The Dark Moment Read online

  The sofa on which Réfiyé Hanim sat was really a divan, filling the shallow angle between the window and the inner wall, and continuing along under the window itself; there was a similar one in the opposite corner, below the shuttered window which looked towards the west— they were built against the wall, broad, low, gracefully shaped and curved, and upholstered in satiny stripes of prune and gold brocade, with cushions heaped up in the corners: typically Turkish furnishings, and deliciously comfortable. Mademoiselle Marthe did not, however, sit on the divan, large as it was; that, and the table by it, constituted the special corner of the mistress of the house, her own undisputed place. The Frenchwoman drew a small white-and-gold Louis Quinze chair up to the little inlaid table, and sat down.

  And in the Pasha’s house, be it noted, Louis Quinze really meant Louis Quinze. That monarch had presented a complete set of drawing-room furniture—chairs and settees, elegant and fragile, their curves painted in cream and gold, their backs and seats upholstered in sea-green brocade—to the Sultan of his day; but Queen Victoria having subsequently presented a later Sultan with a drawing-room suite characteristic of her reign, the French King’s gift had been turned out to make room for it, and became the perquisite of Réfiyé Hanim’s father, who had been a Court Chamberlain at the time. The presence of all this French furniture made the big salon at the yali a curious mixture of the oriental and the European. The ceiling, with shallow diamond-shaped panelling painted sea-green, was purely oriental, but the floor, covered in the centre by a huge Savonnerie carpet in pale creams and pinks and blues was purely European, so was the grand piano in one corner; but there were Kayseri rugs under the windows in the bow, and here and there, among the faded French elegance of the furniture, stood those small tables inlaid in mother-of-pearl or pale wood, like the one in Réfiyé Hanim’s corner, while more of the maroon and gold divans stretched along the walls between the panelled sea-green doors. The most obviously oriental thing about the room was in fact the walls themselves. They displayed no pictures: instead there were delicate examples of calligraphy, on small square panels richly framed—of gilding on dark wood, or darkly painted on pale or golden grounds—and, where the space between the doors allowed, rich silken embroideries stretched out in oblongs of exquisite colour, texture, and design. Light, fragile, somehow uncertain in its general effect, it was nevertheless an unusually beautiful room, and one that could be seen nowhere but in Istanbul or along the shores of the Bosphorus—where for centuries East and West have, whatever Kipling may have said, met.

  Mademoiselle Marthe, then, seated on her little French chair beside the small Turkish table, entered on a pleasantly confidential talk with her employer. She was on the best of terms with Réfiyé Hanim, for whom she had a deep respect. She had come to Turkey thirty years before as governess to Féridé’s mother, and apart from a few brief holidays she had lived there ever since, in only the two families: as governess to her first pupil’s young sisters for some years, and then to that pupil’s own daughter—now married—and to the motherless Féridé. She was completely at home in her foreign surroundings, and had adjusted herself admirably to the Turkish way of life, much of which had her entire approval— mariages de convenance and keeping young girls well under one’s eye had always seemed to her thoroughly desirable objects, and if she thought the veil possibly an exaggerated means of achieving them, she kept her thoughts to herself. Féridé’s mother she had dearly loved, and her desire now to bring the child up as that mother would have wished was as ardent, if more intelligent, as Dil Feripé’s own. Old Marthe Chanrion was, for her generation, a fine scholar, with a passion for classical French literature, and a strong sense of elegance, in life as in prose; she had found elegance of life among the Turkish upper classes, and appreciated it. She was by no means a silly woman, in spite of her twitterings over dirty faces and torn frocks—these were just part of the stock-in-trade, as she conceived it, of a high-class French governess in good families. Rather surprisingly, she had learned to speak Turkish really well, a thing which Réfiyé Hanim appreciated very much—so many “Françaises,” however cultivated in their own tongue, never reached the point of being able to do more than talk like children or servants in that of their pupils. Also they were often “difficiles” in the household—a bore at meals, hyper-sensitive about their position, and, above all, at odds with the dadis; whereas Mdlle Marthe, partly by her own force of character, partly, no doubt, owing to her excellent command of the language, had made and maintained for herself an acceptable, and accepted, position. These were valuable qualities, and rightly valued by Réfiyé Hanim.

  “Grand Dieu, what had they been doing to get in such a state?” the Frenchwoman now asked.

  “Playing hide-and-seek up in the koru—I have not heard all the details yet, but no doubt I shall,” said Réfiyé Hanim, with a quiet smile.

  “Sans doute! She is very wild, this little Fanny; like all English girls, du reste”—with a suitable sigh.

  “Yes, and she makes Féridé wild too—but she is a charming girl, all the same,” replied Réfiyé Hanim, who believed in answering the unspoken as well as the spoken word.

  “Oh Madame, there you are very right, if I may say so,” said Mdlle Marthe seriously. “She does make Féridé wild, certainly; but there are worse things than wildness! Companionship is good for Féridé, and this is a wholesome one; there is no silly talk, or gossiping, or whispering, with the little Canaria.”

  Fanny Pierce’s yellow head, rather beaky little nose, darting bright glance and swift movements, as well as her constant bubble of chatter, had earned her the nick-name of “The Canary” in the Pasha’s household when she first appeared in it four years before; it was in fact the Pasha himself who had called her so originally. And while Mdlle Marthe and Réfiyé Hanim talked in the salon, the Canary and her small friend were being tidied up in Féridé’s room. From the hall at the head of the stairs doors opened right and left onto two broad passages, from which a succession of lesser rooms at the back of the house opened out —Féridé’s was along the left-hand corridor, between Dil Feripé’s and Mdlle Marthe’s. It was a pretty little room, gaily done up in blue and white cretonnes; cool, and rather dark, since it gave onto that bushy cliff only a few feet away; the window was closely curtained in muslin. Here Dil Feripé, now assisted by two kalfas, aged attendants as old and as Victorian-looking as herself, was washing, brushing, and combing the two girls with a flow of rather comminatory comment. Fanny, accustomed to doing all these things for herself—whether at school, or in her Uncle’s house at Oxford or, as at present, in Madame Kaftanoglou’s pension—thought all this elaborate waiting-on very amusing; but she was quite used to it, and submitted cheerfully to being cleaned, arranged, and dressed in a clean print frock of Féridé’s. It was rather too long for her; though she was a year older than her friend, she was—as she was to remain—small, whereas Féridé’s legs were already as lanky as a young colt’s. At last their appearance satisfied the three old women, and they returned to the salon, followed by their attendants. Réfiyé Hanim asked Dil Feripé to tell the servants to bring tea, and then put away her work and slowly rose.

  “Where do we have tea today, Niné?” Féridé asked.

  “On the east balcony, my child; there will not be sun there.”

  On either side of the great projecting bow in the centre of the house were two long deep balconies or loggias, with arches supported on slender pillars rising from a balustrade on the seaward side; to reach the eastern one from the salon the party had to pass through the dining-room, a long low apartment where the light filtered in, dim and subdued, through the French windows from the curved arches of the loggia beyond. Living in a climate of blinding sunshine, Turks generally prefer a dim light in their rooms, and half-closed shutters or lowered jalousies are the rule; Réfiyé Hanim’s habit of sitting in the full light in the salon was quite exceptional, and her son sometimes remonstrated gently with her about it—she never argued with him, and would
tell one of the kalfas to close the shutters—but next day she would be found again sitting in her corner with her book or her embroidery, in the full light.

  Out on the balcony they took their places at two small tables—took the places, that is, that Réfiyé Hanim, with a certain gentle formality, indicated to each. Standing as she did so, she was an imposing figure—in the long straight tunic-like coat of écru brocade, fresh and impeccable, that she always wore, over some lacy thing of which the folds appeared at her throat. Fanny had never seen her in anything else, and wondered sometimes how many of them she possessed, so fresh and uncreased they always were! A piece of cream tulle was lightly arranged over her hair, which still had hardly a thread of silver in it; her skin, despite some wrinkles, was clear and fine, and her brows drew down above her eyes with a look of concentration that was strangely repeated in her grandchild’s small fresh face. She summoned Fanny to a chair on one side of her, Féridé to one on the other; Mdlle Marthe sat opposite, and the kalfas, joined by two more, drew up to a second table.

  Fanny loved having tea on the balcony. At the further end a sort of grotto of rocks had been constructed, where water fell musically into a miniature pool; ferns smothered this grotto, green creepers climbed the rocks and twined themselves round the nearest pillars of the loggia; below, the unpredictable currents of the Bosphorus sent small waves slapping against the embankment in front of the house, so that to those who sat there, water spoke with two voices at once; the silvery curve of the carven Roman arches framed pictures of blue water, blue sky, and the low gentle outline of the hills of Chamlidja between the two. It was, Fanny always felt, a magical place—and the magic was somehow not lessened by the delicious pastries, the sweet cakes rich with nuts and honey, and the jams—grape jam, fig jam, rose-leaf jam—which one consumed there, sipping water to relieve the almost unbearable sweetness of these exotic conserves.

  Today, however, her tea was cut rather short—a maid-servant appeared to say that the Doctor Effendi was ready to leave, and was waiting. Fanny sprang up, with her usual impetuosity—thanked Réfiyé Hanim, kissing her hand as before, and said goodbye formally to Mdlle Marthe and all five old maids.

  “Your hat, Fanny—do not forget your hat,” said Mdlle Marthe.

  “Oh no—thank you. I left it in Féridé’s room; may I go and get it?” she asked her hostess.

  “Certainly, my child.”

  Féridé, like all the others, had risen to say goodbye.

  “May I go with Fanny to get her hat, Niné?”

  “Yes, run—but come back at once.”

  The two girls ran off together.

  “Shall you come tomorrow?” Féridé asked.

  “If Uncle brings me. I do not know what his plans are.”

  “Oh, do come! I hope you will come. It is so very nice when you are here,” exclaimed Féridé, kissing her warmly.

  “I love coming,” said Fanny truly. “Goodbye, dji-djim.”

  “And today we did not sing! I have a new song that Ahmet has taught me, that you must learn.”

  “A folk-song?”

  “Yes. Oh, why must you go?”

  “I must—you know I must. Remain with God”—and Fanny ran out. The maid was waiting on the landing to escort her downstairs, but with a nod of thanks Fanny ran down alone. She knew her way perfectly—through a door at the foot of the stairs out into a covered way at the back of the house; this was much quicker than being escorted by the maid through the whole series of corridors, rooms, and lobbies which circumnavigated the male part of the dwelling, leading at last to a door giving onto the taslik, the paved court at the main entrance—and she hated to keep her uncle waiting. But when she reached the open air she found that she need not have hurried. The Pasha and her uncle were walking up and down beside the balustraded sea-wall, deep in conversation, passing from the shadow of the great plane-trees at the further end into the shadow of the magnolias near the house, Dr. Pierce’s panama and the Pasha’s red fez both catching the light as they crossed the patch of sunlight between the two. The Finance Minister’s car had gone. Fanny hesitated to disturb them, but she wanted her uncle to know that she was there; so she crossed to the sea-wall, when they were at the further end, and sat on the parapet swinging her feet. As they approached her, still deep in talk, she could hear what they said.

  “My dear Pasha, of course I understand your fear of Russia—we should fear her, if we lived where you live,” her uncle was saying. They noticed her then, and came to a halt a few paces from where she sat. “But I don’t trust the Germans any more than the Russians, you know,” Dr. Pierce went on. “I think His Excellency is biased—their military competence has dazzled him. But military skill isn’t the only thing; morals count, even in politics.”

  “Ah, morals! The English always talk about morals!”

  “We find it so practical to have them,” said Dr. Pierce drily. “All this talk about perfidious Albion is really only an expression of envy at the way the English seem to make morality pay!”

  The Pasha laughed, rather unwillingly—then he brushed morality aside. “You see that His Excellency is anxious, and no wonder. No one knows when this thing will begin.”

  “I expect His Excellency has some idea,” said Dr. Pierce, even more drily. “Unless his dear friends want it, it need never begin at all.”

  “But do you know when they will be ready? One was promised for this month, and the other a little later. Everything hinges on that, for us—once we have them, we are safe. You see that I speak in confidence,” said the Pasha, who had now forgotten Fanny’s presence—there was no mistaking the urgency of his tone. “And you have no conception how our people pinched and scraped—the poorest!—to raise the money for them,” he ended, almost wistfully.

  “My dear Pasha, I have a very good idea! You forget that I was here in 1911 and 1912, when the subscriptions were open,” said Dr. Pierce. “But seriously, how should I know anything about that matter? I don’t move in Government circles, or ship-building circles either. Oxford is totally ignorant of such things!”

  Again the Pasha gave his courteous, half-unwilling little laugh. “Ah well,” he said. He now noticed Fanny, and went over to her; she sprang down off the wall at his approach.

  “Eh, la Canada! And what mischief have you been up to?” he asked, addressing her in French.

  “I climbed a tree and tore my frock, Excellency.”

  “Oh—well—that is a form of amusement like another, I suppose,” he said, turning again to Dr. Pierce, with a smile. “Come again, soon,” he said, taking his friend’s arm affectionately; “I have something new to show you—a lovely piece of Izzet’s work, that my dealer in Broussa sent me only yesterday; but with that unexpected visit from the Minister, I lacked the opportunity to show it to you.”

  “Izzet’s, eh?” said Dr. Pierce, “I should like to see that.”

  “Well, come and do so! Tomorrow I am occupied, but do come the day after.”

  “Thank you, Pasha—I will.”

  “And bring this little person, this yellow bird,” said the Pasha, patting Fanny’s head. “To tear more dresses with Féridé, eh?”

  “No, Excellency, I hope not—but I want to learn Ahmet’s new folksong.”

  “Oh, so Ahmet has a new folk-song! You see, my friend, you are turning all my family into students of folk-lore, as well as myself,” said the Pasha to Dr. Pierce, smiling. He was a tallish man, very spare, with a dark, severe, rather sombre face, and altogether the air of one much accustomed to command; when he smiled, however, the severe expression changed into one of great charm. He walked with his guests the short distance to the gate, talking now of Turkish popular poetry; Dr. Pierce slipped a tip into the hand of the gloriously dressed Mahmud Agha, who had finished watering his cactuses, and stood in a respectful attitude holding open one wing of the door; with a final farewell the Englishman and Fanny passed out, and the high door closed behind them.

  Out in the road Dr. Pierce looked at his watc
h.

  “Half-past six,” he said. “We shall just miss the next ferryboat. Are you tired, or shall we walk?”

  “Oh, let’s walk! I’m not a bit tired.”

  “We might pick up a carriage,” said Dr. Pierce, glancing up and down the road.

  “No, let’s walk. It’s not hot any more.”

  Dr. Pierce often felt (as well he might) that if a bachelor had suddenly to be left with a child on his hands, to bring up as best he could, he himself was in luck to be left with one as sensible, as healthy, and as accommodating as his niece. A child who was delicate or stupid, or fretful or exacting would have been a terrible trial—in fact impossible. But Fanny was always well, never tired, and seemed to manage her own side of her small life excellently: from the outset, if she needed such things as dresses, clothes, or shoes, she asked him for the money she thought she would require at the beginning of term, and made her purchases with the help of one or other of her schoolmistresses; in the holidays, she mended her own things fairly neatly, or caused someone else to mend them if they were beyond her powers—these last two summers she had even taken to darning his socks and sewing buttons on his shirts. He always took her away from school when it suited him to start for Turkey, i.e., for the whole of the long vacation, despite the protests of the authorities—these he ignored, and Fanny was delighted. She kept herself amused—how, he didn’t exactly know—during the many hours of each day when he was at work; he knew that she diligently practised writing the Turkish script, at which she had become sufficiently accomplished even to do some transcribing for him now and then, and he heard her tinkling away sometimes on the indifferent piano at the pension; she borrowed books in French from Féridé, too. However she did it, she always seemed to be occupied and contented, and when he was not at work she was a very pleasant little companion—one could talk quite rationally to her.

  As they walked along the road now, under the shadow of the plane-trees—“What is this new song of Ahmet’s?” he asked.