Part 21 (1/2)

Three mornings a week, an hour after dawn, she gave audience to all those who, with grievance or in difficulty, desired her help or advice; for which ceremony, and having the dramatic instinct, she had caused a clearing to be made in the shade of the palms, under the biggest of which she had also had placed a great chair of snow-white marble, in which, clothed always in white, she would seat herself, her pa.s.sionate mouth smiling happily behind the yashmak whilst over it the great eyes, into which had crept a look of infinite tenderness in the months that had pa.s.sed, would scrutinise the people standing humbly and astounded before her.

She would look across upon mothers with obstreperous sons who would not work, or would not wed; mothers who beat their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in despair at the utter lack of looks or grace in the unfortunately multiplied feminine arrows within the parental quiver; young men who craved a word of recommendation so as to obtain a certain post; older men who craved an overdraft at the bank of her patience; young mothers whose infants were either too fat or too lean, or with eyes half-eaten away with disease; all of whom having received a full measure of help, pressed down and running over, and having bestrewn themselves upon the ground around her chair, would depart in high fettle to spread the news of this wonder woman, their mistress, in whom they felt such inordinate pride; so that one, then two, then more, from distances long and short, would creep into the council with pretexts ranging from the thin to the absolutely transparent, until one morning the whole seance ended in an unseemly fracas between the legitimate and the illegitimate seekers after help in word or kind, whereupon Hahmed, rising in his wrath, smote them verbally hip and thigh, and Jill departed in high dudgeon, leaving the culprits to wilt in the frost of her keen displeasure.

And from about that date, a month ago, everything seemed to have gone wrong.

Days of depression would follow days of mad spirits, hours when she was as the sweetest scented rose within the hands of the Arab, followed by interminable, stretches of time when the points of the ”wait-a-bit”

thorn were blunt compared to the exceeding sharpness of her temper.

Days when all that was right was wrong, and all that was wrong _was_ wrong, so that her women crept quietly, and Hahmed wondered sometimes if some ”afreet”[1] haunted the soil and had taken possession of the soul of his beloved.

Jill swung to and fro in a hammock slung between two palms at a very early hour indeed of this morning late in December.

She had neither veil before her face nor shoes upon her feet, and the flimsy mauve robe clung to the supple body as she restlessly swung, until she clapped her hands to summon her breakfast, and clapped them again sharply so that a figure came running at high pressure.

”Go, ask thy master if he will break bread with me in the shade of the palms, oh Laleah, and let not the shadows lengthen unduly in thy going for fear that I give thee cause to hasten thy footsteps!”

Which manner of speech shows that Jill had not unduly tarried either in acquiring knowledge of things Eastern. And Hahmed, as he stood before her and greeted her in the beautiful Arabian tongue, wondered if in all the world there could be found such another picture as that of his wife, with the riot of red-gold hair about her little face, which somehow seemed over white in the shade of the palm, and the blueness of her eyes, and the redness of her mouth, which neither the one nor the other smiled at his approach.

”Do sit down and help yourself!” said she indeed, and clapping her hands sharply ordered fresh food and drinks, both hot and cold, to be brought upon the instant.

And her next remark, after the breakfast of tea in a real teapot, a hissing kettle, strange loaves, purest b.u.t.ter, honey, and fruits of every conceivable colour had been laid upon a cloth upon the gra.s.s, fell like a bolt from the blue, though the man made no sign of disturbance from the impact.

”I want eggs and bacon, Hahmed!”

For a moment he pondered the remark, whilst he offered Jill a cigarette and lit one for himself.

”The eggs, my woman,” and the musical voice made a poem even of the absurd words, ”now that thou hast taught thy slaves to poach and scramble and prepare them in divers and pleasant ways, are easy--but bacon--no! that canst thou _not_ have amongst these my people!”

And Jill swung ceaselessly to and fro, looking at the man sitting a few yards from her on a rug, before she answered in tersest English:

”Don't be dense, Hahmed! I want eggs and bacon, and a starched finger napkin--toast in a rack--covered dishes--marmalade--I'm--I'm------”

”Fed up!”

The deep voice filled in the pause also in tersest English.

For one moment Jill sat up as straight as the hammock would allow, and then for the first time in many days broke into a peal of sweetest laughter, and swinging herself clear of the net ran over and laid herself down upon the rug beside the man, with her chin in the palms of her hands, to find herself the next moment in his arms, whilst he looked down into her eyes without speaking. Whereupon she turned her face on to his shoulder and burst into tears.

And Hahmed, being wise, let her cry until there were no more tears, only little sobs which tore at his heart, which lightened considerably when having mopped her eyes with the edge of his cloak, she twisted herself into a sitting position, and smiled as she laid her golden head against his dark one, and entwined her slim fingers in his.

And Hahmed smiled also, knowing that this was the preliminary to some request of which his wife had doubts as to the granting, but never a word did he utter, nor made sign to help, whilst Jill, somewhat at a loss, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to blow rings which on account of the breeze refused to pa.s.s one through the other.

”Hahmed!” she managed at last and stopped, and then continued as she got up and moved away: ”Hahmed! I'm feeling absolutely _miserable_. I think I want a change--I really do want all I said just now, so--so _can't_ we go to Cairo and stay at an English hotel for the New Year?

We could _just_ do it if we started at once--_couldn't_ we? I know you have important business or something next month--_can't_ you put it off?”

Hahmed looked at her for a moment, as she stood very fair and straight, with her beautiful feet peeping from under her trailing gown; and frowned a little, noticing the shadows round the big eyes, and the suspicion of a collar-bone showing above the embroidery of her bodice.

”And why didst thou hesitate, little one, to ask--knowing as thou dost that thy wish is law absolute to me? Business affairs, what are they?