The Sacred River (29 page)

Jim Simpson began a lecture on the state of the Egyptian economy, on the twin evils of the greed of the pashas and the laziness of the fellaheen, their inbred unwillingness to pay their taxes unless persuaded to do so by a flogging. New pink skin was growing shinily on his nose and cheeks, where he’d been burned by the sun, and his wedding ring gleamed. Harriet felt a sudden pity for Effie Simpson, yoked to Jim for the rest of her life.

“I cannot agree with you, Mr. Simpson,” said Dr. Woolfe. “The cruelty of the Ottomans and the greed of our own financial institutions have much to answer for.”

“What greed?” said Jim Simpson.

“Where do you suppose the taxes go?” said Dr. Woolfe. “Straight to London and Paris. Peasant farmers will be in hock to your bankers for generations, for a canal that benefits them not at all. If they are revolting, we should not be surprised.”

The Fleury sisters stopped laughing. At the other end of the table, Eyre Soane snorted.

“You surprise me, Dr. Woolfe,” he said. “I understood from Miss Heron that your concern was only with the dead.”

“I am much concerned with the dead,” Dr. Woolfe said before Harriet had a chance to object. “That is correct.”

“Death and taxes,” said Jim Simpson. “They come to us all.”

A cut-glass dish of fruit salad—watermelon and pomegranate and mango—arrived at the table, borne by a waiter. Another man followed behind, carrying a tray of rice puddings. Monsieur Andreas entered the room and surveyed the table, hovering behind Louisa’s chair, rubbing his hands together.

“Do you require anything, madame?”

“Dinner was excellent, monsieur,” said Louisa. “You can do nothing more.”

“Madame is too kind.”

Mr. Soane rose to his feet. “This evening is dedicated to the fine art of painting. To paintings and painters, and their subjects. As you all know, I am painting a portrait of Miss Heron. Soon she will don the embellishments.” He lifted his glass. “Then the process can be completed.”

All but Louisa raised their glasses, and before long the ladies, at Mr. Simpson’s prompting, stood up to move into the sitting room for mocha coffee. At the far end of the table, Dr. Woolfe was on his feet. Harriet felt mortified. She hadn’t had a chance to speak with him all evening. She approached him, as he stood with Eyre Soane, wanting at least to say goodbye.

“Must you leave already, Dr. Woolfe?”

Eberhardt Woolfe looked at her, his green eyes honest and troubled.

“He must,” announced Eyre Soane. “He must return to his catacombs. But I have informed him that tomorrow, at least”—he slid his arm around Harriet’s waist—“I shall not allow you to join him.”

As Harriet shrugged off Eyre Soane’s arm, Dr. Woolfe turned abruptly and left the room.

Harriet returned to the table. Louisa was still sitting in her place, as if she had not heard Jim Simpson’s invitation to withdraw.

“Come, Mother,” she said, pulling out Louisa’s chair for her. “We are retiring to the sitting room.”

Louisa turned to her. Her face glistened, despite the breeze that moved through the dining room from the open French doors, carrying the scent of jasmine.

“I have failed you, Harriet. I should never have permitted this.” They left the dining room and Harriet took her arm.

“The dinner?”

Louisa shook her head. “No, Harriet. The painting.”

“I insisted on it, Mother. It wasn’t your doing.”

Louisa took hold of Harriet’s hand, squeezing her fingers through her evening glove. “We could leave tomorrow. The paddle steamer is due in, Monsieur Andreas told me. It’s only the mail boat but they take passengers and the journey downriver is faster. We could be back in Cairo in ten days. With Aunt Yael again, inside a fortnight.”

“It’s too late, Mother.”

“Too late?” Louisa’s voice was high and strained.

“You heard what he said. Mr. Soane has almost finished. Soon the sitting will be complete. I can’t leave now. Anyway, I don’t want to go. I feel well. I can live, here.”

Louisa dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief, then wiped underneath her eyes. She refolded the scrap of lawn and closed it up in her bag. “I only ever wanted what was best for you,” she said. “Please remember that of me.”

“What are you talking about, Mother?”

FORTY-SIX

The gazebo was a rustic affair, a flat roof of woven grass mats, topped with palm branches, supported on six round and sturdy palm trunks. Two sides were walled in with more woven grass panels and two were open, looking out onto a clump of palms in a secluded area of the rambling garden. Eyre Soane had selected the spot for its privacy.

Miss Heron was standing at the far end of the gazebo in the position in which he’d arranged her at the beginning of the sitting. He’d mimicked exactly the attitude in which Louisa had posed for Augustus—her body at an angle, her head half turned, the eyes looking directly at the viewer. The mouth unsmiling, lips parted.

The girl knew the pose well enough now for him not to have to adjust her body, the set of her head, but he began each day with the ritual anyway, calculating the effect his proximity had on her, beginning with her bare feet, kneeling at them, shifting their position in tiny movements that allowed him to rest their bare soles on the palm of his hand, moving up her body, adjusting the angle of her hips, her hand, touching her cheek, pressing her skin with his fingers. Her blush deepened as he arranged her limbs.

His sister, Julia, had telegraphed that she was arriving in Cairo shortly. He would leave the following day to go to meet her there. He was sick of Luxor, bored with the company of the Simpsons. The sight of Louisa’s pale, faded beauty was becoming intolerable. He must act, if he was ever going to. Carpe diem.

“Did you enjoy the evening, Miss Heron?” he said.

“I think so,” she said, her lips barely moving.

“It was for you.”

“I thought it was for art.”

He felt irritated, stippling his brush against the palette, mixing cadmium with carmine for the shade of her hair. Adding a squeeze of flake white for the highlights. Umber, for the shadows. Something outside caught his attention, from the corner of his eye. It looked like a glint of light on metal, some rapid movement, among the trees. He raised his eyes but saw nothing. It might have been one of the waiters, hurrying past with a tin tray.

Eyre looked again at the image on the canvas, the tall, slight figure with its half-turned head, half-lifted chin, one hand resting lightly on a chair. The hue of the blue robe was vibrant and the gleam of the ivory-white trim luminous. The face, curious and vulnerable, looked older than its years and yet innocent. Miss Heron’s countenance lit up with an unexpected vitality when she spoke of the things that concerned her.

He hadn’t been interested in painting this sickly English girl but had made himself undertake the work as if he were and now the portrait held a certain beauty. From where it came, he didn’t know.

Miss Heron was not as irredeemably plain as he’d believed on first seeing her. Either that or she was changed.

“What are you thinking of, Mr. Soane?” she said, startling him.

“Me? I am regretting that we are nearing the end of the sittings, Miss Heron.”

“Are we? Have you finished your work? You know I must get back to mine, on the west bank. I don’t want to miss the opening of the tomb.”

“Never mind that, Miss Heron. Today is the day.”

“Which day, Mr. Soane?”

“The day of the embellishments.”

He felt in his pocket for the heavy piece and lifted it in the air. It was a necklace, a round silver disk the size of a crown, chased all over in the Arabic script, the edges studded with flat-topped, raised beads. He’d acquired it in the bazaar for a few florins from a nomad woman. Beaten her down from her asking price until she’d passed it over, still warm from her own neck. Holding it before him on its silver chain, he walked toward her.

“I chose it to complement your complexion.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said. Her face began flushing but whether with pleasure or because she knew herself to be insulted, he could not be sure.

He held out the necklace. “May I?”

She nodded wordlessly. The skin on her cheeks, her neck, darkened as he moved behind her and lowered his arms over her head, placing the chain around her throat. Standing close to her, he laid the piece on her chest, his fingers grazing her skin.

Eyre found himself unable to use her first name. Often, he could not recall it. Then, when he remembered it, he couldn’t speak it. He swallowed and, when he spoke again, employed the same deep tone of scarcely controlled feeling.

“Hold up your hair.”

Her hands reached behind her head, lifted up the crinkled mass. The hair was a darker tone underneath, a deeper copper, the skin on the back of her neck milky white. The rounded shapes of the spine bones as she bowed her head reminded him suddenly of his sister’s neck.

Eyre felt no appetite for what was to follow, neither desire for her nor hatred. Only the enduring wish to hurt Louisa. Scruples were nothing but a nuisance. He would set them aside. Bending forward, he brushed the back of her neck with his lips. Her skin was cool and smelled of soap. He kissed her again, encircling her waist with his arm, pulling the slender body against his own.

“Stop, Mr. Soane, please.”

“Harriet. I cannot wait any longer. If you love me—”

“Love you?”

He pulled her around toward him and locked his eyes on hers. “I’ve dreamed of this moment.”

“What moment?”

Her voice was cool, more collected than he would have expected. She looked puzzled. Eyre drew her to him and again felt the rigidity in her body, the resistance. He lowered his mouth to hers and forced open her lips with his tongue, stifling the noise she made. Thrusting one hand inside the open neck of her gown, he felt her breast, her skin soft as water, and experienced a rush of sorrow at what and whom he had become.

Eyre Soane became aware of two things. The girl was struggling to get free. And there was a noise coming from outside. He raised his mouth from hers and looked past Harriet’s troubled gray eyes. Outside, framed by two palm trees, was Louisa. The sun was behind her; her shadow fell long and thin into the gazebo, her head at his feet. She wore the same dark evening dress as on the previous night and her hair was out of its coiled arrangement, fallen down on her shoulders.

For an instant, Eyre Soane saw again the girl Louisa had been, coal and milk, all black curls and white skin, half draped in red velvet. He heard her high, teasing laughter. His father’s groans as he rolled off her. Eyre had thought he was dying. He pictured his mother in the house, weeping.

Louisa had lifted one arm and was holding it out in front of her. She waved it at him and again Eyre saw the glint of sun on metal.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

The silver piece fell to the ground as Harriet wrenched herself away and turned to face the garden.

“Mother! What are you—”

Louisa waved the gun in the air. “Get away from her,” she said.

Eyre pushed Harriet out of the way. He was angry. How dare she threaten him. It was he, he would threaten her. Raising his hands in a mocking surrender, he walked out of the gazebo and into the sting of sun. A few yards from Louisa, he stopped. She looked deranged, her eyes staring and her mouth set. Even now, he could not help but notice the distinctive hairline that Augustus had represented so accurately. It reminded him of something or someone. He couldn’t think who. The gun was pointing straight at him.

“I will kill you,” she said, waving it in his direction.

“Kill me?” He took another pace toward her and stretched out his hand to relieve her of the pistol. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Louisa steadied the arm that held the gun. “One more step, Augustus, and I will shoot.”

Eyre Soane’s palms were sweating. He had a peculiar feeling of satisfaction at facing his foe at last, directly. For what she had done, he hated Louisa. Hated her in a way he’d never hated any other person. Except the unbidden, unwelcome, and unfamiliar thought came to him: one. There had been one other person whom he hated as much or more. The mocking face of his father rose in front of his eyes, as if Augustus were present in the parched garden, as if his feet again filled a pair of the leather boots, the smell of his paints hung heavy in the air.

“Go on,” Eyre said. “Go on, Gypsy. Shoot him.”

The sound seemed to shatter everything—the morning, the ground under his feet, the clear blue sky that tumbled and spun as he fell. He heard the harsh cry of a peacock and had just time to think that he’d seen no peacocks here, before he felt a warm flood seeping into the sleeve of his shirt. The smell of oils had given way to an acrid stench of burning and a woman knelt by him on the grass, screaming for help.

He need pretend no longer. He turned his face from her, closed his eyes to block out a splintered sky.

“You mean nothing to me, Harriet. You never could.”

FORTY-SEVEN