* * * * * * *
Cecil’s stay at the Residency proved to be an eventful one. Lady Haigh and Charlie put their heads together, and the results of their consultation presented themselves in the form of two incompatible propositions—namely, that it was absolutely necessary that an escort should be found for Cecil throughout her long journey back to England, but that there was no prospect that any member of the English colony would be returning home just at present. The net conclusion of these contradictory premisses was a self-evident truth, which, as Cecil said, gave the crown to the bad logic of the whole proceeding. The only thing to be done was that she and Charlie should be married at Baghdad, and consider the voyage home in the light of a honeymoon trip. To every one else this seemed a most fitting solution of the difficulty, and Cecil acquiesced in it with a submissiveness which would have astonished herself a year or two before.
“It is not fair of you to take me by surprise in this way now, Charlie, after all that has happened,” she said. “My pride is broken, and I don’t mind confessing that I couldn’t part with you again.”
This accommodating spirit was hailed as altogether satisfactory by Lady Haigh, although she took occasion in private to admonish Cecil not to make Charlie proud by letting him think that she could not do without him. This advice was supported by many apposite illustrations, but Cecil laughed in her sleeve, and contrasted Lady Haigh’s preaching with her practice, for when she and Sir Dugald were separated, she could think and speak of little beside him. But having done her duty and relieved her conscience, the elder lady turned with a glad heart to the making of preparations for the wedding. Of course the ceremony was to be performed by Dr Yehudi, and Sir Dugald consented, under protest, to give away the bride.
“I disapprove of the whole affair,” he said to Charlie, “and I cannot see why I should be obliged to seem to give my sanction to it. If Miss Anstruther did me the honour to ask my advice even now, I should feel bound to advise her to throw you over, but she hasn’t. At any rate, since she is foolish enough to take you, I have had to give up the opinion I once held of her good sense.”
“Your bark was always worse than your bite, Sir Dugald,” laughed Charlie, who had had time to arrive at this conclusion now that he was no longer on an official footing with the Balio Bey. And indeed Sir Dugald gave himself infinite trouble in disentangling and setting right the complicated affairs of the pair, although when he was at home he entreated his wife to keep those two out of his sight, for they looked so absurdly happy he could not stand it.
“You will be pleased to know,” he said, coming into the Residency verandah one day after a lengthy interview with the Pasha at the Palace, “that all you have gone through is nothing but a series of practical jokes.”
“Very practical jokes indeed!” said Charlie, growing rather red, while Cecil, glancing up into Sir Dugald’s impenetrable eyes, saw his eyebrows twitching at the corners.
“Oh, Sir Dugald, you are joking!” she cried.
“Not at all,” said Sir Dugald, sitting down in a long wicker chair and stretching himself luxuriously; “the joke is all on the side of the Pasha’s household, I assure you. Egerton’s leaving Baghdad was a joke of Azim Bey’s; so was his capture by the Kurds. His pretended death, your imprisonment, Miss Anstruther, and the attempt to marry you off to some native, were little jokes of the Kitchuk Khanum Effendi’s, got up in pure lightness of heart, just to relieve the monotony of harem existence. The Um-ul-Pasha shares in the family tastes, so she co-operated with her Excellency, and Karalampi acted as a kind of master of the revels, humouring the rest by lending his experience to make their play more real.”