African Enchantment (8 page)

All through the day they travelled, the sand stretched to the horizon on their left, while on their right-hand side, where the Nile flowed, all was green and lush. Dwarf mimosas clustered the banks, palms broke the monotony of the skyline. When they halted for refreshments, Harriet watched incredulously as a family of crocodiles slithered down the river bank and into the water, disturbed by their presence. At dusk they came across a wild herd of asses, and later, as they made camp, she was entranced by the sight of turtles cavorting in the shallows.

None of these pleasures could she share with Raoul. He remained stern-faced and taciturn and not even the appearance of a dhow could pierce her misery.

‘It is well on time,' Hashim said with satisfaction and Raoul merely nodded as the lateen-rigged vessel floated nearer and nearer to them.

‘Are we not camping here?' she asked Hashim when they were out of Raoul's earshot.

Hashim shook his head. ‘We thought we may be until the dhow arrived. But now she is here, we can leave immediately.'

‘And sail as far as Khartoum?' Hope filled Harriet's voice.

‘Below Shendi, to the sixth cataract. After that …' Hashim shrugged.

Harriet wanted to ask how near to Khartoum was the sixth cataract, but a glance from Raoul silenced her. The dhow had anchored near the bank and their horses and baggage were led aboard.

At last he approached her, holding out a hand silently to help her step from the bank to the boat.

Black eyes met green. His grasp on her arm was firm. She said hesitantly, ‘I am sorry for the things I said. I did not understand.'

At their feet the velvet-dark waters of the Nile lapped gently. Amongst the reeds small animals scurried, diving softly into the river.

His voice was cool as he repeated Malindi's words. ‘Africa is not easily understood,' and then in a voice that brooked no argument, ‘that is why it would be best for you to return home at the earliest opportunity.'

She felt tears welling, and fought them down. He would only despise her more if she gave way to them. With the same care he had shown to his animals, he assisted her aboard. She sat at the prow, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her head bowed. She had imagined herself his companion, journeying with him beyond Khartoum. Now she saw herself for what she was. A foolish English girl who annoyed and irritated him; an inconvenience to be got rid of as soon as possible. The dhow skimmed into the centre of the great river. The moon burned high above. Raoul and Hashim spoke in low voices, their heads close together. Harriet's loneliness was absolute. She wanted once more to be called Harriet by him; to be mocked gently; to be the recipient of his rare smiles. Her cheeks scorched. She wanted to be held in strong arms and kissed with indecent thoroughness. She wanted what she could not have. She tilted her chin defiantly. If she was heartbroken, he would not see it. She had pride and that alone would have to sustain her through the coming weeks.

‘There is room for you to sleep here undisturbed.' His voice broke in on her thoughts, disinterested, as if it mattered little to him where she slept.

‘Thank you.'

Her own voice was cold and stiff, betraying little of the misery she felt. The bunk was barely long enough for her to stretch out on but the small cabin at least afforded privacy.

The dhow sailed steadily towards Khartoum and in her long hours of wakeful restlessness Harriet heard the distant sounds of animals in their nightly hunt for food, and was grateful for the water that separated her from them. Occasionally she heard Raoul's voice and a knife in her heart twisted. Her own private dreams, like her father's, had been reduced to ashes.

She woke to a hot wind carrying the dhow upstream at a brisk pace. Raoul had discarded his Arab dress and was seated on a case of rifles in shirt and breeches, a sheaf of papers spread out before him, working intently. As she emerged into the full blast of the day's heat he raised his head, his eyes meeting hers fleetingly before dropping once more to the notes in his hand.

She picked her way around the crates that littered the deck and sat once more in the prow where she would not have to be constantly moving in order to allow the natives and Hashim to pass as they attended to their tasks.

Hashim brought her a breakfast of flat round cakes and fruit. ‘You have not slept well, Miss Latimer, English lady,' he said reprovingly, noting the blue shadows that ringed Harriet's lustrous eyes.

‘I am perfectly rested,' Harriet lied, aware that her words could be overheard by the dark, down-bent head.

Hashim frowned, undeceived. English ladies were notoriously difficult to please and he had not relished the companionship of one. However, despite his prejudices, he had come to like Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady, very much. She was courageous and Hashim admired courage. She was also foolish and that he could not understand. Until her denouncement of him as a monster and a murderer, his master too, had admired Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady. Now he treated her as he did all women who sought to gain his attention: with contempt and uninterest. Narinda would have no cause for jealousy when they returned. Hashim was regretful. When his master was not present, the lovely Circassian had the temperament of a shrew and her temper fell upon him often. He would have enjoyed seeing her brought to heel. Now, thanks to Miss Harriet Latimer's incomprehensible attack upon his master, such an occurrence was unlikely. Narinda was already the victor in a battle she was not yet aware of. He felt suddenly sorry for Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady, sitting so lonely and pale-faced, unknowingly returning her rescuer to the arms of a slave girl. With an attempt to bring some animation back into her drawn features, he said,

‘There is the mouth of the Atbara.'

He pointed to where a slow running river merged with the waters of the Nile.

Harriet shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun. ‘Where does it lead, Hashim?'

‘To the mountains of Abyssinia and the home of the Leopard King.'

Harriet smiled. ‘Is the Leopard King a man or an animal, Hashim?'

‘A man. A very dangerous man. A chieftain who wages permanent war on the Turkish forces. For two years my master mapped the rivers and mountains of the Leopard King's country. It was a task no man had done before.'

Harriet looked across to where Raoul continued to write in a flourishing hand. ‘ Did not the Leopard King object?'

‘To my master?' Hashim asked incredulously. ‘My master is not an objectionable man, Miss Harriet Latimer, English lady. He is a man of charm.'

Harriet pursed her lips. If he was, he was concealing the fact most carefully. ‘And did your master charm the Leopard King?'

‘Most assuredly.'

Once more Harriet allowed her glance to slip across to Raoul. Charm. Threats. He used each one as and when it suited him. She wanted to ask Hashim more. She wanted to ask what had made Raoul Beauvais into such a man. Aware of his nearness she said merely,

‘I am sure your master was most at home with warmongering savages.'

Hashim nodded, misunderstanding. Raoul raised his head and she flushed at the contempt on the handsome, strong-boned face. Tears stung her eyes.

She wished she had never met him. She wished he had left her alone in the desert to die. Christian upbringing reasserted itself. No. She did not wish that she was dead. She wished only to recoup her lost dignity.

Hands clasped so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white she averted her eyes and stared resolutely at the distant banks of the river. In Khartoum she would no longer have to endure his insolence. In Khartoum she could forget Raoul Beauvais' very existence.

On the dhow she could not forget him. Wherever she sat he was only a few short steps away, his presence impossible to ignore. The days began to take on an almost domestic routine. The Arabs who had sailed the dhow from Berber worked, ate and slept together in a tight-knit group. Courtesy obliged her to eat Hashim's impeccably prepared food with Raoul, the silence between them marked in contrast to the ceaseless chatter of the Arabs. Harriet endured the daily ordeal with anguish, Raoul with indifference. Every morning, after breakfast, the dhow would moor at the banks of the river and Raoul and a handful of Arabs would combine the exercising of the horses with hunting. His dagger and scimitar had been discarded along with his flowing burnous. In place of loose robes he wore a white linen shirt and Parisian tailored breeches, two silver-mounted pistols in his belt. Seeing the variety of strange beasts that were brought back for Hashim to cook, Harriet found it best not to enquire too closely as to what her meals consisted of. Near starvation in the desert had taught her to be grateful for whatever could be procured.

Through the long, heat-stifling afternoons, Raoul worked, setting his notes in order, revising, correcting. After days of boring monotony Harriet asked him for paper and pen so that she could sketch. There was an almost pleasant curve to his mouth as he acceded to her request. Harriet ignored it. It was too near a smile for comfort. She had come to prefer his disregard. It left her mistress of her emotions.

For hour after hour she sketched the scenes around her; the Arabs as they tended the sails, Hashim squatting over his pots and battered pans, the lovely fluid lines of the dhow, the trees and flowers that crowded the riverbanks, the hippos that the Arabs killed for meat and that tasted extraordinarily good. She was too immersed in her work to be aware of how often or for how long his narrowed eyes rested speculatively on her.

At the sprawling village of Shendi she insisted on the opportunity of taking exercise and walking with Hashim on his quest for whatever provisions were obtainable. The filth and the heat were more overpowering than in Berber and she soon regretted her impulse. When Raoul decided he would also halt the voyage at Matammah so that Hashim could carry out these same errands once again, Harriet expressed no desire to accompany him.

‘Are you going to take another stroll?' Raoul asked with infuriating good humour.

‘No.' She did not raise her eyes from her sketch pad.

‘A pity. Weeks spent without exercise are tedious.'

Her pencil moved furiously over the paper, shading in the outline of Matammah and its crowded streets and buildings of dried river mud. The amusement was back in the strong dark voice; amusement at her discomfort. The lines of her jaw tensed as she strove to remain calm. Whatever else she did, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how his amusement enraged her.

‘Perhaps you would like to ride when we exercise the horses?'

There was nothing she would have liked to do more. She said coolly, ‘No, thank you.'

The corner of his mouth quirked in a suppressed smile. He had determined to have nothing further to do with her. Her ridiculous outburst over his killing of the brute who had been on the verge of raping her had angered him beyond all measure. It had not been the reaction he had expected. In the days that had passed since then his anger had simmered and cooled. Miss Harriet Latimer did not react predictably in any situation. It was the reason she afforded him such secret delight. She should have been appalled by the swarms of half-clad Arabs manning the dhow, and had not been. She should have turned distastefully away from the strange concoctions emerging from Hashim's cooking pot and had not done so. She should have been petulant at her self-imposed incarceration in the prow and instead had busied herself sketching. The sketches had been another surprise.

When she had left the dhow at Shendi in Hashim's company, he had leafed through them, expecting to see the tedious attempts at art that all well-brought-up young ladies aspired to. Instead he had found strong, evocative sketches of scenery and portraits of Hashim and the Arabs that caught every nuance of movement. There were none of himself. He had slid them back into order aware that Miss Harriet Latimer was taking up more and more of his thoughts. At Berber he had categorised her as a female nuisance, conveniently forgetting the stamina and courage she had displayed in the desert. Now he was faced with other aspects of her character: she was talented, resourceful and blessedly uncomplaining. Her quick retorts and defiantly tilted chin only served to amuse him. He knew very well that she ached to ride and that only pride prevented her from accepting his offer. He did not try to press her. Instead, when he returned from his own ride the next morning, he stretched luxuriously, declaring to Hashim that the ride had been both invigorating and enjoyable. Harriet's chin had tilted a degree fractionally higher and he had surveyed her with a gleam in his eyes as he drank a refreshing glass of lime juice.

After two such mornings he said idly, ‘The Arab who rides your horse has turned his ankle. I would be obliged if you could exercise him yourself this morning.'

Harriet's delicate jawline tightened. ‘I have told you, Mr Beauvais, I have no desire for exercise.'

‘Maybe not, Miss Latimer, but the horse has.'

Disguising the flood of pleasure the prospect of riding gave her, Harriet set her sketch pad to one side and said coolly, ‘Very well, Mr Beauvais. If it is a necessity.'

He slid his pistols through the broad leather of his belt and handed her a small, double-barrelled gun. Harriet backed away distastefully.

‘No thank you, Mr Beauvais. I do not share your appetite for killing.' Her green-gold eyes were withering. He fought down a hot flush of anger and said curtly,

‘The gun is for your protection, not your pleasure. The animals roaming the banks are not converted to pacifism.'

Unwillingly her hand closed around the butt of the gun.

‘It is a Fletcher,' he said as she stared at it in dislike. ‘You will find it easier to handle than a rifle.'

‘I shall not be handling it, Mr Beauvais.'

He shrugged and mounted his horse agilely, leaving Hashim to assist her into the saddle. The horse felt strange beneath her. She had to ride astride like a man, for she had no riding dress. Too late she remembered her lack of horsemanship and hoped that the horse would understand and be amenable. More fervently still, she hoped that her inexperience would not be apparent to Raoul Beauvais.