Off to Bahrain
(Having met Shirley’s conditions, Margaret elects to travel with him from Alexandria. They take a carriage to the river, intending to get to Cairo by boat and take the train to the Red Sea in order to avoid a mess at the Suez Canal. Shirley’s reporter-induced headache has gotten worse.)
Margaret offers Shirley a headache powder from her bag, assuring him that it won’t affect his alertness; it’s primarily willowbark, calendula and mint, with a little sugar to offset the truly horrible taste.
“Alertness? Right now I have the approximate alertness of a man nine days drowned. Merciful heavens, Doctor, this is foul. It had better work.”
Margaret assures him that it will. It will work better, as well as kill the taste, if he drinks some tea with it. Then she tells him that if he wants to unburden himself of whatever is on his mind so that he can set it aside and get some rest, she will be glad to listen. She points out that if he is going into the situation he seems to think he is, he will need to be alert and have his wits, and exhaustion is not a state conducive to either.
“I know, I know,” he groans, “but for G-d’s sake, it can wait for Bahrain.” He slumps into the corner of the carriage and folds his arms up tight against his chest. “I am, without any conceivable doubt,” he pronounces carefully, a judge giving sentence, “the stupidest and most selfish blackguard ever to live. Michaels asked me why I hadn’t gone to the constabulary about Finnegan. What could I tell him? I said I’d been remiss. Remiss!” Agitated now, he tears at his short tousled hair with both hands. “If I’d given the police their due, Jimmy would never have had to inform! How on earth can I possibly live with this?”
Margaret’s eyebrows rise, and her tone becomes slightly clipped. She is making a point she doesn’t want Shirley to miss. “Excuse me, Mr. Addam, but I fail to see how you were either stupid or selfish. You told the Times that your assailant reported to Nicky Finn, as I recall the story. You did not name Jimmy to either the police or the Times. You had no way of knowing the ruthlessness these people would employ, as I believe I have said before. You did as seemed best to you at the time, and you did what you thought necessary to protect Jimmy, in not naming him. There are too many “if’s” in your logic, Mr. Addam!”
“Ouch,” Shirley murmurs, the corner of his mouth quirking.
“I say again, you are not responsible for Jimmy’s demise; whomever attacked him bears that guilt. And as for living with it,” her tone gentles considerably, “you learn, and you go on. I have lost patients, when later information showed me where and how I could have saved them. My guilt for their deaths does not bring them back. All I can do is learn, and go on, so that at least their deaths were not wasted. Should, G-d forbid, a similar situation arise in the future, you will not try to protect the innocent solely by your own actions, you will go to the police. It is all you can do now, Shirley.” She lays one hand, very gently, over his.
At her touch Shirley raises his head to look at her. He glances at Esperanza a moment and looks back at Margaret, a question in his eyes. Margaret does not remove her hand; Shirley lays his own over it and presses it. “Yes. Yes, I suppose it is. I needed the reminder; thank you for it.” He lets go and shifts into a straighter, more decorous stance on the carriage seat. “I must apologize to you, ladies, both of you. I have not been at my best this evening, after the shockingly difficult day I have had. I assure you both I am not always an intolerable companion, and I shall endeavour to prove as much.”
“You have not been intolerable now, either. You are distraught, distracted and unwell; that is enough to make anyone a little less than polished.” She leans back in her corner of the carriage, to all appearances quite relaxed, and quirks an eyebrow at him for a second.
His shoulders move upwards, then downwards, a bare inch. “I think I hear the river,” he says. “We must be coming to the ferry. Doctor, my Arabic is nonexistent; will you kindly take care of the arrangements?”
“I shall be happy to. Are we going to the ferry’s ultimate terminus, or are there stops on the way, do you know? It will make it easier if I can simply name my destination, leaving no room for misunderstanding.”
“Harston’s butler said that the rails are in order east of Cairo. I thought we would take this ferry there, and then change to the train for speed, to get to Suez and pick up a launch.”
Margaret nods agreement. “Well enough, then. I suspect we should stay together; I’ve acquired a fair command of Arabic over the past few weeks, and languages come very easily to me, but I am by no means fluent yet. If we present ourselves, there can be no mistake about such details as number of passengers or whether we have baggage.” Her smile is, uncharacteristically, a bit self-deprecating. Usually she shows a face of absolute confidence to the world.
“Agreed,” Shirley says simply, and leans down to pick up his valise.
At a convenient moment on the ferry, when Esperanza cannot hear, Shirley murmurs to Margaret, “I hope there is no one who might—suffer some discomfort—should the obvious inference be made about our association. Rest assured you may throw the impudent young barrister over at your discretion.”
She gives him a smile that can only be described as impish, and whispers back, “My family would be delighted. A barrister is respectable at least, and the way I sent the bubble-headed young puppies I was introduced to away has been my mother’s despair.”
“Ah, so there have only been bubble-headed young puppies? Quel dommage. What is wrong with Englishmen, I ask you?”
“Only that most of them can’t see past their own self-important noses. Most of them were so appalled by my ‘unwomanly’ interests that they couldn’t escape fast enough. And then they lament that they are bored in the company of their wives when they marry!”
Shirley, wisely, replies to this only with a brief chuckle.
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