The Broken Thread

Hilda Muirhead was not more than twenty. In some respects she had the knowledge and experience of a woman of thirty. In other respects she was a simple ingénue, with the attractive grace of a gazelle-like child. The latter was her natural mood and attitude. The former had been acquired and thrust upon her by the bitterness of cruel experience at an immature period of her life.

She had a gift of talk, and the charm of her conversation won for her the attention which invariably ended in admiration. Many girls, of any nationality, do not realise the value of natural and intellectual conversation. Her father had seen to it that Hilda did. Hilda’s mother died in her infancy, leaving Hilda an only child of a devoted and gentle parent.

Hilda’s appearance was striking in the extreme, and if she had been of the “abounding” type who flaunt themselves for admiration, she would have, in an obsolete vernacular, “swept the board.” Her restraint and lack of self-consciousness were an addition to her charm.

Her hair was a glory to behold. Few had seen the full extent of that glory of her womanhood. Her old nigger “mammy” was almost the only one who had seen it in its full maturity. Her face had an indefinable irregularity of contour, and showed the southern blood in her veins. Her eyes were only large when she opened them under some strong emotion. They were not of that pertinacious, staring type, that are aggressively anxious to attract on all occasions. Her eyes were grey, and constructed for the purpose of normal sight and restrained emotion – but they were beautiful eyes.

The form of her lips had not been moulded into beauty by an assumed pout, nor were they distorted by youthful grimace. They were just wholesome lips, that helped her to talk, and laugh and sing. The rest of her face was in perfect harmony. It was not classical on the lines of a Grecian statue, nor an Italian Madonna. It was a modern, fascinating, yet dignified face.

A broken arm or a bandaged wound invariably attract attention and sympathy, especially from women. Raife’s bandaged shoulder, which necessitated that the right sleeve should remain empty, attracted the attention of the women at Shepheard’s Hotel. His Apollo-like appearance added to the effect when he arrived. In addition to the side glances in his direction, as he reclined on a long wicker chair, shaded from the hot sun which streamed from above, he had to endure the bold stares of the more brazen-faced. At this time, Raife had suffered from two women, and he was, for the present, at least, a woman-hater. He, therefore, refused to notice any of the glances that he received, whatever their nature might be. The balcony piazza and foyer of an hotel are very like the deck of an ocean steamer, and it is not possible for an invalid to resist the advances of those who wish to be polite and render aid.

Raife and Hilda Muirhead met in such a manner. The foyer was almost deserted, and Raife dropped his book just out of reach. Hilda Muirhead and her father were passing. Hilda darted forward and restored the book to Raife, who thanked her.

Mr Muirhead remarked: “I hope your injury is not serious, sir?”

To which Raife replied: “Oh, no. It is just a slight dagger wound.”

Hilda exclaimed, involuntarily: “A dagger!” Even in Egypt men are not frequently suffering from dagger wounds, and the word has a shudder in its sound.

Mr Muirhead said, smilingly: “There is generally romance surrounding a dagger wound, sir. If it would not bore or distress you, perhaps, some time later, you might feel inclined to tell us as much as you care.”

Raife thought to himself: “Oh, hang these people. Why don’t they go away? She’s a charming girl, though.”

As he thought, Mr Muirhead, with a promptitude characteristic of Americans, produced his card, and, proffering it, said: “Here is my card, sir. I am a very humble American citizen. My daughter and I occupy the suite on the first floor, facing north. I shall take it as a compliment, if you should have a dull few minutes to spare, that you should honour us with a visit. We shall be here, or hereabouts, for a week or two.”

Even in Cairo the warmth of the old gentleman’s invitation appeared rather sudden to Raife. However, he had not been in the United States, and had met few Americans. He certainly had not met one who combined so much courtliness of manner and dignity as Mr Reginald Pomeroy Muirhead, of the Fifth State Bank of Illinois, and father of a charming daughter with a musical voice.

Raife forgot he was a woman-hater. He replied, “I’m sorry I haven’t got a card with me, and, if I had, I couldn’t get at it with this confounded shoulder. My name is Remington, sir, and I’m an Englishman. I will try to avail myself of your very kind invitation.”

As they departed, Raife, for the first time, saw those lips that helped Hilda Muirhead “to talk and laugh, and to sing.” He also encountered her eyes that were for the purpose “of normal sight and restrained emotion.” On this occasion it was a sympathetic emotion.

When they had gone out into the hot sun for one of those expeditions on donkeys, that are such an attraction to visitors to Egypt, Raife contemplated. In the end he had determined that he would not accept Mr Muirhead’s invitation to visit them in his suite. He hated the sound of the word “suite,” anyhow.

It is dull work for a strong young man to recline in a wicker chair, to smoke and to read all day in a hotel, whether it be in Cairo or elsewhere. To refuse the advances of a hundred eyes of every hue, and to maintain a stoical indifference to every one around, because one has suffered at the hands of two women was a brave endeavour. Raife confined himself to his own rooms and dined in solitary state for three days. At the end of that time his desire for companionship of some kind was uncontrollable.

Raife sat in the foyer once more, and Mr Muirhead came across to him with an air of urbanity. “Ah, Mr Remington! We have not seen you during the last few days. I hope your wound has not been troubling you.”

Raife stood up and looking straight at the genial, old gentleman, said: “No, Mr Muirhead, not much; but the doctors have told me that if I don’t keep quiet, I shall have complications, and I am already tired of ‘keeping quiet,’ as they call it.”

“Well, Mr Remington, if you are tired of keeping quiet by yourself and you will dine with me to-night, in my room, I promise you quietude, and, at the same time, it may prove a relaxation to you.”

Raife could not refuse the invitation offered so gracefully, and he accepted.

When Raife was announced that evening, in Mr Muirhead’s suite of rooms, the first impression he received was that a very ordinary hotel room had been transformed into a bower of flowers and blossom, and that there were many evidences of home life around it in the shape of daintily-framed photographs and tiny ornaments representative of many countries. The arrangement of flowers on the dinner-table which awaited them, showed that an appreciative hand had tended them. Mr Muirhead received his guest, and after the ordinary interchange of greetings, sounded a gong which brought a dusky attendant.

“Mr Remington, may I have the privilege of mixing for you an American cocktail?” said his host. “There are many spurious editions of the cocktail throughout Europe, and, indeed, the world; but it is essentially an American drink, and, if you will allow me to play the part of ‘bar-tender,’ I think I may please you.”

Mr Muirhead’s cocktail, which he mixed from the ingredients handed to him by the attendant, was a superlative success.

Raife said: “Splendid! how do you do it?”

At this moment Hilda Muirhead entered.

The Oriental atmosphere at night-time is a thing apart. There is a subtle, undefinable charm about an Oriental apartment, which combines with it just sufficient of the modern to add to luxury. Mr Muirhead’s reception-room had been adapted as a dining-room for Raife’s benefit, and was sumptuous. There were rich oriental draperies and soft divans, with subdued lights; in the centre, a perfectly-appointed dinner-table for three, on which was cream-coloured napery, silver, cutlery and sparkling glass. The whole scene was a wealth of many colours, subdued and harmonised. The sombre black and white of the Western evening dress of men took its place in the soft light and deep shadows. This was the setting and background when Hilda Muirhead entered the room.

The introduction was both formal and informal. “Mr Remington, I present my daughter, my only daughter.” Then to Hilda he said: “Are you ready, my dear; shall dinner be served?”

They were, indeed, a handsome trio around the table in the rich apartment of a hundred colours, lights and shadows all welded.

Skilled were the movements of the attendants which brought the dishes – the plats which Mr Muirhead had ordered well, as a polished and travelled American.

Raife hated women less at that time than for many months past. Hilda Muirhead displayed the well-bred and experienced side of her character, and made a charming hostess. Her delicately-tinted, clinging gown revealed a neck and bust of daintily-tinted alabaster, with rounded arms. A pearl necklace was the only article of jewellery that supplemented this confection, which adorned a simple American girl. The environment, the charm of Mr Muirhead’s conversation, and the subdued grace of the fascinating girl who confronted him, presented to Raife an aspect of “Americanhood” that he had not conceived possible. There are many degrees of trippers from the United States and elsewhere. If these were trippers, then they possessed an exalted rank amongst trippers. No! they were not trippers. They were aristocrats of a type that Sir Raife Remington, Bart., had not previously encountered.

The dinner was finished and the coffee was served. Hilda had retired and the two men smoked cigarettes. Mr Muirhead, after a silence of a minute or two, said, “Mr Remington, I do not wish to intrude on any subject that may be unpleasant to you. Your allusion, the other day, to the fact that your wound was due to a blow from a dagger interested me very much at the time, and I have thought of it several times since. May I ask, I do not press the question, which may even appear impertinent – may I ask, was it – er – was it an accident?”

Raife smiled as he said: “No, there is no secret about it, although I am rather ashamed of the business. It made me appear such a fool, and has spoilt a big-game hunting expedition I had started on. I should be much further south by now, and probably mauled by some big beast I had failed to hit. So, perhaps, it’s just as well.”

Mr Muirhead was evidently interested. Big-game shooting is known mostly in America by the exploits of an ex-president, whose deeds were, at the same time, exploited and travestied by a Press peculiar to the country.

He interrupted: “Do you mind if I ask my daughter to join us again. I am sure the story will interest her so much. Do you mind? You are sure you don’t mind?”

It was impossible for Raife “to mind,” and he assented.

When Mr Muirhead returned, followed by Hilda Muirhead, every atom of Raife’s hatred of women had vanished. She had changed her dinner-gown, and was now attired in a long, trailing robe of soft silk, clasped at the waist by an antique metal belt studded with quaint stones. The conventional tight folds of her wonderful hair had been loosened and gave indication of the wealth of that glory of womanhood. Her arms were still half bare and some Egyptian bangles hung loosely around her wrists. She stood for a moment holding aside a fortière of the deepest eau-de-nil blue mingled with Indian reds. It was a complete picture of human loveliness in a background of Oriental splendour. As Raife rose from the divan, on which he had been reclining, to acknowledge her presence, he gasped with admiration.

In her well-modulated contralto tones she said, with evident earnestness: “Mr Remington, father tells me that you have consented that I should hear the story of your wound – that dagger wound.” Then she shuddered.

“My dear Miss Muirhead, I am afraid it will make a very dull story, and will make me appear very foolish. However, I will willingly appear foolish before such an audience.”

Raife told the story of the woman who was beaten by the Nubian in the back street of Khartoum; of her cries, and his attempt at rescue – and of the stab in the dark from behind. He told it in a characteristically English way – haltingly, and without embellishment.

With elbows on knees, and with dainty fingers entwined under her chin, Hilda Muirhead sat and gazed at this handsome young man – his nationality mattered not to her – as he told the story that “made him appear foolish.” It was incredible to her that a man who boldly ran down a slum, in a hateful place like Khartoum, to hammer a great big ugly black man, who was beating a woman, should be considered foolish by any one, much more so by himself. The thought, a woman’s thought, came to her – “he did it in the dark, too. What curious people these Englishmen are. How they love to ridicule themselves and one another. Fancy being considered foolish to risk his life for helping a woman.”

Hilda Muirhead gazed with admiration, whilst Mr Muirhead rose, crossed the room, and, seizing Raife’s hand, said: “Mr Remington, that’s a fine story. We shouldn’t call you a fool in the United States. We should call you a hero and give you the time of your life. I’m your friend, sir, if you will allow me that honour.”

Raife stammered and blushed. Hilda Muirhead saw that blush and admired it, for there are not many men who blush in the United States.

In an effort to change the subject, which was tiresome to him, Raife said, “By the by, Mr Muirhead, I owe you an apology.”

“Well, now, father,” said Hilda, laughingly, “I wonder what Mr Remington will apologise for next?”

Raife continued, smiling: “Oh, this isn’t so foolish as the other. Only I omitted to give you my card, when we met. I hadn’t got one with me at the moment.” He handed his card to Mr Muirhead, and, turning to Hilda, said: “May I present you with one also, Miss Muirhead?”

Father and daughter read the little neat piece of pasteboard:

Sir Raife Remington, Bart.,Aldborough Park,Tunbridge Wells

Chapter Seventeen

Mr Muirhead and Hilda Discover Raife’s Identity

When Raife had returned to his room after the pleasantest evening of his life, he meditated, as is the wont of impulsive young men after an event. The night was very hot and, in spite of the clear starlit sky overhead, it was sultry. He donned a light cashmere dressing-gown and walked out to the balcony which overlooked the old town. Seating himself in a wicker chair, he lit a cigar and talked to himself, a practice of elderly people and those who are mentally perturbed. He talked to himself softly, in short, disjointed sentences. He muttered, with a curl of his lips: “Gilda! Ha! ha! That was a passing fancy. I was a fool. I’m glad I got out of it as well as I did. It was good of that fellow, Herrion, to steer me out of the mess I was landing myself into. Fancy marrying a ‘lady’ burglar.”

He yawned and relit his cigar which had gone out. Cigars make no allowance for meditative monologues. Continuing, he raised his voice slightly: “Woman-hater! Of course, I’m a woman-hater. Two women have landed me in a hole.” Starting from his reverie, he thought he heard a cough. Yes, it was a woman’s cough. He stood up and leant over the balcony. As he looked down, he saw a woman with a light shawl over her head. She was on the balcony immediately under his. He only caught a glance as the figure entered the window below, which corresponded with the one that led to his own room. He whispered now, lest he should be overheard: “I wonder who that woman was. Was it Miss Muirhead? – Hilda! I rather like the name. It rhymes with Gilda. But what a different type of girl. And, after all, I must have companionship of some sort.”

Next morning the trio met again in the foyer. The ice was broken now. Hotel friendships are very warm whilst they last. Would this one last?

When Raife left, after his story of the wound he got on behalf of a strange woman in Khartoum, Mr Muirhead and Hilda, each holding the card in their hands, the card that Raife had given them, looked at one another with puzzled expressions. Then Mr Muirhead read aloud: “Sir Raife Remington, Bart., Aldborough Park, Tunbridge Wells.”

Hilda asked: “Why didn’t he tell us he was a baronet?”

Her father answered, reflectively: “Yes, these Englishmen certainly are curious. Now, if he’d been an American judge, or colonel, we should have known all about it in five minutes, and more than we wanted to know before the day was out, and before the dinner was over, we should have hated him for it.”

Hilda, too, gazed reflectively, and said, “Yes, that’s only too true. Then again, how strange that he should be ashamed of helping that poor woman in Khartoum, and after being stabbed, too.”

It has been said of Americans and others that they dearly love a lord. Why shouldn’t they? Especially if he is a nice lord. Raife was not a lord, but he was a baronet, and a very handsome and agreeable baronet. Mr Muirhead was an American business man, and it is the habit of such men to go to the “rock-bottom” of things, so he said to Hilda: “I wonder whether he’s a new-fledged political baronet, or one of the old families. I expect they’ve got a Debrett or Burke’s Peerage downstairs. I’ll look it up in the morning.”

When Mr Muirhead looked up Raife’s ancestry in the morning, he was not sorry to learn that Raife was descended from the Tudor and Elizabethan Reymingtounes. He had just completed this operation when they met Raife in the foyer. They greeted one another with cordiality, and Mr Muirhead induced Raife, without much difficulty, to join them in an expedition. Hilda was divinely beautiful at the dinner of the previous night. On this morning, riding in the bright sunlight, she was radiant. The reserve of the previous evening was absent and she talked intellectually. At times, her conversation was brilliant, and interspersed with those quaint witticisms that seem only possible to Americans, and are doubly entertaining when they flow from the lips of a pretty American girl. As Raife sat opposite to her, listening to the pleasing flow of her talk, he wrestled with his inclinations, and his mind determined for him that he need not be altogether a woman-hater. There was no harm in enjoying the society of a pretty girl as long as he did not allow himself to become entangled. At the same time, he could not help contrasting this sunny, vivacious young girl, with the handsome, white-haired, courtly father, against the mysterious Gilda, admittedly a “lady” burglar, and her sinister uncle with the unpleasing eyes.

During a lull in the talk, which had been mostly between Hilda and Raife, Mr Muirhead said: “I notice from your card that you are Sir Raife Remington, a baronet. I’ve been wondering why you didn’t mention that fact before.”

Raife laughed, and replied: “Oh, I don’t know. It didn’t occur to me.”

Mr Muirhead was characteristically American, a seeker after information or truth, so he added: “I am a very plain American and I am not familiar with the observances or etiquette of English society. I hazard the suggestion that we should address you as ‘Sir Raife,’ Is that correct?”

Raife was very charmed with these ingenuous people, and this time he laughed heartily until his shoulder reminded them all of the dagger wound. Recovering from the spasm of pain, which had caused Hilda to regard him with the real sympathy which brought the perfect beauty into her lustrous eyes, he said: “I hope, sir, you will call me Remington, just Remington. The intricacies of etiquette are far too tiresome for such pleasant occasions as these. If Miss Muirhead insists on calling me ‘Sir Raife’ I must submit, but the sooner she will forget the prefix the greater will be my happiness.”

Hilda, with eyes that had changed from sympathy to merriment, and with fun that was not intended for flirtation, exclaimed: “Really, Sir Raife, do you mean that? If so, how soon may I call you just ‘Raife’ only?”

Mr Muirhead raised his eyebrows with a quizzical smile.

Raife replied: “I am not very familiar with your language as you always charmingly and frequently quaintly express it, but I dare to suggest ‘right now!’”

Hilda had not imagined that an Englishman, especially an English aristocrat, could be so quick and graceful in repartee, and in spite of her natural self-possession she blushed.

Raife was playing his part as a woman-hater rather badly; but he, at the time, was very confident of himself. Raife was brave enough when they had returned to the hotel, and he felt that the day’s pleasure had, in no sense, altered his determination in the matter. His bravery came to his rescue in so far that he managed to avoid the incident of a dinner together. He pleaded the excuse of his wounded shoulder and retired to his rooms.

Alone, after dinner, he renewed his moralising. He sat again on the balcony, and tried to chase away the fever of love which was more to him than a mere stab of a dagger in the shoulder. He flattered himself that he was still a woman-hater, and that he had only played a game. This was a divertissement which should last until his shoulder was healed, and then he would rejoin Colonel Langton and renew his intention of big-game shooting. It did not occur to him that he was “big game,” and that he stood to be shot at. It was yet another of those divine nights which are so frequent in Cairo, and Raife’s mood was quite contented as he sat on the balcony and surveyed this fascinating city.

Among the cities of the East, Cairo is counted one of the most enchanting. All that Europe has done to spoil the primitive grandeur of the older civilisation, which has existed centuries before us of the West, leaves Cairo a monument of the gorgeous and inscrutable past. Aladdin with the wonderful lamp and all the stories of the Arabian Nights seem to have emanated from such a place as Cairo.

Raife sat and contemplated the mysterious view which confronted him. It was dark, but it was early, and the lights of the crowded cafés flickered below in a serried row of all that counted for speculation. There, in every garb, every conceivable costume, was a mixture of nationalities from every corner of the globe Americans, Europeans, Egyptians, Turks, Arabs, Negroes, and the unfathomable Indians of the remote East. Raife thought of his first experience of the Americans, and it was a pleasing one. Hilda Muirhead was a novel type to him; for, in spite of the fact that fortune had been kind to him in the matter of wealth and family and inheritance, his experience was limited. A strange vein of adventure was his. He was descended from the Reymingtounes, who, in the days of Elizabeth, helped to found the British Empire, and saved our diminutive islands from invasion and conquest by the all-powerful Spaniard of the period. His mind did not travel in this direction. He was an English aristocrat, and possessed all the endowments of a lavish fortune. At the moment, he was a very ordinary, human young man. He thought he was a woman-hater. Hilda Muirhead was to him an interesting specimen. At least, he flattered himself that was his view of the matter.

Hilda’s opinion of Raife is rather hard to determine. She was bred, or, as they still sometimes say in the United States, “reared” in Cincinnati, which is on the border-line of south, and hers was an aristocratic lineage, dating, as far as that country is concerned, to the old colonial days when the present United States were peopled almost entirely by British. The British who fought against British before the Declaration of Independence, were, in a large number of instances, aristocrats. Hilda Muirhead was descended from such “stock.”

Raife now gazed at the wonderful grouping of minarets and mosques which were silhouetted against the sparkling sky of deepest transparent blue. Cairo is not a noisy city at night-time, and from his wickered chair everything was seductively calm. This calm was suddenly made more pleasing by the strains of music. It was soft, restrained music, and a human voice predominated. “The Rosary” should, preferably, be sung by a subdued contralto voice to a low-pitched accompaniment. This was the song that completed the breaking of a responsive string in Raife’s heart. Hilda Muirhead was singing to her father, but the song floated upwards and through the still, pure night air, reached him. Could it be an accident or was it design? No one shall ever know. It happened. The conquest, for a time, was complete, and Raife felt and knew that only one woman could have sung that song, that night, in that way.