “A sphinx who can be indolent and lovely as she is tonight, yet also tormented and ugly.”
“Look at the stars.” Madeline put back her head, unaware of a tautening of Max’s Latin features as he regarded her in the starlight. The scented breeze moulded the soft nylon to her young figure, while her throat and arms gleamed pale as a cloak of jasmine tumbling from the terrace coping.
“The eyes of Allah the all-watchful never close, the stars are his eyes, say the Bedawi.” Max slipped one of his thin cigars between his lips, struck a match on the coping and applied it to the cylinder. The curving match flamed and died like a shooting star as he tossed it away.
“Have you always lived in the East, Dr. Berault?” Madeline asked.
“I was not born here, like Victor, but the fascination of the place got into my bloodstre
am when I came from Paris to work in Algiers. It was there that I became associated with Major Tourelle and his young wife. Roger had never meant to marry, I think, but while he was on leave from his regiment, after some hard Saharan fighting, I might add, he met Astrid.
How lovely she was ! ” Max, wholly Gallic in that moment, pinched the air with his fingertips. “Very fair, much, much younger than Roger, but adored by him. It was a tragedy for the boy that they should both die as they did, but such lovers were not meant to be parted.”
Max smiled down at Madeline. “Le mariage, for some a trap, for others according to the woman a delight.”
“I’m surprised you have never taken the plunge, Dr.
Berault.” Madeline regarded the maturely attractive French doctor with friendly eyes. “I think you have a very kind heart, and they aren’t exactly glutting the matrimonial market.”
He examined the brightly burning point of his cigar while his eyebrows, startlingly dark beneath his grey hair, quirked with a humour half cynical, half sad. “When I was a young man, ma chere, I was a crusader in a land of much misery, and romance did not come into my life. Sometimes that is the way of things.”
A crusader like Victor, Madeline thought. But instinct told her what Max would not put into words, that when romance had at last touched his lonely, crusading life, it had come in the form of a lovely, fair-haired creature who belonged to his friend. The soldier who had gone on leave from a hard cam-paign in the desert and returned with a wife, the girl who gave him a son and later died with him.
Then Madeline clutched Max’s arm as a sharp yapping rose on the desert air.
“It is but a jackal searching for food.” Max slanted her a smile and folded a warm, paternal arm about her waist. Behind them the dance music had faded away, but Madeline was unaware of this as she absorbed the mystery and scents of the African night with this congenial man. Something at last made her turn her head. She saw Victor’s tall figure outlined against the lights of the salon, and her heart gave a jolt.
“It grows late, mon cher,” he said to Max. “I have to be in the operating theatre tomorrow morning and I fear I must drag you away from your conversation with Miss Page.”
Madeline flushed at that break between his words. She drew out of Max’s arm and stepped past Victor into the salon, catching at her nylon skirt when it would have clouded against his suit. Contact with him in this moment would have scorched her.
But all the same there was something she had to ask him, and she turned resolutely to confront those eyes that were topaz stones for her. “That little boy, Tahar,” she said, “did you save the sight of his eye?”
He inclined his dark head, his aloofness an armour against which she felt bruised, though they were standing several feet apart.
“You must come and visit the boy,” Max smiled at her.
“Soon he will be going home, but several times he has mentioned the lalla with the honey hair, and I know he will enjoy seeing you.”
“Thank you, Dr. Berault.”
Madeline didn’t look at Victor, then or a few minutes later when the two doctors said good night and left.
CHAPTER IV
THOUGH Madeline had been doubtful about riding with Donette, she found to her relief that she quite enjoyed their gallop to the palm groves outside the city of Marrakesh.
Donette rode a bay-coloured Barb and she was very much at home in the saddle. Madeline’s mount was a beautiful creature, with a mouth like velvet and a disposition to match.
The two girls dismounted by the cool acres of giant date-palms, where agile brown Moors were shinning up the mast-like trunks of the female palms and gathering great bunches of shiny fruit. The girls were given some of the fruit to eat as they wandered through the lanes of trees. Donette was quite charming, and Madeline supposed that it had pleased her that last night Victor Tourelle had allowed her to flirt with him.
Madeline nibbled a date and wondered what would become of the friendship. If Victor married he would expect his wife to share his life here in the desert, a life that held few of the gaieties and amenities to which Donette was obviously accustomed. She liked to dance, and adored fashionable clothes.
Everything about her had been designed to be displayed, and marriage with the uncompromising doctor would shut a woman away from worldly pleasure. The fabric of her life would have to be woven completely into his. His dedication to his work would have to be every bit as important to her, and this would call for that intense type of love few modern women seemed capable of.
Perhaps he realized this and like Max would remain a bachelor.
Madeline fell into the habit of riding each morning with Donette, and one afternoon she drove to Green Palms with Amalia. She had a present for Tahar, a set of toy soldiers, and found him looking as mischievous as ever and riding on one of the roundabouts in the playground.
He raced over to her when she appeared, full of excited chatter about his eye. Madeline had always liked small boys, and this one was particularly delightful with his berry-brown skin, and merry little grin. She led him to a bench and showed him the box of soldiers, which for the time being took second place to his interest in herself. He peered into her purse and put her scented handkerchief to his knob of a nose and announced that it was ravissante. She laughed and ruffled his dark silky hair, and realized with a sudden warm clarity that here under the African sun she was changing subtly from a girl into a woman. Everything pertaining to life had a new, vivid beauty for her the child beside her, the rich, warm sunlight, the lush colours of tropical flowers.
A little later Max took Amalia and herself on a tour of the hospital. There were two immaculate operating theatres, a bacteriological section as well as an X-ray department, an out-patients’ clinic, and a gym.
It was here that they came upon Victor. He and Alain Delaury, wearing mesh masks, were fencing with thin-bladed French foils. Madeline stood watching with Max and Amalia, wondering at the elasticity with which the tall Frenchman moved. He was much larger-boned than his countrymen usually were, and she guessed that his Danish blood accounted for this. But in every other respect he was entirely Latin, and she watched the white flash of his teeth behind his mask as he thrust through Delaury’s guard and sent his slender foil glittering through the air.
Delaury whipped off his mask and stood shaking his head and laughing ruefully. “You are a ruthless man, Victor,” he said. “I should not want you for an enemy.”
Victor removed his mask and tossed it to one side. Fencing with Alain had exhilarated him, Madeline saw, and with his ruffled hair and glinting eyes he looked every bit as dangerous as those bygone swordsmen of the courts of France.
“You are too fond of the pleasures of the table, Alain,” he retorted. “That is what slows you down.”
It was after tea in Max’s sitting-room that Amalia learned from Zamil that the car, which had been playing up a bit on the way here, was in the throes of an internal repair in the hospital garage.
“Well, don’t throw a fit, Zamil,” Amalia carolled, patting her apologetic chauffeur on the shoulder. “Go ahead and put the car right and Lalla Madeline and I will beg a ride of Dr.
Tourelle.”
Victor was admiring some jade chessmen belonging to his guardian, and he glanced up, hearing his name, one of the exquisite green pieces glowing in his lean brown fingers. Yes, of course he would run them home.
Informed that he was a “pet” by Amalia, he broke into a somewhat caustic grin. “Have you seen these, Miss Page?” he asked. “They are of the Ming dynasty and quite priceless, eh, Max?”
“They were given me by one of the Sheikhs I attended some years ago,” Max told Madeline. “I happened to admire them, and it is fatal to do that in a truly Arab household.
`What is mine is yours’ is a code some of them really live by, and he insisted I accept them. It was true he was a very wealthy man, but I have always felt he was never truly aware of their value lovely, are they not?”
Amalia, genial and unperceptive of tensions in people, had insisted that Madeline take the seat beside Victor. “I’m going to nap,” she said, and proceeded to do so, leaving Madeline acutely aware of the necessity to be sociable with him when all she really wanted right now was to be miles away from his disturbing personality that clashed so bruisingly with hers.
Towards the north the giant ranges of the Atlases were clearly defined, while to the west the sun lay in a web of brazen strands, shedding Oriental veils of rose, lavender, and pastel green as it was slowly drawn down into the embrace of dusk.
“Such sunsets are never seen in England, eh, Miss Page?”
Victor remarked. “They are of a rather brutal beauty, do you not think?”
“Barbaric,” she agreed quietly but forcibly. “Everything out here is touched with a kind of fire and fury. Even when the desert is still, one feels that at any moment it could leap into frightening activity … like lava.”
“All that you say is very true.” A faint mockery rang in his voice. “I can well imagine that the desert might hold more of fear than fascination for a girl such as you. You appear very much of the green fields and temperate skies of your own land, and I daresay you will return to them without regrets.”
In the silence that followed his words, Madeline knew clearly that she had not been thinking of the desert when she had spoken just now. It was the man beside her who had drawn the words out of her … it was he who possessed the power to frighten and fascinate at the same time. It was he from whom she would run with relief !
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