Penny Jordan Tribute Collection

‘It’s a pity that Raschid cannot spare Faisal,’ Zahra mourned. A pity indeed, Felicia agreed, although she knew that the supposed ‘emergency’ that kept Faisal in New York was no more than a figment of Raschid’s Machiavellian imagination.

She was helping Zahra with her packing. She had not imagined that a girl could possess so many clothes at the same time, and said as much.

Zahra grinned. ‘Raschid makes me a very generous allowance.’ She indicated a filmy harem outfit comprising baggy trousers in flame chiffon and a matching sequinned top. ‘What do you think of that? I bought it for a joke. Raschid would be furious if he knew.’ Felicia’s raised eyebrows prompted a defensive outburst. ‘Saud said it was a pity that harem dancers no longer existed, outside the imagination of Hollywood producers, and I thought….’

‘I can see what you thought,’ Felicia murmured drily, amused and touched to see Zahra blushing a little. What business was it of Raschid’s if the younger girl chose to play the harem dancer for her undoubtedly appreciative bridegroom? She folded the outfit briskly.

‘It won’t go in this box, it’s full,’ Zahra complained.

‘Never mind, give it to me. I’ve plenty of room in my case.’ Felicia looked rather quizzically at Zahra. ‘Why do you want to take it? You won’t be wearing it until you are married, I trust?’

‘I daren’t leave it here in case one of the maids sees it,’ Zahra confessed. ‘Mother wouldn’t understand.’

‘I can see why,’ Felicia agreed, thinking of the transparent chiffon. It was obvious that Zahra was very much in love with her Saud, and Felicia wondered a little enviously what it was like to prepare for marriage basking in the warm approval of one’s family. Had she ever anticipated Faisal’s caresses with the enthusiasm with which Zahra looked forward to Saud’s?—and not for the first time she questioned her ability to respond to a man’s lovemaking. Had her uncle’s cold rejection of her as a child destroyed her ability to give and receive love? And yet she had responded to Raschid. But she did not love him. She hated him. He was determined to destroy her, she thought bitterly, gathering up the small pile of garments which would not fit into Zahra’s boxes and putting them in her own case. And he did not care what means he had to use to do so. She straightened up and her breast throbbed pulsatingly as it had done when he had touched her. Her face flaming, she squashed the impulse to place her own hand against her quickening flesh in an effort to eradicate the tingling memory.

IT WAS NOT a great distance to the oasis when measured in mere miles, but the journey would take them through empty desert and careful preparations had to be made, checked and re-checked by Ali, who had been left in charge of their safety. Water bottles had to be filled, tires checked, and spare gasoline cans placed in the trunks of cars. They were to travel in convoy, the Mercedes carrying Umm Faisal, Zahra and Felicia, going first, three other cars with the staff and the luggage following on behind.

Felicia tended to be amused by the flurry of preparation, until Zahra pointed out the fate of other, less careful travellers. To die of thirst under a burning sun was no pleasant death, and could happen even to the most experienced desert traveller if a sandstorm blew up, obliterating the road, or a sharp stone pierced a gas tank, leaving them without transport.

It was just over a hundred miles to the oasis, but Felicia was ready to agree feelingly that it might have been a thousand, long before the green fringe of the palm trees warned her that journey’s end was in sight. Even with the air-conditioning on full the heat inside the car was stifling, the sun dazzling as it bounced off the immaculate black hood of the Mercedes. The tires hissed wetly along the soft tarmac until they turned off on to a sandy track, throwing up clouds of fine dust to clog the throats and eyes of those driving behind.

‘Now you see why we go first,’ Zahra explained. ‘The last vehicle is the most at risk. Even an expert driver can lose his way when the windscreen is covered in sand.’

Felicia repressed a small shudder at the thought of being lost in this vast wasteland. And yet for all its terrible emptiness the desert held a beauty all of its own. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but mile upon mile of never-ending sand, burning golden-red against the cobalt blue sky. The intensity of it hurt the eyes, and Felicia wondered anew at the tenacity of a people who had carved out their lives from this unyielding wilderness.

‘Nearly there,’ Zahra said cheerfully, as the fringe of palm trees on the horizon grew tantalisingly larger. ‘You will love the oasis, Felicia. I believe Raschid considers it is our true home, although Faisal does not care for it in the same way, but in you I sense a sympathy for our ways. You do like our country, don’t you?’ she asked anxiously.

Felicia acknowledged that she had fallen under its spell, surprised to realise how true this was. Had circumstances been different, she would have been content to make her life in this magnificent, timeless land.

‘Only one more day until Nadia arrives,’ Zahra added. ‘I’m longing to see her!’

Felicia hoped that Faisal’s elder sister was as easy to get along with as his younger. Since the arrival of Faisal’s letter she was conscious of being something of an impostor, in her own mind at least, and having Raschid as her enemy was more than enough to cope with.

It was dusk when they drove into the oasis, so Felicia could see very little of her surroundings apart from the clustering tops of palm trees, swaying lightly in the evening breeze, and the silky shine of moonlight on water as they drove past the silent oasis.

‘Once the Badu camped here,’ Zahra said softly, ‘but now the tribesmen have retreated into the interior of the desert to pursue their chosen way of life unhindered.’

The house bore no resemblance to the villa outside Kuwait. Built of white stone, its narrow Moorish windows presented a blank face to the world. They drove through a fretted archway into a courtyard slightly similar to the one belonging to the villa, but whereas that was of modern construction combining the best of East and West, this one bore mute evidence of age. Behind them enormous iron-studded oak doors slammed shut, a reminder that once visitors to the oasis might not have been friendly. The soft-footed Moslem servants added to the sensation of having stepped back in time, and Felicia would not have been surprised to see a couple of Zahra’s harem dancers wandering in the garden, the bracelets on their ankles tinkling in time to their sinuous movements.

Instead, Ali ushered them into a large hallway, and then Felicia did gasp with amazed delight. Huge pillars of malachite supported an intricately patterned ceiling, painted in jewel-bright colours. She could hear the sound of water somewhere in the distance and the timeless enchantment of the East engulfed her.

Zahra laughed at her open-mouthed wonder.

‘I knew you would like it!’

Ali and the other servants were bringing in their luggage, stacking it on the cool marble floor. Selina hurried away, promising that soon they would have a cup of coffee, and as the double doors at the other end of the hall opened, Felicia saw Raschid framed there, his flowing white robe in stark contrast to the rich bronze of his skin and the jewelled silks of the furnishings.

‘Zahra will take you to the women’s quarters, Miss Gordon. They overlook an inner courtyard. In the desert a wise man kept his rarest treasures under lock and key, and in my grandfather’s day the women of the harem were never allowed outside the confines of this house. For my grandmother’s pleasure he had a garden constructed inside the protective walls of his home so that she might enjoy the cool breeze that blows over the desert when dusk falls. She used to say that it reminded her of England.’

‘You will love it, Felicia,’ Zahra said softly, ‘and the harem quarters. They are ridiculously exotic. Believe it or not, there is even a marble bath large enough to swim in.’

She laughed delightedly when Felicia flushed, exclaiming suddenly, ‘Uncle Raschid, Felicia’s eyes are exactly the same colour as these pillars!’

‘The colour of malachite,’ Raschid agreed, looking down at Felicia, and running his lean fingers caressingly down the pillar nearest to him. ‘But I don’t suppose Miss Gordon will be complimented to have her eyes compared with the cold hardness of marble—mm?’

As always his tone when he spoke to Zahra was teasingly indulgent, and Felicia was struck by the difference from when he addressed her.

Ali staggered in with more boxes, which he dropped by Felicia’s cases. The top one fell on its side, bursting open to spill its contents in gay profusion across the floor. Felicia had been looking at Raschid and she saw his face change suddenly, from avuncular indulgence to grim disgust. He stepped forward, crossing the floor with a couple of lithe strides, bending to finger disdainfully the crimson chiffon billowing against the starkness of his robes.

Zahra trembled, casting Felicia a look of agonised appeal, and instantly she rose to the occasion. It didn’t matter that Raschid’s fingers were flicking the chiffon away with arrogant contempt, nor that his eyes were narrowing thoughtfully on her flushed face, his mouth curving downwards in contempt.

‘Mine, I believe,’ Felicia said bravely, with saccharine sweetness as she made a dive for the chiffon. Raschid was holding the fabric more firmly than she had realised and as she tugged effectually at it, the harem pants were revealed in their full glory. Almost she would have laughed at his distasteful expression as he relinquished the sequinned waistband after one look of incredulous contempt.

‘I bought them in the souk the other day. I thought they might start a new fashion at home.’ Some devil of mischief, too long submerged, suddenly reasserted itself prompting her to add flippantly, ‘I hope Faisal likes them.’ Demurely she let her eyelashes drop to veil her cheeks in mock modesty, even risking a coy giggle. ‘They aren’t the thing for shopping in Sainsbury’s, of course, but for a quiet evening at home….’ She deliberately let her voice trail away, raising limpid eyes to the concentrated acidity in Raschid’s and allowing just the merest hint of suggestiveness to peep through her assumed modesty. Watching his impassive features, she admitted that she was playing with fire, but shrugged the thought aside—in for a penny, in for a pound! When long seconds ticked by with Zahra frozen like a sphinx and Raschid’s expression remotely unreadable she wondered if she had gone too far.

A cold grey glance, informed with deliberate and exactly calculated insult, roamed her body, oblivious to Zahra’s shocked protest, and at length he drawled carelessly:

‘Not your colour, I would have thought, Miss Gordon, with that hair.’

‘No.’ She was all smiling sweetness. ‘You surprise me. I should have thought you would consider it exactly right for me, being scarlet.’

The way the heavy-lidded eyes narrowed told her that he had not missed the point, but he did not deign to answer and it was left to Ali to bundle up the rest of the clothes cascading across the floor and carry them from the room.

It was just as well that Raschid’s annoyance with her was occupying the best part of his thoughts, Felicia reflected as she followed a thoroughly shaken Zahra, otherwise he might have realised that the rest of the clothes littering the floor had belonged not to her but to his niece!

It was a very subdued young girl who came into Felicia’s room an hour later, when she was completing the last of her unpacking. The bedroom was as different from the one in Kuwait as chalk from cheese. For a start it was devoid of modern furnishings, apart from the comfortable double bed. The floor was polished wood, scattered with soft Persian rugs, of great age and value. A long low couch stuffed with cushions was set against one wall beneath the arched windows, tempting the languorously inclined to relax and admire the cunning arrangement of trees and plants in the courtyard below. As in all Arab houses of any wealth, the sound of water was never far away, for in days gone by an Arab could measure his wealth in the amount of water he was able to waste.

A small dressing room had been fitted with wardrobes, but it was on the ornamental brassbound chest that Felicia had placed the carefully folded harem outfit.

Zahra pulled a face when she saw it.

‘I’ve never seen Raschid so angry,’ she said in a low voice, her eyes disturbed. ‘Oh, Felicia, I’m so sorry—the way he looked at you—the things he said!’

‘Well, now you know why I didn’t enthuse over them in the first place. But there’s no harm done,’ Felicia assured her lightly.

‘No harm!’ Zahra’s eyes filled with indignant tears. ‘You can’t say that after the way Raschid treated you—and you Faisal’s intended wife!’

Now was her opportunity to tell Zahra the truth, but before she could do so, Zahra continued impulsively, ‘I shall tell Raschid how wrong he was, Felicia. I cannot allow you to take the blame for my folly, and Raschid shall apologise to you for what he said.’

Her lips trembled and Felicia felt moved to pity, guessing how much it had hurt the younger girl to see her adored uncle revealed in his true colours. In that moment she felt immeasurably older than the Felicia who had arrived in Kuwait such a short time ago. She comforted Zahra as best she could, promising that the now despised garments would be suitably disposed of and reminding her that she herself had added insult to injury by deliberately goading Raschid, but Zahra was not convinced. She shook her head sorrowfully.

‘He wanted to shame you before us, Felicia. I could see it in his eyes, but instead he shamed me!’ Her voice thickened on fresh tears. ‘I thank Allah that I witnessed his contempt, for I could not bear it if Saud had looked upon me in the way Raschid did you.’

It saddened Felicia to hear the pain in her voice, but she could offer scant comfort, aside from pointing out that Raschid had his reasons for not liking her.

‘Because he does not want Faisal to marry you? Felicia, promise me you will not let Raschid drive you from us. You have become very precious to me and already I think of you as a sister. Raschid will come round, I know it!’

THE NEXT DAY BROUGHT the noisy arrival of Nadia and her husband with their small son. Several years older than Felicia, she was a smaller, feminine version of Faisal, complete with his white smile and soft brown eyes, and yet the familiarity between brother and sister sparked off no emotion in her, Felicia discovered.