Daughter of Hassan & Heart of the Desert(3)

Did her mother know what Philippe had just revealed to her about Hassan’s background? she wondered. Surely she must do, and yet she had never spoken to Danielle about it. But then why should she? Danielle admitted. It was only since her return from finishing school that her mother had started to treat her as a woman instead of an adolescent, and she must not forget that to her mother, who had been a mother and a widow at her age, she must seem very young and inexperienced. She didn’t feel particularly young, though, Danielle reflected. She had a sensitivity which seemed to draw people with problems to her, and at boarding school and in Switzerland she had often been forced into the position of confidante, lending an ear. Listening to girls confiding to her their problems had given her a greater maturity than most of her peers and she was determined to avoid the pitfalls which seemed to beset them; although, as she freely acknowledged, when the emotions were involved it became hard to stand back and make dispassionate judgments. The one vow she had made to herself which she intended to keep at all costs was to be true to her own code and never to allow anyone to persuade her to compromise it.

‘Am I boring you?’ Philippe enquired in mock reproof.

Danielle hid a small smile. In point of fact she was very interested in what he was telling her, but she sensed that even had she not been, Philippe’s ego would never have allowed him to believe that she was anything other than flattered by his attentions.

‘Not at all.’ she told him calmly. ‘Please go on.’

‘There is still the best to come. When Hassan’s wife realised that her husband was not to become the ruler of Qu‘Har she divorced him—Oh yes, Muslim women have that right under the law of the Koran, although very few of them invoke it. Without a wealthy and powerful family to support them divorced women can have a pretty unpleasant life, but then by all accounts Miriam had never wanted to marry Hassan in the first place. She favoured his elder brother. Hassan refused to take the extra wives the Koran allows him. He knew by then that there would never be any children and told my father that the prospect of running establishments for three quarrelling women appalled him. In addition to giving him absolute control of the oil revenues, Hassan’s father also had it written into his will, and witnessed by all his family, that Hassan should be the one to choose his own successor—from among the family, of course; to do otherwise would be unthinkable, but apart from that one proviso Hassan has complete freedom of choice, and until his marriage to your mother it was widely accepted that that choice would be Jourdan, whose own position in the family is somewhat tenuous.’

Although his face was expressionless, from the tone of his voice Danielle gathered that Philippe was somewhat at odds with Jourdan, and wondered why. And then another thought struck her. Was this Jourdan the reason why her stepfather had never taken them to Qu‘Har or brought any members of his family home? Her resentment against the unknown Jourdan increased. How dared he force a rift between her stepfather and the rest of his family, and for what reason? She knew that many Arabs despised those of their own race who married outside it, but from what Philippe had just told her this Jourdan was in no position to despise his uncle; and certainly not to the extent of promoting a family quarrel.

‘Of course none of the family were pleased about the marriage,’ Philippe continued. ‘After all, Hassan is an extremely wealthy and powerful man, and although it is taken for granted—not without a certain amount of resentment—that Jourdan should inherit Hassan’s position and power, the thought of that wealth being shared by yet more foreigners was more than the family could bear.’

Danielle’s brain seized on just two words of Philippe’s speech, which she repeated disbelievingly. ‘More foreigners?’

‘Didn’t you know?’ Philippe asked, plainly enjoying himself. ‘Jourdan himself is of mixed blood. In fact he owes his position and acceptance in the family entirely to Hassan. He is the son of Hassan’s youngest brother, who was at university in Paris during his youth. It was there that he met Jourdan’s mother, and Jourdan himself was conceived, although regrettably without the benefit of marriage. No one in the family knew about the affair or the child, until Saud was killed in a street brawl. Hassan went to Paris to sort out his affairs and discovered that he was living with Jeannette. When he realised that she was carrying Saud’s child, he offered her money in return for full legal rights to the baby when it was born.

‘Jeannette agreed, and after Jourdan’s birth, Hassan took the baby back to Qu‘Har with him. It was believed within the family that he intended to bring Jourdan up as the son he himself could never have, and certainly until he went to school Jourdan lived in Hassan’s household…’

Danielle’s feeling of injustice that her stepfather should be treated so ungratefully by a child he had by all accounts rescued from the gutter overwhelmed her feelings of pity for the small baby so cavalierly deserted by its mother. How could this Jourdan, who had obviously been like a son to her stepfather, now ignore him, and why was Jourdan never mentioned by her father?

As though he sensed the direction of her thoughts, Philippe started to supply the answers to her questions, but before he could say more than a couple of words her stepfather and Monsieur Sancerre stood up, and Monsieur Sancerre called Philippe over to join their discussion.

‘These men!’ Madame Sancerre said with a smile when Philippe had gone. ‘But there can be no doubt, petite, that Philippe prefers your company to that of his father and the Sheikh.’

When Danielle demurred Madame chided her. ‘Oh, come, chérie,’ she protested, ‘you are a very attractive young girl. It cannot have escaped your notice that Philippe finds you attractive?’





CHAPTER TWO


THESE words were repeated, although in a somewhat different vein, the following day when Danielle’s stepfather was discussing the events of the previous evening.

‘Philippe is pleasant enough,’ Danielle agreed sedately, ‘but I suspect that he finds all girls who are reasonably pretty, “attractive”.’ She made a slight moue and her stepfather laughed, ruffling her hair.

‘And as a definitely more than “reasonably pretty” girl, you disdain his attentions, is that it?’

He was in a very expansive mood and it struck Danielle that he was relieved that she did not find Philippe attractive. Why? she wondered, and then smiled. Of course, Hassan made no secret of the fact that he liked having her at home and had no doubt feared that she might have taken Philippe’s attentions too seriously.

‘He is an entertaining companion, nothing more,’ she assured him, darting him a glance and wondering if now was the time to mention something which had begun to trouble her lately. She had no wish to hurt her stepfather’s feelings, but it was time that he and her mother realised that she was old enough to make her own decisions, run her own life. ‘You can’t continue to vet all my boy-friends, you know.’ she teased, taking a chance that he would take the comment in the spirit in which it was made. ‘I’m grown up now!’

The look he gave her was that of a man and not a father, and Danielle flushed defensively as it encompassed her high taut breasts and slender body, before returning to dwell speculatively on her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

‘So you are,’ he agreed gravely, his voice suddenly serious as he added, ‘You know that your happiness is my prime concern, don’t you, Danielle?’

When she nodded, he smiled. ‘So then there is no need for us to quarrel, is there?’

Weakly agreeing, Danielle was left with the definite sensation that she had been out-manoeuvred.

Her stepfather would have to face up to the fact that she could not live at home for ever, she decided later in the afternoon, preparing for a shopping trip with two friends from finishing school. One of them was training to be a model and the other was a dancer and had just obtained a contract to appear in a West End show. Danielle envied them their free and easy life style, although she was honest enough to admit to herself that the casual procession of men in and out of the lives of some of her friends was not for her. She enjoyed going out with boys and liked them as friends, but somehow she found herself shying away from the thought of a full-blooded affair, even, a little to her own surprise, viewing the idea of such intimacy with a certain amount of distaste. Could she be frigid? She tried to analyse her own instinctive objection to the use of the word, which immediately decried her innate sense of femininity. She would just have to accept that as far as sex was concerned she was a late developer, she decided humorously as she discarded the expensive clothes in her wardrobe in favour of a thin tee-shirt and clinging jeans; either that or she was too romantic, for certainly the thought of sex for sex’s sake did nothing for her, and as far as she could ascertain, for her, love must certainly precede the intimacies which other girls had described to her in giggled whispers.

Her friends were an entertaining duo; although coming from relatively wealthy families, they cheerfully searched markets for second-hand clothes of the twenties and thirties, and both, like Danielle herself, were dressed in the ubiquitous jeans and tee-shirts when they met her at the appointed rendezvous. Both girls were full of what they were doing and their plans for the future, and as they described the flat they were sharing and the carefree life they were leading Danielle felt quite envious.