His Hour
By
Elinor Glyn
Author of "Three Weeks"
1910
A miniature of Prince Milaslavski in the uniform of oneof his ancestors, in which he appeared at the famous fancy ball at theWinter Palace some years ago. He was about twenty-three at the time. Ihave selected this likeness of him in preference to a later photograph,as the artist has happily caught him in one of his rarely soft moods,and also, the face being clean shaven, the characteristic chiselling ofthe lips can be seen. THE AUTHOR.]
"His Hour" is called in England and Russia "When the Hour Came."
With grateful homage and devotion I dedicate this book to
Her Imperial Highness The Grand Duchess Vladimir Of Russia
In memory of the happy evenings spent in her gracious presence whenreading to her these pages, which her sympathetic aid, in facilitatingmy opportunities for studying the Russian character, enabled me towrite. Her kind appreciation of the finished work is a source of thedeepest gratification to me.
Elinor Glyn
St. Petersburg, May, 1910
CHAPTER I
The Sphinx was smiling its eternal smile. It was two o'clock in themorning. The tourists had returned to Cairo, and only an Arab or twolingered near the boy who held Tamara's camel, and then gradually slunkaway; thus, but for Hafis, she was alone--alone with her thoughts andthe Sphinx.
The strange, mystical face looked straight at her from the elevationwhere she sat. Its sensual mocking calm penetrated her brain. Thecreature seemed to be laughing at all humanity--and saying--"There isno beyond--live and enjoy the things of the present--Eat, drink, and bemerry, for to-morrow you die, and I--I who sit here and know, tell youthere is no beyond. The things you can touch and hold to your bodiesare the only ones worth grasping."
"No, no!" said Tamara, half aloud, "I will not--I will not believe it."
"Fool," said the Sphinx. "What is your soul? And if you have one, whathave you done with it hitherto? Are you any light in the world?--No,you have lived upon the orders of others, you have let yourindividuality be crushed these twenty-four years--since the day youcould speak. Just an echo it is--that fine thing, your soul! Show itthen, if you have one! Do you possess an opinion? Not a bit of it. Yousimply announce platitudes that you have been taught were the rightanswers to all questions! Believe me, you have no soul. So take whatyou can--a body! You certainly have that, one can see it--well, snatchwhat it can bring you, since you have not enough will to try for higherthings. Grasp what you may, poor weakling. That is the wisdom sittinghere for eternity has taught me."
Tamara stirred her hands in protest--but she knew the indictment wastrue. Yes, her life had been one long commonplace vista of followingleads--like a sheep.
But was it too late to change? Had she the courage? Dared she think forherself? If not, the mystic message of the Sphinx's smile were betterfollowed: "Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow you die."
The blue of the sky seemed to soothe her, and speak of hope. Could anyother country produce a sky of so deep a sapphire as the night sky ofEgypt? All around was intense sensuous warmth and stillness almost aslight as day.
How wise she had been to break through the conventionality whichsurrounded her--and it had required some nerve--so as to be able tocome here alone, on this one of her last nights in Egypt.
She half smiled when she thought of Millicent Hardcastle's face whenshe had first suggested it.
"My dear Tamara, what--what an extraordinary thing for a woman to do!Go to the Sphinx all alone at two o'clock in the morning. Would notpeople think it very strange?"
Tamara felt a qualm for a second, but was rebellious.
"Well, perhaps--but do you know, Millicent, I believe I don't care.That carven block of stone has had a curious effect upon me. It hasmade me think as I have never done before. I want to take the clearestpicture away with me--I must go."
And even Mrs. Hardcastle's mild assertion that it could equally well beviewed and studied at a more reasonable hour did not move Tamara, andwhile her friend slumbered comfortably in her bed at Mena House, shehad set off, a self-conscious feeling of a truant schoolboy exaltingand yet frightening her.
Tamara was a widow. James Loraine had been everything that a thoroughlyrespectable English husband ought to be. He had treated her withkindness, he had given her a comfortable home--he had only asked her tospend ten months of the year in the country, and he had never causedher a moment's jealousy.
She could not remember her heart having beaten an atom faster--orslower--for his coming or going. She had loved him, and her sisters andbrother, and father, all in the same devoted way, and when pneumoniahad carried him off nearly two years before, she had grieved with themeasure the loss of any one of them would have caused her--that wassincerely and tenderly.
They were such a nice family, Tamara's!
For hundreds of years they had lived on the same land, doing their dutyto their neighbors and helping to form that backbone of England ofwhich we hear so much nowadays, in its passing away.
They had been members of Parliament, of solid Whig, and later ofUnionist, views. They had been staunch Generals, Chairmen ofQuarter-Sessions, riders to hounds, subscribers to charities, rigidchurch-goers, disciplined, orthodox, worthy members of society.
Underdown was their name, and Underwood their home.
That Tamara should have been given that Russian appellation, in a groupof Gladys, Mabels and Dorothys, must have surely indicated that fatemeant her to follow a line not quite so mapped out as that of hersisters'. The very manner of her entry into the world was not inaccordance with the Underdown plan.
Her mother, Lady Gertrude Underdown, had contracted a friendship withthe wife of the First Secretary of the Russian Embassy.
Foreigners were not looked upon with favor in the home circle, andinstead of staying only the two months of May and June, as she wasfully entitled to, in London, she had insisted upon remaining for Julyas well that year--to be near her friend Vera and enjoy the gay world.
The Squire had grumbled, but acquiesced, though when afterward a fourthdaughter was presented to him with a request that she might havePrincess Vera for a godmother and a Russian name to be called by, hefelt himself justified in carping at fate.
"Foreign fandangoes," he designated such ideas. However, Lady Gertrudewas very ill, and had to be humored, so the affair took place, andTamara the baby was christened, with due state.
There were no more Russian suggestions in the family; the son and heirwho arrived a year later became plain Tom, and then Lady GertrudeUnderdown made her bow to the world and retired to the family vault inUnderwood Church.
They were all estimably brought up by an aunt, and hardly ever left thecountry until each one came up in turn to be presented at Court, and gothrough a fairly dull season among country neighbors on the same bent.
Two of them, including Tamara, had secured suitable husbands, and atthe age of twenty-three years the latter had been left a well-doweredwidow.
She had worn mourning for just the right period, had looked after heraffairs--handed James' place over with a good grace to James' brotherand an unliked sister-in-law, and finally, when she was wearing graysand mauves, two years almost after her loss, she had allowed herself tobe persuaded into taking a trip to Egypt with her friend, MillicentHardcastle, who was recovering from influenza.
It had caused the greatest flutter at Underwood, this journey abroad!None of them had been further than Dresden, where each girl had learnedGerman for a year or so before her presentation.
And what had Egypt done for Tamara? Lifted just one pretty whiteeyelid, perhaps. Stirred something which only once or twice in her lifeshe had been dimly conscious of. Everything had been a kind of shock toher. A shock of a
n agreeable description. And once driving at night inthe orange groves of Ghezireh, after some open-air fete, the heavyscent and intoxicating atmosphere had made her blood tingle. She feltit was almost wrong that things should so appeal to her senses.Anything which appealed deliberately to the senses had always beenconsidered as more than almost wrong at Underwood Chase.
The senses were improper things which Aunt Clara for her part neverquite understood why the Almighty should have had the bad taste topermit in human beings.
But the Sphinx was again talking to Tamara--only this time in the voiceof a young man--who without a word of warning had risen from a bank ofsand where he had been stretched motionless and unperceived.
"A fine goddess, is she not, Madame," he said. And to add to theimpertinence of a stranger's addressing her at all, Tamara was furtherincensed by the voice being that of a foreigner!
But it was an extraordinarily pleasant voice, deep and tuneful, and the"_Insolent_" stood over six feet high and was as slender as Tamaraherself almost--in spite of his shoulders and air of strength.
She hardly knew what to answer, he had spoken with such ease andassurance, almost with the tone of one who hails a fellow worshiper andhas a right to exchange sympathy.
Tamara had been startled, too, by the sudden rising of the man when shethought she was alone, but at last she answered slowly, "Yes."
"I often come here at night," he went on, "when those devils oftourists have gone back in their devil of a tramway. Then you get heralone--and she says things to you. You think so, too, isn't it?"
"Yes," again said Tamara, convulsed with wonder at herself for speakingat all.
"At first I was angry when I saw your camel against the sky and saw youcome and dismount and sit and look, I like to have her all to myself.But afterwards when I watched you I saw you meant no harm--you aren't atourist, and so you did not matter."
"Indeed," said Tamara, the fine in her grasping the situation, theUnderdown training resenting its unconventionality.
"Yes," he continued, unconcerned. "You can't look at that face and feelwe any of us matter much--can you?"
"No," said Tamara.
"How many thousand years has she been telling people that? But itdrives me mad, angry, furious, to see the tourists! I want to stranglethem all!"
He clenched his hand and his eyes flashed.
Tamara peeped up at him--he was not looking at her--but at the Sphinx.She saw that he was extremely attractive in spite of having un-Englishclothes, which were not worn with ease. Gray flannel of unspeakablecut, and boots which would have made her brother Tom shriek withlaughter. The Underdown part of her whispered, could he be quite agentleman? But when he turned his face full upon her in the moonlight,that doubt vanished completely. He might even be a very greatgentleman, she thought.
"Would you like to see a bit of the Arabian Nights?" he asked her.
Tamara rose. This really ought not to go on, this conversation--andyet--
"Yes, I would," she said.
"Well, the spell is broken of the Sphinx," he continued. "She can'ttalk to me with you there, and she can't talk to you with me near, solet us go and see something else that is interesting together."
"What?" asked Tamara.
"The Sheikh's village down below. Half the people who come don'trealize it is there, and the other half would be afraid to ride throughit at night--but they know me and I will take care of you."
Without the least further hesitation he called Hafis and the camel,spoke to them in Arabic, and then stood ready to help Tamara up. Sheseemed hypnotized, when she was settled in the high saddle. She beganto realize that she was going into the unknown with a perfect stranger,but she did not think of turning back.
"What do you ride?" she asked.
"See," he said, and he made a strange low whistle, which was instantlyanswered by an equally strange low whinny of a horse, and a beautifulArab appeared from the foot of the rocks--where all things were inshadow--led by a little brown boy.
"I am taking him back with me," he said, "Isn't he a beauty. I onlybought him a week ago, and he already knows me."
Then he was in the saddle with the lightest bound, and Tamara, who hadalways admired Tom on a horse, knew that she had never seen anyone whoseemed so much a part of his mount as this quaint foreigner. "I supposehe is an Austrian," she said to herself, and then added with Englishinsular arrogance, "Only Austrians are like us."
The young man appeared quite indifferent to anything she thought. Heprepared to lead the way down beyond the Sphinx, apparently into thedesert.
Now that he was in front of her, Tamara could not help admiring thelines of his figure. He was certainly a very decent shape, andcertainly knew how to ride.
Then it came to her that this was a most singular adventure, and thefaint pink mounted to her clear cheeks when she remembered howdreadfully shocked Millicent would be--or any of the family! But it washer night of rebellion, so things must take their course.
The young man rode in front until they were on the flat desert, then hedrew rein and waited for her.
"You see," he said, "we skirt these rocks and then we shall ridethrough the village. One can very well imagine it has been the samealways."
They entered the little town. The streets were extremely narrow and thedark houses gave an air of mystery--a speculation--what could be goingon behind those closed shutters? Here and there a straight blue-cladfigure slunk away round a corner. There was a deep silence and themoonlight made the shadows sharp as a knife. Then a shaft of red lightwould shoot from some strange low hovel as they passed, and they couldsee inside a circle of Arab Bedouins crouching over a fire. Thereseemed no hilarity, their faces were solemn as the grave.
Presently, in the narrowest and darkest street, there was a sound oftom-toms, strains of weird music and voices, and through the chinks ofthe half-opened shutters light streamed across the road--while a smallcrowd of Arabs were grouped about the gate in the wall holding donkeysand a camel.
"A wedding," said the young man. "They have escorted the bride. Whatpleasure to raise a veil and see a black face! But each one to histaste."
Tamara looked up at the window. She wondered what could be happeningwithin--were the other wives there as well? She would have liked tohave asked.
The young man saw her hesitation and said laconically--
"Well?"
"They are having a party," Tamara replied, with lame obviousness.
"Of course," said the young man. "Weddings and funerals--equally goodoccasions for company. They are so wise they leave all to fate; they donot tear their eyes out for something they cannot have--and fight afterdisappointment. They are philosophers, these Arabs."
The little crowd round the gate now barred the road, half goodhumoredly, half with menace.
"So, so," said the young man, riding in front. Then he laughed, andputting his hand in his pocket, brought out a quantity of silver andflung it among them with merry words in Arabic, while he pointed to thewindows of the house.
Then he seized the bridle of Tamara's camel and started his horseforward. The crowd smiled now and began scrambling for the baksheesh,and so they got through in peace.
Neither spoke until they were in a silent lane again.
"Sometimes they can be quite disagreeable," he said, "but it is amusingto see it all. The Sheikh lives here--he fancies the pyramids belong tohim, just as the Khedive fancies all Egypt is his--life is mostlyimagination."
Now Tamara could see his face better as he looked up to her superiorheight on the camel. He had a little moustache and peculiarly chiseledlips--too chiseled for a man, she thought for a moment, until shenoticed the firm jaw. His eyes were sleepy--slightly Oriental in theirsetting, and looked very dark, and yet something made her think that indaylight they might be blue or gray.
He did not smile at all; as he spoke his face was grave, but whensomething made him laugh as they turned the next corner, it transformedhim. It was the rippling spontaneous gaiety of a child
.
Two goats had got loose from opposite hovels and were butting at oneanother in the middle of the road.
He pulled up his horse and watched.
"I like any fight," he said.
But the goats fled in fear of him, so they went on.
Tamara was wondering why she felt so stupid. She wanted to ask herstrange companion a number of questions. Who he was? What he was doingat the Sphinx?--and indeed in Egypt. Why he had spoken to her atall?--and yet appeared absolutely indifferent as they rode along! Hehad not asked her a single question or expressed the least curiosity.For some reason she felt piqued.
Presently they emerged at the end of the village where there was asmall lake left by the retirement of the Nile. The moon, almost full,was mirrored in it. The scene was one of extreme beauty. The pyramidsappeared an old rose pink, and everything else in tones ofsapphire--not the green-blue of moonlight in other countries. All wasbreathlessly still and lifeless. Only they two, and the camel boys,alone in the night.
The dark line of trees which border the road faced them, and they rodeslowly in that direction.
"You are going to the hotel, I suppose?" he said. "I will see yousafely to it."
And they climbed the bank on to the avenue from Cairo.
"And you?" Tamara could not prevent herself from asking. "Where do yougo?"
"To hell, sometimes," he answered, and his eyes were full of mist, "buttonight I shall go to bed for a change."
Tamara was nonplussed. She felt intensely commonplace. She was even alittle cross with herself. Why had she asked a question?
The Arab horse now took it into his head to curvet and bound in the airfor no apparent reason, but the young man did not stir an inch--helaughed.
"Go on, my beauty," he said. "I like you to be so. It shows you arealive."
As they approached the hotel, Tamara began to hope no one would seethem. No one who could tell Millicent that she had a companion. Shebent down and said rather primly to the young man who was again at herside:
"I am quite safe now, thank you. I need not trouble you any further.Good-bye! and I am so obliged to you for showing me a new way home."
He looked up at her, and his whole face was lit with a whimsical smile.
"Yes, at the gate," he said. "Don't be nervous. I will go at the gate."
Tamara did not speak, and presently they came to the turning into thehotel. Then he stopped.
"I suppose we shall meet again some day," he said. "They have a proverbhere, 'Meet before dawn--part not till dawn.' They see into the futurein a few drops of water in any hollow thing. Well, good-night"--andbefore she could answer he was off beyond the hotel up the road andthen turning to the right on a sand-path, galloped out of sight intowhat must be the vast desert.
Where on earth could he be going to?--possibly the devil--if one knew.