African Enchantment

by Margaret Pemberton

  Harriet felt as if the breath was being squeezed, inch by inch, from her body. ‘No,’ she repeated in vain again. ‘ It cannot be. It is impossible.’

  Lady Crale cleared her throat. ‘You must excuse me for speaking frankly to you, Harriet. You are without mother and father. You have no guardian and therefore it is my Christian duty to take upon myself that responsibility whilst you are under my roof. I must now ask you a question of the utmost delicacy.’ She paused awkwardly. ‘On your journey to Khartoum, did Mr Beauvais display any untoward intimacy towards you?’

  Harriet’s cheeks flushed hotly.

  Lady Crale passed a hand across her eyes. ‘I see. It is worse than I had feared.’ She stood up and began to pace the room, saying agitatedly,

  ‘There can be no question of reparation, Harriet. Mr Beauvais has treated you infamously. If you had hoped for marriage, I must disillusion you. The Beauvais are one of the oldest and richest families of France. The differences between your social positions are enormous: insurmountable. Under the circumstances there must be no delay in your returning to Cairo and home.’ Her voice shook with emotion. ‘His seduction of you is inexcusable. It is …’

  Harriet sprang to her feet. ‘Seduction? I have told you repeatedly that Mr Beauvais’ behaviour towards me was that of a gentleman! He did not take advantage of me in the way that you are suggesting! Indeed, he was most careful of my reputation. He wanted me to be suitably chaperoned by you before announcing his intentions.’

  Lady Crale’s eyebrows rose. ‘His intentions?’

  ‘Yes … He …’ Harriet floundered. ‘He was going to ask for my hand in marriage.’

  Lady Crale’s face was incredulous. ‘Mr Beauvais is a confirmed bachelor. Besides, I have explained to you that he is no ordinary gentleman. Why, he is a personal friend of the Emperor! I am afraid that he has been toying with your affections, Harriet. Possibly in the hope that such a promise would persuade you to become his mistress.’

  ‘But I am not so!’

  Lady Crale looked at the tormented young woman before her and knew that she spoke the truth. ‘Then let us be grateful that your upbringing rendered you immune from his blandishments,’ she said, walking towards Harriet and resting her hands on her shoulders. ‘You have been sorely deceived, child. You are not the first. Others, more sophisticated than yourself, have also been taken in by Raoul Beauvais’ smooth tongue and unscrupulous charm. I suggest that you sleep now. Your feeling of betrayal will have lessened by the morning.’ She leaned forward and kissed Harriet briefly on the cheek before leaving the room.

  Harriet covered her face with her hands, reliving every word and gesture that had passed between herself and Raoul Beauvais. Had she assumed too much? A sliver of ice entered her heart. He had never told her he loved her. He had never said that he wished her to become his wife. She had thought the words unnecessary. She walked out on to the darkened balcony, her eyes anguished. He had kissed her and she had responded. She had built up a castle of dreams, believing herself to be loved and cherished. The first sign that she was not so had been his strange behaviour when they had arrived in Khartoum. His assertions that he had business that was more important than escorting her to the consulate. Had that business been his reunion with a dark-eyed, dusky-skinned slave who had aroused the interest of all Khartoum?

  ‘No,’ she whispered beneath her breath. ‘No, no. It cannot be!’ She remembered Berber and the Pasha’s residence and the way he had introduced her in order to protect her reputation: as his cousin. For a few delirious moments she had thought, even then, that he was going to announce her as his bride-to-be. He had not done so. According to Lady Crale he would never do so.

  There was a slight knock at the door and Jali entered.

  ‘I have come to assist you with your gown,’ she said shyly.

  Mechanically Harriet turned and allowed Jali to undo the buttons of her gown. The rose-pink taffeta slid from her shoulders and she stepped out of the fine material without a backward glance.

  ‘Lady Crale has asked me to give you a cooling powder,’ Jali said, motioning to the glass that she had set on a low table. ‘ It will help you to sleep.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Jali’s eyes were troubled. She had overheard the conversation between her mistress and the English girl. She would have liked to have spoken to the English girl but it was not her place to do so and would only incur Lady Crale’s wrath. Unhappily she left the room and as she closed the door behind her she heard the sound of bitter tears.

  When Harriet awoke she lay for a few moments staring at the ceiling and the brilliant shafts of sunlight. Her head ached from the tears of the previous evening. She rose and drew back the shutters, immediately assailed by the sights and sounds of Africa. Why had she cried so? She hadn’t believed the monstrous allegations made about Raoul. Today he would visit her at the consulate and there would be apologies from Lady Crale and her son. Later on there would be apologies from the Walthers also. Raoul had been away many weeks, possibly months, on his expedition and no doubt it had been in his absence that the vicious tongues had started to wag. She had never paid heed to gossip, not even when it had been the harmless gossip enjoyed by her aunts. Certainly she was not going to pay any heed to the dinner table gossip of the previous evening. Raoul was visiting her today. He would tell her the truth.

  Lady Crale had been generous in her hospitality. Other gowns hung beside the rose-pink taffeta. Different gowns in light, cool muslin. Harriet hesitated and then dressed in the high-necked, full-sleeved and tight-wristed blouse that Hashim had procured for her in Berber. Both the blouse and the accompanying skirt had been scrupulously cleaned and ironed and though less fashionable than the ones that hung so enticingly in the vast wardrobe, they had come from Raoul and she valued them accordingly.

  Jali entered shyly to assist her in her toilette, braiding Harriet’s long golden hair with obvious pleasure.

  Harriet watched her through the glass and wondered if the girl was an employed servant or a slave. Sebastian Crale had intimated that Europeans in Khartoum made use of slaves but that they did so circumspectly. It had been the openness of Raoul’s buying of the Circassian that had caused outrage.

  ‘Have you been in Lady Crale’s service long, Jali?’ she asked as the deft-fingered girl braided her hair.

  ‘Many months,’ Jali said with a smile. ‘ My brother is groom here and my aunt is in the kitchens.’

  Harriet toyed with her glass-stoppered jar of rose-water. ‘ Does Lady Crale have slaves as the Turkish governors do?’

  Jali shook her head vehemently. ‘There are no slaves in her ladyship’s household. Her ladyship thinks slavery is very bad … very wicked.’

  ‘But other people keep slaves?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Of course. There have always been slaves in Khartoum. It is better to be a slave than to starve.’

  ‘Thank you, Jali.’ Harriet rose to her feet. She had intended asking the servant girl if Raoul Beauvais kept slaves but could not bring herself to do so. She would discuss the subject with no one but Raoul himself. Not even with Lady Crale.

  ‘My dear child, you look charming and perfectly refreshed,’ Lady Crale said as Harriet entered the breakfast room. ‘I have heard from my husband this morning. He expects to be in Khartoum by the end of the month. I think we can safely leave arrangements for your return to England in his hands.’

  Despite the heat, silver salvers held bacon, kidneys, scrambled eggs and kedgeree. Harriet ignored them and contented herself with coffee and fresh fruit.

  ‘Dr Walther was most concerned about your health last evening. I assured him that it was merely tiredness but he insisted on seeing you. Rather than him calling here, I thought it would be more enjoyable for you if we visited him. The carriage ride will give you an opportunity to see more of the city and I like to pay my calls in the morning. After midday the heat makes any kind of exercise impossible.’

  ‘Oh, but …’ Harriet protested and then
halted. A refusal to go because of Raoul Beauvais’ expected visit would only reopen the distressing conversation of the previous evening.

  ‘Sebastian will be accompanying us. He and Dr Walther are to be companions on an expedition in the near future and are both making plans.’

  Harriet curbed her initial panic. The visit was to be a morning one and no doubt they would have returned before Raoul called at the consulate. Even if they had not done so, he would call later in the day and the very fact that a message would have been left would prepare Lady Crale for the apology she would have to make.

  Sebastian Crale entered and served himself generously with eggs and bacon.

  ‘You gave us all a fright last evening, Miss Latimer. I am glad to see that you are looking as ravishing as ever this morning.’

  Lady Crale frowned and tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. At twenty-seven, Sebastian’s romantic entanglements had all been undesirable and he was going to make an already complicated situation worse if he persisted in paying such attention to Henry Latimer’s penniless daughter. She had not been happy at his proposed trek south, but now she viewed it with a certain amount of relief. The expedition left within days. It would curtail any involvement Sebastian might be contemplating where Harriet was concerned.

  ‘We are leaving for the Walther’s at ten o’clock, Sebastian. Please be ready or I shall be obliged to leave without you.’ Her tone of voice made her displeasure at his behaviour obvious. Sebastian was unrepentant and annoyingly on time.

  The open carriage was lavishly sprung, and if she had been in the streets of Cheltenham Harriet would have considered herself to be in the lap of luxury. The noise and smell of Khartoum overcame any such pleasures. Narrow, dusty streets teemed with natives and traders. Now and then there was a glimpse of the Nile and a litter of masts and felucca sails. Close to, the mosques were shabby, their domes and minarets tawdry. Harriet lowered her veil to shield her face from the dust and flies. Lady Crale was pointing out to her the governor’s palace and other landmarks which she thought might be of interest. Harriet smiled politely and murmured appropriate remarks, but her thoughts were elsewhere: with Raoul and whether or not he was already at the consulate and annoyed at finding her absent. They had been apart for a day. Every hour seemed a lifetime. She had never imagined it possible to miss any human being so much. She ached for his company; for his deep, strong voice; for his laughter and even for his anger. Sebastian Crale sat inches away from her and she found his presence an irritation. She wanted to see dark eyes in a hawklike face, not grey eyes and sleek moustaches. She wanted to see the lean, tanned contours of a body used to decisive action, not the softness of a man accustomed to being driven in a carriage. She yearned for the indefinable smell of maleness and not the sweet perfume of Sebastian Crale’s eau de cologne.

  She wanted reassurance: she wanted to be told that the stories bandied about the Crale’s dinner table had been scandalous lies. She wanted to hear him ask formally for her hand in marriage. She felt hot, remembering his kisses, his touch. She wanted him and him only for the rest of her life.

  Lady Crale tapped an ivory-topped cane on the carriage floor in exasperation. ‘ How foolish of the man to have taken this route! He should have avoided the square at all costs! It will be near half an hour before we are free of this mob!’

  Waking from her private reverie, Harriet looked around her with surprise. The carriage was at a near standstill, the crowds were so thick. A little way in front of them was a square and it was obviously the driver’s intention to cross it. It also seemed to be the sole destination of the crowds around them.

  ‘What is the attraction?’ Harriet asked curiously.

  ‘A slave auction,’ Lady Crale said, tight-lipped. ‘How the Turks can deny such things exist when they take place for all to see, I cannot imagine.’

  The noise and the clamour had intensified and then, by dint of brute force and little regard for those underfoot, the horses broke through and Lady Crale’s carriage hurtled out of the street and into the square. Harriet gasped and the colour left her face.

  ‘It’s as well for you to see for yourself,’ Lady Crale said, averting her eyes. ‘Unless you do, you will never be able to conceive the barbarity of the slavers.’

  They stood on the auction block, men, women and children yoked together like cattle. Half dead from hunger, naked and bewildered, they ranged in a long line from the youngest to the oldest.

  Lady Crale urged the driver to make a speedy exit from the foetid square, as embarrassed by the nakedness of the women on public display as she was at their being displayed at all. Harriet tried to avert her head and could not. The slaves’ eyes were dull and listless. The eyes of those who had long since abandoned all hope, their bodies covered in sores and whip marks. At either end of the chained line guards with swords and spears stood to attention while the slave traders prodded first one and then another.

  ‘What is he saying?’ Harriet asked, her voice a whisper of horror.

  Lady Crale did not hear her. She was too busy exhorting the carriage driver to remove them from the scene.

  Sebastian Crale looked uncomfortable. ‘He is telling prospective buyers what tribes his slaves are from. The light-coloured, bearded slaves are probably Nyam-Nyam from the south-west and cannibals. The black fellows Madis; the thin-legged slaves Dinkas or Shiluks. The handsome fellow at the end is probably a Calas or a Bonga and the undersized ones are the Akka pygmies.’

  Harriet pressed a handkerchief against her mouth as several of the girls were made to walk and run for the benefit of prospective buyers.

  Sebastian Crale shifted uneasily on the leather-padded seat of the carriage. ‘It is unfortunate that you have had to see this, Miss Latimer. Usually they hold their auctions in the desert on the outskirts of the city. The bought slaves are then marched off along caravan routes to the Red Sea for shipment to Arabia or Persia. This particular trader would not have had the effrontery to have held this auction here if my father had been in the city.’

  ‘Can’t we stop it?’ Harriet asked in anguish. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’

  Sebastian looked perplexed. ‘Against this crowd?’

  Harriet was uncaring of the crowd. She cried out in protest as a crying woman was released from the chains and handed to an Arab for a paltry number of notes.

  Lady Crale’s head swivelled. Sebastian Crale blinked. Harriet was uncaring. ‘We can’t just watch and drive on while people are being sold like beasts!’

  ‘Contain yourself, Harriet,’ Lady Crale said firmly as heads began to turn in their direction. ‘There is nothing we can do.’ She smacked the driver on the shoulder with her cane. ‘ I demand we leave this square immediately!’

  ‘He won’t do so well with that lot,’ Sebastian remarked as the carriage finally shot out of the square. ‘The slaves who bring high prices are the Abyssinian and Circassian girls bought for the harems of the East.’ Harriet shuddered. No wonder her father had devoted his whole life to fighting against such barbarity.

  She was so distressed that she took very little part in the conversation at the Walther’s. Magdalene was chillingly polite, reserving all her friendliness for Sebastian. Dr Walther was genuinely concerned for her health and when assured by Lady Crale that she was quite recovered, beamed thankfully and didn’t persist in his questioning.

  ‘We shall be leaving within days,’ he was saying to Lady Crale, polishing his glasses furiously. ‘The expedition to end all expeditions!’

  ‘The hunting will be phenomenal,’ Sebastian added, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. ‘Rhino and hippos and elephants in plenty.’

  ‘And fame,’ Magdalene added, her dark-lidded eyes burning with sudden passion.

  Harriet tried to pay attention. She had lost the drift of the conversation going on around her.

  ‘I would be surprised if you managed to journey further south than Gondokoro, Dr Walther,’ Lady Crale said, balancing a china teacup and saucer delicately
in a white-gloved hand.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Dr Walther said good humouredly, striding backwards and forwards, his hands clasped behind his back. ‘We are well equipped and able. This time the question of the Nile will finally be resolved! We shall find out the truth, Lady Crale. The Nile’s source will be a secret no longer!’ His eyes had the same glazed expression in them that Harriet had often seen in her father’s.

  ‘Is that the purpose of your expedition?’ she asked, gazing at Sebastian and Dr Walther incredulously. ‘To find the source of the Nile?’

  ‘It is!’ Dr Walther’s cherubic face was ecstatic. ‘I have spent a whole year planning, six months preparing. We are waiting for one gentleman only and he is now amongst us.’

  Lady Crale coughed. Dr Walther looked suitable chastened.

  ‘A necessity, Lady Crale,’ he murmured. ‘We cannot choose our companions in such circumstances. We must journey with those best suited to our purpose.’

  Harriet set her cup and saucer down on a chinese lacquered table. ‘I hope you are successful,’ she said quietly. ‘ It was my father’s dream to find the secret source of the Nile.’

  Lady Crale rose to her feet. She had no intention of discussing such inanities any further. The expedition would reach Gondokoro, the farthest point south that was mapped, and would return. It would keep Sebastian out of trouble for six months and enable her to come to an arrangement with a bosom friend. The friend has a daughter who, at twenty-one, was not yet married, nor seemed likely to be. Sebastian could be coerced. There would be a wedding before the year was out if she had to drag her son to the altar herself.

  ‘You are leaving so soon?’ Dr Walther asked, disappointment flooding his face.