by Jane Arbor
CHAPTER NINE
IT was with a heavy heart that Alice dressed for the Routs’ party.
She wished she had said she could not go, for if they knew of
Elaine’s loss and her suspicions of Xenie, there was bound to be “atmosphere”, if no worse. Captain and Mrs. Rout wouldn’t create it for a guest. But Elaine could, and with nothing by which to defend Xenie except Alice’s own belief in the child’s innocence, she would be no match for any innuendoes of Elaine’s, however obliquely made.
Moreover, though she had done her best to comfort and reassure Xenie, she was only too aware that she was dealing with a frightened, bewildered child who in the space of less than an hour had learned to trust no one and to be in danger of losing all the confident ground she had gained. Xenie was “problem” again.
For the informality of the outdoor party Alice chose a lightweight trouser suit with short white-cuffed sleeves, a broad ribbon bandeau to hold back her hair, and easy low-heeled sandals. When Karim came for her he was in European dress - pale grey slacks, open-necked silk shirt and a cravat at his throat. An outward signal that, for Elaine’s sake, he was on his way round his mountain of prejudice? Alice wondered as she joined him in the car.
The Routs’ garden was not large, nor were there so many guests as to make a crowd. They were mostly French and English residents of Tazenir, with one or two couples from the city and a few Moroccans, also in unobtrusive European dress. Before adjourning to the garden they gathered in the house for introductions and drinks. Alice’s glance round the groups showed that Elaine was not yet there, and it was not until there began to be a move towards the garden that she appeared at the open double doors of the long drawing room and - there was no other phrase to describe it - made her entrance.
At sight of her the chatter died and the shuffle of movement ceased. For from head to foot she was in elaborate, ornate Moroccan dress, than which nothing could have been less suitable to the occasion nor more over-done in effect.
Her headdress of scarlet and green fringed cloth was anchored by a kind of tiara of oxydized metal, worn so low on her forehead that its dangling gilt discs almost swung into her heavily kohled eyes. She had combed her hair to hang forward and loose and had twisted into it ropes of silver and gilt chain. Her kaftan was literally a coat of many colours -crude greens and scarlets and blues, mercifully muted by several filmy scarves which floated from and around her shoulders. Her waist was encircled by a broad belt, its leather embossed with metal and weighed down by a positive mint of medallions swinging from it. Beneath the hem of the kaftan her bare feet were clad in richly embroidered babouches; big crescent-shaped earrings hung from her ears and the fingers of both hands were heavily ringed. A Moroccan woman of superb carriage and colouring could have carried off such bedizening. On Elaine, blue-eyed and blonde and palpably Anglo-Saxon, it was grotesque.
The company stared. Elaine lifted her chin and stared back. Someone behind Alice muttered sotto voce, “Now I’ve seen everything. She must have gone to the lowest dive in the city souks for that outfit!” Then Elaine was coming sinuously forward, spreading her hands and smiling a little wryly, though not, Alice thought, with the embarrassment she herself would have suffered in her place.
Elaine looked about her. “Oh, all you drab people!” she chided. “It’s a party, isn’t it? Right? In Morocco? Right again? Morocco — exotic, fabulous, sun-soaked, azure- skied, tented and palaced — see the guide-books for the rest! — and you let me be the only one to peacock in its honour. Too bad of you, you dull lot. And at least I thought you, Karim” — she searched him out and moved towards him
— “would have been bringing a bit of Eastern colour to the scene.”
He looked down at her from beneath his heavy lids. “Perhaps I felt that a garden barbecue wasn’t quite the right scene for-” he paused -“fancy dress.”
It was her own insolence returned to her and she must have understood it, for she jerked her shoulders angrily. ' Oh, if you can’t take a joke —” she said, and turned away. Captain Rout brought her a drink and she moved off with him, leaving Alice to wonder whether she was alone in suspecting that Elaine’s bizarre choice of costume had been neither a joke nor a social gaffe, but a deliberate pandering to Karim’s prejudice. She had probably expected that, as almost always, he would be in Moroccan dress, and had planned that the two of them would support each other; the colour of the East against the sober background of the West. To her own surprise, Alice found she could almost pity Elaine. She was too socially conscious not to be aware that she was overdressed for a simple occasion. But she had expected Karim’s approval and backing. Whereas, whatever his deeper feelings for her, she could hardly have mistaken the distaste he had expressed in those two words, searing in intent, but without meaning for the rest of his hearers.
But pity for Elaine - if Alice had really felt it - was to be short lived. In the course of the evening chance was to take a hand in destroying it completely. Dislike and contempt for Elaine were to come round full circle as a result of the most casual talk with their hostess. The men were superintending the barbecue and Alice was helping Mrs. Rout and another lady to give out cutlery and napkins and to refill glasses. Back at the long buffet table on the verandah Mrs. Rout remarked idly to them both, “Elaine had quite a surprise in her mail this morning - a pair of valuable earrings returned to her, which she didn’t even know she had lost!”
Two casualties from Elaine’s jewel-case in the space of days, and both of them sets of earrings? Alice alerted to the news. “That was curious,” she told Mrs. Rout. “Had they been stolen, and how was it she hadn’t realised she had lost them?”
Mrs. Rout said, “Oh no, not stolen. She had left them - a pearl and sapphire pair - with a jewellers’ in the city, for their fastenings to be altered. She had collected them later - or so she thought. But by some mistake at the shop she had only been given the empty box, which she didn’t open after she brought it home. So when the jewellers realised they still had the earrings and sent them to her with apologies, she hadn’t known they were missing until she checked the box and found it empty.”
The other lady said, “That was lucky. She was saved some worry about them,” and as casually as she could Alice asked, “How long had the shop had them without knowing it?”
“I don’t quite know,” said Mrs. Rout. “Several days, a week perhaps. Anyway, Elaine didn’t get them until this morning.”
And the mail van from the city did its round of the village never later than eight o’clock, so that when Elaine had gone over to the Home at about noon she already knew what had really been the fate of the missing earrings! Yet between opening her mail and her telephone call to Alice she had devised her vicious accusation of Xenie, knowing even then that it had no substance, but reasonably confident that she could make the mud stick.
If she had genuinely thought, however mistakenly, that Xenie must be the culprit, Alice could have forgiven her. But she had known, had known the child was innocent! And could malevolence go any further than that? Alice asked herself in disgust and elation mixed. With the Routs knowing the truth, Elaine must have realised her case was thin -her word against the child’s - but she had been willing to take the risk for the evil satisfaction she gained in smearing Xenie and indirectly Alice and the reputation of the Home.
Would she really dare to carry the story to Karim? Probably, hoping that if the truth came out, people’s memories would be hazy as to the times and circumstances which would damn her evidence. Then she could claim that until her property had turned up from another quarter, her suspicions of Xenie had been justified. But too bad that chance had already handed the truth to her, thought Alice, promising herself a brief session with Elaine which she was going to enjoy.
In the hot blood of her anger she would have given a great deal to stage that showdown tonight. But under her hosts’ roof, good manners forbade it. There would be other times, other chances. She made herself look forward inste
ad to telling Xenie that she had nothing more to fear and no enemies to face.
When the barbecue was ready they all gathered round to eat kebabs and fried chicken and corn-cobs from their fingers, making a general party of it, sitting in a big circle on the grass. For another course there was a communal fondue with long spears of French bread for dunking in it. Afterwards there was fresh fruit and coffee, and then, the men opting out from clearing up, the women did it before rejoining the men for talk and neighbourly raillery and nostalgic music from a record-player and, for Alice, friendly chat with pleasant people whom, however, after tonight she was not likely to meet again before she left Tazenir for good.
The night was warmer than usual after sunset, the air heavy. Far across the mountains there was a faint grumble of thunder and people congratulated their hosts on having given their party before the rain which might follow the thunder. Close to midnight there were cups of hot bouillon for the guests, and soon afterwards the party began to break up.
Big coin-sized drops of rain were beginning to plash down by the time Karim’s car, driving Alice, reached the Home. He got out when she did, and she was thanking him when, as had happened once before, the door of the house opened and Sorab came running.
“Miss Alice! Seiyid Karim! I have waited to hear the car,” she panted. “Something dreadful has happened - Xenie Vareh, Rassim too, have gone - disappeared, run away! I roused Hussein and he has searched the garden, while Sarepta has helped me to search the house. But they are not hiding. They are not here -”
Alice felt her blood chill. So her reassurances to Xenie had gone for nothing - the child must have taken her own reckless way out. Alice turned to Karim. “Two of our children. Twins, only nine years old. One of them, the girl, had a grievance this morning-” She turned back to Sorab.
When did you find this out? How long can they have been gone -anywhere?”
“I don’t know that. One cannot tell. It was when I did my round of the dormitories before going to bed myself. I found first Xenie’s bed empty, and then Rassim’s. One or two of the children who woke say they heard nothing. The others I have not disturbed —”
Sorab broke off as Karim took each of them by the arm. “Let’s get this straight - out of this weather,” he said, adding to Sorab, “Is Hussein with you in the house now? Yes? Good.”
Hussein and Sarepta hovered in the background as he led the way into Alice’s office. “Now,” he asked Sorab, “how early could these two have left the house without your knowing?”
“Well; perhaps as soon as the other children were asleep.”
“So they were seen to bed? And if they did escape soon afterwards, how long then before you made your round?”
“As - as much as two hours.”
“So. Two hours, possibly less. Walking, how far could they get in that time? Eight kilometres or so. But which way might they take?” Alice suggested, “Xenie Vareh knows the way to the village well. She often goes for me.”
“And might they have relatives or friends there?”
“I’m pretty sure not. They were waifs from Tetuan.”
“And with no road beyond the village, would they be likely to try that? Or-” Karim beckoned Hussein closer, spoke to him in Arabic, and Hussein hurried out.
Karim explained, “I’ve sent him over to Benoit Paul and told them to beat any mountain paths which Hussein thinks the children may know for a fair distance. I’ll take the car out on the road down to the city. Blind alleys all, but it’s the best we can do. Sorab, wait here with Sarepta, in case they come back.” He turned to Alice. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Please,” she begged.
As they went out to the car he asked, “You say this Xenie had a grievance. What was it -?” then checked himself. “No, tell me in the car as we go along. I shall drive slowly after the first kilometre or two.”
The rain was falling heavily and pitilessly now, and, shuddering at the thought of Xenie and Rassim trudging ... trudging away from injustice towards - what? Alice had no charity in her heart at all for Elaine.
She said wretchedly, “They’ll get soaked.”
“Yes, unless they’ve gone to ground somewhere.”
“Taken shelter? But where?”
Karim shrugged. “If we don’t come up with them on the road, that’s what we shall have to deduce. Tell me about them now. You’ve guessed why they took off ?”
“I think so. Xenie, the girl, is the leader of the two, and if she meant to run away she would take her brother along. And this morning Miss Kent came to see me, accusing Xenie of theft from her.”
“Theft? How so? What opportunity had the child to steal from Elaine?”
Alice told him. When she stopped speaking he said, “But you are convinced that Xenie didn’t take the things?”
“I know she didn’t.”
“How can you be sure?” he pressed. “It’s only her word against Elaine’s. That you didn’t find them among her possessions isn’t evidence.”
“I still know she didn’t steal them,” said Alice doggedly. “Don’t ask me how, but I do.”
“I have to ask you, if I’m to believe you. Come,” he urged impatiently, ‘You know more about this business than you’ve told me, and you think you have proof that Elaine was mistaken in accusing the child. Is that it?”
Alice met the question with silence. But when, after a minute his brusque “Well?” stressed it, she knew he meant to have an answer.
Through dry lips she said, “Miss Kent wasn’t mistaken.”
He took her up sharply. “‘Not mistaken? Cryptic, that. What do you mean?”
She hesitated, then weighed Xenie’s defencelessness against Elaine’s malice, and hardened her heart, whatever the truth might do to him. She said baldly, “I mean that when Miss Kent accused Xenie, she already knew that at the time she gave Xenie that lift, the jeweller’s box in the glove compartment was empty. The earrings weren’t there for Xenie to steal.”
From his silence she realised she had shocked him. Then he asked, “You have proof of this? That Elaine accused the child with intent, in cold blood? How?”
Alice told him that too. She concluded lamely, “I’m - sorry.”
He agreed, “So am I - very,” his tone betraying nothing of the disillusion which she thought he must be feeling. He went on, “Have you any idea why Elaine should have gone to such lengths to make trouble for this child?”
But she couldn’t tell him the truth of that - that Xenie was no more than a pawn for Elaine’s revenge against herself for refusing to help her to gain his mother’s favour and to regain his. Instead she lied, “I don’t know. It seems so pointless.”
But that didn’t satisfy him. “Presumably she had some reason,” he persisted. “Had Xenie offended her in any way earlier?”
“No. She only recognised Xenie in the village from having seen her once at the Home. They didn’t meet or speak then.”
He took another line. “Have you faced Elaine with what you learned from Mrs. Rout?”
She shook her head. “No. How could I? Miss Kent is Mrs. Rout’s guest, and so was I tonight. I couldn’t possibly make trouble out of something which Mrs. Rout had let slip quite casually, without knowing what it had told me. You do see that?”
“I see that you feel you couldn’t.” Karim paused. “But I could.”
She glanced at him quickly. “Oh no, please - leave it!” she begged.
“Leave it? When it has had these consequences?” He gestured at the dark rainswept road ahead. “Two innocent children adrift, God knows where? Leave it!” he demanded. “You take charity too far, I must say.”
“I don’t,” Alice denied. “I’m bewildered and angry and - and bitter. But it will only make trouble between you.”
“No more trouble than there has been between us before now,” he said hardly.
“Yes, but that’s all over now,” she said unguardedly, remembering that in his only note to her he had as good as admitted that
he had forgiven Elaine for “handsome hybrid” and all the hurt it had meant for him.
“Over?” he questioned. “And may I ask what you know of what is ‘over’ between Elaine and me, and what isn’t?”
He couldn’t know how far Elaine had confided in her, and he mustn’t. “Why, n-nothing,” she floundered. “Just that-”
“Then don’t, please, attempt to dictate to me how I handle her,” he rapped out, and then, to her utter surprise and undoing, softened the harshness of that by taking a hand from the wheel to lay it over both of hers, clenched in her lap. They quivered and then stilled under the pressure of his, so gentle that it might almost have been a lover’s touch.
He said, “You are trembling. Why?”
She had to think of a plausible reason. “I - I’m frightened,” she said.
“For Xenie and her brother?”
She nodded dumbly.
“So am I,” he admitted. “That makes two of us. But that we are frightened together - shouldn’t that help?”
She didn’t know what he meant by that, and he didn’t explain. But she melted to the smile he gave her as he took his hand away, and she only knew that both touch and smile had said something which he wanted her to understand. Something kind. Something intimate. Something between them, if only for these moments of this night, which shut Elaine Kent out.
When he had been silent for a while he said, “I’ve been trying to calculate how far Xenie and the boy might have got, assuming they took this road and are still walking.”
“You think they may have got a lift?” Alice queried.
“Not likely at night. Hardly anything travels out of Tazenir. No, my idea is that we go on slowly now, keeping a lookout along the verges, to the point which could be their absolute limit, walking all the time.” “Could they have reached Gaarad, do you think?” asked Alice, naming the next hamlet out from Tazenir.
“I’d say not. It’s twelve or fourteen kilometres out and beyond the
boundary I’ve set for turning back.”
“And then?”