Chapter XV: After All

But Christmas Eve passed on, the new agreement was brought and signed, and still Charlie did not come. The other young men looked at one another and laughed when they found that he had not appeared, and one or two betrayed symptoms of an inclination to take his place and monopolise Cecil. But they had no chance, as they were ready to acknowledge ruefully at night; for even if Miss Anstruther had been willing to let herself be monopolised, Lady Haigh would not have allowed it. She was very particular in keeping the conversation general in the drawing-room that evening, and in checking any tendency towards confidential talks. Captain Rossiter did once by a bold stroke succeed in getting Cecil to linger at the piano, trying over the accompaniment of a new song which had just reached him from England; but before he could guide the conversation round to anything more interesting than key-notes and sharps, Lady Haigh moved over to a chair close to the instrument, and the rest of the company followed.

Cecil did not sleep much that night. She had made definitely the momentous decision which had been confronting her for so long, and had signed away her liberty for three years more, but it was not the thought of this that kept her awake. She had heard Charlie Egerton’s love declared, though not by himself, and the recollection made her heart beat fast. Even if (and she was not quite so sure about this as she had been a little while ago)--even if she did not love him, she could not but feel touched both by his affection and his constancy. But why had he not come back? Why, after declaring so openly his intention of returning, had he lingered until after she had bound herself to remain in Baghdad? What had detained him? Had anything happened to involve him in one of the border disputes which were continually occurring between the Arab tribes, or had the spell of the old wandering life regained its power over him? If it were really the latter, Cecil felt that he might as well spare himself the trouble of coming back at all, so far as she was concerned. Ever since she had first met him she had deliberately thrown her influence into the scale against his nomadic tastes, trying to induce him to settle down steadily, and do his best, by persistent attention to duty, to counteract the effects of his earlier erratic proceedings. It was a pity, she had felt sometimes, that a man whose nature revelled in the unusual and the unconventional should be guided so strenuously into the beaten track, where another, with natural gifts of a far less remarkable order, would have filled his place with much more satisfaction to himself and to his superiors.

But it was all for Charlie’s own good. It must be to his advantage to be held back from sacrificing all his prospects to the impulse of a moment, and Lady Haigh had been unremitting in impressing upon Cecil that whereas an eccentric, harum-scarum genius might do a great deal in the way of contributions to inexact science, the Indian Government, and indeed all governments, preferred the steady man who could be trusted to keep in the line marked out for him. Almost unconsciously Cecil had been setting this as a kind of test for Charlie in her own mind, watching, with an interest which she believed was wholly ethical and impersonal, his two years’ struggle to stick to his work and avoid quarrelling with Sir Dugald. Hence she had come to the rather one-sided conclusion that she would certainly have no more to do with him if his efforts failed, while discreetly leaving a blank as to what was to happen if they were crowned with success. But in any case, if he could forget all that he had said, and the importance of haste, at such a time as this, and linger among the Bakhtiaris or the Hajar, it would be evident that his love was as little to be depended upon as his persistence in any walk of life had formerly been.

It was not wounded pride which actuated Cecil as she reasoned out this conclusion with herself, nor was it lack of sympathy with Charlie in the trials and worries of his uninteresting post at Baghdad. It was simply that she felt the lack of stability in his character, and the need there was for correcting it, and that she had a traitor on her own side to crush, in the shape of the unreasoning attraction towards Eastern and simpler modes of life which sometimes possessed herself. With Charlie this feeling was a passion, but in her it came only very occasionally into collision with her habitual fixedness of purpose and invariable caution. Still, the very knowledge of the existence of this tendency in herself made her harder upon Charlie, and more determined to guide him in the safe middle path of daily duty steadily performed,--just as we are all prone to correct with greater willingness the faults we perceive in ourselves which are at variance with our general character,--and she felt, as she reviewed her conduct and advice mentally that night, that she could not reproach herself with what she had done. But she had now something else to consider--namely, what she was going to do--although the circumstances seemed so uncertain that she felt herself justified in leaving the matter open. Suppose Charlie had been unavoidably detained after all, and that he returned within the next few days, would he speak to her still, now that his speaking would come too late? She could not doubt for a moment that he would, but when he did, what would he say? Yes, and what would she say? These questions ran in her mind all night, in spite of the wise procrastination she had exercised in determining to leave the matter undecided.

“I really wish,” she said pettishly to herself, when she saw in the morning her pale face and tired eyes reflected in the glass--“I really wish now that he would stay away until to-morrow, so that I could get back to the Palace and be safe with Azim Bey without having to go through all this.” And so much worried and perturbed did she feel at the moment that she believed she meant what she said.

The morning passed quietly. The party from the Residency rode over to the Mission-house to join in the English service in the room which served Dr Yehudi as a church, and which was decorated with palm-branches and quaint devices arranged by the school-children, who mustered afterwards to receive good advice and sweetmeats from Sir Dugald, and presents from Lady Haigh and Cecil. Then the horses were brought up again, and the visitors rode home, refusing to tax the scanty resources of the Mission party by staying to lunch. At the Residency the meal was despatched in haste, for all the members of the British colony in Baghdad were expected to join in the Christmas dinner that evening, and such a prospect necessitated a good deal of preparation. Sir Dugald retired to his office to escape from the bustle, and such of his subordinates as did not follow his example found themselves impressed into Lady Haigh’s service for the purpose of moving furniture, hanging up draperies, and otherwise altering the appearance of the principal rooms. Cecil undertook the decoration of the dinner-table, much to the indignation of the Indian butler, who considered that he knew far more about dinner-parties than the Miss Sahiba, and Lady Haigh superintended everything, driving white-clothed servants before her in agitated troops.

It was in the midst of all this turmoil that Charlie came home. Lady Haigh heard him ride into the courtyard, and flew to greet him.

“O, my dear boy!” she cried, as he dismounted and came to meet her, “why didn’t you come before? You are too late.”

“She has signed the agreement, then?” he asked, quickly. Lady Haigh nodded, and he went on. “I thought as much. Thanks to that abominable child, I believe (for you know his mother was one of the Hajar), I have been detained in their tents for a week. They persisted that they were at war with the Fazz, and that I could not go on except at the risk of my life, and they kept me a regular prisoner. Twice I tried to get away, and each time they brought me back. Yesterday I managed to get hold of my revolvers, which they had hidden away, and we very nearly had a big fight. I threatened to shoot them all if they would not let me go, and at last they consented to disgorge the horses and my things, and my boy Hanna and I came on at once. We parted company this morning. He was to come on gently with the luggage, while I rode hard, and now it is too late after all.”

“My poor dear boy!” cried Lady Haigh, the tears rising in her sympathetic eyes. “I did my best for you, really, but you see I could not plead as you would have done, could I? But you shall speak to her yourself. Leave it to me, and I will make an opportunity for you, only it must be when there is no one about, that people may not begin to talk.”

“Thank you, Cousin Elma. It’s something like a condemned criminal’s last interview with his friends, to give me one talk with her before three years’ separation.”

“You were always inclined to be discontented, Charlie,” said Lady Haigh, reprovingly. “Be thankful for what you can get, and now go and make yourself respectable.”

He laughed, and betook himself in the direction of his own quarters. Cecil, at work in the dining-room, heard his steps on the floor of the verandah, and went on with her task of piling up crystallised fruits on the dessert-dishes with trembling fingers. Perhaps he would not see her as he passed. But he did. A casual glance into the room showed him that she was standing there, and he went no farther. An insane impulse seized her to run away when he came in, but she stood her ground, though looking and feeling miserably guilty. Charlie caught both her hands in his, and stood gazing into her flushed face with a look before which her eyes fell. Then, almost before Farideh, the slipshod handmaiden who was supposed to be assisting in the festive preparations, had time to profit by the little distraction to the extent of surreptitiously conveying an apricot to her mouth, he recollected himself, and loosing his hold of Cecil’s hands, asked eagerly--

“You will let me speak to you in private some time or other?”

“Yes,” faltered Cecil, and he went out, while she, suddenly discovering Farideh’s part in the little scene which had just been enacted, taxed her with her guilt, and proceeded to give her a severe scolding in somewhat imperfect Arabic, though her lips would quiver sometimes with a smile in the sternest passages.

Lady Haigh was very mysterious that evening. She would not let Cecil go to dress for dinner until she herself could come too, and then she accompanied her to her room, where they found the two maids, Um Yusuf and Marta, gazing in speechless admiration at the contents of a great box they had just unpacked. With tender care they had laid on the bed a beautiful evening dress of soft, clinging white stuff, with borders of golden embroidery in a classic pattern, and now they were gently handling a white and gold cloak to match, and a fan of white feathers with a golden mount.

“My Christmas present to you, dear,” said Lady Haigh, kissing Cecil. “I flatter myself I know what suits you, and I see my London dressmaker has carried out my directions exactly. Let me see how you look in it.”

“O, Lady Haigh, you are too good!” gasped Cecil, fingering the delicate fabric with intense delight.

“Nonsense, Cecil! Do you think I didn’t know that you decided not to order out a new evening dress from home, because you wanted to send Fitz the money to get a camera with? I’m glad you like it, dear. If you are so very pleased, show it by looking nice in the dress, and by being kind to poor Charlie.”

The last sentence was in a lower tone, but Cecil shook with mirth; the idea of being bribed with a new dress to be kind to Charlie seemed so ridiculous. The thought suddenly came to her of the uncontrollable delight with which her little Irish stepmother would have viewed the whole scene, more especially the part which concerned the unexpected rewarding of her kindness to Fitz, and it was with difficulty that she restrained herself from bursting into a peal of laughter. It did not take long to array her in the wonderful white-and-gold dress, and even the sedate Um Yusuf, as she clasped the folds upon the shoulder with Azim Bey’s brooch as a finish, was moved into uttering words of admiration. Lady Haigh and Marta were no whit behind in their praise, and Cecil herself, on looking into the glass, felt that she could scarcely recognise the gorgeous vision there reflected.

Lady Haigh was also arrayed suitably to the greatness of the occasion, and she and Cecil now donned their cloaks in preparation for crossing the court, and rustled down to the great drawing-room, where Sir Dugald was waiting with a long-suffering expression, his subordinates hovering in the background and looking depressed. Lady Haigh cast a last glance around to see that all was right, and then, satisfied that the great room, with its fretted ceiling and walls inlaid with mirrors set in beautiful mosaic of many-coloured marbles and gilded arabesque work, was looking its best, took her place beside Sir Dugald with a sigh of complacency. The guests soon began to arrive in their most imposing attire, and the assembly became a miniature court. It was not so difficult as usual, Cecil thought, to realise that one was in the city of the Khalifs, now that the splendours of the place were properly revealed by the aid of many wax-lights, and the rooms, at other times empty and silent, were gay with bright costumes and gorgeous Eastern draperies. But when the move into the dining-room was made, the illusion was spoilt, for all was Anglo-Indian, and the punkah, useless to-night, and the silent Hindu servants, though they might at first seem to give an air of oriental stateliness to the proceedings, were after all as alien to the old Baghdad as to older Babylon. Cecil felt honestly grieved by the innovations years had brought, and she had ample time to lament over them, for her neighbour at the table was a stout and bald-headed elderly merchant, who devoted himself to curry and other red-hot compounds with a singleness of purpose which left him no opportunity for conversation. Opposite to her Charlie was doing the agreeable to the wife of the American Consul, a faded but still vivacious lady, who was talking shrilly of Boston. The few Americans in Baghdad had united with their English kinsfolk to-night in celebrating the old home festival, and the English would fraternise with them in like manner when Thanksgiving Day came round.

The meal was a long one, for all the usual Christmas fare was _de rigueur_, as were the orthodox Christmas customs, while there were a number of toasts to be drunk at the close; but it was over at last, and the gentlemen were not long in following the ladies into the drawing-room. A number of other people who had only been invited to the reception after the dinner-party now came dropping in, and Cecil found herself seized upon by her friend Mrs Hagopidan, the lady in whose defence she had broken a lance with Charlie not long after her arrival in Baghdad. Myrta Hagopidan was a lively little person, an Armenian by race, a native of British India by birth, and an Englishwoman by aspiration. As schoolgirls she and Cecil had adored the same governess, the lady who had been Cecil’s form-mistress at the South Central having gone to India to take charge of the Poonah High School, as has been already mentioned, and this bond of union drew them very close together, although Mrs Hagopidan was pleased to affect the ultra-smart in dress and conversation, and had a weakness for talking about her “frocks,” for which, by the way, Worth was sometimes responsible. She came rustling up now in a magnificent and utterly indescribable costume of various shimmering hues, and demanded that Cecil should take her up to the roof to see the view.

“I’ve never seen the city by moonlight from here,” she said, “and Captain Rossiter has been telling me that it’s quite too awfully sweet. Take me up to the best place, for I daren’t go roaming about Sir Dugald’s house alone without his leave, and I’m much too frightened to ask for it. Put on a shawl or coat or something, for it’s quite chilly.”

And linking her arm in Cecil’s, Mrs Hagopidan drew her into the cloakroom, whence she extracted a wonderful little wrap of her own, all iridescent brocade and ostrich feathers, and then waited while Cecil hunted for her white-and-gold cloak. Her little dark face looked so mischievous and arch and winning, framed in the folds of her hood, that Cecil kissed her there and then, at which Mrs Hagopidan laughed until all her ostrich-feathers nodded wildly.

“Don’t!” she cried, pushing Cecil away. “I don’t want to make any one jealous; I’m simply an amiable and kind-hearted friend. There! that’s your cloak, isn’t it? Put it on and come along.”

They hurried up the steps together, Mrs Hagopidan continuing to talk incessantly, so that Cecil was nearly exhausted before they had reached the top, and was obliged to stop to laugh.

“Lazy thing!” cried her companion. “You are stopping too soon. Only two or three steps more, and I’m dying to see what is to be seen. Come on. Why, there’s some one here!”

A dark figure confronted them as they reached the top of the stairs, and Cecil almost screamed, but she saw immediately who it was.

“Myrta, you wretch!” she cried, “you have brought me here on false pretences.”

“Don’t excite yourself, my dear,” said Mrs Hagopidan, swiftly descending the stairs to the landing, and sitting down on the lowest step. “I said I was a kind and amiable friend, and I’m going to be. No one shall interrupt you, I promise, and if any one tries to pass, it will be over my body. Now, Dr Egerton, use your opportunity. Go over to the other side of the roof, and I shan’t hear. You may count on me to keep a good look-out.”

“I don’t like being entrapped, Dr Egerton,” said Cecil. “I think I will ask you to take me back to Lady Haigh.”

“I don’t think you will,” said Charlie, quickly, “when you remember how long I have been waiting for this talk with you, and how hard it has been for me to get back here even now. I can trust you not to keep me longer in suspense. Whatever my fate is, at least you will let me know it at once.”

This was reasonable enough, and Cecil could not withstand the appeal to her sense of fairness. She walked across to the other side of the roof, and sat down upon the wide parapet, looking at the shadowy garden beneath, and at the river beyond, its broad surface flecked with many wavering lights. Behind was the courtyard, partially illuminated by the beams from the lighted windows of the drawing-room, and farther still the town, with its winding, badly-lighted streets, and its ghostly minarets and palm-trees. The strains of music floated up to her, mingled with the more distant sounds of the city, but no human being was visible anywhere, and it seemed as if the world held only herself and Charlie. He was standing beside her, apparently finding some difficulty in framing what he wanted to say.

“I’ve longed to speak to you for years,” he burst out at last, “and now that I have the opportunity I feel ashamed to use it, because I know my speaking to you at all must seem to you such arrant cheek. I have thought about it pretty often in the last week, and upon my word! I can’t think of any conceivable earthly reason why you should marry me, except that I love you.”

He stopped, and then went on somewhat more freely.

“Cousin Elma has told you how I wanted to speak to you two years ago, and why I didn’t. That’s the reason, Cecil. It was because I loved you, and I didn’t want to get you into trouble, and I have learned to love you more and more since. I do love you, dear, and I have tried to be a better man for your sake. I can’t talk much about that sort of thing, you know, but I do see things more in the way you do than when we first met. But I can’t say it as I should like,” he broke off despairingly. “Whatever I say seems only to show me more and more how utterly presumptuous I am. I know I could never hope that you could care for me as I care for you, because I am such a wretched failure of a fellow, but if you could love me just a little--if you could take me on--well, just as a sort of pupil, you know--but I don’t mean that at all. Will you marry me, Cecil?”

“And if I say no?” asked Cecil, looking away over the river.

“Now you are trying me, to see what I shall say,” he said. “You know, if I said what I feel, it would be that I should throw up this place at once and go off into the desert with the Arabs; and I know that what you would like me to say would be that I should go on here working steadily, as if nothing had happened. Well, dear, I will try, but it will be awfully hard.”

Cecil was touched to the heart. “Oh, Charlie, my poor boy!” she cried, impulsively, and put her hands into his. He took them doubtfully, not daring to accept the happy omen the action suggested.

“Cecil, is it really--do you mean yes?” he asked, with bated breath.

“Yes, I do,” said Cecil, hurriedly. “I have been a horrid, calculating, conceited wretch. I’ve looked down on you, and laughed at you, and never thought how much better you were than I was all the time. I wish I was more worthy of you, Charlie.”

“You? of me?” he asked. “Cecil, dear, don’t laugh at me now. You really mean that you can love me? I don’t want you to marry me out of pity, or anything that would make you unhappy. I can stand anything rather than that.”

“But I do mean yes,” murmured Cecil, brokenly.

“But you are crying,” he said, with a man’s usual tact in such matters.

“I’m not,” said Cecil, indignantly. “Well, I suppose I’m homesick. No, it’s not that. It’s because I have been wanting you so much all this time, and you have come back at last.”

“Please God, you shall never regret my coming back, dear,” he said, gently, and drew her head down on his shoulder, where she cried bitterly, to her own great astonishment and his alarm. It was not at first that she could explain to him the mental conflict and strain of the past few months, but she was able to assure him that her tears did not spring from regret for the promise she had just given, and they sat there on the parapet talking for a long time. Engrossed in each other, they did not notice a long line of torch-bearers and horsemen approaching the Residency from the direction of the Palace, and they were struck with surprise when Mrs Hagopidan appeared suddenly at the top of the steps, and looking studiously the wrong way, cried in a thrilling whisper--

“Dr Egerton, you must go down at once. Azim Bey is at the door, and Sir Dugald was asking for you. If you don’t put in an appearance, there’ll be trouble. Do go at once.”

“That abominable child!” cried Charlie, and obeyed.