The Magnificent Marquis Read online

  They were drinking their coffee when the Steward came back to say,

  “There’s a carriage outside, my Lord, and the man driving it says he expects you to travel with him back to his Master.”

  The Marquis frowned.

  “That would be a grave error.”

  “Yes, indeed it would,” Delia agreed quickly. “We would not be able to leave when we wished even though he would undoubtedly bring us straight back to the yacht.”

  The Marquis smiled.

  “And avoiding naturally, the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid!”

  “Oh, please,” she pleaded, “let’s say we will follow his carriage to where the Vizier lives.”

  “That is just what I am going to do,” the Marquis answered. “You have taken the words out of my mouth.”

  He was on the point of instructing the Steward to take this message when he intervened,

  “Excuse me, my Lord, but I do thinks it’ll be very difficult to make the man driving the carriage understand. He told me what to convey to you by waving his hands and pointing.”

  “I will go and tell him,” suggested Delia.

  She rose from the table.

  Almost before the Marquis was aware of what she was about to do, she was out on deck and running down the gangway.

  He followed her slowly, thinking that whatever else might happen she was still determined to continue with her sightseeing.

  At the same time he really enjoyed and appreciated her enthusiasm.

  She was so completely unlike all the other women who had travelled with him.

  They only wanted to go on shore to visit the shops and they usually found even the most famous sights a bore.

  Standing on deck he could see the carriage that had been sent for him – it was an open chaise, well built and drawn by two well bred horses.

  It was obvious that the Vizier could afford the best.

  He could see one man driving and another talking to Delia, both of them in some sort of livery.

  He had to admit that the carriage they had hired to visit the Khedive the previous afternoon was very shabby in comparison.

  Equally he instinctively knew that Delia was right, as if they once accepted the Vizier’s hospitality, they might be marooned in his Palace, or wherever he lived, for hours on end and unable to leave when they wanted.

  She was smiling as she came back up the gangway to where the Marquis was waiting for her.

  “I have told him that we will follow him because we have somewhere we must visit after we have seen the Vizier.”

  Delia sighed before she continued,

  “He was upset that we would not go in his carriage and did not trust our driver not to get lost in the crowded streets and miss the way.”

  “I know exactly what is worrying you,” smiled the Marquis. “You are afraid that darkness will fall before you have had time to talk to the Sphinx!”

  “Now you are reading my thoughts again!”

  “But you are quite right, Delia. Now please put on your hat, because you know women are not allowed to be uncovered in an Oriental City and I do promise I will try to cut short our conversation with this Vizier. I suspect, in fact, that you will be doing the talking more than I will!”

  “Then I will be sure to cut him short, my Lord. The Orientals make incredibly long speeches, especially when they are impressed by someone like you.”

  “Come back and finish your coffee, Delia. Quite frankly if I have to endure another endless half and half conversation with you translating, then I insist on having a liqueur before I leave!”

  “I do wish we did not have to go, but I suppose it would be rude not to. Also, as he obviously knows who you are, my Lord, he will undoubtedly have heard all about our visit to the Khedive yesterday afternoon.”

  The Marquis sat down and ordered himself a crème de menthe.

  “I have been told it is a mistake,” Delia remarked mischievously, “to drink alcohol when it is hot.”

  “If it was the summer heat, you would be right,” the Marquis replied, “but as it happens it is hardly any hotter today than it would be in England. Therefore I do intend to enjoy myself.”

  Delia put her elbows on the dining room table and rested her chin in her hands.

  “Are you really enjoying yourself, my Lord?” she asked him. “And would you be happier if I was not with you?”

  “I will answer your question entirely truthfully and you will have to believe me, Delia.”

  “Yes, of course – ”

  “Very well. I thought when I took you aboard that I should be bored stiff with having such a young girl with me. Instead of which I have quite frankly enjoyed every minute and I have been amazed at our conversations, which I would only have expected to have with a man of my own age or even a younger one brighter and wiser than me.”

  Delia put down her hands.

  “Thank you! Thank you my Lord, I was so afraid that I was being tiresome about seeing the sights, and that you were really anxious to return home as soon as possible.”

  “If I wanted to, I would have told you so. Actually I am in no hurry and there are lots of other places we might travel to besides Greece.”

  Delia’s eyes were shining.

  “Do you really mean it, my Lord? You are not just saying it to make me happy.”

  “I am saying it because it’s the truth,” the Marquis replied. “I find you, Delia, and again I am being truthful, one of the most interesting people I have ever met.”

  She glanced at the Marquis quizzically to see if he was laughing at her and then she said in a quiet little voice,

  “You have made me – very happy, my Lord.”

  “You must not worry too much about your future, Delia,. I have a distinct feeling that it will take care of itself. It is always a mistake to be in too much of a hurry in life.”

  His voice changed as he added,

  “Let’s wait and see what happens and maybe we will find a solution that is totally different from anything we can think of at this particular moment.”

  “What I would love to do more than anything,” she whispered, “is to go on exploring the world and talking to you about it all endlessly.”

  Then before the Marquis could reply, she put up her hands.

  “Don’t say anything, I know I should not have said it. It was greedy and presumptuous of me, but it just came out before I could stop it!”

  The Marquis chuckled.

  “I think that we are both being too serious, which is quite unnecessary at the moment. You are safe from your father at present and I am finding you just the interpreter I wanted. Undoubtedly I shall need one this afternoon.”

  “I think you are marvellous,” Delia sighed. “Now I am going to put on my hat and make myself look like a respectable woman.”

  She rose from the table and without waiting for the Marquis to open the door, she let herself out of the Saloon.

  He was smiling as he finished his liqueur.

  In her cabin Delia brushed her hair and tidied it and then she picked up the hat she had thrown down on the bed after she had returned this morning from their drive.

  She had hoped that this afternoon she would be able to go bareheaded to the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

  But she was only too well aware that any important Egyptian would think it a gross insult if her head was uncovered in his presence.

  Fortunately her hat that matched the dress was most attractive and, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she decided that she looked pretty but very young – not a day older than fifteen.

  She had a sudden impulse to put up her hair and be her age.

  She was, however, certain the Marquis was used to thinking that she was still a child.

  She wanted him to think about her, apart from her brain, as being grown-up.

  Then she told herself she was asking too much.

  She had been so lucky in finding someone as kind and considerate as the Marquis.

  He had saved
her from being beaten until she was unconscious and married to the horrible Comte her father had chosen for her.

  ‘I am lucky, so incredibly lucky,’ she murmured to herself.

  Then she asked herself why she was thinking about all this at this particular moment.

  She had been feeling most unselfconscious in the last few days.

  It had been a joy yesterday to be able to translate what the Khedive had said.

  ‘The Marquis is really finding me useful,’ she told herself. ‘So I hope he will be in no hurry to get rid of me.’

  At the same time they would have to return home to England sooner or later.

  Then would come the terrifying question of where she would go and where she could hide.

  ‘I will not think about this dreadful problem now,’ she told her reflection in the mirror firmly.

  Yet she knew, however hard she tried to eliminate it, that it was always there at the back of her mind.

  It was like a dark cloud waiting to enfold her.

  She turned away from the mirror and collected her gloves, which she had also thrown on the bed.

  If she was herself and not disguised as a young girl, she would have taken a handbag, but as she had no money it was unnecessary.

  Anyway at fifteen a girl did not require the aids to beauty that were permitted for debutantes.

  When she went up the companionway towards the Saloon, the Marquis commented,

  “You have been titivating for a long time. Come on, let’s get this tiresome visit over with and then we can enjoy ourselves.”

  Delia smiled at him.

  “I am praying it will not take too long, my Lord.”

  “I will add my prayers to yours as well, Delia, and they should be doubly effective!”

  They walked down the gangway.

  Despite low bows from the Vizier’s servants, they climbed into the carriage they had ordered for themselves.

  The horses moved off.

  The Marquis made himself comfortable by putting his feet on the seat opposite.

  “I only hope the Vizier does not live far outside the City,” he remarked. “Maybe you should have asked where we are going.”

  “I did not think of it at the time, my Lord, and now it is too late.”

  “I have always thought those are particularly dismal words,” the Marquis muttered. “We may have to prepare ourselves for an hour’s journey – ”

  “Oh, I do hope not, my Lord.”

  They travelled for a while in silence and then Delia suddenly remarked,

  “I have a feeling this interview or whatever it is, is going to be a dangerous one.”

  “Why do you say that, Delia?”

  “I don’t know, but I feel it somehow. The warning, if that is what it is, is coming to me from the carriage in front of us.”

  “I think you are just telling yourself a fairy tale. As you heard yesterday, the Khedive is wooing Europeans and is most anxious to befriend us. You told me he offered to arrange for us any entertainment we desired while we were in Cairo and has also invited us personally to the Opening of the Suez Canal.”

  “Naturally he wants you to be there, my Lord. The more aristocratic English he can attract, the more it will delight him and I should imagine that it will also delight the Prime Minister as well.”

  “I will be very glad when the Canal is finished, but I have no wish to be a guest at the Opening. I can imagine only too well what it will be like and quite frankly I find all that kind of celebration and speech-making a dreadful bore.”

  “I guessed you would say that,” Delia smiled.

  The Marquis turned his head and saw that she was staring nervously at the carriage in front of them.

  She put out her hand and laid it on his arm.

  “I am frightened,” she murmured. “I don’t really know why, but I am.”

  “There is no need to be frightened, Delia, I promise you this Egyptian is not going to hurt us. Why should he? If he opposes the policy of the Khedive, I am quite certain by this time he would have been sacked or pushed aside. The Egyptians are never very kind to their enemies.”

  “Therefore it must be silly of me,” Delia said after a moment’s pause, “but I am using my Third Eye and I know something is very wrong.”

  “Very well, shall I order the men to turn and drive back?”

  “No, of course not. I am just being over-sensitive. Why should I be scared of anything when I am with you?”

  “Without being conceited, Delia, I did save a lot of lives when I was in India simply because I knew with what you call my Third Eye that something dangerous was going to happen.”

  Delia made a little murmur, but before she could speak, the Marquis finished,

  “At the moment I don’t feel as I felt then, so I can assure you that your fears are quite unnecessary.”

  “And I am with you, my Lord, and that is really all that matters.”

  The Marquis did not answer her, but he thought she was being more imaginative than usual and put it down to the immense cultural differences.

  In the past there had been so much bloodshed and trouble in Cairo and the atmosphere was so very different from an ordinary English City.

  They drove on and on until they passed through the City and into the Southern suburbs.

  It was then, as the Marquis was beginning to worry in case they still had a long way to go, they came to some large gates.

  They were the entrance to a most imposing house.

  “We have arrived,” he said to Delia, “and I am very grateful to find that we have no further to go.”

  “I am pleased too,” she agreed, “and if this is his Palace, it is certainly a very attractive one.”

  The gardens were a mass of flowers and the trees were in blossom and in the far distance, shimmering in the heat haze, they could see the Pyramids.

  Two men wearing a kind of uniform opened the gates.

  As they drove up to the front door of the house, the Marquis noticed that it was even larger than he had thought when he first saw it.

  Judging by the mob of servants who hurried down the steps as the carriages ground to a standstill, no expense was clearly spared in keeping up appearances.

  Delia climbed out first and then stood back to allow the Marquis to precede her.

  A senior servant, obviously a major-domo arrayed in even more impressive livery, bowed politely.

  In broken French he asked them to follow him.

  He led them through a number of different rooms, each one more elaborately furnished in the Oriental style than the last.

  There was no touch of European influence here, as there had been in the Khedive’s Palace.

  Finally they came to a room where there were no sofas or armchairs – only stools with a cushion that were always provided for those who ate in an Oriental house.

  There was fruit and large bowls of sweetmeats on the tables.

  The major-domo then invited them to sit down and be served.

  The Marquis glanced at Delia and she said to him in Arabic,

  “It is most gracious of His Excellency to offer us food. But you will understand we only finished luncheon recently and are therefore not hungry.”

  Even as she spoke servants came hurrying into the room with coffee, poured it out and set the cups in front of them.

  “His Excellency invites you to eat and drink with him as a gesture of his friendship before he receives you,” the major-domo intoned in Arabic.

  Then, bowing almost to the ground, he moved out of the room.

  “This is most unusual,” the Marquis hissed in a low voice.

  “I think it would be a mistake to drink the coffee, in fact I know it would be,” Delia whispered back.

  The Marquis looked at her in surprise.

  “Are you suggesting it is drugged?”

  “I don’t know. I only have this distinct feeling that something is very wrong and I know that we should not be here.”

  “Very we
ll, Delia, I naturally respect your instinct and anyway I dislike Egyptian coffee. It is too heavy and too sweet.”

  “I wonder how long they will give us to drink it.”

  “Maybe we will have to wait until we have finished it,” the Marquis suggested teasingly.

  “I would pour it on the floor, my Lord, if I did not think we were being watched!”

  “I am certain you are right there, Delia, it would be best not to make a mess.”

  “I will tell you what we should do, my Lord. Stir the coffee and then put a spoonful or two into the saucer. They will think you have drunk some of it at any rate.”

  The Marquis considered that she was being almost hysterical, but he had no wish to argue with her.

  He therefore did as she suggested. And she did too.

  It certainly reduced the amount in the cups, but it was, however, obvious to anyone looking closely that there was a great deal of coffee in the saucers.

  “I just don’t know why,” Delia muttered nervously, “but I feel as if the walls are closing in on us.”

  “I don’t know what has come over you, Delia. You were perfectly happy yesterday and you did not have this strange feeling when we went to visit the Khedive.”

  “Yes, I know. But all the way here I felt something was wrong and something very unpleasant lay ahead. Now we are here, the feeling is even more intense than it was before.”

  “What I ought to have said to you a long time ago, Delia, is that you must not let these psychic feelings get too strong a hold of you. I have often thought in the past that people who indulge in fortune-telling and the occult often become weird themselves, simply because they are playing about with the unknown.”

  “I understand what you are saying to me, my Lord, but I cannot control my feelings.”

  She gave a deep sigh and then continued,

  “Just as I knew when I was running away from my Papa and climbed into the box at the back of your chaise that you would help me – and that it was the right thing to do, even though Papa would be furious with me.”

  “I am sure, but at the same time, as I have already said, it is a mistake to let anything get hold of you. I have met a few people on my travels who have been psychic or who have dedicated themselves to becoming Holy men.

  “For them, life is completely different from ours. In fact they seem to exist on another planet and, to put it simply, are rather mad!”