The Jewelled Caftan

by Margaret Pargeter

  'You really are a devil!' she cried, stumbling to her feet, her hair tumbling past her shoulders, flying in wild disorder as she left him and almost ran to her tent.

  For nearly a week they travelled in much the same manner as they had done on the first day. Ross, although she would have died rather than complain, often found it very difficult to keep up. In many ways she grew tougher, but the heat of the sun, together with the remorseless pace Armel set, would have exhausted a far more acclimatised traveller. She had soon mastered the art of camel riding, although the actual mounting of the animal still filled her with apprehension. It crouched to allow her to mount and, as it straightened its legs, the jolt always threatened to impale her on the pommel of her saddle. Once comfortably seated, with, her feet bare against the camel's neck, she didn't feel so bad. It wasn't this which occasionally made her feel ill. It was the whole weight of her many worries, not least her love for Armel which seemed to be growing in intensity in spite of herself. That he had taken very little notice of her since the first regrettable night beside the oasis, when he had threatened all sorts of things, she accepted as logical, if with pain. But the despair that swept over her whenever she glanced at him riding beside her was sometimes almost past bearing. Her appetite slowly disappeared and she grew thin.

  Each night, keeping his rather dubious promise, he slept only a few yards from her tent. In other circumstances she might have derived some comfort from knowing he was so near, but it only seemed to add to her heartache to hear him tossing in his sleeping-bag, as if he slumbered no more than she did.

  She could not seem to fight his hard dictatorship, and heaven knows she tried to. He drove them all relentlessly, not sparing anyone, least of all himself. It did not help that even Moulay's men appeared to like and respect him and obeyed without query his every word.

  For Moulay's benefit, Ross supposed, Armel pretended to be more attentive than he actually was. He never left her side for long. What Moulay made of it was not clear, but there had been times when she had caught him staring, almost wistfully, as if he would have liked to know her better, if he had been given the opportunity.

  If Ross found consolation in anything during these peculiarly timeless days, it was strangely enough the desert itself. It became a kind of love-hate relationship which she had never experienced before, unless it was with Armel. Certainly no place had ever drawn her so tenaciously and, while she did not admire everything about it, she marvelled at its many moods. When the wind rose and the sand began to blow, as happened frequently, she felt its vicious hostility towards her and all living creatures. It was these minor sand storms she came to dread most. The blowing sand and dust could reduce visibility to nil, while at the same time intensifying the sun's glare, and she would find herself crouched over her pommel, the leading rein in Armel's hands, almost praying that the wind might drop, or that she might die an easier, more comfortable death.

  But once, after rain, she had been thrilled to see how the same desert had almost flowered. The rain, which had fallen overnight, had nearly scared her by its very intensity, and when she rose the next morning the whole desert had a very different appearance.

  Armel, to her surprise, had aroused her in the half-light of the early dawn. She had looked up to find him crouched over her, his hand insistent on her bare shoulder.

  'Get up,' he had whispered swiftly, 'I tried shouting, but you were dead to the world. I've something to show you.'

  She had sat up with a startled jerk, and hours later she could still feel the impact of his eyes going slowly over her. To her dismay, instead of being immediately conscious of what he said, her sleep-drugged gaze had sought his face. The warmth and texture of his skin, the instant appeal of his powerful, lean body was all she had been aware of.

  'Armel 1' she had whispered, and, as if unable to deny the compulsive magnetism between them, he pulled her ruthlessly close, seeking her with both his hands and lips. It had been a moment she could never forget, nor would want to remember. In the early morning, her mind emptied of all restrictive thought, it had seemed incredibly wonderful, if dangerously stupid, to cling to the source of such miraculous delight.

  But Armel ben Yussef had been up an hour, and his mind, as always, was alert and fully conscious. Brutally, he wrenched her clinging arms away. 'You don't have to act like a little animal!' he'd exclaimed scathingly, turning derisively from her. 'I'll give you five minutes. As you have nothing to take off it shouldn't take you long to put something on.'

  Almost she hadn't gone. It was only after she had acknowledged that there could always be such frightening moments of awareness with Armel, and it was foolish to allow herself to be so wounded by them, that she had found the strength to get up. He might have his faults, but she realised he was in many ways wiser than herself. If he hadn't gone, in another minute it might have been too late. He liked to call her naive, but she had been instinctively aware of his passionate desire before he had cast her so forcibly aside. He wanted her, but he would never give in to such weakness, not with a girl he considered as inferior as herself!

  Yet in the desert that morning his gentleness had been a revelation. It might have been that her pale, cameo face, etched with lines of tense exhaustion, had moved his conscience in spite of himself. He had been standing only a few yards away when she had at last left the tent. Glancing at her as she had come to him, his eyes had darkened to a sudden intensity which had made her limbs tremble. But instead of hauling her to him, as she felt he would like to have done, he had taken her hand, leading her away from the camp, the

  recumbent, still sleeping figures of men, and pointed to the

  sky.

  Dawn, the first she had seen properly, had proved another revelation. Ross, her fingers curled submissively in Armel's, felt moved beyond words, as if she were seeing the beginning of the world, the heavens remade before her very eyes. There had been the deep violet blue of the night sky, against which the pure etched curve of a new moon still hung like a piece of palest gold. But instead if darkening, the horizon was now tinged with the most wonderful hues of gold and red. It was like the sunset but even more dramatic as, like a flame, the first rays of morning burst all around them and the fluffy cumulus clouds which had brought the overnight rain could be seen rapidly dispersing.

  'The stars,' Ross whispered, 'will all be gone, too, in a moment.' Her voice was awed, low-toned with wonder.

  By her side she had heard Armel laugh gently as he had carried her hand to his lips, 'The legends have it,' he'd murmured, softly, 'that the stars are no more than small holes in the tent the Gazelle threw over the earth in an attempt to trap her lover, who always left her before dawn to avoid revealing his ugliness.'

  In a revealing flash Ross had wondered if he was referring obliquely to his own scarred hand and, instinctively, her eyes had left the panorama before her to flicker over it.

  If he had noticed, his face had been inscrutable. Slowly he had released her and turned her away from him so that she might see that rarest of sights, the desert blooming. 'Look,' he had said, still softly.

  Ross had looked, and been amazed. For days they had travelled, and, apart from the oases, she had scarcely seen a tree or even a few tufts of grass. Now, as the light grew stronger, she saw that patches of flowers suddenly carpeted the gravelled slopes which were appearing as they approached the mountains. Many of the sand dunes, too, had a covering of what seemed like grass, and there was another kind of green plant among their feet that Armel told her was a type of low spreading melon.

  Further on he allowed her to kneel and examine some yellow daisies, and there were some white and blue flowers rather like the English crocus. The variety of colours was surprising and occupied every hollow, every small puddle.

  She was unaware that her companion gave more attention to her animated face, noting her delighted absorption at each new discovery, then her incredulous horror as they came across the camels devouring great mouthfuls of the low- growing vegetation. />
  'You must stop them!' she remembered crying rather foolishly, but it had seemed sacrilege that they should be allowed to destroy the beautiful, newly born flowers.

  Armel had merely smiled tolerantly and asked who could blame them. 'They enjoy a feast as well as anyone,' he had said, 'and before nightfall the plants will normally be all withered. Don't begrudge them a dewy bite while they can.'

  While Ross had stared at them doubtfully, he had gone on more dryly, 'Flowers are rather like a woman's emotions, you know, girl. One imagines, seeing them in all their perfection, they are indestructible. It is a lesson to be learnt that they do not always withstand a worsening change of climate.'

  Recalling another time when he had hinted sarcastically at the very same thing, the quick indignation Ross experienced had dispelled her glowing appreciation of the morning. Armel, also, seemed suddenly to find it not much to his liking as he had taken her impatiently back to camp, where he had instructed the now stirring men to see immediately to the camels—but not because of her concern for the flowers, she soon learned, but because of his haste to be gone.

  As they approached Moulay's home two days later, Ross realised she knew no more about Moulay or his family than she had when they had started out. Once or twice, when she had thought Armel to be in one of his softer moods, she had tried to ask him for a few details, but he had always curtly told her to wait and see. Now that they were just a few hours away, she felt extremely nervous, not so much of what she didn't know of his aunt, but rather of what his aunt might discover about her. Of course if this aunt was very ill she would not be up to asking questions or even seeing Ross at all, but she might just as easily be recovered as it was many days since her son had left in search of Armel.

  Ross stirred anxiously as she sat beside Armel in the leading Land-Rover, heading swiftly for the Middle Atlas. By comparison to her camel she supposed this must be the height of luxury, but the longing which occasionally overcame her to be back in the desert with Armel was so great that she often felt she would have done so without a flicker of regret if she had been given the opportunity—which of course she was not.

  Once at the Caid's asbah, she had little doubt that Armel's first intention would be to pack her off home. It was strange that she had heard nothing about Armel's own family when it seemed his must be as affluent as Moulay's. All the way here it had been he who had given the orders, Moulay who had obeyed.

  Armel ben Yussef drove, she noted, as expertly as he did everything else, and no matter what he was doing he always looked annoyingly immaculate. Glancing at him sideways, Ross was made very aware of her own untidy appearance. She had had no change of clothing since they had left his camp at the oasis. Each evening, in the small allocation of water she had been given for washing, she had tried to rinse her undies. These had usually dried sufficiently for her to wear the next morning and at least were fresh, but her outer garments she felt frankly ashamed of. If she had looked better she might have had a little more confidence for the talk which she felt could no longer be put off. As it was she could only do her best.

  'Will I have to meet your aunt?' she asked tentatively, her eyes slipping from his strong, forceful profile to where his lean hands with the two slighdy misshapen fingers lay firmly on the steering wheel. They had left the camels at the edge of the desert where they had transferred to what had seemed to Ross's bemused eyes like a fleet of Land-Rovers.

  'Naturally,' Armel answered her query absently, 'but this will depend on her state of health. It may be a while. However, you will need a few days to refresh yourself.'

  'I will have to borrow some clothing again,' Ross muttered unhappily.

  'This can easily be arranged,' he said smoothly, 'although I should have thought there should be more than sufficient in the pile you had at the oasis for your immediate needs.'

  'I didn't bring them along,' she confessed slowly. 'I'm afraid I didn't think about it, perhaps because I didn't realise we'd be leaving in such a hurry.'

  'I gave Jamila explicit instructions to get you ready.'

  Did he have to talk as if she was a parcel, or an infant! 'It might have been my fault,' she hedged, seeking to protect Jamila from his possible wrath, 'I can't remember exactly what she said.'

  His sigh of audible impatience was cut short by a quick frown. 'Then what the—what on earth have you been wearing?' he exclaimed, moderating his language with obvious difficulty.

  'What I wore when I left.'

  'You mean to say those are the same things 1'

  'Don't they look like them?' she cried sharply, a remark she regretted as soon as it was out, as his eyes came swifdy over her, noting how the thin, wind-torn garments clung to her gently perspiring body.

  'It doesn't matter,' she added with more constraint, while thinking bleakly that he might realise now why she had slept with nothing on. 'I won't need a lot. Just something for possibly a day or two until I get back home.'

  His frown deepened. 'I'll supply everything you want,' he said curtly, as if there could be no argument about it. 'And I will personally contact your parents.'

  'My parents?' Ross's blue eyes flickered anxiously to his decisive face. She hadn't forgotten about this looming problem, but she had hoped to be in a position to make her own arrangements for getting back to England, without having to confess this last misdemeanour.

  'Yes, your parents,' he repeated sardonically. 'You don't imagine they could be worried?'

  'You don't have to put yourself to any more trouble.' She tried to ignore his sarcasm as she brought her gaze back to her lap where her fingers twisted, full of nervous tension.

  'Oh, it will be no trouble, I assure you !'

  How she hated the suave tones, the underlying but unmistakable threat! 'I will be leaving for England almost immediately.'

  'You think so?' His lips curled visibly.

  'Wouldn't it be rather foolish if I didn't?' she retorted, striving for a firmness of voice. 'I mean, we do seem to be getting near to civilisation—and civilised behaviour. It would be stupid to pretend otherwise !'

  His eyebrows rose. 'You have not seen my uncle's asbah, Rosalind. It is almost as isolated as the desert we have just left. In places there are few tracks over the Atlas mountains and roads are non-existent in some areas. I will have no time to help you immediately, so you must be prepared to stay a little longer. I do promise, though, to contact your parents.'

  Once more she tried, through the tumult inside her. 'It would be better if I rang myself. That is if you do have telephones at the asbah ?'

  'You will leave them to me!' He did not answer her question direcdy. 'I am not yet willing to relinquish you, mademoiselle.'

  Her heart jerking, Ross refused to ask why. But she now knew him well enough not to doubt what he said. It frightened her greatly, but the truth seemed no longer something it was possible to evade. Anyway, she thought, feeling suddenly inexplicably weary, what was the point? Armel's opinion of her, as he discovered how she had further deceived him, couldn't get much lower than it already seemed to be!

  'I have no parents,' she said starkly, after the manner of one jumping in at the deep end, her eyes closed, her breath held.

  The Land-Rover swerved, so roughly that Ross's eyes flew wide open again. Armel's swift glance through his rear mirror confirmed her suspicions that if the others had not followed so closely he would have pulled in and stopped. 'Would you mind, repeating that, Miss Lindsay !'

  Her breathing, in the face of such encouragement, became even more difficult. 'My parents are dead,' she muttered. Then, hoping to forestall further queries, 'I live with a sort of distant relative of my father's.'

  The ensuing silence was fraught with a tension she could almost feel. Hypnotically she couldn't take her eyes from his whitening fingers on the wheel. He must be—he probably had a right to be, very angry. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered hopelessly, 'I only pretended I still had them because I thought they would be some kind of protection. I acted on impulse, but
afterwards I found it impossible to tell you.'

  'As if I were some sort of monster,' he exclaimed harshly. 'I wonder how many more damn lies there are yet to uncover?'

  The angle of his jaw unnerved her as much as his cruel query hurt. 'The atmosphere was seldom very convivial, not for confessions, at least. You can't pretend you would have been interested in a detailed story of my life.'

  'You're being deliberately evasive. A few straight facts would not have taken seconds.'

  Her face went paler. 'You never told me anything of yourself. Your own life . ..'

  'Mine is none of your business.'

  Tears stung her eyes as pain stabbed harder. 'And it would be ridiculous to go on pretending that mine is any of / yours I'

  He ignored this, but his breathing roughened, 'Where does this—er—distant relation come in, mademoiselle?'

  'I've told you, I live with her, work for her.'

  'I see,' he nodded mockingly. 'And naturally, as in all good stories, she is a tyrant?'

  Ross stared stolidly ahead, the tears thickening in her aching throat, refusing to answer the sneering note in his voice. He spoke so rapidly in French that she had some difficulty in following, but his general attitude left nothing to the imagination. She wished, suddenly fiercely, that he could have met Cynthia and seen for himself. Cynthia could be very charming when she chose, but her face had always had a hardness which didn't easily deceive.

  Armel concentrated on a bad stretch of road. When he spoke again his voice had softened slightly. 'We'll accept that you lost your parents, but whatever this other relative's faults or failings, you can't but admit you could be causing her great distress by simply disappearing?'

  'I realise,' Ross's voice was more choked than she knew and she made no attempt to deny what he said. That Cynthia's distress would be for her personally she very much doubted, but Freddy was another matter. He had always been the apple of her eye. 'She's bound to be alarmed,' she added vaguely, thinking aloud in terms of Freddy.