The Bitter winds of Love Read online

  Lydia went in search of Ann and found her hanging over the rail on the windward side of the ship, deep in conversation with a tall good-looking man.

  As Lydia hesitated before approaching them, Ann turned and saw her.

  “Are you looking for me?” she called out.

  ”We shall be in, in a few minutes,” Lydia replied.

  There was a pause while she waited for Ann to effect an introduction. To her surprise, the girl moved towards her and, slipping her arm though hers, said,

  “Well, I will come and help you get the things ready,” then turning to her companion, she said, “we will see you on the train, will we?”

  “You most certainly will,” came the reply. “Until then, au revoir.”

  “How nice for you to find a friend,” Lydia said, when they were out of earshot. Who is he?”

  “I have not the slightest idea!” Ann replied.

  “Ann,” Lydia exclaimed in shocked tones. “You don’t mean to say that you have never met that man before!”

  “But of course not,” Ann said, “we just got into conversation or rather he spoke to me and I answered. After all, travelling is the one time one can legitimately ‘pick up’ strangers.”

  The girl was so calm and possessed that Lydia felt that her rather shocked feelings were absurd.

  “I am sure that your mother would not like it,” she managed to say at last rather feebly.

  “We shall have to ask her,” Ann replied cheerfully, “but I don’t suppose she will care. Everyone talks to anybody these days without waiting for formal introductions.”

  “I think it might be rather dangerous,” Lydia pointed out.

  Ann laughed.

  “Darling,” she said, “you are far too old-fashioned. You make a drama out of the most ordinary and commonplace things.”

  For a moment Lydia was silent. She could think of nothing else to say, although inwardly she accused herself of being a feeble and ineffective Guardian.

  When, however, they had boarded the train and were then joined in their coupé by the stranger, who asked very politely if he might have tea with them, she felt that she ought to have said more and not been so weak.

  Ann, she told herself, was an heiress, besides having a certain Social status and in her position as chaperone she had no right to let the child make chance acquaintances of this sort. At the same time it would have been impossible to stop Ann, short of making a scene and being painfully insulting to the young man.

  He seemed harmless enough. Dark and good-looking, he was going to Paris on business, although what that business was he did not specify.

  Anyway, he and Ann chatted away together on all subjects and he insisted on paying for all three teas when the meal was finished.

  For an hour or so Lydia let her fears be lulled by the knowledge that, after Paris, they would be free of him and there would be little likelihood of meeting him again.

  But shortly after this she heard he and Ann exchanging addresses and promising to write to each other.

  “You must tell me your first impressions of Cairo,” the stranger said. “It is years since I went there, but I enjoyed every moment of it.”

  “Why don’t you come out again?” Ann asked with a provocative glance of her blue eyes.

  “I shall give the suggestion my serious consideration,” he promised.

  It was not exactly what they said but the exchange of glances that expressed more than words.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Lydia thought miserably, ‘I ought to do something about this.’

  She wished with all her heart that Evelyn was with them.

  “Only another half an hour to Paris,” she said brightly. “Is your seat far away, Mr – ?” She hesitated and then added,

  “I am afraid I did not catch your name.”

  “My name is Henderson,” he said, “Angus Henderson. Perhaps I had better be going back to my seat, but I have a splendid idea, if only you would agree.”

  What is it?” Ann asked.

  “You will have two or three hours in Paris before you have to catch your sleeper at the Gare de Lyon. Will you come to the Ritz Hotel and have a Parisian cocktail with me?”

  “I am afraid we have already made arrangements,” Lydia said firmly before Ann could speak. “Thank you very much all the same.”

  “Nonsense,” Ann interrupted, “of course we have not, Lydia, and you well know it. We would love to come,” she said to Angus Henderson. “I think we shall have to take two taxis, because we have so much luggage, but we will meet you at the Ritz Bar as soon as we can.”

  “Then that’s arranged,” he said without looking at Lydia.

  When he left the coupé there was a little silence between the two women. At last Lydia broke it and chose her words with care.

  “I think you are making a mistake,” she said. “We don’t know anything about this young man and we have no right to accept his hospitality.”

  “If we had met him at a private dance,” Ann said, “and so been introduced casually, you would not make the slightest fuss and we should know just as little about him.”

  “Nevertheless,” Lydia said, “I don’t think it is right.”

  “Very well,” Ann answered, “I shall go and have a drink with him and you need not.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Lydia said sharply, “you know I could not let you go alone.”

  “Then we will go together,” Ann said firmly, “and enjoy ourselves, so don’t be a spoil sport.”

  ‘I wonder what I ought to do,’ Lydia thought to herself as they drove to the Ritz Bar.

  She felt she could not cope with Ann in this mood or indeed with the situation, which was one she had never anticipated. She felt that it was ridiculous for her to be opposed in this way by a girl of eighteen.

  When they arrived at the Ritz Hotel, they easily found Angus Henderson waiting there for them, accompanied by another man whom he introduced as Major Harold Taylor.

  “I have just met Harry by chance,” he said, “and where do you think he is off to? Cairo. He is travelling on your train tonight.”

  “How lovely,” Ann said and she shot a mischievous glance at Lydia to see how she liked the idea.

  By this time Lydia had decided to let Ann have her head and she smiled sweetly both at Angus Henderson and his friend and accepted a champagne cocktail.

  Major Taylor was older than Angus and had that hard wiry look of a man who has spent a great many years in the tropics.

  He had a quiet voice and a dry sense of humour, which made Lydia laugh two or three times and she found herself liking him and being quite glad that there was a likelihood of their seeing a great deal more of him.

  Ann and Angus Henderson were keeping up a flow of youthful badinage combined with a wordy flirtation that asked no help either from herself or Major Taylor, so that gradually they found themselves talking intimately together and Lydia confessed that this was her first trip abroad for many years.

  “Are you going to stay in Cairo long?” he asked.

  “It depends very much on Miss Taverel,” Lydia replied.

  “Taverel!” Major Taylor said, “I did not catch the name before. Is she any relation to Margaret Taverel, Gerald Carlton’s wife?”

  “Her daughter,” Lydia answered.

  “Good Heavens!” he expostulated, “Gerald’s stepdaughter. Well, I just would not have believed it. He will find – ”

  He stopped as if afraid that the remark he was about to make would be indiscreet.

  “You were going to say?” Lydia prompted in curiosity.

  “I was just surprised, that is all,” the Major evaded the question.

  He looked at Ann with a new interest.

  “Do you know Mr. and Mrs. Carlton well?” Lydia asked.

  “One cannot be long in Cairo without knowing Gerald,” was the reply and then Major Taylor added,

  “I cannot imagine you two as part of the household.”

  Why not?” Lydia asked sharply.

  She felt that while his words were innocent, he was in some way insinuating what would be best left unsaid.

  “What are you talking about?” Ann interrupted suddenly.

  “Major Taylor knows your mother and stepfather,” Lydia replied.

  “Oh, how exciting,” Ann said. “Tell me about them. They are absolute strangers to me, of course, as I expect Lydia has told you.”

  “Strangers to you!” Major Taylor echoed in bewilderment. He looked from Ann to Lydia and back again. “Well, I shall leave it to be a surprise.”

  “The house or my parents?” Ann asked, “Or both?”

  Major Taylor laughed.

  “I think I have chosen my words wrongly,” he said. “The person who is going to get the surprise in this case is Gerald. He has no idea, I am quite sure, that two such lovely creatures are en route.”

  Ann made a few more remarks and then turned her attention again to Angus Henderson, but Lydia stayed thoughtful.

  ‘What does all of this mean?’ she now asked herself. ‘What is there strange about Gerald Carlton?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Harold Taylor had led a strange life, which had accentuated the introspective urge in his character.

  As some women grow more beautiful as they grow older, so age to Harry Taylor brought a mellowness and a charm that he had never possessed in his youth.

  It was probable that within the next five years he would command his Regiment and in spite of the late development of his personality and his reserve, the younger Officers and the men, because they believed in him, welcomed the idea.

  Women had played a small part in his life. There had, of course, been many who would have liked to have aroused his interest. There had been bets in India as to who would be the firs
t to succeed, but all had failed.

  His reserve had enveloped him like armour and people failed to realise that beneath his apparent coldness there was the shyness of a small boy.

  As he became older, gradually his thoughts of women made him seek an ideal, a woman combining the virtues of the mother he had never known and the sensitive man’s dream of wifely tenderness.

  The night after he met Lydia he lay awake in the sleeper and, as the train jerked, banged and whistled its way on towards Marseilles, he thought of her and of the house that she was going to and he could not sleep.

  Lydia too lay sleepless. The communicating door between her compartment and Ann’s was open and she could see that the girl was fast asleep.

  “I can always sleep in a train,” Ann had assured her as they undressed.

  “You are lucky,” Lydia replied.

  “Perhaps it is an easy conscience,” Ann had laughed back.

  The words, recurring to Lydia as she lay awake, made her start to wonder about Ann’s conscience.

  ‘What did Ann really think about life, about herself, about this adventure that she had involved Lydia in and of meeting the mother she had not seen since she was a child?’

  Again she thought about Major Taylor and his surprise at the thought of the two of them joining the Carlton household.

  After a while she slept fitfully, waking every hour or so to find herself still being rattled through the darkness, the train was moving terrifyingly fast, continually drawing up in jerks as they neared a Station.

  Finally, she fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion and, when she opened her eyes, it was dawn.

  In another hour they would be in Marseilles. Ann was already awake, had drawn up the blind and was sitting on the end of her bed, looking out of the window with a warm dressing gown draped round her shoulders.

  She looked very young with her fair hair in a halo of curls round her head and Lydia, as she watched her, felt a kind of protective tenderness creep over her.

  She hoped that Ann would never have to suffer as she had done, never have her youth swept from her in agony and terror and realise, as the years passed by, that there was no way out to freedom.

  Ann turned her head and, seeing that Lydia was awake, smiled.

  “Have you slept well?” she asked.

  “Not a wink!” Lydia answered, “But then everybody says that in a train.”

  “It is bitterly cold,” Ann said, “and there is no sign of the sun.”

  “We shall find sunshine in Cairo,” Lydia replied reassuringly.

  “Cairo!” Ann echoed. “Yes, I suppose we shall. Do you know, Lydia, that I have always wanted to go to Egypt. I think I must have been an Egyptian in my last reincarnation.”

  Lydia laughed.

  “You certainly don’t look like one,” she remarked.

  “All the same,” Ann answered, “I feel an affinity with the country and with the people. I cannot explain it, but, when I arrive, I shall know that I have been there before.”

  “And if you feel that,” Lydia said, still laughing, “I am quite certain you will believe you have been a Pharaoh or a Queen. I have never met anyone yet who has remembered their previous incarnation as a charwoman or a poor peasant! They were always Kings and Queens or Rulers of the Earth.”

  “I think you are horrid,” Ann said, “and, if I recognise myself in one of the tombs, I will tell you.”

  “If you were one of the slaves who helped build the Pyramids,” Lydia answered, “you certainly did not have a tomb.”

  Ann refused to answer this last sally and started to dress.

  By the time they reached Marseilles, the pale sun was flooding the town, but there was a bitter wind, which made them glad that they had brought warm coats. Ann’s was of fur and, with a big collar pulled up round her neck, only the tip of her nose and her bright eyes could be seen.

  “How pretty she is,” Lydia thought for the thousandth time since they had started on the journey as she watched her charge down the Station to bid Major Taylor ‘good morning’.

  She watched his courteous reply and wondered if he would be Ann’s next victim. Almost in spite of herself she hoped not.

  ‘He is too nice,’ she thought, ‘and far too serious. He would never flirt and forget as Ann will.’

  None the less she did not believe that Ann’s smiles could be ignored.

  It was with surprise when they finally went aboard the ship that she found Major Taylor constantly at her side, bringing her books and papers and tucking a warm rug firmly round her as she sat on deck watching the coast slowly recede into the distance.

  He sat beside her in silence and she found his presence peaceful while she was curious as to the man himself and what he really thought about everything.

  Ann managed, before three days were passed, to scrape up an acquaintance with a great number of people both young and old.

  There was no one particularly interesting travelling, but Ann made the best of those there were and Lydia was sure that at least one young tea planter returning to Ceylon would have a broken heart.

  The ship was late in arriving at Port Said.

  By the time that Ann and Lydia finally came off it, had said ‘goodbye’ to the friends they had made on board and started in the train for Cairo, it was already early afternoon.

  It was nearly seven o’clock when they arrived at Cairo Station and here Ann and Lydia expected to be met by Gerald Carlton.

  As the train steamed into the Station, Ann hung out of the window ready to guess, in her own impetuous way, who among the people awaiting the passengers’ arrival would be her stepfather.

  “Do you think that is him?” she asked, pointing to a tall man with a small fair moustache and a somewhat Military bearing.

  Major Taylor looked in the direction that she was indicating.

  “No, that is not your stepfather,” he replied, “that is one of the aides-de- camp at the Embassy. A nice boy, you will doubtless meet him in a day or two. He is noted as the gayest young man in Cairo.”

  “Well, who is that then?” Ann asked him, pointing to someone else.

  Again she was disappointed and, when finally they had climbed out of the train, she and Lydia realised that there was no one to meet them, apparently not even a car.

  Major Taylor was obviously as surprised as they were, but he said nothing and merely offered to take them to the house in a taxi.

  Lydia agreed and she felt rather depressed and a little despondent at this cold welcome.

  It seemed strange when she and Ann had travelled so many thousands of miles to come here that Gerald Carlton could not even arrange to be at the Railway Station to greet them.

  Nevertheless she answered Ann’s complaints calmly and tried to make excuses, which even in her own ears rang false.

  It was exciting being in Cairo. Strange to see in the modern streets with its tramways and cars and an occasional camel ambling along carrying a heavy load on its back and led by a small turbaned boy walking barefoot on the tarmac roads.

  Women veiled in yashmaks were chatting to each other, shuffling along the pavements in heelless leather shoes.

  Lydia and Ann leant forward in the taxi, staring out of the windows, exclaiming to each other at the distant Minarets, the bullock-drawn carts and the gaily-coated dragomen.

  “It is much too modern really,” Ann said in disappointed tones. “Why, we might be in the suburbs of London or any Provincial town in England.”

  Major Taylor laughed.

  “Wait until you see the Muski, the native bazaar,” he then suggested. “You will find it Oriental enough there.”

  “I hope so,” Ann started to say, when, with an exclamation, she cried, “Look! The Nile.”

  They passed over a wide modern bridge that leads from the town into Gezira and below them the great river, shimmering in the sunlight, flowed between verdant green banks.

  “Here we are,” Major Taylor said as the taxi then turned in at a wide gate and drove up a short drive bordered with bushes and flowering trees and stopped at the front door of a large white house.

  There were a number of cars already parked in the drive and, after they had rung the bell, some moments elapsed before the door was opened by a white-garbed servant.

  “Goodbye,” Major Taylor said, holding out his hand.

  “But you must come in,” Ann cried.

  “I will not, if you don’t mind,” he replied, “I have a lot of people to see even before I begin my unpacking, so will you please make my apologies to your mother and say that I will call on her another day.”