The Hawk of Egypt
playing the game as far as his future wife is concerned and will come
to you like a ready-made suit returned from the cleaner's. The Kelhams
always marry young, and our brides are always very young. That's why,
I think, we're so strong and long-lived." He veered suddenly from the
mazy subject of eugenics and pleaded hard, persuasively, stubbornly.
But Damaris, just as stubbornly, shook her head.
"Besides, Ben, this is unexpected. I haven't seen anything of you
since I have been out; surely, if you love me so, you would have come
over more often to--to--prepare the way."
She unashamedly exposed her hurt, whilst the man inwardly called
himself every kind of a fool for having listened to another's voice
upon a subject as vital and tricky as love.
Still he urged and pleaded, being of those who, refusing to take No as
an answer, usually succeed in attaining their desire.
A wearisome process, but well worth while once in a lifetime, whatever
kind of a clutter those first cousins, obstinacy, stubbornness and
strong will cause you to accumulate about your feet at other times.
"I don't know enough to marry," persisted the girl. "I want to know
what love really is, first."
"Oh! but, dear, I can teach you all you want to know," replied the man,
in the customary all-sweeping manner of the male.
"But I want to know all about the different kinds."
"There are no different kinds, Damaris. There is only one sort."
"Then explain this to me."
It seemed that two months before the girl had left England, she had
found the tweeny, Lizzie Stitch by name, sobbing over the cinders in
her sitting-room grate. The besmirched little face, like a sodden
little pudding, had been covered with grimy hands, and the thin little
chest had heaved under the scanty cotton blouse and the stress of the
tale of betrayal and desertion.
"I didn't know, miss. I didn't do it purposelike for a lark. I did
think it was love, _real_ love what--what is h'always pardinned. Well,
miss, if you think it wise to force 'im, I'll do what you say, though
it's not about meself as I'm worrying; it's 'cause I must have a father
for the kid. I couldn't put it out, an' lose it, not h'ever so."
Then had come about a strange scene of transformation. Confronted by
Damaris with a riding-whip in one hand, a special license in the other,
and Wellington at her heels, the fox-faced young man had professed a
desire to marry the tweeny on the spot.
Then had been granted a seventh-heaven glimpse of what love, real love,
can be, to the tweeny maid, changing her into a veritable spitfire, who
had turned and rent the fox-faced youth.
"I wouldn't 'ave you, nohow, no, not if yer were the larst man on
earth, not 'alf I wouldn't. I'll get through my trouble, miss, all
right, an' by meself, thanking you kindly for troubling, an' I'll wait
until Mister Right comes along; that's what I'll do, Mister Runaway."
And when Mr. Runaway had hinted that Mr. Right might kick at being
called upon to shoulder the encumbrances of others, she had snatched
the special license from her young mistress, torn it into bits, flung
it into the foxy face and blazed into a big-hearted, big-minded,
all-understanding little tweeny maid of a woman.
"I said Mr. Right, didn't I, yer bloomin' chuckhead? 'E'll unnerstand
that it was all done in mistake, an' not by preference, so to speak.
An' unnerstandin', he'll forgive. Lots of them mistakes are made by
girls like me"--thumping of washed but still grimy hand above gallant
little heart--"through swipes like you. Life's full of 'em down our
way. But life's love, and love's life, and you can't get away from
that, that yer can't. And I'd raver die wiv my love shut up
'ere"--more thumps above gallant little heart--"than throw it away on a
louse like you, _that_ I would, not 'arf!"
Ben Kelham said nothing, and there fell a silence between the two,
though the Egyptian night was as full of noise as it ever is in the big
cities of the East.
"What did she mean, Ben," said Damaris at last, "by that love which
understanding can forgive even--even _her_ trouble?"
And to Ben Kelham came the tweeny's seventh-heaven glimpse of the
understanding of real love.
He rose and swept Damaris, a-thrill at the mastery, into his arms,
where he held her as he might have held a child.
"That, dear,"--and he spoke choosing the simplest words, just because
he knew no others, "that means that if you said you loved me, and I--if
I ever found you in a--how shall I put it?--in--no matter how
compromising a situation--that I should love you just the same, because
I should know that, although to all appearances you--you might have
sinned, yet the real you, the pure, honourable, perfect woman in you,
could not show the smallest stain. Do you understand?"
"Almost," whispered the girl, as she lay still in the arms that held
her as a child.
"You've _got_ to understand. Listen! It may sound brutal, but you've
got to understand my love for you. Supposing you disappeared, as
Englishwomen do sometimes in the East. Supposing I searched, and found
you, and you--you were--you were like the little tweeny girl. What
should I do? Why, Damaris, unless you came to me and confessed to sin,
I'd marry you, loving you, understanding you, without asking any
questions."
"Without asking any explanation?"
"Yes, dear. Yes. Because I love you----"
"And you would forgive me?"
"But, dear, there wouldn't be any need for forgiveness; the real, pure
you would not have done anything wrong."
Then he blundered.
Like most big men, he was diffident; he underestimated the attraction
of his strength allied to a very gentle courtesy; in fact, bound up in
his love for Damaris, he had never given it a thought excepting to
curse the awkwardness of his body and the slowness of his speech. He
knew nothing of the honesty which looked out of the eyes; the quiet
strength of his movements and speech; the feeling of confidence he
inspired.
He was not given to self-analysis; he loved the sun in the heavens, the
grass under foot and the traditions of his house too much to waste time
on that kind of thing.
So that, fearing to have hurt the girl or bored the girl, he plumped
her on her feet, when he could have won her and saved her and others,
including himself, a mint of pain if he had only just crushed her up to
his heart and kissed her.
She stood quite still, with that dazed little feeling which falls upon
one who has entered the wrong room.
"I'm not going to bother you any more, dear," he said, watching for the
flash of relief which did not cross the beautiful face.
"What are you going to do?"
"There has come a report of lion somewhere near Karnak. I think I
shall run down and have a look round. I thought of going on to Nairobi
once I was really fit, so have got all my shooting gear with me. But,
remember, you have only to send for me, and I will come. And don't try
to run away, Damaris." And his voice was stern as he took her by the
shoulders and drew her towards him. "You are mine! I'm letting you go
now because you want to learn about life, and that you can't do if you
have a man always on your heels. You will learn all right, dear, and
suffer a bit, dear, but you will come to me in the end.
"I can't offer you the witchery and colouring and poetry of the East,
but I do offer you the biggest love there has ever been in a man's
heart for a woman and------"
A troupe of riotous guests came streaming down the path.
"One o'clock!" they shouted. "One o'clock. Masks off; masks off!"
The two walked slowly towards them.
"You _would_ like a lion's skin, wouldn't you?" he asked eagerly, and
stared amazed at the reproachful, hurt eyes which looked back at him
just as the dancers swooped upon her.
A lion's skin! When she was craving for the strength of his arms about
her, and the tower of his love behind her, from the top of which she
could safely make monkey-faces of derision at Life, standing with
lesson-books in one hand and a cane in the other.
She turned her back on him and entered the ballroom, and he went back
to the seat in the garden, unconscious of the woman who watched.
And as the merry little crowd ran laughing into the hotel, the duchess,
with mind intent on a cigarette, slipped out of another door and
hurried as fast as her outrageous heels would allow her to a seat under
the date-palms.
She took a Three Castles from the jewelled Louis XV snuff-box, rasped a
match on the sole of one little crimson shoe, lit her cigarette, and
studied the slipper.
Then she turned her head and saw a man, an Arab, standing beside the
seat.
There had been no sound; just out of the dark he had suddenly
materialised in the startling, silent way of the East.
Well does it behove us to remember that we have claimed the privilege
of giving lessons in morality, culture, good-breeding, manners, in
fact, in one word, civilisation to the world at large.
In the glaring sun of an Eastern mid-day you can sit with your feet
figuratively or literally on the table, if it pleases you; it will but
be accounted as one more eccentricity unto you; but in the shadows, an'
you would retain the position of teacher to the world at large, keep
the heels on the rail of your chair; for there are ears and eyes a-many
in the shadows and behind the silken curtain.
But it took a good deal more than the sudden appearance of a native to
make the old lady start.
She put out her cigarette with the toe of a red shoe, took another from
the snuff-box, rasped a match--not on the sole of her foot this
time--lit the fragrant weed and looked at the man, who salaamed.
"Yes?" she said courteously.
"I am the fortune-teller, great lady. In the sand, by the stars, or
the lines of your jewelled hand, if in your graciousness you will
permit me, I will tell you your future."
"My son, behold. I am near the sunset, the moment approaches when my
tired feet will advance still further upon the bridge which leadeth me
to my God and your God. What is past I know; what is, _is_; what is to
be, is so near that, behold, sometimes in the stillness of the night I
hear the angels whispering as they take counsel as to the moment when,
one shall tap me upon the shoulder, saying, 'Come!'"
He sank to the ground just at her feet and looked up in the splendid
old face with an agony of hurt born of misunderstanding in his own, so
that, suddenly realising that her refusal had been taken for antipathy,
she stretched out her hand, which, having first pulled a corner of his
white mantle between, he held upon the back of his own.
"Tell me, then, of those I love."
The fortune-teller looked her straight in the face.
"Thy hands are full of love-flowers, white woman; thy head is crowned
with them; thy feet pass upon them; thou art all love. Yea! even
though there are many upon the bridge who, having preceded thee, await
thy coming, yet art thou surrounded with love. And in the flowers in
thy hands is there one which thou cherishest, and for which thou
fearest.
"Fear not, wise woman; let thy heart beat tranquilly at dawn, at noon
and at the setting of the sun; for it is written that no harm shall
befall the flower, no stain shall mark the ivory petals of innocence;
no rude hand pluck it before its time. Thou art not the only one to
love the flower, wise woman. There is one also who loveth it and
watcheth it and will pluck it in due season; there is yet another who
loveth and watcheth, but from a great, great distance. If by the grace
of Allah, who is God, the flower should be placed even for the passing
of an hour within the hands of him who watcheth from afar, I tell thee,
for so it is written, fear not, for no harm shall befall the fragrant
blossom."