Chapter XIV: A Spoke in His Wheel

Neither Cecil nor Azim Bey ever referred in words to the approaching termination of the former’s engagement. Cecil had never in the slightest degree hesitated in her resolution to bind herself to remain at Baghdad for the further period of three years. The letters from Whitcliffe had of late been so uniformly cheerful in tone with respect to Fitz and Terry, for the expenses of whose education she had now for two years been wholly responsible, that she could not but conquer her longing to see the dear home faces once more, and decide to remain a member of his Excellency’s household. Then, too, her little pupil had endeared himself to her, jealous and exacting though he often was, and she could not bear to think of leaving him. Thus her mind was made up, and she had no anticipation of anything that might interfere to prevent the signing of the agreement.

As for Azim Bey, his silence did not arise from lack of interest in the matter. He knew as well as Charlie did when the first agreement lapsed, and throughout the tour from which they had just returned his mind had been busy on the subject. Over and over again, when he seemed merely to be contemplating the beauties of nature, or listening attentively to the morals which Cecil did her best to deduce for him from the various scenes and incidents of their daily life, he was occupied in planning schemes by which his governess’s further stay might be ensured. It was clear to him that the cardinal point was that Charlie should be absent from Baghdad when the agreement was signed. Azim Bey’s dislike for the surgeon of the Consulate was not a feeling of gradual growth, but had sprung up, fully matured, on the occasion of Charlie’s unauthorised intrusion into the harem. With a good deal of natural shrewdness, and a great deal of precocity, stimulated by the unchildlike life he had led, and the books in which he had delighted, the boy had divined Charlie’s secret, and marked him at once as an enemy. By catechising Cecil after all her visits to the Residency, he arrived at the knowledge that she always saw Dr Egerton there; and he remarked that she generally spoke of him with a sigh, but what this sigh meant he could not decide. In any case, he was fully persuaded that it would be far better for mademoiselle to remain with him for the next three years than to marry Dr Egerton. She was doing so much with her earnings for those brothers of hers (whom Azim Bey regarded with interest not unmingled with contempt, as creatures who existed for little else but to play pranks for his entertainment) that she certainly ought not to leave them in the lurch. He had never given a second thought to his loudly expressed intention of marrying her himself--which indeed had only been uttered in the hope of shocking his grandmother--and had resigned himself with philosophic indifference to the prospect of the bride who had been chosen for him; but he had some idea that when his education was finished, his father, or rather Jamileh Khanum, might find mademoiselle a suitable husband in some rich Armenian, so that she might continue to live in Baghdad, and he might consult her when he needed advice. In any case, Dr Egerton, who had unintentionally made himself peculiarly disagreeable to the Bey, was out of the question, and must be got rid of.

It might have been supposed that the simplest plan would have been to appeal to Cecil herself, and secure her promise to stay on in her situation; but such a proceeding was quite contrary to Azim Bey’s character and habits. His instinct was to work underground, and he heartily detested anything like plain questions and straightforward answers. “People in love always told lies,” was the impression left upon his mind by his French novels; and even if mademoiselle should prove an exception, what good would it do to hear her say that she meant to leave Baghdad? A straightforward answer of that kind could not easily be explained away, whereas if everything were left in a misty, nebulous condition, with nothing determined, and nothing definite said, it ought to prove easy to find opportunities for action and loopholes for interference. That mademoiselle might, quite without her own knowledge, be managed into staying, if only Dr Egerton did not appear and interrupt the process, he had no doubt, and he began to revolve schemes for delaying his return. It was evident even now that matters must be run very close if Charlie was to be back a week before Christmas, and it seemed to Azim Bey that it ought not to be impossible, considering the absence of roads and the difficulties of obtaining transport in the Bakhtiari country, to make him arrive from ten days to a fortnight late. This was all that would be necessary.

It was easy to see what ought to be done; the difficulty now came in of finding the person to do it. If only the Pasha had been in the secret, private instructions from him to the khan-keepers along the route to delay the progress of the travellers as much as possible, and to the postmasters to show no particular zeal in providing baggage-animals, would have settled everything; but Azim Bey did not wish to call in his father’s help. It was doubtful even whether it would have been given; for instructions of this kind, recommending dilatoriness, had an unpleasant knack of becoming public at wrong times, and the Pasha was always anxious not to give undue cause of offence to the Balio Bey. In any case, his Excellency might think his son’s desires inexpedient, and interfere to prevent their realisation; and this would be much worse for Azim Bey than merely being thrown on his own resources. Still, he found life very weary and perplexing while he tried to think of the right person to employ as his instrument in effecting his purpose.

Masûd and the rest of the servants he dismissed from his thoughts at once, they were too stolid, and would not make good intriguers. But Azim Bey had not been brought up in an atmosphere of intrigue for nothing; he knew exactly the kind of person who was fitted to undertake what Charlie Egerton called “dirty work,” and the consuls, more euphemistically, “secret missions.” Not quite for the first time, he began to regret that he had cut himself off so entirely from M. Karalampi, and to think that he might have refused his books without scathing him so fiercely with virtuous indignation. There were plenty of other disreputable Greek and Levantine hangers-on at the Palace who might have been intrusted with the business, but men of this stamp were always ready, if anything led to the failure of their negotiations, to save themselves by splitting upon their employers. M. Karalampi alone, in such a case, never betrayed the interests he represented. He bore the blame of those involved and the scorn or execration of outsiders, he submitted to have his credentials denied and his action disavowed, and indemnified himself for it all on the next occasion. Such traits made him invaluable, and had probably contributed to his unusually long and successful career.

When there is mischief to be done, it is seldom that tools are wanting for the accomplishment of it, and when Azim Bey had been thinking of M. Karalampi for some days as a possible helper, he suddenly found himself face to face with him. It was in the early morning, when the boy had gone to pay his usual visit to his father as he dressed. Important despatches had just arrived, however, and the Pasha must not be disturbed in the perusal of them. In a very bad temper, Azim Bey settled himself in the anteroom, where visitors were wont to wait for audience of his Excellency. Only one other person occupied the room at present, and this was M. Karalampi, who saluted Azim Bey respectfully, and then retired to the farthest corner, to intimate that he had no desire to force himself upon him after the rebuff he had received more than a year ago. From his distant seat, however, he watched the boy’s face narrowly, and read the varying thoughts which passed through his mind. Pride and eagerness were contending for the mastery, and M. Karalampi watched for the right moment at which to intervene. He had not heard any of the circumstances, but hastily coupling with the deductions he drew from Azim Bey’s perturbed face, Charlie’s often-repeated intention of returning before Christmas (for he was well up in the gossip of the various consulates), he formed a working hypothesis, and proceeded to put it to the test. Approaching the divan on which Azim Bey was seated, he asked casually after the health of Mademoiselle Antaza, “_cette dame si aimable et si savante_,” to whom the Bey was so deeply attached.

If Azim Bey had known that to the list of his employers M. Karalampi had lately added the name of the Um-ul-Pasha, he might have been suspicious, but he was so much relieved to find the conversation brought without his assistance to the very subject he wished to reach, that he answered politely at once that mademoiselle enjoyed the best of health.

“But the Bey Effendi will soon lose mademoiselle; is it not so?” was M. Karalampi’s next question.

“What do you mean, monsieur?” asked the boy, startled.

M. Karalampi shrugged his shoulders. “All the world says that she will marry at Christmas the surgeon of the English Consulate,” he said.

“But she shall not,” cried Azim Bey. “Listen, monsieur; I need your help. He must be delayed in returning. He is not to be killed, nor hurt, because he saved mademoiselle and me in the riot, but simply kept back. Manage this, and I am your friend for life.”

To recover his old position in the Bey’s confidence was M. Karalampi’s great object at this time, and he was also not averse to doing a bad turn to Cecil, but he looked serious and reflective.

“Do I understand you, Bey Effendi?” he asked. “There are to be difficulties among the tribes, you say, and Dr Egerton is to be detained for the sake of his own personal safety, while he is still at some distance from Baghdad?”

“Yes, that is it,” cried Azim Bey; “and no letters must pass.”

“That goes without saying,” said M. Karalampi, “and it will not be difficult to find a cause of quarrel between the Hajar and their neighbours, the Fazz. But in the Bakhtiari country there are many robbers, and Englishmen are brave. Why should not the caravan be attacked, and Dr Egerton and the other doctor killed in repelling the thieves? That would get rid of him altogether, and no one could ever know.”

Azim Bey turned a little pale. His schemes had not reached the point of plotting murder, but the idea seemed to come so quickly and naturally to M. Karalampi that he was afraid of appearing timid and cowardly if he told him so. However, a happy thought occurred to him.

“It is no use trying to work through the Bakhtiaris,” he said. “They love the English, and might even tell him what we had arranged with them to do. And the Arabs must not kill him, for the Balio Bey would demand blood-money, and my father would be obliged to go to war with my own people to get it paid. No, they must only keep him back, protesting their love to the Pasha and to the English all the time. They will not allow him to go to his death, they must say, and no man can cross the Fazz country safely just then.”

“The Bey Effendi is very wise,” said M. Karalampi, “and it rejoices me to be able to serve him once more. But I must have some token from him to show to the Hajar sheikhs, or they will laugh at my beard, and I shall come back a fool.”

With trembling fingers Azim Bey unfastened the Hajar amulet which his Arab mother had hung round his neck when he was a baby. “It will bring all the tribesmen of the Hajar to thy help if thou art in danger, my son,” she had assured him, and his kinsmen in the tribe had told him the same thing since.

“Take it,” he said, “but give it back to me. No Hajar dare disregard it. But take care not to leave it in the tents, lest Dr Egerton see it, and perceive whose it is. Mademoiselle must never know of this.”

“She never shall,” said M. Karalampi, and he departed with his prize. Fortune had favoured him beyond his hopes, and he saw himself, in imagination, restored to his former place in Azim Bey’s esteem, and able to manipulate his actions in the interest of his other employers. As for Azim Bey himself, he felt quite satisfied with the arrangement he had made, and returned to his governess with a light heart and an unclowded brow.

Cecil’s visits to the Residency that autumn were almost confined to the Sundays. She explained to Lady Haigh that she had arranged a special course of study with her pupil, which must not on any account be interrupted, after the desultory way in which the summer had been spent, and she adhered to this plan with the utmost rigour, never acknowledging, even to herself, that the Residency seemed in some way empty and desolate just now. Sunday by Sunday she said to herself, hopefully, “Perhaps he came back last night,” but the weeks passed on, and he did not come, and Cecil cried herself to sleep at nights, and assured herself all the time that she did not love him, and that it was only because she was disappointed. Thus the days went by quietly enough until Christmas week approached. Still Charlie had not returned, although his letters to Lady Haigh announced that he had started upon the homeward journey. They were rather despondent in their tone, for his medical inquiries had occupied a longer time than he had calculated, but they all breathed a spirit of unconquerable determination to be back by the day before Christmas Eve, or die. Even if he had to tramp from Mohammerah to Baghdad, he would do it. But he reckoned without Azim Bey.

Cecil was to spend Christmas at the Residency. From the morning of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day she was to have her time absolutely to herself, and on Christmas Eve Denarien Bey and other officials were to bring the new agreement and present it for her signature. Azim Bey watched her depart without misgivings. His plans were laid securely, and if they did not come to a satisfactory conclusion, M. Karalampi would pay the penalty. Cecil nodded and kissed her hand to him as she started on her ride to the Residency, and he noticed that her white sheet was fastened with the elaborately wrought and jewelled brooch he had presented to her that morning, in pursuance of what he understood was the correct English custom. He was pleased with the honour shown to his gift, and accepted it as a good omen, and therefore he waved his hand gaily to Cecil, and called out that he would not torment old Ayesha, his nurse, more than he could possibly help while she was away.

Arrived at the Residency, Cecil found Lady Haigh in an extremely perturbed state of mind. Charlie had not returned, and no notice of his approach had been received; moreover, there were rumours of troubles between the Hajar and the Fazz tribes in the very district through which he had to pass. In the course of a few hours Denarien Bey would bring the agreement to be signed, and if Charlie had not returned by that time, she would be obliged to speak to Cecil on his behalf, a prospect which filled her with nervous dread. To add to her perplexities, she had all the Christmas decorations on her hands, as well as the preparations for the Christmas Day festivities, in which she was handicapped by an undying feud which existed between such of the servants as were Hindus on one side, and Agoop Aga, the major-domo, and the natives of the country, on the other. With a vague idea of putting off the evil day, she accepted Cecil’s offer to see to the decorations and the arrangement of the _menu_ for the morrow’s dinner-party, and departed to look to the ways of her household. But this delay was of no avail, for lunch-time arrived, and no Charlie. Denarien Bey was coming at three o’clock, and with beating heart poor Lady Haigh perceived that she must speak to Cecil. There was no time to lose, and after lunch she called the girl into her boudoir and prepared to make the attempt. She knew that she could not plead Charlie’s cause with anything approaching the fervour he himself would have used; nay, she had an uneasy consciousness that if Cecil accepted him she would consider her an arrant fool for giving up her present position for his sake. But she was fond of Charlie, and sympathised with him on account of his patient waiting, and she felt herself bound by her promise to do the best she could for him.

“Cecil, my dear,” she said, when she had got Cecil settled at last, after several vain attempts to reason her into a properly serious state of mind, “Denarien Bey will come with the agreement very soon.”

“Yes?” said Cecil, springing up from her chair and adjusting the striped scarf which draped a portrait on the wall. “But don’t let us talk of business now, Lady Haigh. These two days are my holidays, you know, and I want to enjoy them. This is a new photograph of Sir Dugald, isn’t it?”

“Oh, my dear child,” entreated Lady Haigh, “do be serious. I have something so very important to say to you. I don’t know how to say it, but I promised Charlie, and I wish I hadn’t. Do listen to me quietly.”

Cecil dropped into a chair, not that in which she had been sitting before, but a low one in the shade of the curtain, and composed herself to listen, for Lady Haigh’s voice sounded as though tears were not far off.

“Poor Charlie has not come back in time,” went on the elder lady, sadly, “and he was so very anxious to speak to you himself. But I must do it, or you will sign the agreement without knowing. He has been in love with you a long time, Cecil, ever since he has known you, in fact, and he wanted to ask you to marry him on the way up the river, but I wouldn’t let him. I promised him that if he would let you alone for the first two years, to give you a fair chance of seeing how you could get on, he should speak to you before you signed the new agreement. Well, he isn’t here, so I must speak instead. He is very much in love with you, my dear, though I should think you know that as well as I do, and if you don’t, Azim Bey does. He has some money of his own, and Sir Dugald feels now that he can conscientiously put in a good word for him with the Indian Government if there is any question of another appointment, and he is a dear fellow. There! I know I am not putting things properly, but I don’t know how to manage it. He can’t bear to think of your slaving, as he calls it, with Azim Bey all day; he wants you to be raised above the necessity of working for your family. He need not stay out here, you know, if it were not that he loves the East so much, he has a good property at home,--and he is a generous fellow. I am sure I may say that your little brothers would not suffer from the change. I might talk to you about a good position, and all that sort of thing, but I don’t believe it would affect you. All I can say is, Cecil, don’t let my blundering way of speaking for him prejudice you against the poor fellow, for he really is head over ears in love with you. Sometimes I think you don’t appreciate him properly, but remember, he has waited patiently for two whole years, and only refrained from speaking out of pure consideration for you, lest you should be compromised in your new position. You have never shown him any special encouragement, always laughing at him and teasing him as you do, but he has never wavered, so if you can find it in your heart to say yes, do be kind to the poor boy.”

There was a few minutes’ silence, while the clock ticked heavily. Lady Haigh glanced nervously at Cecil, sitting in the deep orange shade of the curtain, but could read nothing from her face. At last the girl spoke, slowly and with some hesitation.

“I am glad you have spoken to me, Lady Haigh, for it seems to make it easier--I mean--yes, it is easier--to see the right course than if Dr Egerton had asked me himself. I think I am bound in honour to consider my duty to my employer, and to go on with my work. The Pasha has acted most kindly and honourably by me, and he wishes me to carry on Azim Bey’s education. I can’t feel that it would be right, after all the trouble and expense he has had, to throw up my situation for the sake of a--well, of personal feelings. I think the Pasha would have a right to say he didn’t think much of Christianity if I treated him in that way, and I have tried not to hide my colours in the Palace. I think it is only right for me to go on as I am.”

“But you don’t mind my having told you, dear? You are not angry with Charlie? What will you say to him?”

“That is scarcely a fair question, Lady Haigh,” said Cecil, pausing with her hand upon the door, but keeping very much in the shade of the curtain; “or did Dr Egerton depute you to receive his answer as well as to plead his cause?”

“Ah, she shan’t get off like that,” said Lady Haigh to herself, as the door closed behind her young friend. “Charlie shall have his chance when he comes back and speak for himself, and I am very much mistaken if he doesn’t get a little hope to help him through the next three years.”