Burning Sands

CHAPTER XIX – THE SEEDS OF SORROW

During the ensuing fortnight circumstances were not favourable to the development of their romance. Daniel was closely occupied with the settling of certain political difficulties which had cropped up; and Muriel, on her part, found herself much occupied with the social functions of the Residency which, in the month of January, are always very exacting.

But if there were few opportunities for the tender intimacy of love, there was now the compensation of a very sweet understanding between them. There was no need, so it seemed, for a formal betrothal: the engagement was mutually assumed, and, though no binding words had been spoken, Lord Blair did not have to ask again what were their intentions.

Muriel was, of course, a little disturbed at Daniel’s refusal to allow a definite announcement to be made, or even an irrevocable word to be spoken between them; but actually his attitude was quite understandable. He was keenly aware that his method of life was somewhat peculiar, and he was modest enough to regard himself as a thoroughly undesirable husband.

Muriel had told him all about the Rupert Helsingham affair, and, with some degree of correctness, he had attributed it to the enchantment of the Nile. He had realized, too, that in his own case his most intimate moments with her had occurred under exceptionally romantic circumstances; and though he was too deeply in love thus to explain away her emotions, he could not blind himself to the possibility that their origin was less profound than their intensity suggested.

He was determined not to bind her yet awhile; for, he argued to himself, if the miracle had happened, if really she had found in him her eternal partner, time would prove the fact to them; but if she had been building her love on the deceptive foundations of romantic passion, nothing but ultimate misery would come of the immediate exchange of mutual vows.

Being a philosopher, he did not judge love’s day by the tempest of its passion: indeed, he mistrusted such storms as a frequent cause of disastrous miscalculation. But Muriel, being woman pure and simple – if ever there could be a woman of her upbringing either pure or simple – did not analyse her feelings nor mistrust them. She knew only that Daniel hung like a thunderstorm over the meadows of her heart, and she waited in breathless, headaching silence for his lightnings and his torrents to descend upon her.

There was one aspect of the matter, however, which troubled him. Muriel, he recognized, belonged to a section of English society which was very lax in its morals; and he knew quite well that, in the darkness of the desert on the memorable night of their return from Sakkâra, she had been entirely carried away by her love. The fact did not disturb him in itself, for he was a believer in instinct, and his judgment was not influenced by the conventions. If she really loved him, and if they had mutually taken one another for a life-partnership, no marriage ceremony would make the compact in his eyes more binding, and her desire at once to identify her life irrevocably with that of the chosen one would be comprehended and condoned by him.

But there was the fear at the back of his mind lest she had entered upon the adventure lightly. He knew too much about the ways of Mayfair: perhaps, indeed, his abhorrence of all that that name stood for was exaggerated. Her upbringing, therefore, caused him anxiety: not, be it understood, because of her possible willingness to break the traditional law, but because she might be willing to break it lightly. He hated himself for doubting her; but she was a child of Society, a daughter of the Old Harlot, and no member of her particular branch of that family was above suspicion.

One day, yearning for an hour alone with her, he asked her to come out to his camp on the following evening. She was to dine with the Bindanes at Mena House, and he suggested that he should call for her after dinner, when the young moon would be low in the heavens, and that they should ride out to his tents and talk for a little while.

Muriel fell in with the scheme readily enough; but there was something in her manner and in the expression of her face which indicated that she took the step with deliberation, fully conscious of all that it might involve. And, in actual fact, she did not care what happened. She only wanted to belong to him, to feel that she was in his power and he in hers.

But on the next morning she awoke with a bad cold in her head, and she was obliged to take to her bed. One cannot be really romantic with one’s nose running, and any of love’s most wonderful situations may be ruined by a sneeze.

A few days later, when she was more or less recovered, Daniel told her how disappointed he had been that the arrangement had fallen through.

“I expect it was my guardian angel,” she whispered, with a laugh. “I had made up my mind to come; and I suppose the angel read my thoughts, and said ‘You’d better not,’ and sprinkled a handful of germs over me.”

Daniel was startled. “Why, you don’t think that I…?” He paused. Men are seldom so plain-spoken as women, and seldom face facts so deliberately.

On the following afternoon he was obliged to go to the railway station to pay his farewell respects to a native dignitary on his departure for England upon a commercial mission; and, while walking back through the Levantine shopping quarter, he came upon Lizette who, as he now recollected, lived in this part of the city.

He had not seen her since that night, three and a half months ago, when he had taken her out to supper at Berto’s; and he was distressed to observe the change that had taken place in her. She was looking thin and haggard, and her eyes were like the melancholy eyes of a sick dog.

She glanced at him as she approached and a quick smile of pleasure came into her face; but the etiquette which is always observed in the best circles on such occasions prevented her from showing recognition of a client in a public place. (Money-lenders and dentists follow much the same code.)

Daniel, however, knew nothing about such rules of polite conduct. If Lizette were good enough to talk to in a restaurant she ought to be good enough to salute in the street. He therefore pulled off his hat as she passed, and, pausing, bid her good day.

“I believe you’ve forgotten me,” he declared.

“Forgotten? – no!” she exclaimed. “I not ever forget that pig Barthampton jeté par terre.”

“I’m sorry that’s what you remember me by,” he answered, seriously.

“I remember many things,” she said. “But now you are so great, so important: one say you are like the Wazîr of Egypt. I astonish me that you speak here in the street. Lizette belong to the night, and to the American Bar.”

She spoke with bitterness, and Daniel was sorry for her. She looked ill; and the afternoon sun seemed to disintegrate the bloom of the powder upon her face.

“You’re not looking very well,” he commented. “Is there anything the matter?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “The matter is here,” she answered, tapping her heart.

“In love?” he asked.

“No, not love,” she replied, with sudden intensity. “Hate, hate!”

He shook his head. “That’s bad. Whom do you hate?”

“Men,” she said.

There was tragedy in her face; and Daniel, in his simple wisdom, guessed that what she needed was the friendship of a man who had no ulterior motive. He looked along the street, and, seeing that there was a large French café on the opposite side, asked her whether she would care to go in there and have coffee with him.

She hesitated for a moment; but when he had explained that he had no more than half an hour to spare, and that he could not employ the time better than by talking to her, she crossed the street with him and entered the café.

“Now tell me what your trouble is,” he said, when they were sipping their coffee at a table in the almost deserted saloon.

“O, it is nothing,” she replied. “I suppose I am ill. I have – how do you say? – the ’ump, eh? If I had the courage I should suicide myself; but the priest he tell me that the little devils in hell are men, and the angels in heaven are men: so you see I cannot escape from men.”

“Oh, men are not so bad,” he told her. “You, of course, see them under rather startling circumstances; and, if I may say so, you can’t always judge of what a man is by looking at a subaltern in the Guards.”

She laughed. “But they tell me they are the élite of England.”

“Yes, poor lads,” he answered; “but it’s not their fault that they think so: it’s due to other men being so bashful.”

Almost as he spoke a young officer walked past the café, under the awnings, with an expression on his face which suggested that he detected a very unpleasant smell in the world. He glanced into the saloon, and, seeing Lizette, looked quickly in the other direction.

“That is one of them,” she said. “He come to me every Sunday after Church.”

Daniel turned his eyes to her, and there was pity and horror in them. “Ah, my girl, no wonder you hate us,” he declared. “If I were you, I’d try not to speak to a man for, say, six months.”

“But how to live?” she asked. “I must get the money to live.”

She moved her head from side to side in despair; and Daniel, searching his brains for a solution of the problem, stared out into the sun-bathed street, his brows puckered, his fingers combing back his unruly hair.

“Gee!” he muttered. “You’re in a fix! Hav’n’t you got any relations in Marseilles?”

She nodded, but without animation. “There is my brother Georges-Antoine…”

“Does he know how you earn your living?” he asked.

“No,” she replied. “He think I make the hat.”

“How much money have you saved?” he enquired.

She shook her head. “None.”

“Well, look here,” he said. “I’ll pay your fare back to France, if you’ll go.”

She stared at him incredulously. “Why you say that?” she asked.

“Because I hate to see a girl like you behaving like a filthy beast,” he answered sternly. “Oh, why were you such a fool as to start this life?”

“It begin,” she sighed, “it begin so sweet. I was very young; and the man he love me so much. He was the real amant-passioné – what you do not know in England. He used to kiss me until my head went round and round; and I was like a mad one when he came into the room. Never in my life again or before was I so drunken by a man…”

Daniel watched her as she told the story of her youthful love, and he saw her eyes grow drowsy and full of memories.

“You must have been very happy,” he said at length.

“Yes, I was happy,” she answered, “but I paid for the happiness with tears and weeping and bitterness.”

“Why? – did he desert you?”

Her voice, which had grown so tender and so near to a whisper, became light and clear in tone once more. “No,” she said, with an almost flippant gesture of the hand, “he died. He had the – how do you say? – the gall-stones.”

Daniel finished his coffee, pensively. The tale, and especially its ending, had a sound of stark and terrible truth about it.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“Oh, then I was a good girl for half a year, perhaps; but presently when another man made the love to me, I say to myself: ‘If once, then why not twice?’ He was a soldier, big, very strong like you.” She looked at him closely. “Yes, he were very like you; and I thought in my heart, ‘I love him because he is so brave, and I am like a little bird in his hands.’” She laughed. “Oh, I knew he was a man à bonne fortunes. He had many girls; but in love all women are like the Orientals, is it not? – and I was content to have my day, like the new one in the harîm of the Egyptian pasha here…”

Daniel suddenly clenched the fingers of his hand which rested upon the table. Muriel’s words came into his mind: “You can put me in your harîm if you want to.” They rang in his ears again, and his heart seemed to stand still in fear.

The murmur of Lizette’s voice continued, and he listened in terror now as she told of her second love.

“Then one night,” she was saying, “we walked together on the road by the sea, the Chemin de la Corniche, you know; and the beautiful stars were in the sky, and there were little lights across the water on the islands of Ratonneau and Pomegne. And I was so tired, and I sat down on the rocks by the sea, and we were all alone…”

Daniel stopped her with a sudden movement of his hand. “I know, I know,” he said. “Don’t tell me!”

“O, I soon forgot my love,” she laughed, thinking that the intensity with which he spoke denoted his concern for her sorrows. “A few months, a few weeks, perhaps, and it was finish. Then some one else, and some one else, and some one else…”

He rose from the table, sick at heart. “I must be going,” he said. “If you will accept my offer, write to me at the Residency, and I’ll send you the money for you to go to your brother.”

She looked at his troubled face with a question in her eyes. “I think you not like me,” she sighed. “I think you have the disgust.”

He shook his head. “No,” he answered, “I think you were not much different from other women at first.”

“And afterwards?”

“I suppose one’s feelings soon get blunted,” he replied; “and you had need of money.”

She assumed an expression, an attitude, not far removed from dignity. “Thank you for being – how you say? fair to me,” she said.

He paid his bill, and walked out of the café into the blaze of the afternoon sun; but between him and its brilliance the shadow of doubt had descended. “I am not the first of Muriel’s lovers,” he groaned in his heart. “How do I know that I am the last?”

He walked through the city, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, by reason of the clamour in his mind; but as he came down to the river, he raised his eyes and stared out into the west, where the sun was descending towards the far-off hills of the wilderness.

He stood stock still, and his lips moved. “Oh, peace of mind!” he was whispering. “Will you never come down to me here in the valley? Must I go up into the desert to find you once more?”

CHAPTER XX – PRIVATE INTERESTS

When Benifett Bindane found himself writing “February 1st” upon his letters, he suddenly became the victim of a violent fit of energy. Time was passing, and not much progress had been made with his great scheme for the floating of the Egyptian Oases Development Company. By nature he was indolent, and he had thoroughly enjoyed his three months basking in the Egyptian sun. It was always a great pleasure to him to sit in the warmest corner of a veranda, to glance at the Financial News, and then to stare in front of him with an empty countenance and a mind full of wonderful commercial schemes.

He had the habit of thinking in millions; and his brain, in many ways so deficient, was capable of visualizing an extraordinarily prolonged repetition of the figure “o” at the end of any sum in pounds sterling.

He had quickly made himself master of all the available information in regard to the territory in question, but there were a great many points on which he desired enlightenment before he made his projected grand tour through the Oases at the end of this month. He wished to go there fully primed, so that he should not fail to take note of all those matters on which personal observation might prove to be of value; but now the calendar had awakened him to the fact of the days’ rapid passage, and he was obliged to make a serious effort to put some stiffening into the loose fabric of his bones and brain.

In the secret council-chamber of his mind he had decided that Daniel Lane was the one man really essential to the project, and it was his main object now to enlist his services. He wondered what was the lowest high salary that would tempt him; and he thought out many very fantastic schemes for getting him away from the Residency. Lady Muriel was the real obstacle; for Kate had kept him informed as to the progress of her friend’s love affair, and he realized that as matters now stood there would be the utmost difficulty in persuading Daniel to abandon his present post. Steps, however, in the desired direction ought to be taken; and at any rate there would be no harm in ascertaining the possibilities of the matter.

He therefore telephoned to Lord Blair asking for an immediate interview; and as the clock struck noon he was being ushered into the Great Man’s presence.

Lord Blair received him in a very businesslike manner. A large map of the Oases was spread upon the writing-table, entirely covering the chronic litter of papers heaped thereon, and, indeed, covering the greater part of his lordship himself as he sat in his desk-chair; while upon a side-table there were numerous chorographic memoranda, and a variety of type-written reports made upon the subject the last few years.

Lord Blair opened the proceedings by describing to his visitor the arrangements which had already been made for the forthcoming tour.

“The camels and camping-equipment are bespoken,” he said; “perhaps you would like to see the list of articles to be supplied.”

He lifted the map, and dived his head under it in search of the document, while Benifett Bindane stared vacantly at the folds of the large sheet which rose and fell, like pantomime waves, as Lord Blair moved about under it.

At length the long type-written inventory was found, and for some minutes Mr. Bindane stared at it with dull, watery eyes. He might have been thought to have gone off into a trance; and Lord Blair had begun to fidget when at last the list was handed back.

“Please add ‘one tea-tray’ and ‘one toasting-fork,’” said Mr. Bindane. “That’s all that is omitted, I think.”

Lord Blair was profoundly impressed; but his rising enthusiasm was somewhat damped when presently his visitor broached the subject which was uppermost in his mind.

“There are certain points about which I wish to be informed,” said Mr. Bindane, “before I go out to the Oases.” He drew a piece of paper from his pocketbook. “Here they are. Do you think it would be possible for Mr. Lane to give me his help?”

“Mr. Lane?” queried Lord Blair. “Why?”

“Because I think Mr. Lane’s advice is essential to the scheme,” replied Mr. Bindane.

Lord Blair spread out his hands. “Oh, but I don’t think he can be spared just now,” he protested.

“I thought I understood you to tell me,” said the other, “that the political situation was extremely quiet just at present. I was hoping you might let Mr. Lane turn his attention now to the Oases.”

“My dear sir,” Lord Blair replied, leaning back in his chair, “the quiet times that we are having, that we are enjoying, are very largely due to Daniel Lane. His influence with the natives is extraordinary, quite phenomenal.”

“Yes, I know,” Mr. Bindane replied, his face devoid of expression. “That is why I want him for the scheme.”

Lord Blair leaned forward. “I don’t quite follow. Do I understand you to mean that you want him to be associated definitely with the enterprise?”

Benifett Bindane’s mouth fell open more loosely than usual, and for a second or two he stared vacantly before him. “Yes,” he answered, at length. “I want him to be our General Manager.”

Lord Blair started. “Tut, tut!” he ejaculated, “By the time the company is floated I expect Daniel Lane will have made himself altogether indispensable to his Majesty’s Government here at the Residency.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. “I was counting on his support,” said Mr. Bindane, presently. “Without it I don’t know whether I would be inclined to find the necessary capital.”

Lord Blair instantly accepted the challenge. “Then the project will have to be shelved,” he replied, sharply: and when he spoke sharply there was no doubt about his being the “Great Man.”

Benifett Bindane, however, appeared to be entirely unmoved. “I don’t think Mr. Lane is as happy now as he was when he lived in the desert,” he mused.

Lord Blair rose to his feet. “Please regard his services as unavailable, quite unavailable, for this project,” he said deliberately, “except in an occasional advisory capacity.”

Mr. Bindane had also risen, and now the two stood facing one another. Outwardly the trim, eager little man and the tall, lifeless figure before him might have appeared to the eye to be friendly enough; but a reader of hearts would have detected in them two opposing forces arrayed for battle, the one having in mind the extension of the prestige of England, the other the increase of his private fortune.

Meanwhile, in the library, another of life’s little plays was being enacted.

Lord Barthampton had come to the Residency to invite Lady Muriel to a picnic on the following day, and she had just disappointed him by saying that she was already engaged. He had arrived with such a flourish, spanking up to the door in his high dogcart, his little “tiger” leaping to the cob’s head as he pulled up, and the morning sunshine sparkling on the harness and the varnished woodwork; and now, after waiting a very long time in the rather severe library, Lady Muriel had come in and had told him that every moment of her time was booked up apparently for weeks to come.

“I never seem to get the chance to say half a dozen words to you,” he grunted, feeling thoroughly put out. “You women are all so mad about having a good time that you can’t spare a moment for us lonely fellows.”

Muriel was quite concerned at his depression, and asked him whether he would have a glass of port or a whiskey-and-soda.

“No, I will not,” he said, with a gloomy laugh. “I’m on the water-waggon for your sake, and you don’t even say you’re glad.”

“O, but I am,” she answered. “I’m awfully glad. I think you’ve shown true British grit. You’re one of the old Bulldog Breed, and, when once you’ve set your jaw, nothing can get the better of you.”

Somehow she could not help pulling this man’s leg; and she spoke to him in this strain the more readily in that he evidently appreciated the language of what she called the Submerged Male.

“God knows it’s been a struggle,” he said: and, turning away from her, he stared out of the window.

“How did you get into all those bad habits?” she asked, looking at him with interest.

“Oh, India, I suppose,” he replied, with a shrug. “When one’s east of Suez, and the memsahibs have all gone home…”

She stopped him with a gesture. There were limits to the game of leg-pulling; and if he were going to become Anglo-Indian in his phrases, the jest would be intolerable.

“I’m so sorry I can’t come to your picnic,” she said, checking the drift of the conversation. “I’d come if I possibly could, but I’ve got to attend a meeting.”

“A meeting?” he asked, in astonishment. “That sounds a funny thing for you to be doing.”

“I’m honorary President of a fund for helping poor European children in Egypt,” she explained. “It’s a very worthy object, I believe.”

He seized his opportunity. “Yes, we’ve all got to help the unfortunate, hav’n’t we?” he said. “I do all too little myself – just a yearly donation.”

Muriel was impressed, and questioned him.

“Yes,” he told her, “I always try to give between £500 and £1,000 a year to the poor.”

“I call that very fine of you,” she declared, warming to him immediately.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he answered. “I’m blessed with abundance, you know; and I like to practise what I preach. I’m not like some fellows I could mention – full of high principles in public, and full of sins in secret.”

“Who are you thinking of, specially?” she asked, noticing the marked inflection in his words.

He hesitated. “Well, Cousin Daniel, for example.”

“Oh, Daniel’s all right,” she replied.

“I don’t know so much about that,” he laughed. “There are some things you couldn’t understand, little woman. But … well, there are some pretty tough female devils in the Cairo underworld; and Master Daniel has been seen more than once in low cafés and places with a girl who’s known as the ‘worst woman in Egypt’ – the famous Lizette: but I don’t suppose you’ve heard of her.”

The words were like a knife in Muriel’s heart. So people were right, then, about Daniel’s disreputable character.

“Oh, that’s all past,” she replied, hardly knowing what she said.

“No, it isn’t,” he answered. “Only the day before yesterday one of my brother-officers saw him with her. And I saw him myself dining with her not so long ago – in fact I tried to separate them. I admit it was only for the honour of our family that I interfered. He was drunk, I think, and wanted to fight me.”

Muriel stared at him with round, frightened eyes; but Lord Barthampton had shot his arrow, and now desired only to make his escape.

“I must be going,” he said, nervously. “I oughtn’t to have told you that: it slipped out.”

He could see plainly enough that she was grievously wounded; and his conscience certainly smote him, though it smote with a gentle forgiving hand.

She turned away from him with tears in her eyes; and he, feeling decidedly awkward, bade her “good-bye,” and hastened out of the room.

In the hall he came upon Benifett Bindane, who was also making towards the front door. The two malefactors greeted one another; and Mr. Bindane being, as Kate had said, “very fond of lords,” attached himself to the younger man with evident pleasure.

“That’s a smart turn-out,” he remarked, as they came out of the house into the glare of the sunshine.

“Give you a lift?” asked Lord Barthampton. “Anywhere you like.”

“Thanks,” the other replied. “I’m going to the Turf Club.”

“Right-o!” said his friend. “In you get. Hold her head, damn you, you little black monkey!” he shouted to the diminutive groom. “Now then! —imshee riglak!” – which he believed to be Arabic.

They drove off at a rattling pace, presently scattering the native traffic in the open square outside the Kars-el-Nil barracks, and nearly unseating a venerable sheikh from his slow-moving donkey.

“Why don’t you get out of the way!” shouted Lord Barthampton, turning a red face to the mild brown wrinkles of the clinging rider. “Lord! these niggers make me impatient.”

“Yes,” said his companion, who always disliked a show of temper, “I notice that it’s only the English resident officials who have learned to be patient with them.”

Arrived at the Turf Club, Lord Barthampton accepted Mr. Bindane’s invitation to refresh himself with dry ginger-ale; for, during the drive, a good idea (with him something of a rarity) had come into his head. He had suddenly recollected that Kate Bindane was Lady Muriel’s bosom friend; and it had occurred to him that if he could obtain the sympathy of the husband, the wife might plead his cause. It would be better not to say very much: he would adopt the manner which, he felt sure, was natural to him, namely that of the stern, silent Englishman.

He therefore lowered his brows as he entered the club, and looked with frowning melancholy upon the groups of laughing and chattering young men about him.

“God, what a noise!” he muttered as he sank into a seat.

Mr. Bindane stared vacantly around, and waving a flapper-like hand to a passing waiter, ordered the ginger-ale as though he were totally indifferent as to whether he ever got it or not.

“I’m feeling a bit blue today,” said Lord Barthampton, leaning back gloomily in his chair.

“What’s the matter?” asked his friend.

“I’m in love,” was the short reply.

Mr. Bindane was mildly interested. “Who with?” he asked.

“Lady Muriel,” the other replied, between his clenched teeth. He was anxious to convey an impression of sorrow sternly controlled.

“A very charming young lady,” said Mr. Bindane, “and my wife’s best friend.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m telling you,” replied Lord Barthampton, looking knowingly at him. “I’ve been wondering if you could get her to put in a word for me.”

“I’ll see,” said Benifett Bindane.

“Thanks awfully,” answered his companion.

That was all. There was no more said upon the subject; but Charles Barthampton felt that the brief and pointed conversation had been very British and straightforward. There had been no mincing of matters; what he had said had been short and soldierly, as man to man.

When he was once more alone, Mr. Bindane lay for awhile loosely in the deep red-leather chair. His open mouth, his vacant eyes, the perpetual pallor of his face, and his crumpled attitude of collapse, might have led an observer to suppose that he had passed quietly away. He was, however, merely absorbed in a series of interesting thoughts. He was thinking that a possible engagement between Lady Muriel and Lord Barthampton would probably have the effect of sending Daniel Lane back to the desert in despair. He was thinking what a great deal of tact would be needed in buying up the land of the Oases from the natives, as he intended ultimately to do. He was thinking how very tactful Daniel Lane was said to be; and how wasted, commercially, he seemed to be at the Residency.