IX
Djenan El Djouad was a labyrinth. Stephen Knight abandoned all attemptat keeping a mental clue before he had reached the drawing-room. Nevillled him there by way of many tile-paved corridors, lit by hanging Arablamps suspended from roofs of arabesqued cedar-wood. They went up ordown marble steps, into quaint little alcoved rooms furnished withnothing but divans and low tables or dower chests crusted with Syrianmother-o'-pearl, on into rooms where brocade-hung walls were coveredwith Arab musical instruments of all kinds, or long-necked Moorish gunspatterned with silver, ivory and coral. Here and there as they passed,were garden glimpses, between embroidered curtains, looking throughwindows always barred with greenish wrought iron, so old as to be rarelybeautiful; and some small windows had no curtains, but were thicklyfrilled outside with the violent crimson of bougainvillaea, or fringedwith tassels of wistaria, loop on loop of amethysts. High above thesewindows, which framed flowery pictures, were other windows, little andjewelled, mere plaques of filigree workmanship, fine as carved ivory orsilver lace, and lined with coloured glass of delicate tints--gold,lilac, and pale rose.
"Here's the drawing-room at last," said Nevill, "and here's my aunt."
"If you can call it a drawing-room," objected a gently complainingvoice. "A filled-in court, where ghosts of murdered slaves come andmoan, while you have your tea. How do you do, Mr. Knight? I'm delightedyou've taken pity on Nevill. He's never so happy as when he's showing anew friend the house--except when he's obtained an old tile, or a newmonster of some sort, for his collection."
"In me, he kills two birds with one stone," said Stephen, smiling, as heshook the hand of a tiny lady who looked rather like an elderly fairydisguised in a cap, that could have been born nowhere except north ofthe Tweed.
She had delicate little features which had been made to fit a prettychild, and had never grown up. Her hair, of a reddish yellow, had fadedto a yellowish white, which by a faint fillip of the imagination couldbe made to seem golden in some lights. Her eyes were large and round,and of a china-blue colour; her eyebrows so arched as to give her anexpression of perpetual surprise, her forehead full, her cheekbones highand pink, her small, pursed mouth of the kind which prefers to hide asense of humour, and then astonish people with it when they have ceasedto believe in its existence. If her complexion had not been netted allover with a lacework of infinitesimal wrinkles, she would have lookedlike a little girl dressed up for an old lady. She had a ribbon of theMacGregor tartan on her cap, and an uncompromising cairngorm fastenedher fichu of valuable point lace. A figure more out of place than hersin an ancient Arab palace of Algiers it would be impossible to conceive;yet it was a pleasant figure to see there, and Stephen knew that he wasgoing to like Nevill's Aunt Caroline, Lady MacGregor.
"I wish you looked more of a monster than you do," said she, "becauseyou might frighten the ghosts. We're eaten up with them, the way somefolk in old houses are with rats. Nearly all of them slaves, too, sothere's no variety, except that some are female. I've given you the roomwith the prettiest ghosts, but if you're not the seventh son of aseventh son, you may not see or even hear them."
"Does Nevill see or hear?" asked Stephen.
"As much as Aunt Caroline does, if the truth were known," answered hernephew. "Only she couldn't be happy unless she had a grievance. Here shewanted to choose an original and suitable one, so she hit uponghosts--the ghosts of slaves murdered by a cruel master."
"Hit upon them, indeed!" she echoed indignantly, making her knittingneedles click, a movement which displayed her pretty, miniature hands,half hidden in lace ruffles. "As if they hadn't gone through enough, inflesh and blood, poor creatures! Some of them may have been mycountrymen, captured on the seas by those horrid pirates."
"Who was the cruel master?" Stephen wanted to know, still smiling,because it was almost impossible not to smile at Lady MacGregor.
"Not my brother James, I'm glad to say," she quickly replied. "It wasabout three hundred years before his time. And though he had some quiteirritating tricks as a young man, murdering slaves wasn't one of them.To be sure, they tell strange tales of him here, as I make no doubtNevill has already mentioned, because he's immoral enough to be proud ofwhat he calls the romance. I mean the story of the beautiful Arab lady,whom James is supposed to have stolen from her rightful husband--thatis, if an Arab can be rightful--and hidden in this house far many ayear, till at last she died, after the search for her had long, longgone by."
"You're as proud of the romance as I am, or you wouldn't be at suchpains to repeat it to everybody, pretending to think I've already toldit," said Nevill. "But I'm going to show Knight his quarters. Pretty orplain, there are no ghosts here that will hurt him. And then we'll havelunch, for which he's starving."
Stephen's quarters consisted of a bedroom (furnished in Tunisian style,with an imposing four-poster of green and gold ornamented with a gilded,sacred cow under a crown) and a sitting room gay with colourfuldecorations imported from Morocco. These rooms opened upon a widecovered balcony screened by a carved wooden lattice and from thebalcony Stephen could look over hills, near and far, dotted with whitevillas that lay like resting gulls on the green wave of verdure whichcascaded down to join the blue waves of the sea. Up from that farblueness drifted on the wind a murmurous sound like AEolian harps,mingled with the tinkle of fairy mandolins in the fountain of the courtbelow.
At luncheon, in a dining-room that opened on to a white-walled gardenwhere only lilies of all kinds grew, to Stephen's amazement twoHighlanders in kilts stood behind his hostess's chair. They were young,exactly alike, and of precisely the same height, six foot two at least."No, you are not dreaming them, Mr. Knight," announced Lady MacGregor,evidently delighted with the admiring surprise in the look he bestowedupon these images. "And you're quite right. They _are_ twins. I may aswell break it to you now, as I had to do to Nevill when he invited me tocome to Algiers and straighten out his housekeeping accounts: they playRuth to my Naomi. Whither I go, they go also, even to the door of thebathroom, where they carry my towels, for I have no other maid thanthey."
Stephen could not help glancing at the two giants, expecting to see someinvoluntary quiver of eye or nostril answer electrically to this frankrevelation of their office; but their countenances (impossible to thinkof as mere faces) remained expressionless as if carved in stone. LadyMacGregor took nothing from Mohammed and the other Kabyle servant whowaited on Nevill and Stephen. Everything for her was handed to one ofthe Highlanders, who gravely passed on the dish to their mistress. Ifshe refused a _plat_ favoured by them, instead of carrying it away, thegiants in kilts silently but firmly pressed it upon her acceptance,until in self-defence she seized some of the undesired food, and ate itunder their watchful eyes.
During the meal a sudden thunderstorm boiled up out of the sea: the skybecame a vast brazen bowl, and a strange, coppery twilight bleached thelilies in the white garden to a supernatural pallor. The room, with itsembroidered Moorish hangings, darkened to a rich gloom; but Mohammedtouched a button on the wall, and all the quaint old Arab lamps thatstood in corners, or hung suspended from the cedar roof, flashed outcunningly concealed electric lights. At the same moment, there began agreat howling outside the door. Mohammed sprang to open it, and inpoured a wave of animals. Stephen hastily counted five dogs; a collie, awhite deerhound, a Dandy Dinmont, and a mother and child of unknownrace, which he afterwards learned was Kabyle, a breed beloved ofmountain men and desert tent-dwellers. In front of the dogs bounded asmall African monkey, who leaped to the back of Nevill's chair, andbehind them toddled with awkward grace a baby panther, a mere ball ofyellow silk.
"They don't like the thunder, poor dears," Nevill apologised. "That'swhy they howled, for they're wonderfully polite people really. Theyalways come at the end of lunch. Aunt Caroline won't invite them todinner, because then she sometimes wears fluffy things about which shehas a foolish vanity. The collie is Angus's. The deerhound is Hamish's.The dandy is hers. The two Kabyles are Mohammed's, and the flotsam andjetsam
is mine. There's a great deal more of it out of doors, but thisis all that gets into the dining-room except by accident. And I expectyou think we are a very queer family."
Stephen did think so, for never till now had he been a member of ahousehold where each of the servants was allowed to possess any animalshe chose, and flood the house with them. But the queerer he thought thefamily, the better he found himself liking it. He felt a boy let out ofschool after weeks of disgrace and punishment, and, strangely enough,this old Arab palace, in a city of North Africa seemed more like home tohim than his London flat had seemed of late.
When Lady MacGregor rose and said she must write the note she hadpromised Nevill to send Miss Ray, Stephen longed to kiss her. This formof worship not being permitted, he tried to open the dining-room doorfor her to go out, but Angus and Hamish glared upon him sosuperciliously that he retired in their favour.
The luncheon hour, even when cloaked in the mysterious gloom of athunderstorm, is no time for confidences; besides, it is not conduciveto sustained conversation to find a cold nose in your palm, a baby clawup your sleeve, or a monkey hand, like a bit of leather, thrust downyour collar or into your ear. But after dinner that night, when LadyMacGregor had trailed her maligned "fluffiness" away to thedrawing-room, and Nevill and Stephen had strolled with their cigarettesout into the unearthly whiteness of the lily garden, Stephen felt thatsomething was coming. He had known that Nevill had a story to tell, byand by, and though he knew also that he would be asked no questions inreturn, now or ever, it occurred to him that Nevill's offer ofconfidences was perhaps meant to open a door, if he chose to enter byit. He was not sure whether he would so choose or not, but the fact thathe was not sure meant a change in him. A few days ago, even thismorning, before meeting Nevill, he would have been certain that he hadnothing intimate to tell Caird or any one else.
They strolled along the paths among the lilies. Moon and sky and flowersand white-gravelled paths were all silver. Stephen thought of VictoriaRay, and wished she could see this garden. He thought, too, that if shewould only dance here among the lilies in the moonlight, it would be avision of exquisite loveliness.
"For a moment white, then gone forever," he caught himself repeatingagain.
It was odd how, whenever he saw anything very white and of dazzlingpurity, he thought of this dancing girl. He wondered what sort of womanit was whose image came to Nevill's mind, in the garden of lilies thatsmelt so heavenly sweet under the moon. He supposed there must always besome woman whose image was suggested to every man by all that wasfairest in nature. Margot Lorenzi was the woman whose image he must keepin his mind, if he wanted to know any faint imitation of happiness infuture. She would like this moonlit garden, and in one way it would suither as a background. Yet she did not seem quite in the picture, despiteher beauty. The perfume she loved would not blend with the perfume ofthe lilies.
"Aunt Caroline's rather a dear, isn't she?" remarked Nevill, apropos ofnothing.
"She's a jewel," said Stephen.
"Yet she isn't the immediate jewel of my soul. I'm hard hit, Stephen,and the girl won't have me. She's poorer than any church or other mouseI ever met, yet she turns up her little French nose at me and my palace,and all the cheese I should like to see her nibble--my cheese."
"Her French nose?" echoed Stephen.
"Yes. Her nose and the rest of her's French, especially her dimples. Younever saw such dimples. Miss Ray's prettier than my girl, I suppose. ButI think mine's beyond anything. Only she isn't and won't be mine that'sthe worst of it."
"Where is she?" Stephen asked. "In Algiers?"
"No such luck. But her sister is. I'll take you to see the sisterto-morrow morning. She may be able to tell us something to help MissRay. She keeps a curiosity-shop, and is a connoisseur of Easternantiquities, as well as a great character in Algiers, quite a sort ofqueen in her way--a quaint way. All the visiting Royalties of everynation drop in and spend hours in her place. She has a good many Arabacquaintances, too. Even rich chiefs come to sell, or buy things fromher, and respect her immensely. But my girl--I like to call her that--isaway off in the west, close to the border of Morocco, at Tlemcen. Iwish you were interested in mosques, and I'd take you there. People whocare for such things sometimes travel from London or Paris just to seethe mosque of Sidi Bou-Medine and a certain Mirab. But I suppose youhaven't any fad of that kind, eh?"
"I feel it coming on," said Stephen.
"Good chap! Do encourage the feeling. I'll lend you books, lots ofbooks, on the subject. She's 'malema,' or mistress of an _ecoleindigene_ for embroideries and carpets, at Tlemcen. Heaven knows how fewfrancs a month she earns by the job which takes all her time and life,yet she thinks herself lucky to get it. And she won't marry me."
"Surely she must love you, at least a little, if you care so much forher," Stephen tried to console his friend.
"Oh, she does, a lot," replied Nevill with infinite satisfaction. "But,you see--well, you see, her family wasn't up to much from a social pointof view--such rot! The mother came out from Paris to be a nurserygoverness, when she was quite young, but she was too pretty for thatposition. She had various but virtuous adventures, and married anon-com. in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who chucked the army for her. Thetwo kept a little hotel. Then the husband died, while the girls werechildren. The mother gave up the hotel and took in sewing. Everybody wasinterested in the family, they were so clever and exceptional, andpeople helped in the girls' education. When their mother became aninvalid, the two contrived to keep her and themselves, though Jeanne wasonly eighteen then, and Josette, my girl, fifteen. She's been dead nowfor some years--the mother. Josette is nearly twenty-four. Do you seewhy she won't marry me? I'm hanged if I do."
"I can see what her feeling is," Stephen said. "She must be a rippinggirl."
"I should say she is!--though as obstinate as the devil. Sometimes Icould shake her and box her ears. I haven't seen her for months now.She wouldn't like me to go to Tlemcen--unless I had a friend with me,and a good excuse. I didn't know it could hurt so much to be in love,though I was in once before, and it hurt too, rather. But that wasnothing. For the woman had no soul or mind, only her beauty, and anunscrupulous sort of ambition which made her want to marry me when myuncle left me his money. She'd refused to do anything more serious thanflirt and reduce me to misery, until she thought I could give her whatshe wanted. I'd imagined myself horribly in love, until her suddenwillingness to take me showed me once for all what she was. Even so, Icouldn't cure the habit of love at first; but I had just sense enough tokeep out of England, where she was, for fear I should lose my head andmarry her. My cure was rather slow, but it was sure; and now I know thatwhat I thought was love then wasn't love at all. The real thing's asdifferent as--as--a modern Algerian tile is from an old Moorish one. Ican't say anything stronger! That's why I cut England, to begin with,and after a while my interests were more identified with France.Sometimes I go to Paris in the summer--or to a little place in Dauphiny.But I haven't been back to England for eight years. Algeria holds all myheart. In Tlemcen is my girl. Here are my garden and my beasts. Now youhave my history since Oxford days."
"You know something of _my_ history through the papers," Stephen blurtedout with a desperate defiance of his own reserve.
"Not much of your real history, I think. Papers lie, and peoplemisunderstand. Don't talk of yourself unless you really want to. But Isay, look here, Stephen. That woman I thought I cared for--may I tellyou what she was like? Somehow I want you to know. Don't think me a cad.I don't mean to be. But--may I tell?"
"Of course. Why not?"
"She was dark and awfully handsome, and though she wasn't an actress,she would have made a splendid one. She thought only of herself.I--there was a picture in a London paper lately which reminded me ofher--the picture of a young lady you know--or think you know.They--those two--are of the same type. I don't believe either could makea man happy."
Stephen laughed--a short, embarrassed laugh. "Oh, happy!" he echoed."After twenty-
five we learn not to expect happiness. But--thank youfor--everything, and especially for inviting me here." He knew now whyit had occurred to Nevill to ask him to Algiers. Nevill had seenMargot's picture. In silence they walked towards the open door of thedining-room. Somewhere not far away the Kabyle dogs were barkingshrilly. In the distance rose and fell muffled notes of strange passionand fierceness, an Arab tom-tom beating like the heart of the conqueredEast, away in the old town.
Stephen's short-lived gaiety was struck out of his soul.
"For a moment white, then gone forever."
He pushed the haunting words out of his mind. He did not want them tohave any meaning. They had no meaning.
It seemed to him that the perfume of the lilies was too heavy on theair.