“Thanks very much,” the woman said. “Perhaps you will bring me luck. I need it.”
She hurried away to place her bet, and Mona forgot about her until an hour later, when, as she walked towards the paddock, a voice at her elbow said,
“I couldn’t be more grateful, you’ve done me a good turn.”
She turned to see the woman in the tussore coat and skirt.
“Oh, you backed ‘Mizpah’ then,” she exclaimed. “I am so glad. It was a good price too, wasn’t it?”
“Thank you a thousand times, I’m so grateful,” the woman insisted. “Do you know anything else?”
There was a greedy look about her eyes and the way she spoke, and Mona’s instinctive reaction was to say “No,” and to leave her, but she was too good-natured. It struck her that perhaps the woman was really in want, and so, looking through her card, she said,
“I’ve got nothing for the next two, but ‘Le Prince’ in the last race is, I am told, a certainty. He’s the favourite, so I’m afraid you’ll only get a very short price.”
“Thank you,” the woman said fervently, then added, “Are you going to the paddock now?”
“I thought of it.”
“Let’s go together,” the other suggested.
Mona accepted because it would have been difficult to refuse.
“My name’s Strathwyn,” the stranger went on, “Char Strathwyn.”
“Mine’s, Mona Vale.”
She was reserved, for suddenly, without reason, she disliked this encounter. She was used to meeting people casually and yet something about this woman repelled her.
‘I’ll get rid of her,’ she thought. ‘I’m certain to see someone I know and that will be an excuse.’
But she was soon to learn that having once met Char Strathwyn it was impossible to shake her off. She was persistently at one’s heels like a raffish and rather disreputable dog. She followed one about – at least so it seemed to Mona in the next few weeks. For she grew used to seeing that tussore coat and skirt loom in the distance and know with a sinking of the heart that it was Char again.
They soon got to Christian names and soon assumed a friendliness that Mona was far from feeling – somehow it was difficult to analyse her feelings about Char Strathwyn. She was sorry for her, sometimes she almost hated her, but she could not bring herself to be really rude, to tell her that she did not want to know her and ignore her eagerness to be friends.
Occasionally it was a relief to have another woman to talk to. When the hours of loneliness were too frightful, Mona even welcomed that thin face with its bright restless eyes like those of an inquisitive monkey. She learnt little about Char’s personal life for, in her desire to avoid confidences, Mona made no effort to inquire closely either into Char’s past or present. Gaunt and unattractive, Char had a distinctive personality, although one could find many such middle-aged women, usually widowed, wandering about the East alone because they had no homes and no belongings, having given the best years of the lives to upholding some outpost of the Empire. They journey from port to port, from capital to capital, as if in search of something that they never found – perhaps the will-o’-the-wisp was only their own youth and enthusiasm which had been lost during their first years east of Suez.
Char knew a lot of people – and if she did not know them, she would manage, sooner or later, to scrape an acquaintance. Sometimes Mona would shudder, as she watched her, asking herself if one day she might become like Char in her desire for companionship, in her search to find an antidote to an inner loneliness. Char also knew a lot about people. She made it her business. There were few secrets or intrigues of which she did not manage to get an inkling. She was like a dog with a hidden bone. She scented it and dug on indefatigably until it was discovered.
Whether of diplomacy, international politics, or scandal, sooner or later Char knew all there was to know, and Mona guessed that at times she made a good thing out of her knowledge. She soon realised that Char was a dangerous person with whom to be acquainted in her position. It was so essential that her association with Lionel should never be disclosed.
In a place like Cairo, where everything about everybody was common property, they had to be more careful than they had ever imagined would be necessary when they were in Paris. There it had been easy for Mona to have a flat and for Lionel to visit her. In Egypt such a position was impossible and all her anticipations of the unhappiness and suffering that awaited her with Lionel’s new appointment were justified.
She must live in a second-rate hotel and when she had the chance to see him, they met in a villa on the outskirts of the town, which he had borrowed from a friend. The latter was away big-game shooting and the only people left in charge were two well-trusted servants. Lionel and Mona would motor there in separate cars to enjoy a few hours together, hours ecstatic with passion and the release of repressed longing, but shadowed by fear and the consciousness of danger.
Yet for Mona, at least, such meetings were worth all the hours and weeks of lonely misery that she must spend waiting for them. The garden of the villa sloped down to the Nile, and sometimes they would sit under the palms on a patch of lawn that was kept green by hours of watering. They would talk, they would laugh and they would be happy, but they were always feverishly aware that the minutes were speeding and that soon they must separate again. Lionel must return to his wife and Mona to the sordid, dismal discomfort of her hotel.
Her position was sometimes almost insupportable. Due to Lionel’s insistence on her being dressed expensively, Mona caused a great deal of gossip whenever she appeared in public. In a place as small as Cairo everyone knew everyone else’s business and ‘the mysterious Miss Vale’ soon began to be pointed out. It was inevitable that she should make a few acquaintances.
Lionel warned her that it was playing with fire, but she found it impossible to live a life of complete seclusion, unless she shut herself in her hotel bedroom and never went out. People spoke to her and unless she were offensively rude, she must respond pleasantly. Few were as persistent as Char Strathwyn, but nevertheless her circle of acquaintances increased.
Lionel talked of making a trip to Luxor and Aswan and he suggested to Mona that while he was going by train, she might go by river in a steamer. She agreed at once, not only because Lionel suggested it but because she was glad of the chance to get out of Cairo, away from the heat, dust, noise and the everlasting round of racing and restaurants. Lionel gave her the money for her ticket and told her that he expected to be staying at the Winter Palace Hotel, but anyway she would find a letter with all his plans when she arrived.
She clung to him desperately at their last meeting. She felt as if this everlasting see-saw of ‘Hail’ and ‘Farewell’ was getting on her nerves.
“If only just for once we could go somewhere alone together,” she cried. “One day, darling, I shall run away. I don’t think I can stand this much longer.”
He had laughed at her, but she felt that he did sympathise and she knew that, although her words were threatening, it would be impossible for her ever to leave him or to sever their personal relationship.
It was a blazingly hot day when Mona stepped on board the Nile steamer. There was a faint breeze on the river and the covered decks of the boat, cool, dark and shady, were inviting after contact with the heat rising from the tarmac streets and the smell and stench of motor-cars and camels – a mingling of East and West that was only attractive in books.
Mona unpacked a few things in her cabin, then went on deck to watch them cast off and start their slow and leisurely movements up the blue waters of the Nile. The last gangway was being removed when suddenly she saw an Arab gesticulating and shouting at the officers to hold the ship. She leant over the rail curiously and saw to her horror who the late arrival was, Char Strathwyn!
She was wearing her usual tussore coat and skirt, but it was crumpled and dishevelled as if she had dressed in a hurry, and her Panama hat was pushed a little to the back of her head, giving her a rakish air, so that for the moment Mona thought she had been drinking. She very likely had, but Char Strathwyn was the type of woman to whose appearance it made little difference however much she drank. Only her mind became vague and somewhat disconnected, but her looks remained the same, ugly, dried-up, colourless and as ageless as the Sphinx itself.
‘Why is she here?’ Mona wondered. ‘Did she know I was to be aboard?’
She had had the idea for some time that Char Strathwyn was deliberately following her around, finding out by some methods of her own what were Mona’s engagements.
The woman seemed to have a kind of affection for her, although it was difficult to imagine Char having sentimental or affectionate feelings for anyone but herself. Perhaps there was a simpler explanation. Mona knew that Char thought she was lucky. Ever since that day at the races she had bombarded her with requests for tips, for information of any sort that might lead to her being successful at her eternal gambling. Char was an inveterate gambler. She could not resist a bet even on the most ridiculous things, and she was also very unlucky.
It seemed to Mona absurd that anyone who was so unfortunate at cards and racing, should continue with a persistence which was almost fanatical, day after day, week after week, in an endeavour to turn the scales of fortune in their favour.
But Char plagued the Fates and was equally importunate in her anxiety to hang on to Mona. With the best grace that she could muster, Mona smiled as she saw Char coming down the deck towards her.
“This is a surprise!” she said.
“I only heard half an hour ago that you were going,” Char panted. “I just had time to throw a few things into a case. Why didn’t you tell me?”
