‘I guess you’re a study,’ Amalia went on, as if Xena hadn’t spoken.
‘I’d rather not be studied, please.’
Amalia gave a little laugh that seemed as parsimonious as everything else about her.
‘They won’t let us steal from people, but we can help ourselves to the way they look, I guess, and if they don’t like it they’d better wear a veil,’ she replied as she walked away.
At the other side of the boat the sea was a glare of copper, as if molten under its own giving-off of rusty smoke. Xena stood there. The rattle of the donkey-engine had ceased. A hoarse blast shook the ship, as if deep lungs spoke without a throat; it rolled away over the wide waters, and was silent again. Indigo invaded the copper even as Xena watched. The occulting lights looked more staringly about them, other lights burned like steady rubies. She almost started back from the rail as, soundless as a ghost, a long lateen-yard passed not six feet away. Another trouble was now on Xena’s mind. She considered it as Trápani’s lights moved again and the ship slid out backwards into the night.
She shared a cabin with Mollie. Except in church, and to her father, she had never yet said her prayers to the Saint with anybody else in the room. Perhaps if she went down now she would have the cabin to herself. Somehow she wanted Mollie there less than anybody.
Nor was Mollie there. She was quite otherwise occupied. It was in the shadow of the after deckhouse that Xena came upon the huddle of two figures. As well as could be distinguished in the gloom one of them wore a red képi and black riding-boots. The silver slipper against the boots was the slipper of Mollie Van Necker.
Xena hurried below.
What had happened? Xena’s hand was at her breast. She knew that as the screw throbbed and the water rushed past she was drawing every moment farther away from the known and familiar things and nearer to things unknown. Neither of the two she had just seen had known that Xena was there, so startled and still had she stood for perhaps five seconds, so silently had she glided away. So what had happened? To Xena? Nothing. The young French officer hadn’t been kissing Xena; it was Mollie he had been kissing, and Xena was almost frightened that by accident she had seen it. She didn’t think she would be able to look Mollie in the face tomorrow. She wished either that Mollie hadn’t or that she had not seen. She wished that something, something she couldn’t describe, was all over. She wished she was off this boat and in Tunis. There, in a new place, she would put out of her mind what she had seen – Mollie’s lips crushed motionless against a man’s. She must forget that the very first thing she did. She knew that that wasn’t what her father had put her among girls of her own age for. It was something she could never, never tell him, and it was her first secret from him.
Yet he must have had a reason for sending her away. The night air seemed different already. She was sure that tomorrow was going to bring something really new, the thing that Umberto had meant. She ought to get up early, say her morning prayer, and see tomorrow before anybody was about. She ought to see its sunrise, all by herself. Mollie hadn’t come down to the cabin yet, but Xena didn’t know how long it took to be kissed, and she might be down at any moment. She had had a strange and exciting day, and was very sleepy. Perhaps for once the Saint would forgive her if she said one of the quite short prayers. Quickly she undressed and knelt down.
But the prayer would not come. She said the words, but she was thinking all the time of other things. She was thinking of Mollie, being kissed behind the deckhouse. She was thinking of Amalia Sherren, who said she had Degas legs and spirit-flame eyes. She could not even fix her thoughts on her father, perhaps praying for her at that moment. It was wicked not to give the whole of one’s attention to the Saint, but she couldn’t help it. She rose from her knees, switched off the light, and got into her bunk.
The last thought she remembered before she slept was that she must see the sunrise tomorrow morning.
Mollie was still a humped and slumbering shape in the opposite bunk when, at half-past six, Xena woke. Her first thought was about the sunrise. Had she missed it after all? She slipped out of bed and peeped out of the curtained port. No, she was in time, but only just; she would have to say her prayers later. Her dressing-gown was a royal purple-and-silver wrap; she put it on and thrust her feet into slippers. Softly she opened the door and stole out. She mounted to the deserted boat-deck.
The sea was cold and inky, but, as if a hurricane had taken a vast pink cloud and scattered it in rags abroad, the east was a flowering campion-field. Beyond one of the ship’s boats distant slaty mountains rose, stretching away southward until they piled themselves up to the two-horned mass of Bou-Kornine, the ancient Hill of Baal. To starboard a white town straggled along a low green hill. It unfolded itself like a white flower, passed, and another white town succeeded it, with half a league of greeny-white bathing-cabins. In the far distance airy wireless-masts rose, and there drew nearer a lighthouse, with an eye red and sodden from watching all night. It was the Goulette, the entrance of the eight-miles-long canal, a waterway running through the sea itself; a vast pale sunny lake on either side of it, on which hundreds of white flamingoes rested. Past the salt-workings, past the hydroplane-station, at a snail’s pace the boat crept along the dead-straight perspective, followed by its crawling backwash. The dark cloven mountain loomed nearer. Ahead lay Tunis, all white, split through by a straight green avenue. And as if somebody had told her, already Xena knew that another mirage of water lay beyond the town.
For she was standing there in that royal wrap of purple-and-silver, perplexed, and ever so slightly frightened. What was the matter with the wide and free and lovely place? It wasn’t as if she had expected it to be like the harbour at home. She had been to lots of places with her father and knew how different places were. But even the difference here was different. It didn’t look as if it had a Saint watching over it, as the effigy on Pellegrino’s top watches over Palermo. God had made it, as He had made everything; but it didn’t quite look as if it was in the Bible. And of course she wasn’t frightened really. That was silly, as if she had been still a little girl. It was more like Christian taking off the Burden of Sin, she felt so released, only it was some other burden, not sin, because though she had done lots of little sins she hadn’t done any big ones. Soon the fright would be quite past, and then – she knew it already – it was going to be lovely –
And once more she was aware of Amalia Sherren standing by her side.
Amalia was fully dressed in a walking-suit, ready to go ashore. If she was a painter of course she would want to see the sunrise too. She was looking at Xena’s purple-and-silver wrap.
‘You ought to go ashore in that,’ she said casually.
‘Oh, but I couldn’t!’ said Xena, shocked at the thought of going ashore in a dressing-gown.
Amalia was looking at the pale sunny waters, looking into Xena’s eyes.
‘And I guess I’m not wondering any more,’ she said.
‘Wondering what?’
‘See the sun on that whitey-brown sand? You’re that colour when you take that peignoir off. And you could dip a cup into that water and make a pair of eyes for yourself. I guess most folk would be scared to death at the half of what you know, Xena Francavilla!’
Xena stared at her for a moment. Then, with a cry that might have been joy or pain or both, she fled, with the purple-and-silver fluttering about her strong bare brown calves, the colour of the salty sand.
3
The green split through the white town is the Avenue Jules Ferry, and a quadruple row of trees runs up it. They are not the heavy plantains nor the catalpas, that meet overhead and make a tunnel of darkness; they are the tall ficus-tree, small-leaved like a birch, for ever a-tremble, translucently sifting through a clear and honeyed sun. Soft and distinct in the sweet impartial light they pass and re-pass – Frenchmen, Arabs, Jews, negroes, Greeks – crape-
veiled Mahommedan women and typists and midinettes from Marseilles and Paris – between stalls banked with flowers. Half way up its length the Avenue is crossed by another, with clanging trams and two cafés that face one another. One of these has a terrace, raised some five feet above the pavement.
At a little before midday that day there approached this terrace a lightly-built English boy of twenty-two or thereabouts, whom you would have guessed at a glance to be just down from his University and taking a breather before plunging into life. His trousers were carefully creased, his socks gay, and his feet must have been still warm from the chamois-friction that had polished his brown (but not English-made) shoes. From the terrace above him a thoughtful-looking man of middle age called his name from behind a three-days-old Times.
‘Good morning, Arden.’
The youth looked up – ‘Good morning, Mr Thorne,’ he smiled. ‘Are you –’
But the question remained unfinished and unanswered. A clanging tram had drawn up, apparently hiding something that young Verney Arden wished to see. He stepped from the pavement, but seemed to change his mind at the sight of a smart, florid woman with a recently freshened-up look about her. She was accompanied by a young girl in a blue hat. The tram had shut out the little picture for a moment; when it moved on again neither the smart woman nor the blue hat was to be seen.
Apparently the English youth forgot all about his friend on the café terrace. He stood for a moment, and then suddenly turned towards his hotel, which was the Tunisia Palace, not a minute’s walk away. Pushing through the swing doors he called the concierge, and asked him whether Signor Umberto Francavilla had arrived at the hotel. At the mere sound of the spellbinding name the concièrge inclined his body.
‘Non, m’sieur. It is mademoiselle who arrived this morning.’
‘Who’s she with?’
‘There are five young ladies, in the charge of a Madame – Mrs – ’ he consulted his list, ‘ – Mrs Van Necker.’
‘American?’ (The lady had looked American.)
A shrug. – ‘Ameliorée.’
‘Are they lunching here today?’
‘Oui m’sieur. A table is being made ready now.’
‘Merci.’
Past the hotel bookstall and up the stairs the young man passed to make himself beautiful.
In his room, where his belongings were as neatly set out as himself, he marched straight to his glass. Yes, he thought he would do. His grey summer-weight suit was hardly three weeks out of England, his Winchester tie was knotted as ex-prefects should knot their ties. His soft grey silk shirt and collar were all right, and his sheeny brown hair had been cut only yesterday.
Yes, a scrub and a polish-up and he thought he might do –
These externals were all it occurred to him to look at. As long as he hadn’t cross-eyes or a wart or anything like that to worry about, why should a fellow waste time looking at his own face? There it was, and he couldn’t alter it. A pretty girl’s face, now, or the face of some fellow he liked –
And there in fact it was, looking at him from the glass – a face a thought too trusting and truth-believing for the job in life he had taken on. It was a face that ought to have had money behind it, and more even than money, love, and the flowery things of life. If you had told him that life might let him down he would have given a boyishly-cynical and altogether delightful laugh. As if with his daily experience he didn’t know that! Anyway there was no time to go into these things now. He looked at himself again. For a moment he even entertained the wild idea of shaving again today, having already done so yesterday. Then he threw off his coat and filled his basin.
Love and the deep-end – he supposed that would come one of these days. It wasn’t that yet – he almost added thank God. But when a fellow knocked about the Levant as much as young Verney Arden did, an exile from home and sometimes writing a letter to a girl in England just to remember that there were girls – well, these things mean rather more to a fellow like that than they do to other fellows. They had asked him after Winchester whether he would have the University or this, and he had chosen this, but it wasn’t turning out exactly as he had thought it would. And it had really been her father’s acquaintance that he had made in Cairo now more than three months ago. The daughter had been merely in the offing, so to speak. And while he hoped he wasn’t trying to keep something alive because it was still faintly fragrant and pleasurable, there had been that sweet, baby-like look about little Xena Francavilla that always made a fellow feel a bit of a rotter, whether he had been up to anything or whether he hadn’t.
Anyway she did that, and now, once more, the most unlikely thing in the world had happened, and here she was. A pity her father wasn’t with her. He might have made up to the party then. But five girls with a duenna was another matter. People might even make a point of not intruding on a bevy like that. The only thing to do was to wait and see.
Descending again, he paused at the glass panes of the dining-room for a peep at the table that had been made ready for them. There it stood in the middle of the room, picking itself out from the surrounding tables like a bride among her maids. Ice-bucket, flowers, glass – that came from being called Francavilla! The table in the farthest corner that he and Mr Thorne shared seemed a poor relation by comparison. And he had better be sitting there in good time, to see them come in.
He moved to the bar, for the aperitif he had not had with Mr Thorne at the café with the raised terrace.
Some twenty minutes later, just as Verney Arden had taken his seat at the table in the corner, there were sudden bowings and scrapings at the door. The maître-d’-hôtel’s arms shot out like a policeman’s in traffic, a lane was formed. They entered, the Americaine ameliorée leading, Xena hidden behind her shoulder, a glimpse of blue hat only, and the others following behind.
And ‘Oh, dash,’ muttered Verney Arden, for Mr Thorne too had entered, and was following in the party’s wake down the room.
It wasn’t that Mr Thorne wasn’t quite a decent sort, in spite of the sometimes boring interest he seemed to take in Verney, his job, and everything about him. Verney didn’t know what Mr Thorne did; he seemed comfortably off. But he wished he had been somewhere else today. He wanted to look at the party in the middle of the room, and at Xena Francavilla. Just a hint of that silly, nice, tender Cairo feeling had come over him again. Now he would have to talk to Mr Thorne, who would certainly begin with his usual well-meant question – how he had got on that morning.
Mr Thorne drew up the opposite chair. ‘I thought you were calling at the café,’ he said in his rather nice, hesitating voice.
‘I beg your . . . oh!’ Verney had completely forgotten. ‘I’m sorry, Sir. I suddenly remembered something.’
‘Well,’ said Mr Thorne, reaching for his roll, ‘ – how are things this morning? Had a good slant of French?’
‘Oh – much as usual –’
Mr Thorne broke his roll with deliberation.
‘Much as usual, eh? Well, well, everything comes in time. I still think that was a wise choice of yours in many ways. A University is a little world. You see a much bigger one. How many thousands of miles have you travelled in the last six months?’
‘Quite a lot. Athens. Cairo. Syria. Cyprus. And now here and on to Algiers and Gib.’ (Why had Xena placed herself where he could only see the back of her hat?)
‘Well, you’ll write a book about it one of these days,’ said Mr Thorne, taking a sardine.
Verney Arden could have written that book now, but it wouldn’t have been the kind of book Mr Thorne meant. Had he had a good slant of French! Nobody knew better than he how rotten his French was, but let Mr Thorne put in a few months drumming the Levant, trying to found commercial agencies that nobody wanted! He’d know the difference between the French you bought in a shop with and the other French you tried to do business in then!
What? With the fellow you were talking to knowing perfectly well what you meant, but letting you flounder and run down and ditch yourself; and never once helping you out. A book? . . . ‘Notes for Chapter on Selling Things in the French you learn in English Public Schools; Greenway’s Bottled Products, Adoptez-les – take them on; Agence Unique – Sole Representative this side of Cap Bon’ . . . And that other Chapter, on that ghastly taxi-load of samples he was so rottenly sensitive about, thrusting them out of sight in consignes and garages whenever he could, just as he did with that third suitcase, the one with the ‘literature’ in it –
If only he could have chucked business! If only he could have found himself in a place like the places those yachting fellows had talked about in Athens, where drummers and their Products had never been heard of; and wine cost a penny a bottle, and there was a quail for your dinner wherever you kicked over a stone!
His eyes travelled down the room. He knew most of the people there – old General Lorimer travelling for his health, his wife and daughter with their morning’s shopping beside them on the floor; the Dean and his wife; the stiff and solitary young German with the book; the saturnine fellow who never had a meal without receiving a telegram; cactus-like old Lady Lyle in her white wool shawl, her French companion in black
And there in the middle, bright as the flower-stalls under the ficus-trees, the newest arrivals – Xena sitting with her back to him without a notion that he was in the room; that other girl who couldn’t keep her eyes in the boat; the two English girls (he wondered who they were); that queer-looking young woman without any colour who looked as if she lived on ice-water; the brightly-dressed American chaperone –
Suddenly, to his measureless astonishment, he saw that the American chaperone, whom he had seen once in the street an hour ago, and who hadn’t seen him at all, was giving him a most express smile and bow across the room.
There must be some mistake –
But there was no mistake. A moment later a waiter came up to him. Mrs Van Necker sent Mr Verney Arden her compliments, and would like the pleasure of meeting him, and would he take coffee with them in the garden after luncheon?
The Dead of Night Page 33