Singing in the Wilderness (10 page)

‘Stephanie, don’t try me too far!’ he warned her. ‘What do you suppose you do to my breathing?’ He looked down at her agitated face and lifted her clear off her feet until she could look him straight in the eyes. Only she didn’t feel able to look at him at all! She wriggled her toes and her shoes fell off with a little plop. He gave no sign of even noticing. His blue eyes blazed with sudden emotion and he kissed her very gently full on the lips. ‘And don’t pretend you don’t like it!’ he commanded her with a masterful air. ‘You like it every bit as much as I do!’

He put her back on her feet, pushed her fringe back into position one last time with a proprietorial hand, and walked out of the kitchen. He didn’t even hurry. Stephanie heard the front door shut behind him, but she made no attempt to move. If she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now. She was in acute danger of falling deeply and irrevocably in love with Casimir Ruddock! And she was very much afraid that he knew it too.

It was too early in the morning for there to be many people in the courtyard of the College of the Mother of the Shah. Stephanie had woken early and had spent nearly an hour watching the sun come up through the rosy glow of dawn behind the dome of the College. Her thoughts were too uncomfortable for her to want to dwell on them. Indeed, she seemed to have spent most of the night worrying about the letters she had found, wishing she had confided in Cas when he had first given her the opportunity, and then falling into a fit of despair when she considered what the future held for her. It had made for a very long night and she had been quite glad to see the darkness finally give way to the pale light of day.

She had made herself some coffee and had thought about going back to bed, but the relative smallness of her new apartment, which hadn’t mattered at all until that moment, seemed suddenly oppressive and, without conscious volition, she had started off down the street and had found herself outside the magnificent silver doors of the Madrasseh itself. For a moment she thought it might be locked, but the door opened to her touch and
she slipped into the shadowed interior with a sense of wonder. She had half expected that she would be disappointed in the building that supported the dome she had come to love. Instead she was overwhelmed by the charm of its setting, and she was no longer surprised that it had been described to her as the last of the truly great buildings of the Safavid period in Iran.

The College had been built between the years of 1706-14, under the patronage of the mother of Shah Sultan Husain, as a seminary for theological students. Nowadays, although the place is still open for prayer, there are no students left. The building has been magnificently restored, however, from the ruin it had become, and Stephanie was well content to wander through the stalactite-vaulted
iwan
and into the vaulted octagonal vestibule where stands a huge stone basin used for ritual ablutions. It was the main court that she liked best of all for, instead of the usual paving stones, she found herself in a delightful garden, set about with pools that reflected in their depths both the building and the white-stemmed
chinars
which shaded the open space from the rigours of the noonday sun in summer.

Stephanie was still standing, looking around her, when a small figure came up to her out of the shadows, allowing her
chador
to fall away from her face to reveal a welcoming smile.

‘I have never seen you here before!’ Fatemeh greeted her. ‘It is lovely at this time of day, isn’t it
?
’

‘I should think it’s lovely at any time of the day!’ Stephanie exclaimed,

‘Yes, but it is nicer before the tourists come and all one can hear is the clicking of cameras and bright, brittle voices!’

Stephanie gave the Persian girl a startled look. ‘Is that how we sound to you?’ she asked.

Fatemeh nodded regretfully. ‘I expect we often sound strident to you, though, don’t we
?
’

‘Not to me personally,’ Stephanie denied.

‘But then not all Europeans make noises like birds,’ Fatemeh laughed at her. ‘I have never heard you giggle and gossip as Gloria does, and who can imagine Mr. Ruddock talking other than like this
?
’ She gave a very
creditable imitation of Cas’s deep voice slightly slurring his consonants, especially the ‘t’s and ‘d’s, so that they were indistinguishable to an English ear.

Stephanie giggled then. ‘Can you imitate everyone as well as that?’ she asked.

Fatemeh looked pleased. ‘It’s my—how do you say it?—my party trick!’ She lifted her voice almost an octave, setting her mouth in a tight, round shape. ‘Have you ever seen anything
like
our Mr. Ruddock? He doesn’t set
my
heart beating any faster, of course, but do you
know,
Miss Black actually allowed him to trim her hair! I think there must be
something
there, don’t you?’

Stephanie could feel herself blushing. ‘I’d like to see
her
stop Mr. Ruddock doing anything he had set his mind on—’

‘But it looks pretty, Stephanie! Why should you pay any attention to anything Gloria says
?
We all know what she is like.’

Stephanie couldn’t help remembering Gloria as she had last seen her, and her mouth had been exactly as Fatemeh had betrayed it, and her eyes full of jealous dislike for herself. She shivered, feeling suddenly cold. No one had ever disliked her before that she could remember, not with the implacable malice that she had seen on Gloria’s face last night, and she wondered what she could have done to the other girl to have inspired such hatred.

‘I wish I liked her better,’ she sighed.

But Fatemeh was unimpressed. ‘She doesn’t wish you to like her. Surely you know that? When she came out here she expected to work for the top man, but your father brought you with him, and now, when she might have replaced you with Mr. Ruddock, he seems more than content with you—in and out of the office!’

‘He’s no more than friendly! Americans have a gift for getting on quickly with other people. They don’t need time to get to know one, like we in England do!’

‘And we in Iran! We are very good to foreigners—we never shot them, not even when we were still fighting, one village against the next, all the time. But we suspect all strangers to the very last, until they have proved themselves to us!’

‘Then you must suspect me?’ Stephanie challenged her, but Fatemeh only laughed at the thought.

‘You have never been a stranger, Stephanie. I have always felt at home with you!’

Stephanie’s eyes misted, feeling as though she had had a medal pinned on her. ‘I thought I had the reputation for being stand-offish and aloof?’

‘Not amongst us Iranians. How could you think that
?
’

Stephanie knew very well why she had thought it. ‘I don’t know, I just did,’ she said. She was tempted to tell Fatemeh about her evening the night before, if only to spike Gloria’s guns before she got busy regaling the office with her version of what had happened. But how was she to explain Cas’s visit even to Fatemeh? She couldn’t explain it to herself! All she knew was that she had only to think of him standing beside her at the sink in her tiny kitchen for her heart to go into an acrobatic, swooping action that made her feel quite dizzy and peculiar, and quite unlike her usual orderly, slightly staid and even more serious self.

‘Do you come here often?’ she said instead.

Fatemeh chuckled. ‘All the time. I come for the morning prayer when I want to be alone. It will not be long now before I am to marry, and it is good to prepare oneself well for our new life.’ She turned impulsively to Stephanie. ‘Will you come to my wedding? I should like you to be there! It will be such a happy day for me!’

‘Thank you, I’d love to. I didn’t know you were getting married.

Fatemeh nodded. ‘My parents arranged it many years ago. I have seen him sometimes when he has come home with my brothers. He is very handsome! He is a civil engineer and very clever! When he finished at university he had to spend some years working for a village community as his national service and to repay to the country the cost of his education, but now he can work anywhere and there is nothing to delay our marriage.’

‘But are you in love with him
?
’ Stephanie asked.

‘I shall be when I know him better. He is right for me, and I know that I like him. Our families have always been friendly together. That is a good thing when two people are to marry.’

‘I’d want to be in love before I married anyone,’ Stephanie mused. ‘And I’d want him to be in love with me!’

Fatemeh looked wise. ‘It is different for you,’ she said. ‘You meet and talk to many men and so it is easy to decide for yourself whom you shall marry, but it is all the same in the end, I think. However often you meet a man, you cannot know what it will be like to be married to him until you are his wife. What more do you know about Mr. Ruddock than I know about my
fiancé
?
’

Stephanie’s heart missed a beat. What did she know about Cas Ruddock
?
Only that he was the most wonderful person in the world!

‘Mr. Ruddock—’

Fatemeh giggled, well satisfied with her friend’s reaction. ‘I have seen the way he looks at you! For once the imaginative Miss Gloria Lake is right! There is
something
between you, no? You like him very much?’

‘Very much,’ Stephanie admitted.

Fatemeh giggled again. ‘That is how I like the man I am to marry too! But I am more fortunate, having my family to arrange it all for me, while you must wait for Mr. Ruddock to decide it all for you.’ She put her head on one side, her eyes as bright as a bird’s. ‘Or has he already made up his mind to have you
?
’

Stephanie presented a scarlet face. ‘Of course not! He doesn’t think about me like that at all! He’s my employer—nothing more than that!’

Fatemeh drew the loose flap of her
chador
across her face, holding it in place with her teeth while she adjusted the folds of her skirt. ‘So,’ she teased, ‘you think of him just like you think of your father—’

‘Fatemeh!’

The Persian girl shook her head at her, her eyes flashing with laughter. ‘You mustn’t mind my knowing, Stephanie. Your secret is safe with me! And Mr. Ruddock he already knows, doesn’t he
?
’

‘I hope not!’ Stephanie gasped.

‘But why? He is a kind man and he knows you are alone here and he won’t take advantage of you.’ She frowned, looking thoughtful. ‘If you are afraid of that, I will ask my father to speak to him for you—’

‘No, please don’t!’ Stephanie was appalled by the very idea.

‘Well,’ Fatemeh shrugged, ‘you have only to ask!’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Stephanie said weakly, ‘but Cas would think I’d gone mad! I hardly know him, after all!’

‘It’s not necessary to know well to like what one has seen,’ Fatemeh retorted. ‘You liked Isfahan the first day you were here!’ She shrugged again. ‘Have you been up on the roof? It’s beautiful up there! Would you like to go?’

It was indeed beautiful. Seen through a silver filigree of
chinar,
the tile-work glowed almost as if it were alive, and was perfectly reflected in the absolutely still pools below.

‘One never comes to the end of Isfahan!’ Stephanie said dreamily. ‘You are lucky to live here all the time!’

‘There is nowhere else I want to live,’ Fatemeh agreed. ‘When I am married, I shall have to go away from time to time, but I shall always come back here. I want my children to be Isfahanis too. They do not speak such beautiful Farsi in other cities. It is important to know beauty when one is young and then it grows inside one all one’s life!’

Perhaps that was true, Stephanie reflected. When the time came, she would hate to leave, that she did know. Isfahan would always hold a corner of her heart, and it couldn’t be entirely, because it was there that she had met Casimir Ruddock. She wouldn’t allow herself to think that! But her cheeks burned nevertheless and she made a play of admiring a new view of the tiled dome that had become so familiar to her in case the other girl should notice her confusion.

‘We must go to work,’ Fatemeh broke in on her thoughts. ‘If you will walk with me, I’ll send my maid home. She’s waiting for me downstairs.’

Stephanie was intrigued. ‘Do you never go anywhere alone
?
’ she asked.

‘I am fond of my maid. She has looked after me since I was a little child. I should be lonely without her. It’s much nicer to do things in company. I like to have a lot of people around me.’

Certainly there was nothing servile about the maid’s attitude to her young mistress. She issued a spate of commands that Fatemeh listened to with her usual calm expression, nodding her head at intervals in agreement.

‘She hasn’t entirely accustomed herself to my working,’ she explained as the two girls walked together down the street.
‘
She was harder to persuade than my parents were that it would be good for me to see the new world we are creating here. She still would prefer me to be at home like my sisters and entertain my friends for tea!’

‘What about after you marry?’

‘I shall have my husband’s home to look after,’ Fatemeh said with dignity.

Stephanie knew a moment’s envy of the Persian girl. She could think of nothing she would like better than to look after the home of the man she loved. She would do it well too! She would make a much better housewife than secretary, she thought ruefully.

The lift was still out of order. Ali came forward with a long and detailed explanation of what the electrician had done to cure the trouble but all to no avail. ‘He is getting a new panel to put in instead of this bad one,’ he added with an engaging grin. ‘But with all the wires sticking out, it is now not safe to use at all!’

Stephanie returned his grin with a malicious smile of her own. ‘And how long is it going to be before we can use it?’ she asked.

Ali was undismayed by the implication that the electrician would make it as long as possible. ‘
Insha’allah,
all will be well tomorrow!’

‘Or the day after that
?
’ Stephanie retorted.

A
li
allowed himself a pained shrug of his shoulders.
‘
Insha’
allah
,’
,
he repeated.

‘
Allah has nothing to do with it,’ another voice said crisply behind them, and Cas emerged from the stricken li
f
t with a quick smile for Stephanie. ‘Fetch me a screwdriver and I’ll do it myself!’

Stephanie started for the stairs, trying not to laugh, but he called her back, beckoning her into the lift beside him.

‘I don’t un
derstand anything about electricity,’ she told him hastily.

‘You don’t have to! All you have to do is hold what I
tell you to hold and pass me the screwdriver when I need it!’

‘All right, just so long as you don’t blow us all up!’

‘Oh, ye of little faith!’ he taunted her, making the most of his extra inches to look down his nose at her. ‘Just for that, you can wait till the bitter end and we’ll go up in the lift together!’

It was interesting to see how quickly he worked, his fingers confidently manipulating the tangle of wires that lay behind the panel, sorting them into their right groups with a speed and efficiency that delighted her. In no time at all he had the problem sorted out and was replacing the panel on the front, screwing it firmly back into the wall of the lift.

‘Right,’ he said to Ali, ‘you can turn the current back on now.’

The Iranian hurried to do so and Cas pushed the button for
their floor and the lift
glided smoothly upwards without any further trouble. Cas leaned against the side and surveyed Stephanie with a slight smile. ‘What are you giggling about, young lady? Didn’t you think I could do it?’

‘
I never doubted it for a moment!’

He grinned at her. ‘If you’re going to tell other people what to do, it pays to be able to do it yourself.’ He looked more closely at her. ‘Sleep well?’ he asked her.

‘I woke early. I’m all right,’ she added. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘It’s getting to be a habit,’ he responded. ‘You won’t break me of it easily.’

But then she wouldn’t want to! She felt immeasurably cheered as she walked away from him into her own office, searching in her bag for the key to the locked door. Without bothering to put away the last of the files, she cleared a place at her desk preparatory to typing the letters Cas had dictated to her the day before. But she found the clutter disturbing and, a little irritated by her own need to have everything neat and tidy around her, she stood up again and began to sort what remained of the papers, clearing them out of sight as fast as she could.

So intent was she on what she was doing that she
jumped when the intercom buzzed on her desk and Cas’s voice came through, sounding
stern
and unfriendly. ‘
C
ome in here a moment, will you, Miss Black?’

She went at once, every instinct telling her that something was badly wrong. As she went into his room, she knew at once what it was. In his hand he held the letters which she had found the day before and had hidden in the bottom drawer of the file in her office, the letters which had included the one from her father cancelling the equipment they had been waiting for so long.

Cas was sitting at his desk, not looking at her. Then he turned the full force of his bright blue eyes on to her.

‘Did you leave these on my desk?’ he asked her. And then again, as the silence grew between them, ‘Well, did you, Miss Black?’