Part 15 (2/2)
”Get to thy feet and make obeisance to thy mistress, who in her manifold bounty has saved this time thy worthless life. For behold, I had planned to give my people a holiday in which to see thee whipped round the wall of thy mistress's dwelling, until thou had died; then would thy black skin have been ripped from thy worthless carca.s.s, and pinned to the ground before the camel paddock, so that in their goings in and coming out they would have befouled what remained of thee uneaten by the vultures.”
And taking Jill's hand he crossed the square, leaving the eunuch absolutely gibbering with relief.
Through a ma.s.sive iron door they pa.s.sed into the house, Jill exclaiming softly at the beauty of the place. Room after room they traversed until they came to a standstill before a satin curtain. Hahmed lifted it and Jill entered a great room, the floor of which was of pink marble, covered in Persian rugs, their colouring softened in the pa.s.sing of many, oh! many moons; the walls panelled in soft brocade, and great mirrors reflecting the simplicity of the exquisite hangings, the tint of flowers, the statuary gleaming half hidden in the corners, the great chairs, the piles of cus.h.i.+ons, and the swinging lamps suspended from the ceiling by silver chains.
”I will explain, O! woman, how this house has been built, though verily would I have had your help in these past months, for how was I to know in what or which your desires lay.
”Behold, the rooms upon the level of the ground are rooms for your repasts, and rooms for receiving your guests; above are the rooms for your slumber, and your toilet, for the bathing of your white body, and for your entertainment. In the latter you will find all that appertains to music, to the dance, to the study of books, to the flash of the needle. Above again are the rooms open to the breezes of the night, screened by light screens to enable you, unveiled, to look out upon the world, and yet keep you hidden from the curious eyes of your many slaves who, under the rule of black Mustapha, live within the walls and near to hand to do your slightest bidding, but hidden until you call so as not to disturb you by their unseemly presence. They may not die within the wall, neither may they give birth therein, still less may they make merry without your permission. The slightest breach of your laws will see them flogged to death and cast out into the desert sand. One suite of rooms is pink, and one white, and one is palest heliotrope, and yet another black, and there are many others.
May it find favour in your eyes. If perchance it pleases not, then shall it be razed to the ground, and rebuilt upon your design.”
And Jill had walked through a building such as she had not dreamed of in her wildest fantasies, and having very sweetly thanked the Arab, had clapped her hands, and being of perverse mood, had indifferently bidden him good night, and entered the rose pink sleeping-room where the couch had been designed by love, and the colouring reflected by the great mirrors by pa.s.sion; to slip from out her perfumed raiment, and step down into the pink marble Roman bath and hide beneath the rose-tinted waters, the rose-tinted glory of her perfect body.
CHAPTER XXVI
And just as the dead cheetah was laid at Jill's feet, a huge bull dog, with a face like a gargoyle to be seen on the Western transept of Notre-Dame, and a chest like a steel safe, supported on legs which had given way under the weight, walked across from Sir John Wetherbourne, Bart., of Bourne Manor, and other delectable mansions, to lay his snuffling, stertorous self at the feet of his mistress, the Honourable Mary Bingham, p.r.o.nounced Beam, in whose sanctum sat the man on the bleak November evening, and of whom he had just asked advice.
People always asked advice of Mary, she was of that kind. On this occasion she sat looking across at the man she loved, and had always loved, just as he loved and had always loved her, since the days they had more or less successfully followed the hounds on fat ponies. She sat meditatively twisting a heavy signet ring up and down her little finger. _The_ finger, the one which advises the world of the fact that some man in it has singled you out of the ruck as being fit for the honour of wifehood, was unadorned, showing neither the jewels which betoken the drawn-up contract, nor the pure gold which denotes the contract fulfilled. Those two had grown up in the knowledge that they would some time marry, though never a word had been uttered, and being sure and certain of each other, they had never worried, or forced the pace. And then Jill had disappeared! Gone was their pal, their little sister whom they had petted and spoiled from the day she too had appeared on a fat pony, gone without a trace, leaving these two honest souls, in a sudden unnecessary burst of altruism, to come to a mutual, unspoken understanding that their love must be laid aside in folds of soft tissue, that they must turn the key upon their treasure, until such time as definite news of the lost girl should allow them to bring it out with decency, and deck it with orange blossom. And worry having entered upon them, they both suddenly discovered that uncertainty is a never-failing aperitif, and they both hungered for a care-free hour like unto those they had carelessly let slip.
Foolish perhaps, but they loved Jill, making of themselves brother and sister; hurt to the quick when after the _debacle_ she had sweetly declined all offers of help, and worried to death when she had started out on the hare-brained scheme of earning her own living off her own bat.
Mary Bingham was one of those delightful women peculiar to England, restful to look at, restful to know. Her thick, glossy brown hair was coiled neatly in plaits, no matter what the fas.h.i.+on; her skin, devoid of powder, did not s.h.i.+ne, even on the hottest day; her smile was a benison, and her teeth and horsemans.h.i.+p perfect.
Her clothes? Well, she was tailor-made, which means that near a horse she beat other women to a frazzle, but on a parquet floor, covered with dainty, wispy, fox-trotting damsels, she showed up like a double magenta-coloured dahlia in a bed of anemones.
Jack Wetherbourne was of the same comfortable and honest type, and they loved each other in a tailor-made way; one of those tailor-mades of the best tweed, which, cut without distinctive style, is warranted with an occasional visit to the cleaners to last out its wearer; a garment you can always reply on, and be sure of finding ready for use, no matter how long you have kept it hidden in your old oak chest, or your three-ply wardrobe, or whatever kind of cupboard you may have managed to make out of your life. Although no word of love had ever pa.s.sed between them, you would have sworn they had been married for years, as they sat on each side of the fire; Mary in a black demi-toilette, cut low at the neck, which does not mean decollete by any means, but which _does_ invariably spell dowdiness, and Jack Wetherbourne with his chin in his hand, and a distinct frown on his usually undisturbed countenance.
A great fire crackled in the old-fas.h.i.+oned grate, the flames jumping from one bit of wood to another, throwing shadows through the comfortable room, and drawing dull l.u.s.tre from the highly polished floor and Jacobean furniture. It was an extraordinarily restful room for a woman, for with the exception of a few hunting pictures in heavy frames on the wall, a few hunting trophies on solid tables, some books and a big box of chocolates, there were no feminine fripperies, no photographs, nothing with a ribbon attachment, no bits of silver and egg-sh.e.l.l china.
Oh! But the room was typical of the Honourable Mary Bingham, into whose capable hands had slipped the reins controlling the big estate bounded on one side by that of the man opposite her.
”There is only one more thing I can suggest,” said the deep, clear voice, ”and that is that you go over to Egypt yourself. Who knows if you might not pick up a clue. Detectives have failed, though I think we made a mistake in employing English ones, they hardly seem tactful or subtle enough for the East.”
Certainly one would have hardly applied either adjective to Detective John Gibbs, who, bull-necked and bl.u.s.tering, had pushed and bullied his way through Egypt's princ.i.p.al cities in search of Jill.
”How like Jill not to have sent us a line,” remarked Jack Wetherbourne for the hundredth time as he lit a cigarette.
”Oh, but as I have said before, she may have had sunstroke, and lost her memory, or have been stolen and put away in a harem. She's not dead, that's certain, because she had her hand told before she left on her last trip, and she's to live to over eighty.”
”That's splendid,” was Wetherbourne's serious answer to a serious statement, as he rose on the entry of Lady Bingham, who, having at the same moment finished her knitting wool and the short commons of consecutive thought of which she was capable, had meandered in on gossip bent, looking quickly and furtively from one to the other for signs of an understanding which would join the estates in matrimony, a pact upon which her heart was set. And seeing none, she sat down with an irritated rustle, which gathered in intensity until it developed into a storm of expostulating petulance when she heard of the proposed programme.
On the stroke of eleven Mary got up and walked down the broad staircase, and through the great hall, and out on to the steps beside the very splendid man beside her, and they stood under the moon, whilst a nightingale bubbled for a moment, and _yet_ they were silent.
”Dear old girl,” said Jack Wetherbourne, as he pushed open the little gate in the wall which divided their lands, and waved his hand in the direction of the old Tudor house.
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