Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [2]
The space would be needed, since the rest of our English family would be joining us in a few days for the first time since the beginning of the Great War. Hostilities had ended in November of 1918, but the shadow cast by that dreadful conflict was slow to pass. For those who had lost loved ones in the muddy trenches of France or on the bloodstained beaches of Gallipoli, the shadow would never entirely pass. Emerson’s brother Walter and his wife, my dear friend Evelyn, would always mourn the death of their son Johnny, as would we all; but 1919 was the first full year of peace, and I was determined to make this Christmas a memorable one. How good it would be to have them with us again—Walter and Evelyn, their daughter Lia and her husband David, who was Ramses’s best friend and an accomplished artist, not to mention their two dear little children.
That would make four dear little children. It would be a lively Christmas indeed.
As I bent my fond gaze upon the twins nestling in the arms of their handsome parents, I decided I would ask David to paint a group portrait. Photographs we had in plenty, but color was needed to capture their striking looks. Ramses’s well-cut features and well-shaped form resembled those of his father, but he was brown as an Egyptian, with a crop of curly black hair and long-lashed dark eyes. Nefret’s fair skin and gold-red locks were those of an English beauty, and the children combined the best features of both parents.
If we could get the little creatures to sit still long enough. Simultanously both children squirmed out of the arms of their parents and pelted toward the door that led into the house. It opened to admit their grandfather.
I have sometimes been accused of exaggeration, but when I say that my husband is the most famous and respected Egyptologist of all time I speak only the literal truth. After thirty-odd years in the field, he was still as straight and stalwart as he had been on the day we first met; his sapphirine orbs were as keen, his shoulders as broad, his ebon locks unmarked by silver except for snowy streaks at each temple.
“Good Gad!” he exclaimed, as the twins flung themselves at his lower limbs.
“Don’t swear in front of the children, Emerson,” I scolded.
“That was not swearing,” said Emerson. “But I cannot have this sort of thing. An unprovoked attack, and by two against one! I claim the right to defend myself.”
He scooped them up and settled into a chair with one on each knee. How much of his nonsense they had understood I would not be prepared to say, but they were both giggling wildly.
Fatima came out with the tea tray.
“Will you pour the tea, Sitt Hakim?” she asked.
Emerson twitched at the sound of my Egyptian sobriquet, “Lady Doctor.” He always does, since he has no high opinion of my medical skills. I would be the first to admit they were not the equal of Nefret’s—she had actually qualified as a surgeon, no small feat for a woman in those days—but during my early years in Egypt, when the Egyptian fellahin had almost no access to doctors or hospitals, my efforts had been deeply appreciated and—if I may say so—not inadequate.
“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “Put the tray here, please.”
Fatima lingered for a while, her plain but kindly face warm with affection as she watched the children close in on the plate of biscuits. Like the other members of what I may call our Egyptian family, she was more friend than servant. They were all close kin of our dear departed reis Abdullah, and through the marriage of his grandson David to our niece Lia, kin of ours as well.
We were soon joined by other members of the household: Sennia, our ward, and her two followers, her cat Horus and her self-appointed bodyguard, Gargery. Strictly speaking, Gargery was our butler, but he had taken on additional duties as he (not I) determined them to be necessary. These included eavesdropping, proffering unasked-for advice, and squabbling with Horus.
I must be fair to Gargery; Horus did not get on with anyone except Nefret and Sennia. He followed the child wherever she