CHAPTER XIII

"_Best springs from strife and dissonant chords beget

Divinest harmonies_."

SIR LEWIS MORRIS.

As the sky lightened way down in the east and the faithful turned to

prayer, the little old lady sat at her window, taking her hour of

rest--her hour of understanding--with hands clasped peacefully in her

lap, a little smile at the corner of her whimsical mouth and her

snow-white hair fluttered by the breeze of dawn.

Bodily, mentally, spiritually, she was resting, having filched this

hour in which, before donning the garish trappings of her toilet, to

sit in fine cashmere night attire, covered in camel's-hair wrap as soft

as satin, with her little crimson bed-room slippers peeping from under

the hem and her snow-white hair confined by priceless lace; just as she

had thrown aside the thoughts and worries which are the outcome of the

turmoil and unrest of civilisation, to sit awhile, quietly, with her

eyes upon the dazzling peaks which show so clearly when we push aside

the nightmare fog we have wrapped about ourselves.

Not for her own relief did she sit at rest, for in that way rest does

not come to us; but to the relieving of others by withdrawing from the

lights and noises of this tumultuous planet and so obtaining a better

perspective of things as they stand spiritually, and a clearer insight

into the message of the only book she considered worth studying and

committing to memory.

She was no great thinker, this little old lady, neither did she store

up the printed thoughts of others to repeat them aptly upon fitting

occasions; she invariably mixed up the philosophers and their works;

'osophies simply bewildered her; ritual left her cold, psychology

troubled her but little, save only in its practical application to the

lives of those she loved. But she knew the book of life, with its

tragedies and comedies, humour and crass stupidity, nettles and balm

from the first chapter to the last, and could prescribe you a remedy to

cure your mental hurt just as easily as she could undress your

screaming baby, find the criminal pin and re-dress it for you; and

every member of every Church and every disciple of every creed could

have fought a pitched battle at her feet and left her unmoved, so long

as the sick and sinning crept to her for help and children, rich or

poor, in silks or rags, rushed at her coming to cling about her knees.

She had no fixed time for her hour of understanding. At her window in

moonlight, starlight or the coming of the dawn; in her gilded armchair

in the firelight or the light of the sun; in her rose-garden, in her

parks, anywhere, as long as she was withdrawn from noise and strife.

Not that she did not thoroughly enjoy going out to battle upon the most

mundane of material planes. A born fighter, she would plunge into the

strife for the sheer love of fighting and would take the bull by the

horns or the man by the scruff of his neck and lay about her right

heartily with her stout ebony stick backed by verbal blows from her

vitriolic tongue.

Well, if we all rested for one hour, even for one minute, out of the

twenty-four during the frantic passing of modern days, what a boon we

should grant our neighbours!

And as the duchess sat quietly, with Dekko the parrot fast asleep upon

the back of her chair, as becomes a well-conducted bird, Fate crept up

behind and dropped the black thread of hate and the purple thread of

grief amongst the others she had tossed into the old lady's lap.

She suddenly sat upright with a shiver.

Qatim the Ethiopian lifted the body of a woman from out the gutter, and

the messenger from the Oasis of Khargegh strode through the gateway of

the hotel and kicked the somnolent _ghafir_ or watchman, who coughed

discreetly behind the sleeping night-porter's back.

And when Hobson, some time later, entered the bedroom with her grace's

early cup of tea, which included an egg and fruit, she said nothing of

the terrible story which had run like wildfire through the servants'

quarters and had turned her cold with horror.

Hobson was an autocrat in her own domain and ruled with a cast-iron rod.

"Don't you utter one word of this disgusting tale to her grace," she

had said fiercely as she had sailed through the door of the

ladies-maids' room, held meekly open for her by one of the under-maids,

who had been caught gossiping, "or back you go to England, both of

you." She turned back into the room and rattled the tray to emphasise

her orders. "I won't have my lady troubled with it, d'you hear?

Common circus trash! what has it got to do with you, I should like to

know, if she's been killed or not? That's what they all come to, as

you'll find out, if you don't take care."

She had swept from the room leaving the plump, rosy-cheeked Devonshire

lasses trembling.

Many, many years ago the duchess had taken the bright, intelligent

daughter of a Devonshire farmer on the estate into her service; trained

her and promoted her as her seniors in the lady's service had married

or been pensioned off, until she had finally risen to the post of head

maid and confidential companion.

Love and marriage had passed Maria Hobson by, but she adored her

mistress and constituted herself as dragon, sheep-dog and buffer, so as

to save her from unpleasantness or pain; at the same time issuing

orders as to health and hours which her grace usually meekly

obeyed--though you would not have taken a bet upon it with any feeling

of security.

It is curious, the ascendancy which such a type of maid can obtain over

a strong-willed mistress. Think of Abigail Hill and the influence she

had over Queen Anne, which finally ousted the great Sarah Jennings,

Duchess of Marlborough, brought disturbance into English politics and

ruin to the fortune of the Jacobites.

But at times there was a look in her mistress' eyes and a certain

atmosphere radiating from the frail little person before which Hobson

quailed, so that she said quite gently, "Tea and one letter, your

grace," when she found her sitting at the open window, looking out at

the morning sky.

But although she spoke gently and tucked an extra shawl about the bent

shoulders with a tender hand, she was thinking viciously all the same

over her mistresses leniency towards her god-daughter.

"I wish the young lady could be safely married to that proper English

gentleman. One can see he wants her, but she doesn't seem to know her

own mind. Too pleased by half she is, to my thinking, with this

country and the silly nonsense of their nasty, heathen ways!"

And she left the room with a swish of starched petticoat, when Damaris,

who had just returned from her desert ride, entered to greet her

godmother.

She knelt at the side of the chair and, encircling her in her strong

young arms, laid her cheek against the old lady's, and knelt without

movement, looking out to the desert, whilst one wrinkled old hand

stroked her head and the other turned the pages of the letter.

A piteous letter of appeal from a woman whose love had brought forth

the bitterest of bitter fruit.

". . . _Is_ there a way out, Petite _Maman_?" wrote Jill, the English

wife of Hahmed Sheikh el-Umbar. "Will you undertake the long journey

and come and see me, for who knows if together we could not find a way

to ensure my boy's happiness? I would come to you, only Hugh is near

you, and our men in the East tolerate no interference from their

women-folk. My messenger will wait for your answer. I am overwhelmed

with foreboding for Hugh my first-born. If you can, come to me.

JILL."

And as the sun rose the old lady still sat near the window, trying to

come to a decision.

Could she turn a deaf ear to the woman she had known as a girl almost

twenty-five years ago? Could she, on the other hand, go to her and

risk leaving the girl at her side exposed to the indescribable appeal

of the East? Should she send her back to England, or take her as far

as Luxor and leave her there under the social wing of Lady Thistleton?

"Have you learned any more about the Arab who follows at a distance

when you ride in the morning, dear?"

Damaris nodded.

It seemed she had overheard Lady Thistleton talking about him; his

palaces in the desert and at Cairo; his stables and falcons.

The girl stopped for a moment, then continued:

"He has an English name and seems to be a millionaire, and something

else which I could not catch, but by the sound of the

Prickly-Thistleton's voice it seemed to be something awful!"

"This"--the old lady touched the letter in her lap--"this is from his,

mother, dear, asking me to go and see her. If I do, I will tell you

the whole story when I come back. Don't ask me anything until then,

dear."

Silence fell between them as the hotel woke to another sunlit day.

"Something will happen to decide me," mused the old lady as, a little

later, she took her mail from Hobson, who moved majestically about the

room with bath-salts and towels. "From Ben," she continued, flicking a

lightning glance at the face which, went suddenly rosy pink as it

rested against her knee. "Written from the Oasis of Kurkur near the

First Cataract. He hasn't seen lion yet, but has heard a lot about the

one which is causing a panic amongst the dragomen in Luxor. Oh! how

nice for him! Do you remember fat Sybil Sidmouth, the crack shot?"

It seemed that jolly Sybil Sidmouth, well known at Bisley and who had

brought a thin stepmother devastated with nerves to winter in Luxor,

had also fallen a victim to lion gossip, and had wired a bet to Ben

Kelham that she would bring in the lion's skin.

"They are meeting at Assouan to discuss plans . . ."

"Yes?" said Damaris indifferently, and added vindictively, "Knocking

about in the desert might reduce her a bit," and gave no thought to the

moment of that very morning when, under some uncontrollable impulse,

she had turned the stallion Sooltan and taken him back at full gallop

and to within a few yards of the Arab who, in European riding-kit and

boots from Peter Yapp, had raised his right hand as she had thundered

past standing in her stirrups.

A woman could keep a poultry-farm till the last trump, and even then

never awake to the fact that the same brand of corn is appreciated both

by the goose and the gander!

And, sure enough, something happened to decide her grace before the

setting of the sun.