The Lighthearted Quest by Ann Bridge Page A

man? Is he worth it?”
    â€œI’ve no idea. We were both pretty immature when I saw him last. No,” said Julia reflectively—“I think the devotion is to a place rather than to any person. I’ve been happier at Glentoran than anywhere else on earth, I simply adore it—and it can’t carry on without Colin to run it. So I’m going to find him.”

Chapter 5
    Tangier from the sea presents a far more agreeable aspect than Casablanca. A line of ochre-coloured cliffs stretches away towards Cape Spartel on the right, in the centre the mass of white, indubitably Moorish houses of the Kasbah climbs steeply up a hill; to the left the modern town slopes, also agreeably white and clean, down to the bay and harbour, and beyond to the east rises the Djebel el Mousa, Hercules’ African pillar—so much more pillar-like than its European opposite number, Gibraltar, which from Tangier is barely discernible in the distance, vaguely resembling a lion crouching very low indeed.
    Julia stood on deck with Mr. Reeder, admiring this pleasant scene spread out in the sparkling sunshine, while he pointed out the various features of it to her. “I envy you a bit, staying here,” he said. “Charming place. How long
shall
you be here?”
    â€œI’ve no notion. It depends on how soon I find my cousin.”
    â€œAh. Yes. Well, I wish you luck in your quest. Don’t forget Purcell, he may be able to help you—but go slowly.”
    â€œI will.”
    â€œI do hope you succeed, if only for your other cousin’s sake—Edina, did you say? Pretty name; curious, too.”
    â€œIt’s a family name.”
    â€œShe must be a tremendous girl, to be able to run a place like that, and yet earn such a huge screw on her own as well,” said Mr. Reeder thoughtfully. “Worth knowing. What is she like?”
    â€œHer hair is jet black,” said Julia with malice.
    â€œOh God! She’s not tall, by any chance?”
    â€œVery tall—and as slim as a willow.”
    â€œHelp!” said Mr. Reeder. “I should be sunk if I met her.”
    â€œI expect so—she sinks a lot of people,” said Julia.
    After fond farewells to Captain Blyth and the rest of the ship’s officers Julia went ashore. Andrews, typically, loaded up “the boy” with so many of her possessions at once that her typewriter nearly fell off the gangway into the water; she shouted a cold, slow reproof at him from the quay, which caused him to bring the rest of her luggage down himself. (She saw Captain Blyth’s tranquil grin at this episode as he stood at the rail below the bridge.) More tractors and more saloon cars were being slung ashore, also a piece of deck-cargo which had amused Julia throughout the voyage: several wooden cases of lighter-fuel, which might not be stowed below, and had remained lashed on the main deck. Evidently the cigarette-lighters of Tangier could now be filled.
    The Villa Espagnola to which a taxi bore her was really a small hotel, situated at the top of the town at the far end of the big Boulevard, the main shopping street, where this peters out into a residential quarter of large houses in gardens, where most of the Legations are situated; as she unpacked, the great fronds of palm-trees on a level with her window tossed their heads like restless horses in the sea-breeze close outside, and the scent of roses came up from the garden below—by craning her neck a little she could just see the white mass of the Kasbah, a pile of gleaming rectangular blocks, each block a house, poised precariously on the steep slope of its hill. All pretty good as a change from London in January, Julia thought—in her calm fashion she exulted a little.
    But she was never one to waste time, and as Purcell’s Bar was obviously going to be a slow process, she made a call there her first job. The Spanish proprietor looked a little startled when she asked