Egyptian bonds: A Novel

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Chapter I

E are at Philse again, now. , . . The beauty of the place has bewitched us, and we linger on day after day.

. I think in our hearts we all rather dread the stir and bustle of Luxor, and the many questions and exclamations and expressions of sympathy that we shall receive on returning there.

A death 'on the Nile' is sufficiently VOL. II. 19

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:rare to excite more than a nine days* wonder in this dreamy monotonous river life, where every one seems posted up in the smallest details of his neighbours business, north and south.

And then every stone about Luxor and Karnak is so full of memories of our poor little friend and her fatal energy. So we linger on as I have said, letting the peaceful beauty of Philse sink deep into our hearts.

The only inducement to hurry on to Luxor has been removed by the consul's kind forethought. He has sent our letters as far as Assouan by one of the steamers, and we find that it will be our best plan to make up our English mail and despatch it direct to Cairo by the Mehallah on her return voyage.

So we have long, lazy days amongst the Philae ruins, climbing the pylons every evening to see Oscar's * faithful lover * bid

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his mistress good-night across the changeful river.

O' Grady has inspired Rachel with his art enthusiasm, and a great deal of sketching and painting go on. Fred is generally with them, reading whilst they work.

His voice is clear and pleasant enough, but totally lacking in the sympathetic * ring ' that vibrates through Oscar's when his emotional nature is stirred.

One afternoon we are seated, as usual, in the inner court of the big temple. Elsa and the Squire have brought their letters here to write.

Oscar and Rachel have developed a sudden craze for hieroglyphics, and are copying long lines of them from the sculptured walls, whilst Fred, as usual, is offering to read aloud.

Ebers' ' Egyptian Princess ' is lying just under his hand, but in an evil moment he takes up the * Portuguese Sonnets ' and

19 — 2

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reads on through their glowing passion and touching beauty and tender despair, in a voice not entirely unappreciative, but calm, quiet, self-contained.

Oscar looks up at last, fidgety and impatient, as though some false note were jarring on his sensitive nerves. Rachel lifts her head at the same moment, and their eyes meet in one short glance of sympathy.

Then O' Grady says lightly :

' Won't you give us a little more of the ** Egyptian Princess," Bathurst ? I think she would suit our present prosaic pursuits better than Mrs. Browning.'

Fred answers rather dryly, ignoring Oscar and turning round to Rachel — some strange instinct of love tells him where he has failed :

* Of course, I will read anything you like, Rachel. I will leave the poetry, in future, to be interpreted to you through O' Grady. I don't profess to be able to

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work up emotion to order, nor would I if I could. No, not even to please you, dear ! That sort of thing always strikes me as so unreal. Of course, with an actor it is different, it is his trade ; but for other people I think it is very weakening, almost untruthful, to waste emotional power in that way.' . Rachel looks up indignantly.

* My dear Fred ! how can you talk in such a cold-blooded manner ? How can you reason and argue beforehand as to how much feeling you shall allow yourself on given matters ?'

* Rushing at your own conclusions, Rachel, as usual,' answers Fred, with a smile. ' Of course I am not referring to realities, but fiction'; and I do think there is something unmanly in such displays of feeling for entirely unreal suffering. Emotional power of that sort does hot seem to me grand or desirable in any way. In fact I should call it almost disreputable J

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Elsa joins in the discussion now for the first time.

'Surely, Fred, that is a little hard. It seems to me that no worthy emotion — from whatever source it springs— can be called " disreputable," unless it fails as a motive-power when the time for action comes. Then^ of course, indulging in beautiful emotions is simply " drawing cheques " on our higher nature that we know will be dishonoured when they are presented.*

My wife's quiet good sense seems to have reached the true root of the matter.

Fred looks up eagerly :

* That is just what I mean, Mrs. Verschoyle. A man will weep over a touching bit of poetry, and then turn away from a real grief because it has disagreeable or prosaic surroundings.'

*Yes, Bathurst, but your matter-of-fact man is just as likely to do that, remember. It is such a mistake to imagine that a keen

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sense of beauty hardens the heart If you are hitting at me, old fellow, you don't know how much worse I should be without my emotional moments. — Besides,' adds Oscar, after a pause, * when a man has the real soul of an artist, he must respond to every touch of beauty and joy and sadness about him. You might as well quarrel with a harp for vibrating when its strings are touched! And as for your idea that nobody should be affected except through the realities of life, why, my dear fellow, it's simply absurd I

*We may as well give up painting pictures and composing sonatas at once. What do they do but appeal to the emotional side of a man's nature } the '* unreal " side, as you would call it ! Have you never heard of cases where a noble picture or a glorious song has nerved a man to heroism when the chance came ?

' Do you think, if he had shut his eyes and ears and ** saved up" his emotions, as you recommend, that he would have been more fit for the crisis when the time for action came ?'

Fred looks rather aggrieved. * You have utterly wandered from my point, O' Grady ; I still think as I did upon that, although I cannot uphold my opinions or explain my exact meaning so fluently as you can.*

* I believe the fact is, we all mean the same thing at heart,' says Rachel, * only we see different sides of the same truth ; very few people can see two sides equally well.*

* It would be a sort of mental squinting if they could. Miss Poynter ; as unnatural to our present constitution of mind, I suppose^ as the physical affection is to the body.*

' Well, then, we must be content to use our neighbours* eyes occasionally, and take things now and then on trust,' answers Elsa, adding, witb a laugh, * I won't ask

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you to take this statement on trust, but look at my watch ! It is six o'clock, and we have lost our sunset after all/

* Well, don't let us lose our dinner^ anyway,' says the practical Squire ; * ten to one those lazy fellows in the boat are lounging about somewhere, and it will take another twenty minutes to find them. I wish we had brought Ibrahim with us to look after them/

At length we tear ourselves away from our * Enchanted Island * and face the Cataract again.

The descent is a far simpler and speedier affair than coming through it at first had been, and when we lie once more moored under the bank at Luxor, the last few weeks seem like a painful dream ; everything looks so exactly the same.

Only deep in our hearts lies the memory of that lonely Nubian grave.

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Fresh Dahabeeahs have come up the river and He at intervals along the banks, whilst a big 'Cook's steamer/ full of English and American travellers, blocks us in on one side with her unwieldy bulwarks.

' What a bore those steamers are,* says Rachel, impatiently, as the 'confusion of tongues ' and sounding laughter are borne towards us, little thinking how useful the despised steamer will soon turn out to be.

Oscar comes up to Rachel on deck.

'What have you done with Bathurst, Miss Poynter } I wanted him to go out with me for an hour before dinner.'

' He has gone off to the post-office, Mr. O' Grady, to see after all our letters ; don't you expect any } We are all so excited, and you take things so quietly.'

' Oh yes, I dare say I shall have a few,' answers Oscar, with rather a conscious smile. ' That is a nuisance one cannot escape from, even up the Nile.'

EGYPTIAN BONDS. ii

^Nuisance! how ungrateful you are! Letters are one of my greatest pleasures. I can understand now all one hears of the arrival of the ** Indian Post," and the despair that an empty "mail-day" brings/

'And do you find that your English friends stand the crucial test of a 2\d. postage ?* laughs Oscar.

* Yes, very fairly ; but it is tiresome getting so many at the same time, and then perhaps a fortnight's silence. One hardly knows where to begin to read.'

' I have one safe rule. Miss Poynter ; anything in a lady's handwriting is sure to keep, so I put it aside till the last — a sort of intellectual dessert, you know. French plums and bon-bons, to be eaten when the more substantial dishes have been discussed.'

' I wish your lady friends could hear you, Mr. O' Grady. You would not be troubled with many more " French plums," as you call them, I should think. Is your female correspondence so very large ?'

* Quite gigantic,' laughs Oscar, impervious to the intended sarcasm.

' It was great fun last Christmas, Miss Poynter. I had twenty Christmas cards from different fair friends one morning! To tell the truth, I had forgotten all about Christmas cards myself; I had been away **in the west" shooting, and came back to find this pile ; so I just changed all the cards — sent No. i to No. 2, No. 2 to No. 3, and so on to the end of my score. Capital idea — was it not ? Gave no trouble, and answered the purpose just as well.*

Rachel looks half-amused, half-indignant, but has no time to answer, for Fred steps on board at this moment, and we all rush up to him in eager expectation.

At least a dozen letters fall to Oscar's share, most of which he stuffs carelessly away in his pockets — the neat handwritings and coloured envelopes show that his words were at least no idle boast, however conceited they might sounjd. But Oscar's conceit somehow is so entirely open and unaffected that it disarms any very severe criticism.

We all come in for our share of the correspondence, and I am buried deep in home-news and domestic details, when Fred looks up with a little cry of dismay.

* What is the matter, old fellow? anything wrong ?* says Oscar, with ready sympathy.

* Not exactly wrong, but it is a great nuisance. I ought to be in Cairo at this moment. There is some hitch about a Power of Attorney I left with the lawyers at home, and those leases in St. Paul's Churchyard you know, Verschoyle, have fallen in. My mother and sisters have claims upon the property, and it has increased enormously in value the last twenty years.

* It must be re-let at once, and a proper valuation made of course of its present price in the market, or they will be losing* income all this time. I can't make out what the hitch is exactly — one of poor old Bloxam's mare's-nests, probably ! Still, it won't do to run any risks. I ought to be in Cairo to see what the next^ail brings.'

* Most annoying for you, Fred,' says Elsa, sympathetically ; ' but really you can do nothing at present. Of course we can start the first thing to-morrow, and make for Assioot as quickly as possible ; there you can take the train straight on to Cairo. That will be a saving of a day or two ; stfll there must be delay in any case. Perhaps the next mail will bring quite a satisfactory letter from Mr. Bloxam.*

* Thank you, Mrs. Verschoyle ; you always see the bright side of things. It zs annoying, and the worst part of the annoyance is that I shall spoil your pleasure so completely by hurrying you away from Luxor. There seems a fate against our staying here. I wonder how soon we can possibly reach Assioot ?*

Rachel has been standing by, full of genuine sorrow for Fred s perplexities. As she turns towards him now, a sudden thought strikes her. How stupid we have all been not to think of it before !

'Why, Fred, of course you should go by the steamer! She is returning to Cairo, and only stopping here one night for some slight repair, Ibrahim was saying just now. This is Thursday evening ; she is to be off at daybreak to-morrow, and in Cairo by mid-day on Monday. Nothing can take you so quickly as that.*

' Capital, Miss Poynter ! You have more presence of mind than any of us. Don't you worry yourself, Bathurst ; of course you have heaps to do — packing and so forth. I will go across at once and see if there is a vacant cabin, and find out all about her sailing, and when you must go on board.*

Oscar speaks from the purest good-nature, but Fred looks up a little hurt. There cannot be two opinions as to its being the best possible course, but it will involve a sudden parting, very bitter to the poor fellow's faithful heart. Even then it struck me as an odd coincidence that Rachel's voice should have been the first to send him from us.

* Thanks, O'Grady ! that will be very good of you. You are all in a great hurry to pack me off, though. It is a case of '* speeding the parting guest" with a vengeance !* and poor Fred gives rather a sad laugh at his own joke.

Rachel looks up quickly.

* Oh, Fred, how can you be so unkind ! I think it is horrible to divide our party in this way. You know we shall all miss you. But surely, if the thing must be, it is better to face it, and arrange it all as comfortably as one can ?'

*0f course, dear. You are quite right. I am a cross old bear, I know ; but it*s hard work saying "Good-bye," Rachel, and so suddenly, too \

*****

Oscar is already on board the steamer, making inquiries. Elsa and I go off quietly to our cabin, leaving * the lovers * to themselves for a bit.

We all meet at dinner, and Oscar has brought back his news. The Bekerah sails at 5 A.M. next morning. He has secured a cabin for Fred, roomy and comfortable ; but the latter must be on board by ten o'clock this evening to take possession.

Oscar keeps up all our spirits, but dinner is rather a sad meal nevertheless. There will be a second vacant seat now, and Rachel is unusually quiet and depressed.

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As the evening passes on, she becomes so evidently distraite and unhappy, that even Oscar gives up the attempt to amuse her ; and Fred, who is wretched enough, rouses himself to try and comfort her.

* My dear Rachel, don't look so intensely gloomy,' says Elsa, cheerfully. * We shall all miss dear old Fred, but I quite expect to find him waiting to welcome us at " the Nil" on our return, and then we can compare notes of our experiences from to-night.'

* I do so hate breaking up a party, Elsa. Somehow people never seem to meet again quite in the same way. And we have been very happy, in spite of our one great sadness.'

'And we shall all be very happy together again in another two or three weeks, Rachel. See if I am not a true prophet f We will have some real ** champagne du Nil " then to commemorate our meeting.

Now, Fred, I think we must be making a start ;' and I put my hand cheerily on his shoulder.

I follow him into his cabin to see that all is ready. The portmanteau lies open, but ready packed. His Bible and O* Grady s hasty sketch of Rachel have a special corner to themselves on the top.

* All in, Fred .> Shall I strap it down r

' Yes, please, Charlie ! Just wait one moment ;* and he takes some faded bean blossoms out of a glass by the bedside, and dries the stalks hastily, then places them carefully inside his Bible. ' Rachel gave them to me,* he says simply, in answer to my look of surprise. ' My poor little girl ! I don't need them to remind me of her, but I could not leave them here to be thrown away like common flowers that she had never touched.*

The words send a thrill of positive pain through me. My heart aches for the loyal^

20 — 2 faithful love that adores so simply, and, as far as any worthy return goes, so hopelessly !

It is not RacheVs fault, nor anybody's fault. The girl has depth and passion enough in her nature, God knows! only through some inexorable law of * moral chemistry' the two natures can no more merge into each other and amalgamate than oil can mix with water. I am beginning to see it now, and the sudden light saddens and perplexes me. • But there is no time to think it over. Ibrahim is calling to us that the steamer's lights will be out if we do not come at once. And so we all go off in a body to see the last of Fred.

The steamer seems very noisy and rather dirty after our luxurious boat. The saloon is 'full of English and Americans, reading, playing draughts and chess, or writing home letters and 'journals.' A long row of empty cups and saucers remain from the evening tea. Two pretty girls are dividing the attentions of a very young ' Oxonian/ whose sallies of wit are hailed by shouts of laughter. A stern old lady frowns disapproval from the pages of her journal ; whilst a middle-aged gentleman, long past the halcyon days of mild flirtation, looks up impatiently at them from his Weekly Times.

It is all very hot and noisy and un-

freundlich, as the Germans would say ; so

we get out of the saloon with a feeling of

relief, and make our way to the deserted

hurricane-deck.

Oscar's tact never deserts him. The Squire has said a kind * Good-bye/ and gone home ; and 0*Grady follows his example, leaving us, a melancholy quartette, to our last words.

' Rachel darling, you will write to me from Assioot ? Could you not write a

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sort of journal-letter — just a little bit every day, even a few words — and then send it off as soon as you arrive ? I shall be thinking of you all day long. I hope you will be very happy, dear. Charlie and Elsa will take every possible care of you, I know ; and you and O^Grady get on so well together now ! He will always be ^t hand to amuse and interest you — far better than your stupid old lover could ever do. But no one will ever love you so well, my darling. Remember that.*

Rachel clings to him for a mbment in a sort of despairing abandonment of grief.

How little I guessed how deeply the girl's 'heart had been touched by that faithful love ! Such gratitude may be the salvation of them both, after all.

* Don't go, Fred ! Come back with us. Don't leave me. I cannot bear it! Charlie says he is sure you will be at Cairo when we return. It is such a little risk !

Why not run it — just for this once ? Don't go away, Fred ! stay with me.*

A deep joy thrills through Fred*s voice, and makes his words unsteady as he answers her, tenderly removing her hands from his arm :

* God bless you, my darling ! I don*t deserve it. But I must go, Rachel. If only my interests were at stake, you know how gladly I would throw everything to the winds for the happiness of staying with you ! But think of my mother and sisters, darling ! Suppose they should suffer through my carelessness ! You remember the glorious old song of Montrose :

* " I could not love thee, dear, so well. Loved I not honour more " ?

Don*t tempt me, Rachel ! Help me to be worthy of your love.'

Fred's voice quite breaks down at the last.

I give him a hearty grip, and then lead poor weeping Rachel down below, as the bell rings to warn us off the steamer. She Jkisses us both silently at her cabin-door^ saying gently :

* Elsa, would you look after papa, and see that he has his hot wine and water before going to bed ? I think I won't come up again this evening — I am so tired !'

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Chapter II

ILL next day Rachel is quiet and sad, and spends a good deal of time in her own cabin, writing the promised 'journal -letter' to Fred, nodoubt

Oscar behaves beautifully ; his quiets unobtrusive sympathy is evidently appreciated by Rachel, who at first seemed inclined to shun his society, out of some fancied loyalty to Fred.

The latter, indeed, had expressed hishearty delight at leaving her with such a bright, pleasant companion ; but I suppose she thinks it a kind of silent atonement for hasty or impatient words in Fred's company, that she should refuse to laugh or be amused at anything in his absence.

All Rachers moods are thorough and intense, so she now exaggerates her melancholy, self-reproachful regrets for Fred's departure.

Oscar shows by no word or sign that he has noticed the change in her manner. His own nature is as sympathetic to outside influences as a * sensitive plant,' but his tact is simply perfect.

He speaks of Fred now and then very cordially and kindly, just sufficiently to avoid any appearance of shirking the subject, but not often enough to bring the sad, self-reproachful look in Rachel's dark eyes too much to the surface.

Then he interests her quietly in a thousand ways : one day it is a new book, the

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next a new theory ; another time he wants her advice about the foreground of a picture. He has got hold of Le Page Renouf s book on Hieroglyphics. * Will Miss Poynter come over to Karnak quietly some afternoon to study it amongst the ruins Y or again, **Will she give her advice about setting some of the Portuguese and Italian sonnets to music T And so, having tiecoyed her to the piano, Oscar will dream away his beautiful fancies and lead her gently from the cares and worries of reality to the golden gates of poetry and romance.

Two or three nights after Fredas sudden departure, we are all sitting together in the drawing-room after dinner.

A sharp north wind is blowing, and no one feels inclined to face it upon deck.

The talk somehow falls upon mesmeric influences, and Oscar is abusing in no measured terms the narrow-minded stupidity that laughs to scorn and holds up to ridicule everything * not dreamed of ^ by its own feeble * philosophy/

The much-vexed question of table-turning and * spiritual agencies' has beea touched upon, of course..

Oscar takes a very sensible and moderate view of things ; declares his entire scepticism as to the idea of spirits wasting their time in such utter childishness as rapping out a lady's age, or her possible chances of matrimony, through the medium of a * five o'clock tea-table,' but takes his stand upon the point that there is some strange force inherent in our natures — not yet fully understood, and therefore impossible to control and utilise — by which mind may communicate with mind without the help of speech, and possibly influence matter through the medium of electricity.

'That is how I account for all these apparently absurd details as to table-turning. It is weak and foolish to go on making bad jokes about people "pushing the table" with their '* fingers or feet." Of course there are impostures about table-turning as about everything else ; but I have been present dozens of times when I know every individual was an honest, sincere investigator, with no foregone conclusions on the subject, but simply desirous to witness the true working of the thing, not to play childish and stupid tricks by weak buffoonery. And the table has moved without muscular exertion on our parts, and has rapped out answers to our questions sometimes right, sometimes wrong; but the correctness or incorrectness of the answers seems to me comparatively unimportant. Given the admission that muscular force is not used, it seems to me quite as marvellous that a "** spirit" should give a wrong answer as a right one : the fact of spiritual communica-^ tion at all is sufficient mystery to us at present — or would be, if I believed in it — as I tell you I don^tJ

* Then how do you account for it, Mr. O'Grady, if you deny wilful imposture ? Do you think people can move a heavy^ table unconsciously f

' As I have said. Miss Poynter, I don't believe they do it through purely physical agencies at all. One has so little accurate knowledge of these matters, that it is presumption to attempt any sort of ** explanation." But it is quite conceivable to my mind , that through, first, unconscious cerebration, and then the passage of the electric current from the hands to the table, an idea or an answer is generated unconsciously in one brain, and conveyed to the others by the wood (charged with electricity) responding, as it were, to the originating power.*

* But then suppose several people are " unconsciously cerebrating/' as you call it^ at the same time ?'

* Ah ! well, then of course the one who has the most mesmeric influence, the strongest power of impressing his own mind upon other minds, will be the unconscious originator in that case/

' Yes, Mr. O'Grady ; but you say the electric current has to flow from him to the table. If his mesmeric power or odic force, or whatever you are pleased to call it, is the stroftgest present, what does it matter about his influencing other minds ? His mind is the real agent, according to you, acting directly upon the table.*

*Ah! no, Mrs. Verschoyle ; not necessarily. Possibly his influence tells first upon the other minds and brings them unconsciously to his assistance, and the table moves through the combined electricity of all who are seated round it.'

* But, Mr. 0*Grady, I want to tell you something that happened within my own experience to a brother of mine. I always laeld with you before, that some one idea was uppermost with the most powerful "medium" present, and so got rapped out of the table through electric influence ; but this rather shook my theory. Some years ago, a brother of mine came home from India on leave, and spent three or four months in America, travelling about and seeing the country. It was before my marriage, and I was staying in the neighbourhood of Liverpool at the time. On his return, he was invited to join me there for a day or two before going up to London, and here our siance took place. A young man staying in the house — a very old friend of mine — was bitten with the table-turning mania, and we were always rapping out messages and answers to every sort of absurd question. My brother came in one afternoon and found us at our usual

*

amusement. He laughed the whole thing to scorn, of course ; declared that we ** pushed and kicked" the table, with the usual clever pleasantries of the ** unbeliever," and declined at first to have anything to say to such ** childish nonsense." At last we persuaded him to sit down. He asked a number of most puzzling questions as to the detail of his recent tour ; matters of which I myself knew nothing, for his letters had been few and brief during his absence. ** Where had he been on the afternoon of such a day, six or seven weeks ago ?" ** What fort had he gone over with a certain American colonel ?" Or again, " Rap out the name of the gentleman who had taken him over the Washington arsenal on a given day ?" and so on. He asked perhaps a dozen such questions, and the table answered with its usual reckless promptitude ; sometimes right, occasionally wrong. My brother gloated over the mistakes, and accounted for the happy hits by declaring that he must have told us about those special incidents, although he had forgotten the fact of having done so. We grew hotter and hotter in defence of our honesty, but all in vain. At last Edward said :