The Mistress of Nothing (12 page)

The first proposal was a direct result of what my Lady and I were doing in our makeshift clinic; as the epidemic at last began to ebb away, the household was overwhelmed with gifts: a woven shawl, clay pots full of black honey, a chicken stuffed with green wheat and roasted with dates—delicious—from people too poor to spare such things. But on this occasion, instead of offering a bundle of wheat or maize, an old man from the village asked to speak in private to my Lady. I took him upstairs to the salon. In the kitchen next door, I asked Omar to brew the tea while I picked up my sewing.

“My son,
Sitti,”
we heard the man say simply, after a few opening pleasantries, “my son for your Missy.”

I stabbed my finger with my needle and it began to bleed.

Omar dropped the tray he was carrying with a huge clatter. We both stood still as a stone Ramses, afraid to move in case we missed anything.

Though I couldn’t see her, I could hear my Lady was lost for an appropriate reply; my Lady was never lost for a reply.

The old man in his tidy worn clothes mistook my Lady’s ongoing silence for interest in his proposal. “A woman needs a husband and children,” he said. He was on uncertain ground, unaccustomed to discussing such important matters with a woman, let alone a
Frangi
woman. I could hear the hesitation in his voice. There was much confusion in the village about the husbandless
Sitti
Duff Gordon, although this confusion had been alleviated by my Lady’s growing stature as the host of regular salons with her important male friends and village
hakima.
In fact, she was well on her way to becoming an honorary man. The old
fellah
continued, despite his lack of confidence. “We are not wealthy people, but we would give a good home to Missy.”

Now my Lady began to cough, but I could tell this was in an effort not to laugh. We knew this man and his family to be very poor, possessing nothing, not even their own smallholding. I knew the son in question as well; he was one of the village donkey boys, though the broken-down and decrepit donkey he hauled tourists around on during the season was not his own beast but one that he hired from Mustafa Agha.

Omar, having pulled himself together, picked up and rearranged his tray. He crossed the room to me, leaned down and kissed my cheek. Then he entered the salon bearing the sweet tea.

Left behind in the kitchen on my own, I gripped the sides of the wooden bench. Oh my God, oh my good God, no, my Lady, no, please.

“Omar,” my Lady said in English, “I need your help with answering this man with the proper degree of respect. You heard his offer?”

“Yes, my Lady.” His voice was strained.

“Please, Omar, please speak for me; my Arabic is bound to fail me now. How best to turn him down? I must not offend him. What is the right thing to say, the thing that will not result in Sally having to marry one of our lovely village donkey boys?”

Omar cleared his throat and took a breath. “I will tell him you are honored by his offer.”

“Yes. That sounds right.”

“And I will tell him that Miss Naldrett came to Egypt with you from England, and that she belongs at your side. And that your own husband has asked her to stay with you always, that she has promised she will never leave you.” He paused. “She is spoken for already.”

At that, my heart felt light.

“Good,” she said. “Will he think I’m wicked for not letting Sally marry his son?”

“He will accept it, my Lady. You and Sally are a great source of puzzlement to the villagers. This refusal will be one of many unanswerable mysteries.”

“Thank you, Omar. Please.”

When the old man rose to leave, I came through to see him out. He bowed his head graciously, and my Lady offered him her hand. He took hold of it as though it was a strange and fragile glass replica of a hand, not real at all. He smiled shyly at me.

When we returned to the kitchen I held up my finger, still bleeding from where I had stabbed myself with my needle, for Omar to see. He got a bowl of water and washed away the blood, then wrapped the finger in a clean cloth, neither of us speaking.

When I emerged from the kitchen, my Lady saw that I had gone so pale I looked gray. “I think you’ve started something, Sally,” she said. “I have a distinct feeling that this won’t be the last offer of marriage that comes your way.”

“Thank you, my Lady,” I said, and I curtsied to my mistress for the first time in a number of months, our manner with each other having become so informal and easy. “I’m grateful to you for sending him on his way.”

My Lady laughed. “Did you think, even for one moment, that I might accept his offer?”

“I did,” I said. “I was convinced that you would agree immediately!’

“Sally,” my Lady said, her voice soft, chiding.

“I know, my Lady.”

Omar came into the room; he stood with his hands on his hips. “The donkey boy,” he said, in English. “The donkey boy.” And I began to laugh and soon was laughing so hard I had to sit down on the divan next to my Lady, who pulled me into an embrace.

“No one is going to take you away from me, my dear,” my Lady said as she stroked my hair. “No one is taking away my Sally.”

I was safe; Omar stood there and watched us, a big grin on his face.

And, as predicted, after that the marriage proposals began to arrive regularly; fathers representing their beloved eldest sons, widowed mothers hoping to find a good wife for their much-favored boys. The most serious proposal came from Mustafa Agha himself, on behalf of his eldest son, Seyd. Seyd was a good-looking young man who sometimes accompanied his father to my Lady’s salons, where he must have had a good look at me on more than one occasion; in the better Egyptian households the unmarried daughters are hidden away from the world, more rumor than reality to outsiders, and Omar told me that catching a glimpse of a girl was always a great challenge. I, of course, was not my Lady’s daughter but her servant, not a girl but an ancient spinster, and yet the fact that I was English seemed to count for a great deal. My Lady knew she must treat Mustafa Agha’s proposal with the utmost consideration; he was the wealthiest and one of the most important men in Luxor, in all of Upper Egypt in fact, and he was good-humored and well disposed towards my Lady, his friendship a valuable and useful thing.

“The very idea,” my Lady said, once he had departed. She had promised him she would consider his offer carefully. She paused for a moment and looked at me. “Would you like to marry him?” she asked abruptly. “This is, quite possibly, the best offer you’ll ever receive.”

I gasped. “No! Of course not!”

“Of course not,” my Lady agreed. “What was I thinking? How ridiculous.” She shook her head and frowned and laughed at the same time. “For an Englishwoman to marry an Egyptian man. Unthinkable. But still,” she said, and she studied me, “I should not take it as read that you will be with me always.”

“Yes, you should,” I said, but my thoughts on the subject did not resemble my Lady’s. I was not interested in the suitability or otherwise of the young Seyd (who was, it transpired, all of nineteen), nor of any of the men who had requested my hand in marriage. As far as I was concerned, life would continue just as it was, until the end of all our days.

The next time Mustafa came to visit, the proposal was rebuffed, like all the others, gracefully.

IT WAS OMAR WHO TOLD ME. I WAS TOO IGNORANT TO RECOGNIZE
the signs in myself, though I would have spotted them in another woman right away; I was already too astonished by my body, too overwhelmed by sensation, to notice yet more changes. It was, after all, very warm during the day now, and the heat made it difficult to eat, and not eating made my head ache, and that made me dizzy and nauseous, especially first thing in the morning. Late one night, as I stood before him, full of desire, happy in the knowledge of his desire for me, Omar said, “You are going to have a child.”

I laughed, not understanding, then felt amazement flood through me. Was this what he wanted? To father my child?

He got up from the divan and ran his hand across my stomach. “You are going to have a child,” he said, once again.

I looked at him. Of course. My knees buckled and he caught me as I slid toward the floor.

This was it. Here I was, trapped, like a foolish girl who has let things go too far in the alley behind the big house where she works.

I turned quickly and threw up in the basin that Omar keeps in his room for his early morning ablutions. What will happen? What will happen to me?

Then I felt his warm hands on my back and he drew me towards him, whispering, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. I’ll take care of you and our baby.”

AT NIGHT, OMAR AND I LAY TOGETHER AND DISCUSSED OUR PLANS TO
marry.

“We can’t tell her,” I’d say.

“We must tell her,” he’d reply.

“We can’t tell her,” he’d say.

“We must tell her,” I’d reply. “When the time is right.”

“You’re already married,” I’d say.

“I can take another wife. It is permitted.”

“We’d have to tell my Lady first.”

“We can’t tell her.”

“We must tell her.”

“We will tell her. When the time is right.”

But, of course, the time was never quite precisely right. Perhaps tomorrow, we’d say. We’d find the right moment on the right day.

And our secret grew more elaborate every day.

I was not used to deception and it did not come naturally to me. However, it would never occur to my Lady that Omar and I could be anything other than her loyal servants; it hadn’t occurred to me before the moment it happened. And, truth be told, we remained her loyal servants; together, as apart, she was our main priority. Nothing had changed; everything revolved around our mistress. Nothing would change; nothing needed to change. At least that’s what I told myself; that’s what Omar and I told each other.

I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t worried about the future, mine or the baby’s. I trusted Omar absolutely. I trusted my Lady; she was my guide, my mistress; she would always stand by me. We’d find a way to tell her, and when we did, she’d pause for a moment before moving onward, taking it in her stride. She’d find a way to help us through; our happiness would make her happy. We’d gone far beyond the normal roles of Lady, lady’s maid, and loyal dragoman; this was just an extra step in our journey.

And, besides, it
was
hard to believe. Every day I had to pinch myself; this man loves me. This man desires me. I am carrying this man’s child. This man has asked for my hand in marriage. We are going to be married; we are going to have a family. It was all so far removed from the realm of what was possible for a woman like me, at my time of life, in my position, that it was completely unreal to me. Perfectly tangible, but absolutely unreal. It was remarkably easy to go about my business every day as though nothing unexpected—untoward—was happening. I deceived my Lady, I know I did, and in the process I deceived myself as well.

TOWARDS THE END OF APRIL, I WAS OPENING THE SHUTTERS IN MY
Lady’s bedroom one morning when I noticed a young Englishman coming up the footpath towards the house. I called my Lady to the window. Just then, he looked up and spotted us, and we both recognized her cousin. “Arthur,” my Lady cried, “Arthur Taylor.” She ran down the stairs and out the front door of the house as though she’d never been ill and greeted the young man as though she’d been deprived of human companionship for months. Once again, I was reminded of how much my Lady missed her own family. Once again, I was reminded that, for her, life away from England was full of loss and deprivation, however brave a face she showed to the world, however wholeheartedly she threw herself into village life.

That night as I was preparing the salon for the evening meal, my Lady entered the room and said, “Mr. Taylor has returned to his
dahabieh
to get ready for supper. He and I will take it here, together, Egyptian-style.” There was a hardness to her tone that I hadn’t heard in many months; it was a tone she used in Esher when speaking to servants with whom she was annoyed.

I looked up at her. “Of course, Lady Duff Gordon,” I said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Omar”—I paused, and corrected myself—“Mr. Abu Halaweh is preparing a most wonderful meal.”

She smiled then and I could tell she was relieved. “Thank you, Sally,” she said.

Though he slept on his
dahabieh
at night, Mr. Taylor spent much of his day with my Lady, and the household ran on English rules once again; Omar and I took our meals in the kitchen and my Lady rang a little bell when we were needed. This restoration of our old ways felt odd at first but, in fact, its rhythm was natural to me, second nature, and besides, it gave Omar and me more time to ourselves. Mr. Taylor was full of news and gossip from England and my Lady was overjoyed to discover he had seen every member of her family before he departed, less than two months previously.

“And my little Rainey,” I heard her ask, “tell me about her again. How did she look? What did she say? Tell me everything.”

Mr. Taylor was en route, up the Nile, stopping at all the sites along the way, despite the lateness of the season. It had been months since my Lady and I had done any traveling and the whole household had worked throughout the village epidemic to a state of near exhaustion. But no one had presented themselves at the house for treatment for a while, and no one in the village had died for even longer, and so when Mr. Taylor told my Lady of his plans to travel on to Edfu, she asked if she might join him. He was traveling alone in his large
dahabieh
with only one servant apart from the crew, a Copt, a former tailor who, Mr. Taylor said, had turned out to be rather useless, not even able to sew. “Aunt Lucie,” he said, “I would be very glad of the company.”