by Belinda Grey
‘Rami’ was the word the boy had used when he had spoken to her at the display of horse riding. Murmuring her thanks she went out into the daylight again, pulling down her veil as the sunshine dazzled her. The crowds were as thick as ever, and though she looked about her there was no sign of the tall, robed figure or of the white horse.
‘There you are! Have you been having your fortune told?’ Selina was hurrying across to her. ‘Are you going to meet a tall dark stranger?’
‘Of course.’ Ellen shook off her mood of bewildered questioning and smiled at the other. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’
‘Nearly everything, except for the peppers. My own are not doing well this season. We’ll meet at the coffee tent.’
Selina went off briskly, the basket swinging from her arm. Ellen envied her a little. Selina Ford was so sure of herself and her place in the world. Ellen was not certain of her own feelings and the world had become a strange, shifting place in which nobody was quite what they appeared to be.
She must put the recent encounter out of her mind and find a gift for Aunt Kate Evans. Deciding firmly upon that course of action, Ellen went over to the handicrafts laid out temptingly on the ground.
A cloth of woven linen and a scarab brooch were her final choices. Aunt Kate Evans would never risk spoiling the cloth by actually laying the table with it, but she might be persuaded to wear the pretty blue scarab when she went to chapel.
In one corner of the bazaar a large group of people were squatting around a man who was obviously telling a long and highly dramatic tale, illustrated by extravagant gestures that evoked gasps and bursts of laughter. Pausing briefly, Ellen wished that she could understand what he was saying. Perhaps, if she stayed in Egypt, she would settle down to learn the language—and that was a foolish thought, because she was only here on a visit.
Turning away with an impatient shake of the head at the trend her thoughts were taking, she found herself in a narrow alley framed by the backs of two adjacent booths. At a little distance three men in the striped robes and muffling headgear of the jellahin were talking together, their shoulders hunched over some object she couldn’t see.
‘That’s my price. Take it or leave it, my friend.’
‘Very high price. We cannot buy many.’
‘And I am not in this business for charity. Give me more and you’ll get more. That’s fair bargaining.’
‘That’s robbery.’
Ellen swung round and plunged into the crowd again. Her legs were trembling and, despite the heat, she felt suddenly chilly.
The men had been speaking in English but it was not that alone which had driven the colour from her cheeks. She had recognised the voice of the one who had spoken first, and even though his face and form had been covered she had known him instantly. There was no denying the fact, though nothing made sense, that Henry Bligh was at the bazaar, dressed in native clothes, and selling something for what his customer considered an inflated price.
‘Why, what’s the matter?’ Selina had joined her and was looking at her in concern. ‘You don’t look well at all.’
‘I think it must be the heat and the smell,’ Ellen said.
‘Would you like to start back at once without waiting for coffee?’ Selina asked.
‘Yes. Yes, I think I would.’ Suddenly she wanted to be away from the chattering crowd, the bright tents and booths, the dust swirling from beneath the feet of the thin, red-eyed children.
‘Mount up and we’ll be on our way.’ Selina beckoned to a boy lounging nearby and spoke to him rapidly in the mixture of French and local dialect that was apparently commonly used.
The boy nodded and ran off, returning in a moment with the horses.
‘We’ll ride back slowly and you must rest until this evening,’ Selina said. ‘My father would be terribly upset if you were taken ill while you were staying with us.’
‘I’m not ill. It’s probably the heat,’ Ellen replied, mounting Hecate as quickly as she could.
At that moment she wanted to get away as swiftly as possible. Without knowing why, she felt it would be much wiser for her to leave without letting Henry Bligh know that she had been here and had recognised him.
‘You’ll be better when you’ve had some salt tablets,’ her companion said. ‘If you start to run a fever we can give you some quinine. My father has a good supply of it always on hand.’
‘A rest will do me good,’ Ellen agreed meekly. She wondered if Selina had seen and recognised Henry Bligh, and if she had why she was keeping silent about it. The young woman seemed honest and artless, but in this situation nobody was exactly what they seemed to be, and her own uneasiness was increasing.
When they reached Tel-El-Aton Dr. Ford hurried out to greet them, his smile fading as his daughter said, ‘Ellen was not feeling well, so we rode back early.’
‘A touch of heat, perhaps? This climate can affect people. You didn’t buy any sweetmeats at the bazaar?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘They make these sweets, pile them up for the flies to crawl over, and then sell them. Come along in, my dear young lady, and lie down. Selina, come with me to the dispensary and I’ll make up a dose of quinine. Then you must lie quietly until this evening and have a light dinner. Selina makes the most feathery omelettes you ever tasted!’
One of the porters led away the horses and Ellen went thankfully up the step on to the verandah and into her room. She no longer felt ill, but she was glad of a chance to be alone, to try to sort out her confused thoughts. Every time she thought she had reached some conclusion everything shifted around again and she was left more bewildered than before.
Selina brought the dose of quinine and a tall glass of lime with which to wash down the bitter taste, drew down the blind, and left Ellen in peace.
It was no more than a physical peace for the questions still gnawed at her brain. The man who called himself Hawk and whose real name was Rami. Farida, the indolent widow, who had known Rami once well enough for her to be photographed with him. Henry Bligh who disguised himself as one of the fellahin and came to sell something in the bazaar. All these people, anxious to find out what message her father had sent to her before he died. And she could trust none of them, though her heart warned her that she was in danger of falling in love with one.
To fall in love with a man who would not even confide his real name, and was probably mixed up in revolutionary activities, would be quite the most foolish thing Ellen Parry of Cwm Bedd could do. But a new Ellen was stirring, and the new Ellen might begin to count the world well lost for love.
Rather to her surprise she found herself dropping off to sleep. Outside, flies buzzed against the mesh of the window screens and now and then a voice was raised in the distance.
Images moved across the theatre of her mind, gaining colour and strength as the conscious world faded.
She was groping her way down a dark staircase, lit only by the flickering light of a torch. The steps beneath her feet were of rough stone and crumbled a little at each pace, threatening to fling her into the blackness of the abyss below. She thought that she tried to cry out, but her throat closed on the scream, and her outstretched hands met only bruising rock that grazed her fingers. To her left there appeared suddenly a glowing light within which a baby sat in the outspread petals of a lotus flower. The baby sat with one finger to its lips, smiling at her, its head shaven save for a plaited scalp-lock, its plump little body encircled by light.
Someone was calling her name, shaking her by the shoulder. She fought her way back to consciousness and blinked up at Selina. ‘Are you feeling better? You’ve been asleep for hours!’ the other demanded.
‘I feel fine, but I’m terribly hungry!’ Ellen sat up, rubbing her eyes.
‘Dinner’s almost ready. I’ll bring some water for you to wash.’
Selina bustled out, returning with a large jug of water. Setting it down, she glanced questioningly at the other. ‘Did you know you talked in your sleep?’ she
enquired.
‘Oh, what did I say?’ Ellen went over to the wash stand.
‘Something about a cradle,’ Selina said.
‘I must have been dreaming.’ Ellen splashed her face with the cool liquid. ‘I can’t remember what it was, though.’
‘I can never remember my dreams either,’ Selina said, bending to tidy the rumpled sheet. She had the nurse’s habit of setting things straight, and her striped shirtwaister of dark blue and white had the air of being a uniform.
‘The sleep did me good, anyway.’ Ellen wiped her face and hands on the small towel and began to pin up her hair.
‘Father and I have been busy in surgery. One of the fellahin was brought in with a nasty camel bite. Those brutes can be vicious even with their owners. And one foolish man had stuck a garden fork through his own foot, so that had to be cleaned and dressed.’
‘But you enjoy doing it. You wouldn’t want to do any other kind of work, would you?’ Ellen said.
‘I suppose not.’ Selina considered for a moment and then laughed. ‘Oh, it may not seem very exciting, but it’s so interesting! I wouldn’t live in any other country now, even if we are perpetually poor by European standards!’
‘But not by Egyptian?’
‘All the wealth is in the hands of a few. The Khedive is no more than a puppet with France and England pulling the strings. Not that I think it will change much if Arabi Pasha comes to power. There will always be ill-health and poverty and official stupidity.’
‘Then you must approve of the man they call the Hawk.’
‘I’ve a sneaking romantic sympathy with rebels,’ the other admitted.
‘Have you ever seen him?’ Ellen darted a quick glance at her companion.
‘Who knows? More than one man carries the title of Hawk. They see themselves as patriots guarding the ancient independence of the Egyptian nation as the hawk god, Horus, once guarded the power of the Pharaohs. They want the foreigners driven out, but my father says there have been foreigners on Egyptian soil for thousands of years. The land has been invaded over and over again.’
‘Like Wales,’ Ellen said wryly. ‘Aunt Kate Evans is always telling me we’re a conquered race!’
‘If you’re ready, shall we join my father for dinner?’ Selina murmured.
The two girls went out together along the verandah to the room that served as both dining and sitting room. With its woven mats and simple furniture it boasted none of the luxury of Silver Moon, but the atmosphere was pleasant, the chairs comfortably shabby.
‘You look very much better, my dear,’ Dr. Ford said, rising as they came in. ‘I do believe the fever has been averted. I would have blamed myself entirely for having urged you to visit the market. Selina here is more accustomed to the dirt and the heat.’
‘I had a good sleep,’ Ellen said.
‘And dreamed of cradles,’ Selina put in, pouring herself a drink from the tall jug of lemonade on the table.
‘Regression to infancy is often the sign of some deep anxiety,’ Dr. Ford said. ‘I do occasionally obtain various medical journals, and some interesting research is being done along those lines in Europe. I hope you are not worried about anything, my dear Miss Ellen?’
‘You have only to confide in us and we’ll do anything in our power to help,’ Selina said. Her blue eyes were guileless, inviting confidences as they met Ellen’s over the rim of the glass.
‘Yes indeed!’ her father exclaimed heartily. ‘Your father was a fine gentleman, my dear, and any service we can render his daughter we shall be glad to do.’ They were such kindly, hospitable people, so dedicated to the care of the sick, and it would be so easy to tell them about everything that had happened and ask their advice. Ellen opened her mouth, and closed it again. The truth was that she couldn’t afford to trust anybody. Not anybody at all!
CHAPTER
NINE
At Cwm Bedd Ellen had often been solitary, Aunt Kate Evans keeping herself to herself for much of the time, but here, in this vivid, unfamiliar land, she was beginning to know a loneliness of spirit that depressed her usual gaiety. She had not realised how much of a stranger she was until she had seen the photograph of Farida and the man called Rami. Even though it had been taken some years since, had the association been an innocent one her stepmother would surely have mentioned knowing him. They had talked about the almost legendary figure who led the tribesmen in their fight for independence. It would have been natural for Farida to say, ‘I knew him when he was a boy.’ She had said nothing. Ellen, tossing and turning on her bed in the early hours of the morning, felt the silence hanging round her like thick curtains that shut out the truth.
Soon it would be dawn, and the first heat of the day would strike the rocks and sand. The nights here were cold and she was glad of her thick cloak, but by midday the fierce sun beat down on everything and everyone. Already, when she rose and unclasped the shutters of her window, a faint greyness was stealing away the stars.
At home, when she had had a problem, Aunt Kate Evans always advised her to walk on it.
‘Clears the brain something wonderful, canad, to put one leg before the other and let the wind take your troubles!’
Ellen dressed as quickly as she could in the half-light, resisting the temptation to take another look at the photograph. It was thrust away now beneath her undergarments, and she wished she could thrust aside the memory with equal ease.
Nothing stirred as she unlatched the door and went, out on to the wooden verandah that ran around the two sides of the building. Every window was primly shuttered and no burning lamp broke into the gloom of the courtyard.
It was quite safe, Selina had said, to go about here unchaperoned. No doubt the natives regarded it as a mild eccentricity common to white women. She did not, in any case, intend to go very far. Beyond the trickle of river and the cliff against which the houses clustered the landscape was a series of low hills, covered with sand and scrub with, here and there, a solitary cactus spiking the air.
Ellen wrapped her cloak more warmly about herself and strode out, her lips quirking into a smile as she imagined the indolent Farida’s horror at being asked to walk at such a pace. It was difficult to believe that her stepmother could ever be party to any conspiracy against her. She was too lazy and too good-natured—unless that was merely the mask she wore to put people off their guard. And Henry Bligh, who spoke so smoothly of his friendship with her father and behaved as if he were master at Silver Moon, what was he really like underneath his good manners?
Ellen, walking faster into the rising light, thought wryly that her problems kept pace with her.
She had reached the top of a rise and paused to catch her breath, the wind suddenly tugging at her cloak. It had arisen out of nowhere, seemingly, and she shivered, aware of the land dipping and folding all about. The strengthening light revealed unexpected beauties around her. A lizard with jewelled eyes leapt from one rock to another and, at a little distance amid a clump of grass, tiny scarlet flowers opened their petals to the dawn.
Ellen hurried forward, kneeling to examine the blooms. They were like miniature hibiscus blossoms, she thought, and wondered how they contrived to prosper in this desolate spot. When she raised her head again she was startled by the discovery that she was not alone any longer.
A couple of fellahin were approaching her down a narrow gully that ran into the shallow valley where she knelt. Their striped robes fluttered about their bony ankles and their bearded faces were half-hidden by shabby turbans. Ellen rose to her feet and raised a hand in greeting, wishing she could speak to them in their own tongue. They looked at each other and continued towards her.
‘Good morning.’ She spoke loudly, hoping they would understand, remembering to put her hands together in the greeting that seemed to be customary in these parts.
The men stopped, glancing at each other, their eyes shifting back to her in a way that made her feel suddenly uneasy. She was conscious that she had walked a considerable distance fro
m the river and that the clinic was no longer in view.
‘I am staying at Tel-El-Aton—the clinic,’ she continued pointing in the direction she had come.
They looked at each other again. Then the taller of the two stepped nearer, holding out his palm upwards.
‘Money, lady? You give money?’ he asked, showing broken teeth in an ingratiating smile.
‘No. No, I have no money.’ Ellen took a step backwards, trying to keep her head high and her voice steady. These were neither local villagers nor fierce Berbers but a couple of drifters, the flotsam and jetsam of the country who made a living by begging and thieving. To them any foreigner was rich, and fair game for entreaty or force.
‘You give!’ The man, evidently losing patience, grabbed at her arm.
‘I don’t have any money!’ She tried to wrest herself tree, but he was drawing a knife from his belt. In imagination she could feel its sharp tip pricking her throat. A scream rose up in her, but she had no time to utter it. There was a pounding of hoofs and something bright glittered above her head. Incredibly, the would-be robbers were fleeing, their robes bunched up around them, their yells echoing back to her. Ellen found that she was running herself, scrambling down a bank of loose stones, picking herself up as she slithered to its foot, and running again, rocks and stones tilting crazily, her breath sobbing as she plunged on.
It was quite useless. Her side was hurting abominably and she was forced to stop, bending double as she gasped painfully. Through tear-blurred eyes she looked up to meet the sardonic gaze of the man called Rami. He had dismounted from his horse and stood, sheathing his curved sword.
‘You are a difficult female to rescue,’ he said calmly. ‘What possessed you to run away?’
‘I was afraid.’ She drew a long, painful breath, the stitch easing as she straightened up.