Palace Circle Part 24

"That's true, but I don't think she minds. Marie Belloc Lowndes keeps her company. They have been friends forever and have similar worries."

"Which are?" Ivor asked as his Rolls came into view.

"Family abroad. Margot's daughter is in Romania. Her husband was the Romanian amba.s.sador in Paris until war broke out, and when he was recalled to Bucharest she went with him. Margot is terrified that she won't live long enough to see her again. As for Marie-all her family are in France."

As the chauffeur opened the door Ivor said smoothly, "Fawzia is coming with us, and Petra and Sholto are following. Davina and Darius have an engagement."

It wasn't true, but when Davina opened her mouth to protest, Darius squeezed her arm. That he had been tolerated in the family party to greet her mother was improvement enough. If Lord Conisborough didn't want him intruding any further on the reunion that was okay with him. There would be other occasions when he would visit Nile House and possibly pick up other useful nuggets of information.

A few days later when he and Davina had tea with Petra at the Gezira Sporting Club, Petra brought Davina up-to-date with their mother's London gossip. "Delia thinks Winston Churchill will soon be stepping into Chamberlain's shoes," she said, adding with a wry laugh, "Hitler will have to look to his laurels if he does. And Ivor's old friend, Sir John Simon, will probably be out. Winston thinks he is indecisive."

"What about Uncle Jerome?" Davina asked as Darius continued to affect disinterest by watching the cricket match taking place nearby.

"Jerome?" A studiedly careless note entered Petra's voice. "Jerome still doesn't have a ministry of his own, but Chamberlain has kept him very busy ever since war was declared and, as his relations with Winston have always been good, no doubt if he becomes PM, Winston will keep him equally busy."

Later he shared the news with Constantin, who said enviously, "You probably know more about what goes on behind the scenes in the British government than anyone else in Cairo, Darius."

Having Fawzia back in Cairo was something of a mixed blessing.

"I don't trust this apparent abandonment of fierce anti-British feeling," she said when he visited the family home-a home he hadn't lived in for years-to see her.

"I haven't abandoned it. I've just stopped giving noisy and futile expression to it."

She was lying in a hammock slung from the lowest branch of the cedar tree. Her orange sundress revealed a great deal of flawless olive skin and her fingernails and toenails were painted a searing scarlet.

"Father doesn't approve, either," she said, sensing his disapproval, "but I'm a married woman now and I'm no longer answerable to him."

"And where is Jack?" Darius asked. "Still in London?"

He was lying sprawled on the gra.s.s, a drink in his hand.

She laughed. "Would you believe me if I told you I don't know? London isn't Cairo. No one talks about where people are posted-that is, if they know. Most of the time they don't. It's the kind of security consciousness Cairo could use. I've heard rumors that the city is awash with spies. You aren't one of them, Darius, are you?"

The look he gave her was withering. "Hardly. What do I know of troop movements and troop numbers? What I am curious about is you. Why did you opt to come back to Cairo with Delia? I thought you were enjoying yourself in London."

"I was when I first went. But that was when I was single. Once I married the fun faded because my going to parties without Jack wasn't the done thing-and though Jack's posting was London, he was always being sent abroad."

She sat up, swinging long legs over the side of the hammock, her scarlet-painted toes touching the gra.s.s.

"And Jack is not as wealthy as I thought. I couldn't shop the way I had in Cairo-"

"When Father paid."

"-and we didn't live in a grand house as I had imagined we would," she said, ignoring his interruption. "We lived in a small flat in Knightsbridge that would fit twenty times over into this villa."

"And court social life?" he prompted.

She pulled a face. "Court social life doesn't exist in England. King George and Queen Elizabeth are the most boring married couple you could ever hope to meet and, anyway, Jack scarcely knows them. It will be different here. With a king as young as Farouk, the palace circle is bound to be glamorous."

"It may be," he said drily. "I wouldn't know. I haven't been inside Abdin Palace since I was in my teens. As far as I'm concerned, Farouk is as useless and corrupt as his father and his grandfather, but as he's only three generations out of Albania, what can you expect?"

Fawzia wasn't interested in King Farouk's heredity and didn't answer him. Instead, she said, "I've heard rumors that he's already unfaithful to Queen Farida. I wonder how generous he would be to a mistress? Do you think he would shower her with jewels?"

It was said carelessly, but Darius's eyes narrowed.

He knew discontent when he saw it. And he knew his sister.

"Stay away from Farouk," he said bluntly. "He would be far more trouble than you can handle."

TWENTY-ONE.

Throughout February and March Allied troops continued to pour into the city. Everywhere one looked there were men in uniform: Englishmen, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indians began to arrive. Cairo seemed to be drowning in khaki and Darius, like so many of his countrymen, gritted his teeth, appeared indifferent-and hated it.

"There are so many suede boots and swagger sticks in Shepheard's that it's nearly impossible to get a drink these days," he said exasperatedly.

They were on his houseboat, the Egyptian Queen. Moored at the north end of Gezira Island it had been his home ever since he had moved out of his father's house.

Davina was lying in the crook of his arm, naked apart from a cream-colored silk slip. He was wearing a gal.a.b.i.a made of expensive black cloth lavishly edged with gold braid. When on the houseboat, he always wore a gal.a.b.i.a. Western clothes were for when he was making a public statement to the British and other Europeans.

As Davina slid her arm across his chest and he hugged her even closer, he thought about the British.

If they had been a thorn in the flesh before they had declared war on Germany, they were more so now. Though Egypt itself was not at war, the city had become a military base. The Semiramis Hotel on the banks of the Nile had been turned into the military headquarters for British troops in Egypt and was known simply as BTE. A large block of luxury flats in Garden City had been commandeered as the General Headquarters Middle East and cordoned off with great rolls of barbed wire. Open-air cinemas had sprung up everywhere to entertain the troops. The brothels in the squalid El-Birkeh district were busy day and night and the British Tommy was noisily-and often drunkenly-making his presence felt.

Hating that presence, Darius avidly gleaned every bit of gossip he could to relay back to the Romanian legation. He wasn't sure where his nuggets went, but he was fairly sure he was helping the German war effort.

"And if Germany wins the war, it will be the best possible result for Egypt," he had said unthinkingly to Davina.

She was so horrified that it had nearly ended their relations.h.i.+p.

"I want an independent Egypt as much as you do," she said vehemently, "but helping Germany isn't the way to achieve it. Have you any idea of what the world would be like if Hitler won the war? It might end British presence, but they would just be replaced by Germans. Instead of British soldiers at Suez, there would be German soldiers. German propaganda telling Egyptians they'll give Egypt independence are blatant untruths. It isn't in n.a.z.i Germany's nature to give any country its freedom."

It was a valid point, and Darius knew it. Constantin's network of informers-barmen, waiters, shoes.h.i.+ne boys, and prost.i.tutes-were organized to help Berlin. Darius had once thought that was in Egypt's best interest. Now he wasn't so sure.

Davina stirred beside him. "Is it five o'clock yet, darling?" she murmured, her eyes still closed. "I should go."

She was temporarily a.s.signed to a clinic in the north of the city and at that time of the day the roads-and especially the Bulaq Bridge-were choked with traffic.

"No," he said gently. "We have another hour."

He lowered his head and kissed her. Her lips were like the petals of a flower and he felt himself tremble. That he cared for her so deeply always amazed him. He didn't care for anyone else deeply-not even Fawzia. As for his parents-he'd been fond of his mother and intensely sorry when, sixteen years ago, she had died. For his pro-British father he had only contempt.

At the touch of his mouth Davina's eyes opened. They were an unusual gray with the merest hint of blue. Many years ago, he'd heard her father liken the color to English bluebells just before they opened. Darius had never seen English bluebells, but he'd always remembered the description.

Everything about her entranced him. Unlike Fawzia and her Egyptian girlfriends, Davina's beauty wasn't obvious and was never used as a bargaining chip to get what she wanted. And not only was she different from the Egyptian girls he knew, she was also different from the other English girls. She never strove to look glamorous. He couldn't even begin to imagine Petra without Hollywood-style glossy red lips and long lacquered nails.

Davina seldom wore makeup and when she did it was little more than a touch of powder on her flawless skin and a muted pink lipstick. She never dressed provocatively. Though he was not Muslim, he disliked the clothes the fis.h.i.+ng-fleet girls wore. Davina's dress was always understated. Today when she had arrived at the houseboat she had been wearing her nurse's uniform, but if it hadn't been a working day he knew she would have been wearing a simple cotton dress, her only jewelry her wrist.w.a.tch.

As time ran out he watched her dress, his hands behind his head.

"I can get a taxi back to the clinic if you don't want to face the early-evening traffic," she said as he made no effort to reach for his s.h.i.+rt or trousers.

"Then how would I know you'd got back safely?" he said, swinging his legs from the bed.

She laughed, bending down to ease her feet into wedge-heeled sandals, her pale-blond hair falling forward like skeins of silk. "I walk Cairo from end to end unescorted and well you know it."

He knew it, and he didn't like it, not when the city was choked with Tommies. He didn't say so, though. Davina had made Cairo her own over the years. Her work at the Old War Horse Memorial Hospital, which she still continued despite her full-time nursing work, often took her into parts of the city even he would be loath to enter.

He tucked his white silk s.h.i.+rt into lizard-skin-belted trousers, picked up his jacket, and, his arm around her shoulder, walked her across the houseboat's gangplank to where his car was parked, pondering yet again how Egypt could rid itself of the British.

In April, as the n.a.z.is occupied Denmark and Norway, it looked as if Germany was winning the war. A month later they had invaded France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. In June Italy declared itself to be at war with the Allies.

A few days later Constantin said, "The head of the Italian legation has been asked to leave, though whether King Farouk's Italian friends will be interned remains to be seen. Personally, I think the King will protect them."

Darius agreed. Ever since King Fuad's day, a large number of the palace servants had been Italian. Farouk had grown up with them and trusted them. If he insisted on their staying it would be a source of great irritation to the British.

To Darius's great delight, Farouk did insist, and to his even greater delight, did so by taking advantage of the British amba.s.sador's Achilles heel. Sir Miles Lampson's wife was Italian, and the whole of Cairo was soon laughing at the King's riposte to the emba.s.sy's demand that the palace Italians be interned. "When Lampson gets rid of his Italian," Farouk was reported as saying, "I'll get rid of mine."

Two weeks later, France fell.

"It's unbelievable," Petra said when she joined Darius and Davina for drinks at Shepheard's. "n.a.z.i flags flying the full length of the Champs-Elysees! Swastikas on the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe!"

They were sitting around one of the small tables in the Moorish Hall. Petra was wearing a gold lame c.o.c.ktail dress with a slashed neckline that left one golden-skinned shoulder completely exposed and Darius was aware that their table was the focus of much male attention. Sholto was supposed to join them before he and Petra continued on to a party at the Spanish legation, but there was no sign of him and Darius noticed that when Petra's hand wasn't holding her champagne gla.s.s, it was constantly fiddling with her wedding ring.

"Mummy's hardly spoken to anyone since she heard." Davina's voice was bleak. "The only ray of light she can see is that Winston is now prime minister. It's something she says should have happened months ago."

It was the kind of insight into British military morale that always intrigued Darius.

"Poor Delia," Petra said without too much real sympathy. "One minute she was over the moon at Winston becoming PM, the next she was devastated when he interned that creep Sir Oswald Mosley."

Darius's interest was caught. "Why was she devastated? Mosley is a Fascist, isn't he?"

"He is now, but he used to be a quite respectable MP and he was on very friendly terms with Delia. His late wife was the daughter of Lord Curzon, an old family friend. My mother doesn't believe he would be disloyal-he was decorated for bravery in the Great War." Her eyes flicked to Davina. "What do you think, Davvy? You've met him. I haven't."

Davina thought of the effect the demon king had had on the thousands of people at Olympia. "I think he might do anything," she said quietly. "I think Winston was probably right to put him out of harm's way."

Every table around them was crowded and people constantly traversed the hall on their way to the Long Bar.

A member of the diplomatic corps spotted them and strolled across.

"If you are waiting for your husband, Mrs. Monck," he said genially, "you may be waiting for some time. I've just left him at the Muhammad Ali Club and he's deep in a hand of chemin de fer. The King is gambling at an adjoining table and it's doubtful which of them is playing for the higher stakes. I'll say this for your old man-when it comes to cards he has nerves of steel!"

With good-natured laughter he left them, heading a little drunkenly in the direction of the terrace.

With a strained smile Petra rose to her feet. "No use my hanging around here if Sholto isn't going to show," she said, her voice studiedly casual. "I think I'll give Kate a ring and see if she'd like to party with the Spaniards this evening."

Darius smiled as if he thought there was nothing odd about her husband failing to meet her, wondering about her carefree friends.h.i.+p with Kate Gunn when he knew that she was well aware of Kate's relations.h.i.+p with their father.

Whether either Davina or Petra was aware of their mother's relations.h.i.+p with Jerome Bazeljette was something he'd never attempted to discover. Petra, though, was far more worldly than Davina and it was just possible that she knew and was protecting Davina by not telling her.

In August the Italians attacked British Somaliland from Ethiopia. With the war now very firmly taking place much nearer to them, tensions in Cairo increased. They increased even further when Italian troops crossed the border from Libya and established a base in the Egyptian desert.

Talk as to the number of German troops with the Italians was rife, but rumor wasn't hard-core information about British tank numbers and battle plans, and it was these Constantin was hungry to get his hands on.

"And I will," Constantin said optimistically as he sat across from Darius at one of the city's most popular nightclubs. "I'm in contact with a big fish now, Darius. A truly big fish."

"Someone in the British military?"

"No, the diplomatic corps."

For once Darius was staggered. Keeping his voice low, he said, "And how much German gold did that take?"

"I don't know. I didn't do the bribing. He's someone who has been on the n.a.z.i payroll for years and he contacted me. Whatever his payoff, I a.s.sume the money is on par with what was paid the prime minister."

Rumors that the prime minister was being bribed with German gold were rampant. The only thing that surprised Darius was that the Germans thought a bribe necessary, for though the King abided by the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and went through the motions of being pro-British, the widespread belief that Berlin would support Egyptian independence after a German victory ensured that the reality was far different.

Every Egyptian he knew was certain that Egypt would be better off if the Axis forces in the desert chased the British army into the sea.

The difficulty, of course, was in knowing just how many British forces were in the desert. The general consensus was that the British were heavily outnumbered.

Unable to see Davina, who was working a night s.h.i.+ft, Darius left Constantin ogling his belly dancer and strolled down Soliman Pasha Street to a more elite nightclub.

Within minutes of his arrival, the King made an entrance. Slickly suited and wearing dark gla.s.ses, he was accompanied by a couple of people Darius didn't recognize and half a dozen muscular bodyguards.

As a boy Darius had often accompanied his father to Abdin Palace and despite their difference in age the two boys had played together in the palace gardens.

Now, to his surprise, Farouk recognized him and flurried his entourage by not seating himself at the table permanently reserved for him, but by walking across to Darius.

"Good evening," he said affably as Darius rose. "It is a long time since we have had the pleasure of seeing you."

"Yes, sir. Several years."

Farouk had been a handsome little boy and his good looks were still in evidence, though there was a chubbiness about his face that was beginning to blur them.

"Then let us make up for it," he said, seating himself and leaving his companions standing a few feet away in awkward confusion.

Having no other option, Darius sat down again. Champagne speedily arrived. "You are a great friend of Lord Conisborough, I believe," the King said.

Aware that this wasn't how Ivor would describe their relations.h.i.+p, he said evasively, "I've known Lord Conisborough's family for nearly twenty years, sir."

"Yes. Quite so. And his daughters? We see Mrs. Monck at many events in Cairo. Like her American mother, she is a great beauty, is she not?"

"Yes, sir." Darius wondered where this extraordinary conversation was leading. "Mrs. Monck is indeed very beautiful."