His Excellency's English Governess

by Sydney C. Grier

Neither Cecil nor Azim Bey ever referred in words to the approaching termination of the former’s engagement. Cecil had never in the slightest degree hesitated in her resolution to bind herself to remain at Baghdad for the further period of three years. The letters from Whitcliffe had of late been so uniformly cheerful in tone with respect to Fitz and Terry, for the expenses of whose education she had now for two years been wholly responsible, that she could not but conquer her longing to see the dear home faces once more, and decide to remain a member of his Excellency’s household. Then, too, her little pupil had endeared himself to her, jealous and exacting though he often was, and she could not bear to think of leaving him. Thus her mind was made up, and she had no anticipation of anything that might interfere to prevent the signing of the agreement.

As for Azim Bey, his silence did not arise from lack of interest in the matter. He knew as well as Charlie did when the first agreement lapsed, and throughout the tour from which they had just returned his mind had been busy on the subject. Over and over again, when he seemed merely to be contemplating the beauties of nature, or listening attentively to the morals which Cecil did her best to deduce for him from the various scenes and incidents of their daily life, he was occupied in planning schemes by which his governess’s further stay might be ensured. It was clear to him that the cardinal point was that Charlie should be absent from Baghdad when the agreement was signed. Azim Bey’s dislike for the surgeon of the Consulate was not a feeling of gradual growth, but had sprung up, fully matured, on the occasion of Charlie’s unauthorised intrusion into the harem. With a good deal of natural shrewdness, and a great deal of precocity, stimulated by the unchildlike life he had led, and the books in which he had delighted, the boy had divined Charlie’s secret, and marked him at once as an enemy. By catechising Cecil after all her visits to the Residency, he arrived at the knowledge that she always saw Dr Egerton there; and he remarked that she generally spoke of him with a sigh, but what this sigh meant he could not decide. In any case, he was fully persuaded that it would be far better for mademoiselle to remain with him for the next three years than to marry Dr Egerton. She was doing so much with her earnings for those brothers of hers (whom Azim Bey regarded with interest not unmingled with contempt, as creatures who existed for little else but to play pranks for his entertainment) that she certainly ought not to leave them in the lurch. He had never given a second thought to his loudly expressed intention of marrying her himself—which indeed had only been uttered in the hope of shocking his grandmother—and had resigned himself with philosophic indifference to the prospect of the bride who had been chosen for him; but he had some idea that when his education was finished, his father, or rather Jamileh Khanum, might find mademoiselle a suitable husband in some rich Armenian, so that she might continue to live in Baghdad, and he might consult her when he needed advice. In any case, Dr Egerton, who had unintentionally made himself peculiarly disagreeable to the Bey, was out of the question, and must be got rid of.

It might have been supposed that the simplest plan would have been to appeal to Cecil herself, and secure her promise to stay on in her situation; but such a proceeding was quite contrary to Azim Bey’s character and habits. His instinct was to work underground, and he heartily detested anything like plain questions and straightforward answers. “People in love always told lies,” was the impression left upon his mind by his French novels; and even if mademoiselle should prove an exception, what good would it do to hear her say that she meant to leave Baghdad? A straightforward answer of that kind could not easily be explained away, whereas if everything were left in a misty, nebulous condition, with nothing determined, and nothing definite said, it ought to prove easy to find opportunities for action and loopholes for interference. That mademoiselle might, quite without her own knowledge, be managed into staying, if only Dr Egerton did not appear and interrupt the process, he had no doubt, and he began to revolve schemes for delaying his return. It was evident even now that matters must be run very close if Charlie was to be back a week before Christmas, and it seemed to Azim Bey that it ought not to be impossible, considering the absence of roads and the difficulties of obtaining transport in the Bakhtiari country, to make him arrive from ten days to a fortnight late. This was all that would be necessary.

It was easy to see what ought to be done; the difficulty now came in of finding the person to do it. If only the Pasha had been in the secret, private instructions from him to the khan-keepers along the route to delay the progress of the travellers as much as possible, and to the postmasters to show no particular zeal in providing baggage-animals, would have settled everything; but Azim Bey did not wish to call in his father’s help. It was doubtful even whether it would have been given; for instructions of this kind, recommending dilatoriness, had an unpleasant knack of becoming public at wrong times, and the Pasha was always anxious not to give undue cause of offence to the Balio Bey. In any case, his Excellency might think his son’s desires inexpedient, and interfere to prevent their realisation; and this would be much worse for Azim Bey than merely being thrown on his own resources. Still, he found life very weary and perplexing while he tried to think of the right person to employ as his instrument in effecting his purpose.

Masûd and the rest of the servants he dismissed from his thoughts at once, they were too stolid, and would not make good intriguers. But Azim Bey had not been brought up in an atmosphere of intrigue for nothing; he knew exactly the kind of person who was fitted to undertake what Charlie Egerton called “dirty work,” and the consuls, more euphemistically, “secret missions.” Not quite for the first time, he began to regret that he had cut himself off so entirely from M. Karalampi, and to think that he might have refused his books without scathing him so fiercely with virtuous indignation. There were plenty of other disreputable Greek and Levantine hangers-on at the Palace who might have been intrusted with the business, but men of this stamp were always ready, if anything led to the failure of their negotiations, to save themselves by splitting upon their employers. M. Karalampi alone, in such a case, never betrayed the interests he represented. He bore the blame of those involved and the scorn or execration of outsiders, he submitted to have his credentials denied and his action disavowed, and indemnified himself for it all on the next occasion. Such traits made him invaluable, and had probably contributed to his unusually long and successful career.

When there is mischief to be done, it is seldom that tools are wanting for the accomplishment of it, and when Azim Bey had been thinking of M. Karalampi for some days as a possible helper, he suddenly found himself face to face with him. It was in the early morning, when the boy had gone to pay his usual visit to his father as he dressed. Important despatches had just arrived, however, and the Pasha must not be disturbed in the perusal of them. In a very bad temper, Azim Bey settled himself in the anteroom, where visitors were wont to wait for audience of his Excellency. Only one other person occupied the room at present, and this was M. Karalampi, who saluted Azim Bey respectfully, and then retired to the farthest corner, to intimate that he had no desire to force himself upon him after the rebuff he had received more than a year ago. From his distant seat, however, he watched the boy’s face narrowly, and read the varying thoughts which passed through his mind. Pride and eagerness were contending for the mastery, and M. Karalampi watched for the right moment at which to intervene. He had not heard any of the circumstances, but hastily coupling with the deductions he drew from Azim Bey’s perturbed face, Charlie’s often-repeated intention of returning before Christmas (for he was well up in the gossip of the various consulates), he formed a working hypothesis, and proceeded to put it to the test. Approaching the divan on which Azim Bey was seated, he asked casually after the health of Mademoiselle Antaza, “cette dame si aimable et si savante,” to whom the Bey was so deeply attached.

If Azim Bey had known that to the list of his employers M. Karalampi had lately added the name of the Um-ul-Pasha, he might have been suspicious, but he was so much relieved to find the conversation brought without his assistance to the very subject he wished to reach, that he answered politely at once that mademoiselle enjoyed the best of health.

“But the Bey Effendi will soon lose mademoiselle; is it not so?” was M. Karalampi’s next question.

“What do you mean, monsieur?” asked the boy, startled.

M. Karalampi shrugged his shoulders. “All the world says that she will marry at Christmas the surgeon of the English Consulate,” he said.