Daughter of Isis

by Belinda Grey

  ‘I didn’t go into mourning,’ she said. Aunt Kate Evans had been rather shocked by her refusal. ‘For say what you like, cariad, he was still your father when all’s said and done!’

  ‘Who never troubled to look at me when I was a baby, or to send for me later. I’ll not be such a hypocrite!’ Ellen had said stubbornly.

  Now Henry Bligh, his long, aristocratic face admiring, said, ‘Mourning does not flatter young ladies. Your father would have been pleased with your decision. But do go through to the garden and I’ll join you in a moment. Abdul, one of the men appeared to be hurt.’

  ‘We were attacked by Berbers,’ Ellen said. Now that the danger was passed she felt retrospective excitement.

  ‘Berbers! So near to Wadi Amarna!’ He dropped her hand and turned to Abdul, speaking to the servant in a language she recognised as the one in which the French tourists had chatted. Abdul replied in the same tongue, evidently explaining what had occurred.

  ‘My dear Ellen!’ Henry Bligh had turned to her again, his expression heavy with concern. ‘I am dismayed to learn of what has occurred. This is the first time those savages have ventured so near to Wadi Amarna, I would not have dreamed of such a thing happening. I can only thank Providence that you were not hurt. But do go in. I will be with you directly, but I must ensure the man’s wound is not too serious. These people have little notion of medical hygiene!’ He hurried away, with Abdul still gesticulating volubly at his side.

  Ellen went through the wide, stone floored lobby and down three steps into the paved enclosure. The house was evidently built on a square around it, with doors and windows opening into the central courtyard and archways filled in with wrought iron connecting the wings. The courtyard itself sang with flowers—some planted in tubs and narrow’ beds, others trained up the walls and over the balcony that ran about the upper storey of the house. There were cedar trees with seats built round them and several wrought-iron tables. Water splashed into the pool from the mouths of four stone dolphins and a woman stood at the water’s rim, watching as Ellen approached.

  A tall woman, tending to plumpness but magnificently handsome in a loose robe of white silk against which jet hair and eyes and a dark complexion showed to great advantage, she stood motionless until Ellen was within a few feet of her. Then she took a step forward, holding out a plump hand on the wrist of which a gold snake bracelet coiled.

  ‘Ellen? I am most happy to greet you. Hywel told me so much about his land of Wales that I hoped very much to meet one of its people.’

  ‘Hywel?’ Ellen gave the woman a bewildered look as her hand was taken in a warm, soft clasp.

  ‘My husband,’ the woman said, displaying two rows of perfect teeth as she smiled. ‘I am Farida, your father’s widow.’

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  The bedroom allotted to Ellen was on the upper floor its long windows leading to the balcony. Only narrow slits admitting light through the outer walls. It was an elegant apartment, with an adjoining dressing room, and occupied the whole of one wing.

  Abdul, who had shown her up the little spiral staircase, had explained to her. ‘Only four main bedchambers, Miss Ellen. Mr. Bligh has the one opposite your own, and Mr. Tyrrell the one between you. Madame has the west suite. My own quarters are beneath hers, but the other servants sleep next to the kitchens below Mr. Tyrrell’s room. There is an elevator on that floor to enable him to get up and down.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me that my father had married again?’ she interrupted.

  ‘It was not my place. Miss Ellen.’

  ‘But you could have mentioned the fact.’ she said resentfully. ‘You said nothing at all. Nothing!’

  ‘Mr. Bligh considered that it would be better for you to learn the fact when you arrived here,’ Abdul said.

  Ellen made an impatient gesture. It was foolish of her to blame Abdul, who had only been carrying out his instructions, but she felt strongly that someone had tried to make a fool of her.

  She must have looked foolish as she gaped at the plumply handsome woman and stammered, ‘Widow? My father’s widow!’

  ‘We were married twelve years ago. I was then very young, only sixteen, but in Egypt girls are often married when they are scarcely more than children.’

  She was certainly no child now. There was experience in the dark eyes and sensual mouth. ‘I wasn’t aware that my father had married again,’ Ellen said stiffly.

  The imagined picture she had had of a man burying himself in archaeological research in order to forget the one love of his life was shattered by this revelation.

  ‘He did not inform his friends at home,’ Farida said. ‘He told my father when he first came to Silver Moon that his future lay here, in this country.’

  ‘Then Silver Moon—?’

  ‘Belonged to my father, though it was Hywel who gave it the name it now bears. My father was a very sick man who wished to see his only child married before he died.’

  ‘An arranged marriage?’

  ‘And a most fortunate one, though I regret there were no children of it. Hywel was very kind and never blamed me for that as an Egyptian might have done. I was a good wife to him.’

  ‘What of Henry Bligh? Where does he fit in?’ Ellen demanded.

  ‘I visited them so frequently that in the end Hywel suggested that I move in.’

  Her guardian had come through the wide lobby to join them, and smilingly took Farida’s hand.

  ‘So you live here?’

  ‘Henry manages the estate for me, Farida told her ‘Hywel appointed him as such about five years ago, as he wished to occupy himself in excavations.’

  ‘Tombs.’

  ‘There are many tombs in Egypt,’ Farida said. ‘Not only in the Valley of the Kings, but in many parts of the land.’

  ‘Most of them bespoiled and robbed years ago,’ Henry Bligh observed, ‘but Hywel liked to dream. He was always going off into the desert on mysterious expeditions.’

  ‘And not taking care of his health,’ Farida said, her eyes sad. ‘He died of the fever.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I know.’ Ellen felt bemused..

  ‘And now Abdul will show you to your room and you must rest before dinner,’ Henry Bligh said. ‘You have not yet heard of the dreadful experience that Ellen had. my dear Farida.’

  ‘Oh?’ The woman looked questioning,

  ‘They were attacked by Berbers,’ he said. ‘One of the porters was slightly hurt, but not to any great extent, but it’s disquieting to think of them daring to ride so close to Wadi Amarna. Ellen was fortunate not to have been abducted for ransom or even killed!’

  ‘That’s a terrible thought!’ Farida exclaimed.

  ‘But not one to be dwelt upon,’ Henry Bligh said soothingly. ‘It was probably an isolated incident. However, we will take precautions.’

  ‘Ellen must not think that we are all savages here, Farida agreed. I am hoping so much that she and I may become friends. You will not, I hope, look upon me as the wicked stepmother?’

  ‘I can’t think of you as any kind of stepmother,’ Ellen said coldly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I will go to my room.’

  She was not usually so rude, but the revelation of her father’s marriage had discomposed her tremendously. It had been very wrong of Henry Bligh not to inform her of that fact.

  Because of her annoyance she went to particular trouble with her appearance when she changed for dinner. Two maids, their hair tied up in narrow ribbons, carried up jugs of steaming water with which they filled a hip bath in the dressing-room. Ellen soaked away the dust and stiffness of the ride, towelled herself vigorously, and chose a gown of rose pink, its frilled bustle edged with rows of black lace, its sleeves and high collar scattered with tiny silver beads. With her long hair brushed and coiled, and a spraying of cologne at ears and wrists, she felt more confident, and the long mirror opposite the canopied bed reflected a charming figure.

  When she went downstairs the lobby was deserted and, for an instant, she hes
itated. Then a voice called through an adjoining door. ‘Is that you, Miss Parry? Do come in and let me introduce myself.’

  ‘Mr. Tyrrell?’ She went through into a long apartment overlooking the garden and lined with shelves on which books and ornaments were attractively displayed.

  ‘Christopher, please.’ The slight, red-haired young man in the wheelchair shook hands with unexpected firmness. ‘It seems you’ve heard of me.

  ‘Abdul mentioned his employer’s secretary. They kept my father’s widow as a surprise,’ Ellen responded dryly.

  ‘Farida was so anxious to welcome you and so afraid that you would refuse to come if you learned of her existence beforehand,’ Christopher Tyrrell said.

  ‘I ought to have been told,’ Ellen said, taking a seat on one of the long couches that were placed at intervals between open windows.

  ‘I agree, Miss Parry, but it was not my place to insist upon it,’ he said. ‘Your father intended to tell you about his marriage himself, but his last illness made that impossible.’

  ‘His death was very sudden, I understand.’

  ‘Sudden, but not entirely unexpected. In recent years he suffered from recurring bouts of fever. His last simply proved too much for his strength. There would have been no time for you to reach here even if we had sent to you immediately, and he was delirious for much of the time.’

  So delirious that he had written a nonsense rhyme and posted it to her with an ancient pendant.

  ‘I will have to write to my aunt to let her know that I arrived safely,’ she said aloud. ‘How does one send letters from this place?’

  ‘The launch lands supplies from downriver once or twice a week,’ he said. A couple of the servants ride out and take with them any letters that are to be posted. Our incoming mail arrives in the same manner.’

  ‘This is an isolated place.’

  ‘Not so isolated if one is native to it. It’s actually a very large oasis, so we have a steady stream of travellers who stop off here to refresh themselves. Not many Europeans however, for this is off the main tourist track.’

  ‘And you like it here?’ she queried.

  ‘Very much. I was due to be invalided out of the regiment with a tiny disability pension when I met Henry Bligh and he offered me the post of secretary. I was glad to accept.’

  ‘Your accident.’ She bit her lip, not wanting to embarrass him.

  ‘We were on a hunting expedition,’ he said ruefully. ‘It wasn’t even a military exercise so there was no glory attached to it at all. I came a cropper and my horse rolled on me. Three years ago, and I’d be on the scrapheap now if it wasn’t for Henry Bligh. In fact they’ve all been tremendously kind to me. I’ve no people at home, except a couple of second cousins somewhere or other, so I’ve settled here.

  He sounded cheerfully content, so she restrained the impulse towards pity that had gripped her and said, ‘It’s certainly a beautiful house. I suppose it belongs to—to my father’s widow now.’

  ‘You must learn to call her Farida,’ he said with a gleam of humour. ‘She will be hurt if you do not. Yes, Silver Moon reverted to her on your father’s death, but Henry remains as manager, of course.’

  ‘And you as his secretary.’

  ‘The post is something of a sinecure, the work being so easy,’ he admitted. ‘There are always compensations in life, you see.’

  ‘So you have met Christopher, my dear.’ Henry Bligh came in with Farida at his side. She was still gowned in the loose robe of white silk, her head covered by a veil of silvery mesh.

  ‘I introduced myself,’ Christopher said.

  ‘Has Ellen told you of her adventure on the way?’ Henry enquired. ‘They were attacked by Berbers just the other side of the pass.’

  ‘Berbers so far north?’ The young man looked surprised.

  ‘A small hunting party, in my own opinion, who chanced upon our people by mistake and risked a skirmish,’ Henry Bligh said. ‘But we won’t alarm the ladies by discussing it further. Ellen, my dear, shall we go in to dinner?’

  The dining-room led out of the room where they were and was furnished in the same style, the stone floors covered with thick turkish rugs, the white walls hung with long panels of embroidered silk, the table laid with damask and heavy silver.

  ‘My father admired the English way of life very much,’ Farida said as they took their places.

  Abdul had appeared to wheel Christopher to his place at the oval table.

  ‘And Hywel admired the Egyptian way, so Silver Moon is a blend of the two,’ Henry said.

  ‘And my father gave the house its name?’

  ‘Your father had a romantic streak,’ Christopher told her.

  ‘When he first came here I was wearing a dress with silver moons embroidered upon it,’ Farida said.

  Ellen was silent, trying to picture Farida as a graceful sixteen-year-old in a gown embroidered with silver moons. She had probably looked enchanting, a vision to sweep away a stranger’s grief for his dead wife. Even twelve years later, though she was beginning to run to fat, there was still a ripe femininity about her that might attract a man.

  ‘It must have been a great grief to you when my father died,’ she said at last.

  ‘Oh, he was always very kind,’ Farida said, helping herself to salad. ‘I was very pleased when my father chose him as my husband.’

  ‘It is the custom here for the father to arrange the marriage of his daughter—often to a man whom she has never seen,’ Henry said.

  ‘Such marriages still occur in Europe too,’ Christopher said wryly. ‘It is not a custom that recommends itself to me. I have always been of the opinion that a woman should choose her own husband.’

  ‘Provided he is acceptable to her family,’ Henry said. ‘Some young ladies are prone to most unsuitable infatuations.’

  ‘When the time comes I will certainly choose my own husband,’ Ellen said, meeting her guardian’s eyes with a spark of challenge in her own.

  ‘I am sure you are quite sensible enough not to submit to any unsuitable alliance,’ Henry said smoothly.

  ‘You are not promised then to any young man in your own land?’ Farida enquired.

  ‘No. There is nobody,’ Ellen said briefly.

  ‘Then we must invite some of our neighbours to visit us,’ Farida began, but Henry broke in, his face and voice reproving.

  ‘It would not be fitting to entertain too lavishly until our period of mourning is over.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ A little colour ran up into her plump face. ‘But I cannot believe that Hywel would object to our giving a quiet supper for one or two acquaintances.’

  ‘Naturally, the decision must be yours, my dear,’ he returned.

  ‘What I really want to do is to explore the countryside,’ Ellen said. ‘I’ve always wanted to travel, and there are so many things to be seen here. The pyramids—’

  ‘A monument to the vanity of Kings,’ Christopher interposed.

  ‘My father thought them worthy of study, and you, Mr. Bligh, have devoted much time to archaeology, have you not?’

  ‘Henry, my dear,’

  ‘Henry, then. You are an archaeologist, are you not?’

  ‘No more than an amateur.’ he said regretfully. ‘Years ago Hywel and I cherished the ambition to make some discovery that would carve our names on the roll of fame. The dream of two idealistic young men! Even the most modest expedition requires the outlay of a great deal of capital. We made a little progress—your father had the great good fortune to accompany Sir Flinders Petrie on two of his expeditions. But he was finally forced to the conclusion that he was no more than a gifted amateur, and his passion became a pastime.’

  ‘He did find one or two interesting pieces locally.’ Christopher said.

  ‘And we must certainly give you every opportunity to indulge in a little sightseeing,’ Henry cut in. ‘Do you ride?’

  ‘I hope to learn while I’m here. Abdul had to lead me on the way here.’

  �
�We have several horses. Abdul’s father was steward to Farida’s father, and bred many fine Arabians. Hecate is the gentlest of mares.’

  ‘I don’t ride,’ Farida said, taking another helping of the savoury rice. ‘My father believed females should remain within the confines of the home, and Hywel was quite content for it to remain so.’

  ‘Farida graces her house as a pearl graces an oyster,’ Henry commented admiringly.

  ‘You are not married yourself?’ Ellen ventured.

  ‘My best friend won the hand of the most beautiful woman in Egypt,’ he returned, ‘and I determined long ago never to settle for second best.’

  ‘Henry always was a shameless flatterer,’ Farida said. ‘You must say something nice to my stepdaughter now.’

  Stepdaughter! The word rang hollow in Ellen’s ears. Certainly it was difficult to think of this lushly perfumed woman in any maternal sense.

  ‘Ellen is quite charming,’ Henry said, raising his glass towards her.

  ‘Ellen is also very tired,’ she said. ‘Would you be offended if I retired early?’

  ‘My dear, while you are with us this is your home, and you must behave exactly as you choose,’ Henry said. ‘I will have Abdul send up some coffee or tea for you.’

  ‘Nothing for me. I shall probably sleep like a log,’ she assured them. ‘This has been an exciting journey.’

  ‘You must take things easily for a few days and accustom yourself to these new surroundings,’ Henry soothed, rising as she pushed back her chair.