CHAPTER XXXII
The Rolls Royce containing representatives of the Savoy and Shepherds in the shapes of beautifully gowned, handsome, placid, somewhat dull, the Honourable Mary Bingham, pronounced Beam, her friend Diana Lytham, and the rotund personalities of Sir Timothy and Lady Sarah Ann Gruntham, drew up behind the menacing hand of a policeman alongside a limousine containing representatives of Shepherds and the Savoy in the shapes of two rotund-to-be daughters and one thin son of the race of Gruntham, and the Honourable Mary's faded mother, who were all racing home in the search of cool baths, or cooler drinks, or a few moments' repose in a darkened room in which to forget the stifling half hours of a series of social functions, given in honour of Cairo's most festive week of the season, before starting on a dressing campaign against the depredations made upon the skin by flies, heat, sand, wind, and cosmetics.
The past middle-aged Sir Timothy of the latest birthday honours, partner in life of Lady Gruntham, and therefore part possessor of the Gruntham family, was whole owner of an army of chimney stacks which, morning, noon, and night, belched thick oily smoke across one of England's Northern counties in the process of manufacturing a substitute for something; also he owned a banking account almost as big as his honest old heart.
La famille Gruntham were breaking their first wide-eyed, open-mouthed tour de monde in Cairo, having selected their hotel from an advertisement in the A.B.C.
The Honourable Mary's nondescript mother sat patiently waiting the decisive moment which would see her en route once more to tea in her bedroom and the last chapter of a Hichens novel, as she had patiently awaited decisive moments for years, having uncomplainingly allowed the reins which controlled the large estate, and large fortune, to slip into the large, capable hands of her daughter, just as she had also either as uncomplainingly criss-crossed the world in the wake of her daughter's unaristocratically large footsteps, or submissively remained at home for the hunting, in which field the Honourable Mary excelled.
Diana Lytham, spinster, through no want of trying to remedy the defect, expert at bridge, razor-edged of tongue, but still youthful enough to allow the lid of Pandora's casket to lift on occasions, also to be described by those who feared the razor-edge as petulant instead of peevish, and cendrée instead of sandy, passed the tedious moments of waiting in a running commentary upon the idiosyncrasies and oddities of the people and refreshments of the past hours, with a verve which she fondly believed to be a combination of sarcasm and cynicism, but which, in reality, was the kernel of the nut of spitefulness, hanging from the withering bough of the tree of passing youth.
She, having an atrocious seat and knowing it, with the excuse of England's winter dampness had fled the hunting. The Gruntham's younger generation, knowing not the difference between a hunter and a carriage-horse, had not given the subject a thought, but Mary Bingham had made a whole-hearted sacrifice of the month she loved best because, although loving her horses with a love of understanding, she knew that the love in her heart for just the one man, was a love passing all understanding whatsoever; feeling, therefore, that the sacrifice brought its own reward in the qualified bliss of being near the one man of her heart, whilst he passed weeks and months in the vain endeavour to find their friend, who had been lost to them in the land of the long-dead Pharaohs.
"Most annoying indeed—great negligence on the part of the city police to allow a hold-up like this at this hour of the afternoon. No wonder Egypt's in the mess of ruins it is if this is the way traffic has always been regulated," fumed and fretted Sir Timothy, whilst Mary Bingham twirled her sunshade over her hat and gazed unseeingly at the domes, cupolas, and minarets of the distant mosque of the Mohamet Ali; and the thin heir of the race of Gruntham pondered upon the allurements of the yashmak, which hid all but the eyes of the few Eastern women who glanced timidly in passing at the occupants of the motor-cars.
"Now then, dearies," smiled the irate old knight's comfortable wife, "don't you take on so, though I do allow it's a nuisance, considering I have to get into my apricot satin to-night, with all those hooks. Pity Sir John Wetherbourne ain't—isn't here, it u'd never have happened I'm sure if he had been, seeing the way he has with him, though I can't say as 'ow I approve of him so young and good-looking—and all these Eastern hussies around—wandering about so much by himself. I do wonder what 'appened—all right, lad, there's many a slip between the aitch and the noovoh rich lip, h'appened to the girl he's looking for. Over a year ago you say, Mary, my dear, since she disappeared at Ishmael, and not heard of since, and Sir John scouring Egypt with all the energy I used to use to the kitchen floor, and not half the result to show for it, eh, Timothy lad? Do you think he was in love with her, or is it a case of—oh, what's them two words which mean that you can't think of anything but one thing."
"Idé fixe," enlightened Diana Lytham.
"Eyedyfix! Sounds like one of those cocktails that heathen feller-me-lad's always trying to poison me with, eh, Miss Diana," chuckled the old manufacturer, who worshipped the cloth of aristocracy, and even reverenced the fringe.
"Oh, you bet he was in love all right, don't you think so, Mary dearest," and the small grey eyes snapped spitefully across at the good-natured, healthy girl, who had raised a weak resemblance of hate in her whilom school friend's breast, more by the matter-of-course, jolly way she had helped lame dogs over stiles than the fact that such obstructions had never lain in her path.
"Are you talking about Jack and Jill? Everybody loved her, and she was made to be loved, was beautiful, wilful Jillikins. I wish he could find her, or a trace, or some news of her! Oh, but surely we are intruding upon his own affairs too much, and I wonder what has—— Oh, but listen—do listen, did you ever hear such a noise, and just look at the crowds! Why, the whole of old Cairo is coming this way."
Even as she spoke, two Arabs, mounted on superb horses, and brandishing spears, dashed past the cars, shouting continuously what would be the equivalent of "clear the way" in English, just as to the sound of shouting and singing, the beating of drums, and clashing of cymbals, a stream of natives, dancing and waving their arms, poured into the square.
Round and round they spun about six great camels, which, hung with bells and decked from head to stubbly tail with glistening harness and embroidered saddle-cloths, stalked ahead, unheeding of the tumult; whilst riders of restless horses did their best to regulate the action and pace of the nervous animals.
Behind them walked scores of young men in snow-white galabeah, their impassive, delicately curved faces surmounted by the scarlet tarboosh, chanting that old-Egyptian marriage song of which the music score was lost some few thousand years ago, lying perhaps securely hidden in a secret chamber, undiscovered in the ruins of Karnak, but which song, without a single alteration of note or word, has descended from Rameses the Second down through the history-laden centuries to us, the discoverers and worshippers of ragtime.
But the greatest crush surged round two camels which walked disdainfully through the throng, seemingly as oblivious of the excited multitude as the one made herself out to be of the man who walked beside her with a fantastic whip, and the other of the golden chains which fastened her to the blackest eunuch of all Africa.
Upon the one of the golden chains, rested a golden palanquin, closed with curtains of softest white satin, a-glitter with precious stones.
Around the brute's neck hung great garlands of flowers, from its harness chimed golden bells of softest tone, whilst tassels of silver swung from the jewel encrusted net covering her shining coat.
What or who was inside, no one seemed to be able to coherently explain, though the setting alone told of some priceless treasure.
There was no doubt as to the rider of the other camel!
"Hahmed! Hahmed! Hahmed!" rose the unceasing cry from old and young, whilst blessings ranging from the continued comfortable shape of his shadow, to the welfare of his progeny unto the most far-reaching generation, through a life perpetual of sun, sweetmeats, and shady streams, rose and fell from the pavements, roofs, and balconies crowded with the curious, upon the impassive man who held his camel harnessed with native simplicity, just one pace behind its companion.
The crowning touch was added to this delirious moment of festival by the simply scandalous distribution of golden coin, golden mind you, which attendants clothed in every colour of an Egyptian sunset, and mounted upon diminutive, but pure bred donkeys, threw right and left with no stinting hand, to the distribution of which largesse responded shrill laughter, and still shriller cries, and thwack of stick on dark brown pate and cries of pain upon the meeting of youthful ivories in the aged ankle or wrist.
No doubt about it, Cairo, real Cairo I mean, had been in an uproar from the moment two special trains had chugged into the Central Station a few hours back.