The Gabriel Hounds (12 page)

‘Only since Friday evening. Actually, I came with a package tour …’

I started to tell her about the trip, making it as amusing as I could. I wouldn’t be sorry when the interview was over, but the old lady seemed back on the beam now, and I had no intention of letting John Lethman, on whatever excuse, winkle me out of the presence chamber until I had, so to speak, introduced
Charles. He wouldn’t want to miss this bizarre set-up, and he wouldn’t be likely to be put off by what I had to tell him. I wondered in passing why she hadn’t spoken of him herself, but I would soon discover that, and it was up to my cousin to fight his own way in past the opposition if he wished to.

So I kept clear of his name, and talked away about Petra and Palmyra and Jerash, while Great-Aunt Harriet listened and commented, apparently well entertained, and John Lethman waited in silence, fidgeting nervily with the bed-curtains, and with his head turning from one to the other of us like someone at a Wimbledon final.

I was in the middle of describing Palmyra when she startled me suddenly by reaching out a hand and yanking at a bell-pull which hung among the curtains of the bed. The building echoed to the familiar clanging peal, and then to the noise of the baying hounds.

I stopped talking, but she said almost snappily: ‘Go on. At least you can talk. Did you visit the hillside tombs?’

‘Heavens, yes, there was a conducted tour, we had to: I suppose that’s not the right thing to say to an archaeologist, but one tomb looks very like another to me, I’m afraid.’

‘True enough. What happened to the party?’

‘They went back to London on Saturday morning.’

‘So you’re on your own now? Is that suitable?’

I laughed. ‘Why not? I can look after myself. And as a matter of fact—’

‘Not much doubt of that. Where’s that stupid girl?’

She snapped it suddenly at John Lethman, who jumped. ‘Halide? She can’t be far away. If it’s your pills, I can—’

‘Not my pills. I told you I’ll not take them yet. I want my pipe.’

‘But, Lady Harriet—’

‘Ah, there you are! Where the devil were you?’

Halide came quickly across the lower part of the room. She could not have been far away when the bell rang, but she breathed fast and shallow as if she had been running. Her face was sallow, and she looked scared. She didn’t spare me a glance as she crossed the floor and mounted the steps towards the bed.

‘You rang?’

‘Of course I rang,’ said Great-Aunt Harriet irritably. ‘I want my pipe.’

Halide looked uncertainly from her to John Lethman and back again, and the old woman made one of these flouncing impatient movements in the bed and barked: ‘Well? Well?’

‘Get it for her, please,’ said Lethman.

The girl threw another scared glance at the bed, and scurried down the steps to the dressing-chest. I looked after her with a touch of surprise. Nothing so far had led me to think that she would be easily frightened, and it wasn’t easy to see how my great-aunt could frighten her, short of the methods used by Lady Hester Stanhope, who kept a whip and club by her bed to use on her slaves, and who when service was poor had treated them all – her doctor included – to a purge she called the Black Draught, forcibly administered. I looked at
the ‘Lady Harriet’. She was sitting hunched like some peculiar Eastern jinnee in her welter of silks and blankets, and might, I thought, inspire nervousness, but not fear. But then something caught my eye on the wall above the bed. There were two sets of pegs in the wall, half hidden by the bed curtains, and across one of these lay a stick, and across the other a rifle. I blinked at these in disbelief. There were surely, in the mid-twentieth century, limits to what could be done even here …?

I really must get out of here soon. I must be more tired than I had thought. Or perhaps the strange food at supper …? As I pulled myself together to go on with my story, I heard Great-Aunt Harriet saying, perfectly pleasantly: ‘Just a small pipe, my dear. And I’ll have the amber mouthpiece.’

The girl, hurrying with clumsy fingers, pulled open a drawer and took out a wooden box which appeared to hold tobacco and mouthpiece. These she brought to the bed, and fitted the mouthpiece to the tube of the apparatus that the Arabs called the
nargileh
, or hubble-bubble pipe. As she passed out of Great-Aunt Harriet’s view behind the bed-curtains I saw her throw a quick inquiring glance at John Lethman, and receive a rather irritable nod. This, then, was the cause of her nervousness; she was in the familiar, awkward position of the servant being bidden by one master to do what she knew the other would disapprove.

Lethman said in my ear: ‘I can’t offer you a cigarette, I’m afraid, she won’t allow anyone else to smoke in
here. In any case she only approves of herbal tobacco. I’m afraid it smells vile.’

‘It doesn’t matter, I don’t want one.’

‘What are you muttering about?’ asked Great-Aunt Harriet sharply, peering. ‘All right, Halide, it’s going very well.’ Then, to me: ‘Well, go on, entertain me. What did you do in Damascus? Tramped round the Great Mosque, I suppose, like a lot of gapeseeds.’

‘Exactly like gapeseeds, Aunt Harriet.’

‘Are you laughing at me, gel?’

‘Well, it’s such a gorgeous word. What are they?’

‘God knows. Probably aren’t any anymore. The world isn’t what it used to be.’ She sucked at the pipe. ‘Did you like Damascus?’

‘So-so. I didn’t have enough time to myself. But something rather nice happened there, I ran into Charles.’

‘Charles?’ Her voice was sharp, and I thought I saw Halide and John Lethman look at one another again, quickly. ‘Here?’ asked Great-Aunt Harriet. ‘What’s this, a family convention? What the devil’s my nephew Charles doing in Damascus?’

‘Oh, not Uncle Chas,’ I said quickly, ‘I meant Charles, my cousin – my “twin”. He’s on holiday over here, too. He was to have come up with me to see you, but he probably won’t be in Lebanon till tomorrow, and I’m afraid I stole a march on him. As a matter of fact it was he who sent me to see you in the first place; he’s terribly keen to come himself, and I’d probably never have dared to barge in like this if he hadn’t put me up to it.’

There was silence. The pipe bubbled, rather sickeningly, and she blinked at me through the smoke. The air was acrid, and stuffier than ever, and I felt waves of heat coursing over my skin. I pulled myself upright on my stool.

‘You – you do remember Charles, Aunt Harriet? You’ll not have forgotten him even if you
had
forgotten me – he was always your favourite.’

‘Of course I haven’t forgotten him. How could I? A handsome boy. I always liked handsome boys.’

I smiled. ‘I used to be jealous, let me tell you! D’you remember that time – the last time I saw you – when you came to stay, and you brought the parrot and all the dogs, and you gave me an ivory fan, and you gave Charles the incense burner and the joss-sticks, and he set the summer-house on fire, and Daddy was so furious he said he was going to send him home, only you said if he went you’d go too because the rest of the family were as dull as ditchwater, and anything Charles did shone like a bad deed in an insipid world? I only remember that because it’s a sort of family quotation now.’

‘Yes, I remember. The way time goes. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow … and the things one remembers … and the things one forgets. A handsome boy … yes, yes.’ She smoked for a while in silence, nodding as if to herself, then relinquished the mouthpiece of the pipe to Halide without looking at her. The black eyes lifted again and fixed on me. ‘You’re like him.’

‘I suppose I am. Not really any more, now we’re both grown up … though I suppose you remember
him fairly recently. Something must persist. We’ve the same colouring.’

‘Very like him.’ It was as if she hadn’t heard me. She was still nodding to herself, the black eyes veiled and absent, her hands unsteady with her shawl.

‘Lady Harriet,’ said John Lethman, abruptly. ‘I really must insist you take your tablets now, and rest for a little. Miss Mansel—’

‘Of course,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘if Great-Aunt Harriet will tell me what I’m to say to Charles?’

‘You may give him my regards.’ The whisper was harsh as the rustle of dry leaves.

‘But—’ I regarded her a little blankly. ‘Don’t you want to see him? He’ll be in Beirut at the Phoenicia with me, probably tomorrow. May he come up to see you on Monday? Or if it’d be less bother, he could come up tomorrow evening after dinner and wait till you’re ready to receive him? He has his own car; he wouldn’t need to stay, like me. I’d love to come with him myself and see you again, but if two people are too many—’

‘No.’

‘You mean we can both come? Oh, that’s marvellous! Then—’

‘I mean I won’t receive him. No, I have received you, and it’s been a pleasure, but this is enough. You may take what news you have of me to my nephews Charles and Christopher, and be satisfied with that.’

As I opened my mouth she lifted her hand and added, more kindly: ‘All this must be strange to you, but I’m an old woman and I have chosen my
way of life, and it seems to me that the only good thing that age brings is the right to be as arbitrary as one wants, and to live as one wishes as long as one can afford it. However outlandish and uncomfortable you may think it is here, it suits me, and you can tell them at home that I’m perfectly well, and quite content with my way of life and the privacy I bought when I bought these high walls and that dumb fool at the gate and what service Halide chooses to offer. So we’ll have no more protestations.’

‘But he’ll be desperately disappointed! And what’s more, he’ll be furious with me because I’ve taken his turn with you, so to speak. You were rather his favourite relative, you know. And as a matter of fact, I think it was rather important for him to see you. I don’t know whether you knew, but there’s a plan under way for opening a branch of the bank in Beirut, and Charles’ll probably work there – at least for a time – so while he’s out here now I know he wants to make all the contacts—’

‘No.’

‘Aunt Harriet—’

‘I have spoken,’ she said, rather splendidly, with a flashing gesture of the ruby which was meant to obliterate me, and did.

I gave up. ‘All right, I’ll tell him. He’ll be glad I found you so well. Is there anything you’d like us to send you from England? Any books, for instance?’

‘I can get all I want, thank you, child. Now I’m tired and you may go. Take my messages to your people, but don’t think I want a spate of letters, because I don’t.
I shan’t answer ’em. When I’m dead John will let you know. No, you needn’t kiss me. You’re a pretty child and I’ve enjoyed your visit, so now go.’

‘I’ve enjoyed it, too. Thank you for letting me come. Good night, Aunt Harriet.’

‘Good night. John, you’ll come straight back here when you’ve seen her to her room. Halide! Is that stupid girl going to take all night with those pills? Oh, there you are. Now don’t forget what I’ve said, John, come straight back here.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Mr Lethman, sounding relieved. He already had me half-way towards the door.

For a final parting, it had the strange note of casualness which seemed exactly right. I paused for a moment in the doorway and glanced back. Halide was once more at the dressing-chest, shaking something from a small bottle into her hand. Beyond her, behind the orange glow of the lamp, the bed was towering obscurity. As she turned to mount the steps once more, something moved in the black shadows at the foot of the bed, something small and grey and quick-moving. For one flesh-creeping moment I thought there were rats even in the bedroom, but then I saw the creature leap on the bed, and the large pale hand came from behind the curtain and stroked it. A half-grown cat.

Half-wild as well. As Halide sat down on the edge of the bed the cat leaped aside and vanished. The girl, shimmering in her green silk, leaned forward towards the hidden figure of the old woman. She was offering her water in a tall, chased goblet. The scene looked like something remote and improbable, on a badly lighted
stage. It could have nothing to do with me and Charles and daylight.

I turned and hurried out in the wake of John Lethman’s torch.

The beam flicked upwards for a moment to light my face. ‘What is it? Are you cold?’

‘No. It’s nothing.’ I took a deep breath. ‘It’s wonderful to get out into the air. You were right about that tobacco, it’s a bit much.’

‘Was that all it was? I got the impression that the interview upset you.’

‘In a way, I suppose,’ I admitted. ‘I must say I found it all a bit odd, and she wasn’t exactly easy to talk to.’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, heavens—Oh, but I suppose you’re used to it! I meant inconsistent, and forgetful, and the way she tried to needle me at the beginning. And – well, she
looks
so outlandish, and then that pipe…! I’m afraid I was a bit tactless once or twice, but I’d always heard she hasn’t much time for yes-men, and I thought it was probably best to tell the truth, flat out. I thought I’d upset her, the time she started muttering at me, but I hadn’t, had I?’

‘It takes more than that. Take it from me, she meant it when she said she was enjoying the conversation.’

He was, I thought, a bit curt. But any sour reflections I might have had about this were shaken as he went on: ‘I wish you’d told me earlier about this cousin Charles. I might have managed to persuade her.’

‘Yes, it was silly of me. I think I’d some idea of finding out first how the land lay. Is she likely to change her mind?’

‘Heaven knows. Frankly, I’ve no idea. Once she’s made a decision it’s pretty hard to shift her. I sometimes feel she’s obstinate just for the hell of it, if you know what I mean. I don’t know why she suddenly stuck her toes in like that.’

‘Neither do I. She adored him, you know – he was the only one of us she’d any use for.’ I added, ruefully: ‘Well, he’s going to be furious with me for queering his pitch, which is what I seem to have done, goodness knows how! He’s really pretty keen to see her – and not just out of curiosity like me. I don’t know what he’ll say. She must have talked of him to you, surely?’

‘Oh, yes. If I’d only known he was here … Look out, mind that step. How long’s he going to be in the Lebanon?’