Lady Haigh was very mysterious that evening. She would not let Cecil go to dress for dinner until she herself could come too, and then she accompanied her to her room, where they found the two maids, Um Yusuf and Marta, gazing in speechless admiration at the contents of a great box they had just unpacked. With tender care they had laid on the bed a beautiful evening dress of soft, clinging white stuff, with borders of golden embroidery in a classic pattern, and now they were gently handling a white and gold cloak to match, and a fan of white feathers with a golden mount.
“My Christmas present to you, dear,” said Lady Haigh, kissing Cecil. “I flatter myself I know what suits you, and I see my London dressmaker has carried out my directions exactly. Let me see how you look in it.”
“O, Lady Haigh, you are too good!” gasped Cecil, fingering the delicate fabric with intense delight.
“Nonsense, Cecil! Do you think I didn’t know that you decided not to order out a new evening dress from home, because you wanted to send Fitz the money to get a camera with? I’m glad you like it, dear. If you are so very pleased, show it by looking nice in the dress, and by being kind to poor Charlie.”
The last sentence was in a lower tone, but Cecil shook with mirth; the idea of being bribed with a new dress to be kind to Charlie seemed so ridiculous. The thought suddenly came to her of the uncontrollable delight with which her little Irish stepmother would have viewed the whole scene, more especially the part which concerned the unexpected rewarding of her kindness to Fitz, and it was with difficulty that she restrained herself from bursting into a peal of laughter. It did not take long to array her in the wonderful white-and-gold dress, and even the sedate Um Yusuf, as she clasped the folds upon the shoulder with Azim Bey’s brooch as a finish, was moved into uttering words of admiration. Lady Haigh and Marta were no whit behind in their praise, and Cecil herself, on looking into the glass, felt that she could scarcely recognise the gorgeous vision there reflected.
Lady Haigh was also arrayed suitably to the greatness of the occasion, and she and Cecil now donned their cloaks in preparation for crossing the court, and rustled down to the great drawing-room, where Sir Dugald was waiting with a long-suffering expression, his subordinates hovering in the background and looking depressed. Lady Haigh cast a last glance around to see that all was right, and then, satisfied that the great room, with its fretted ceiling and walls inlaid with mirrors set in beautiful mosaic of many-coloured marbles and gilded arabesque work, was looking its best, took her place beside Sir Dugald with a sigh of complacency. The guests soon began to arrive in their most imposing attire, and the assembly became a miniature court. It was not so difficult as usual, Cecil thought, to realise that one was in the city of the Khalifs, now that the splendours of the place were properly revealed by the aid of many wax-lights, and the rooms, at other times empty and silent, were gay with bright costumes and gorgeous Eastern draperies. But when the move into the dining-room was made, the illusion was spoilt, for all was Anglo-Indian, and the punkah, useless to-night, and the silent Hindu servants, though they might at first seem to give an air of oriental stateliness to the proceedings, were after all as alien to the old Baghdad as to older Babylon. Cecil felt honestly grieved by the innovations years had brought, and she had ample time to lament over them, for her neighbour at the table was a stout and bald-headed elderly merchant, who devoted himself to curry and other red-hot compounds with a singleness of purpose which left him no opportunity for conversation. Opposite to her Charlie was doing the agreeable to the wife of the American Consul, a faded but still vivacious lady, who was talking shrilly of Boston. The few Americans in Baghdad had united with their English kinsfolk to-night in celebrating the old home festival, and the English would fraternise with them in like manner when Thanksgiving Day came round.
The meal was a long one, for all the usual Christmas fare was de rigueur, as were the orthodox Christmas customs, while there were a number of toasts to be drunk at the close; but it was over at last, and the gentlemen were not long in following the ladies into the drawing-room. A number of other people who had only been invited to the reception after the dinner-party now came dropping in, and Cecil found herself seized upon by her friend Mrs Hagopidan, the lady in whose defence she had broken a lance with Charlie not long after her arrival in Baghdad. Myrta Hagopidan was a lively little person, an Armenian by race, a native of British India by birth, and an Englishwoman by aspiration. As schoolgirls she and Cecil had adored the same governess, the lady who had been Cecil’s form-mistress at the South Central having gone to India to take charge of the Poonah High School, as has been already mentioned, and this bond of union drew them very close together, although Mrs Hagopidan was pleased to affect the ultra-smart in dress and conversation, and had a weakness for talking about her “frocks,” for which, by the way, Worth was sometimes responsible. She came rustling up now in a magnificent and utterly indescribable costume of various shimmering hues, and demanded that Cecil should take her up to the roof to see the view.
“I’ve never seen the city by moonlight from here,” she said, “and Captain Rossiter has been telling me that it’s quite too awfully sweet. Take me up to the best place, for I daren’t go roaming about Sir Dugald’s house alone without his leave, and I’m much too frightened to ask for it. Put on a shawl or coat or something, for it’s quite chilly.”
And linking her arm in Cecil’s, Mrs Hagopidan drew her into the cloakroom, whence she extracted a wonderful little wrap of her own, all iridescent brocade and ostrich feathers, and then waited while Cecil hunted for her white-and-gold cloak. Her little dark face looked so mischievous and arch and winning, framed in the folds of her hood, that Cecil kissed her there and then, at which Mrs Hagopidan laughed until all her ostrich-feathers nodded wildly.
“Don’t!” she cried, pushing Cecil away. “I don’t want to make any one jealous; I’m simply an amiable and kind-hearted friend. There! that’s your cloak, isn’t it? Put it on and come along.”