TWENTY-FIVE

Standing on the landing of a wide staircase, leaning her elbows on the ebonized banister, Harriet looked down at the lobby of the Oasis Palace Hotel. The hotel was for invalids. Mr. Moore, whose wife had been treated here for her nerves, had recommended it to Louisa, and they were spending a few days there before traveling on to Luxor.

It was a place of hushed conversations and little laughter, elderly women with hair like dandelion seed and wizened men with female nurses hovering close by. Harriet found it depressing. She was in the state familiar to her of being neither well nor ill, not in crisis but not able to breathe freely. Even here in Egypt, that condition felt like a half-life. More than anything, it made her feel lonely. However sympathetic, no one else could really understand what it was like. No doctors seemed able to help.

The floor down below was of smooth, polished marble with Oriental rugs laid on top. A green glass chandelier hung in the center over a vase of flowers, and around the edges of the large hall, pairs of chesterfields, dark leather twins, faced each other across tables made from engraved brass trays.

The revolving doors turned, disgorging a man in a safari jacket and pith helmet. Something about his gait was familiar. A moment later, from the next quarter, a second figure emerged, straight-backed, clad in a broad-brimmed hat swathed with a veil that ­covered her face. Harriet gasped.

“Mrs. Cox!”

The woman threw back the veil. “Harriet!”

Mrs. Cox began to cross the lobby, a lace-trimmed parasol swinging from her wrist, the train of her skirt swishing on the tiles. Ignoring Louisa’s protests, Harriet almost ran down the stairs.

“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Cox said, gripping Harriet’s elbows.

“We’re staying here until we travel to Luxor. And you?”

“I have an appointment with the doctor.”

Mrs. Cox glanced at her husband. Zebedee Cox’s hands were clasped behind his back, his head tipped back in close examination of the chandelier.

“Afternoon, Miss Heron,” he said.

Harriet nodded at him and returned her eyes to her friend. She pictured her in her nightdress, soaked, lying curled up on the bunk in the same shape that the tiny form had been. She hadn’t seen her since that awful night.

“I am so happy to meet you again, Mrs. Cox,” she said. “How are you?”

“I hardly know,” she said softly, looking up at Louisa, who was still standing on the stairs. “The lemonade here is delicious, Mrs. Heron,” she called, her voice bright and social. “Have you sampled it?”

The four of them arranged themselves around one of the low tables.

“We’ve come this minute from a tour of the Pyramids,” Mrs. Cox said. “Do tell Mrs. Heron about it, Zeb. It was the most marvelous thing.”

Mr. Cox turned to Louisa.

“They used to bury the slaves with the pharaohs, you know,” his voice boomed out. “Still alive. Absolute barbarism.”

Sarah Cox turned to Harriet. She looked drawn, her eyelashes and the fine hairs on her cheeks and top lip thickened with dust.

“Are you any better?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m much . . .”

Harriet was overcome by coughing. It hurt Harriet to admit that she was still ill; an invalid, like the other residents of the hotel, the old people who belonged there. She was ashamed of her illness, she understood suddenly. She’d never allowed herself to realize it before. She felt responsible for it, as if it were a personal failing.

“This awful wind lays everyone low,” said Mrs. Cox. “Zebedee’s had bronchitis.”

“I was improving until the Khamseen came.” Harriet breathed in toward the pit of her stomach, as deeply as she was able. “And you? Are you recovered, Mrs. Cox?”

Mrs. Cox’s eyes glistened. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, squeezing the fine lawn into a ball in her hand.

“I see him everywhere, Harriet, dream about him at night. I can’t stop thinking about the way he—”

“Here we are,” announced Zebedee Cox, as the waiter set down four glasses, their rims frosted with sugar, bright sprigs of mint floating on the drink.

Mrs. Cox blew her nose and smiled at her husband.

“I was just telling Miss Heron that we are traveling to Suez shortly. To meet the shipment.”

“What are you shipping, Mr. Cox?” Louisa asked.

“Parts for a flour mill,” said Zebedee Cox. “But since the natives cannot afford to buy bread, I don’t know what earthly use it’ll be.”

“What a coincidence it is,” Louisa said to Mrs. Cox, “to see you both again.”

“Small world,” said Mr. Cox. “We ran into another chap from the steamer earlier, out at the Pyramids. What was his name, Sarah? Had his easel set up there under an umbrella thingy.”

“I don’t recall,” said Mrs. Cox. “Have you been yet? Really, Harriet, you simply must see them.”

“Soane. That’s it. His father was a well-known painter, you know. Julius or Octavius. Name escapes me now.”

Louisa had taken her fan from her handbag and was waving it in small, agitated movements. Harriet lowered her face to her glass, swallowed another mouthful of the cool, sweet liquid. Mr. Soane was here, in the same city. He must have followed her. She had misjudged him.

Zebedee Cox got to his feet. He slid his hand into the pocket of his jacket and drew out a watch.

“Ready, Sarah?”

“Yes, Zebedee,” said Mrs. Cox. “Do write to me, Harriet, as soon as you’re back at home. Come.” Linking her arm through Harriet’s, leading her to the reception desk, she picked up the old-fashioned quill pen and wrote a few lines. “Here is our address. I insist on your coming to tea.”

Blotting the paper, she handed it to Harriet. The handwriting was neat and even, the address in a part of London Harriet did not know. Below, Mrs. Cox had written: Mr. S. spoke of you most kindly. Wanted to get a letter to you before he travels to Luxor with his friends.

Harriet folded the note and slid it into her pocket next to her journal.

“I’d like to give you our address,” she said to Mrs. Cox, glancing over her shoulder.

Louisa stood a few feet away with Mr. Cox under a grinning crocodile mounted on the wall. Harriet took another sheet of hotel paper. Below the post office box number, the line drawing of the Oasis Palace Hotel, she wrote the Canonbury address. Tell him I long to see him again, she added underneath. Folding the paper, she held it out to Mrs. Cox.