Children of the Storm - Elizabeth Peters [63]
When I finally found my voice I had to raise it to a scream in order to be heard over the hubbub. Emerson, kneeling beside the mechanism, pretended not to hear, but on the third emphatic repetition of his name he decided he might as well face the music. Rising, he approached me, extending a hand stained black with grease.
“Come and have a look, my dear,” he said. “Everything seems to be in working order, but of course we cannot be certain until we get it back together. Ramses, would you care to lend a hand? You and I and Selim—and David . . . Where is he? I sent someone to the Castle to fetch him.”
“He’ll be along shortly, I expect,” Ramses said, with an apprehensive glance at me. “Father, wouldn’t it be advisable to clear away the remains of the packing materials first? Someone is going to step on a nail or run a splinter into his foot.”
“Excellent idea,” exclaimed Emerson.
“You are going to put it back together here—on the spot?” I cried in poignant accents. “Smack in front of the house? Why did you take it apart in the first place? That’s what you were doing that day in Cairo! Why, Emerson? Why?”
“It seemed the quickest way of getting it here undamaged,” Emerson explained disingenuously. He wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a long black streak. “It was supposed to be on yesterday’s train, but apparently they could not find the space. Selim most efficiently supervised the unloading and got the cases onto the ferry, and found these obliging fellows—”
“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it! What possible use can you have for a motorcar here? There are no proper roads!”
“Good Gad, Peabody, we motored clear across the Sinai and through the wadis in a vehicle like this one. The roads are much improved since the war.” He then proceeded to contradict himself by adding, “The Light Car Patrols, which did such a splendid job against the Senussi, are being disbanded, and nobody in the military gives a curse about maintaining the desert roads. That is how I was able to get my hands on this vehicle. It is an improved model of the Ford Light Car—”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
Emerson can only be intimidated up to a point. He drew himself up, glared at me, and rubbed the cleft in his chin, leaving additional black streaks. “I suppose a fellow can purchase a motorcar if he likes.”
I knew I had lost the argument. It had been lost, in fact, the moment the confounded thing arrived. Moreover, every male person in the vicinity was clearly on Emerson’s side; Ramses had abandoned me and was helping Selim sort bolts and nuts and other undefined bits, and Walter had removed his coat and was rolling up his sleeves. Additional reinforcements were about to arrive. One of the approaching horses was David’s mare Asfur. There were two other riders—Cyrus and Bertie, I presumed. Evelyn and Katherine had resisted the lure of the motorcar.
Nefret put her arm round me. “Come in and have a cup of tea, Mother.”
“We may as well,” Lia said. “They’ll be playing with the car for the rest of the day.”
Fatima had not ventured to come out; clutching the bars, she stared at the vehicle as if it were a large, dangerous animal. At my request she rushed off to brew tea and we three females sat down to watch the proceedings.
“Thank goodness Gargery isn’t here,” I said. “He’d want to pitch in too. I hope they can get the confounded thing together and drive it into the stable before the children join us for tea.”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” remarked Lia. David had not even greeted her. Except for Cyrus, who was watching from a safe distance, the men had stripped to the waist and were waving their arms and arguing. The porters dashed about gathering up the debris; every scrap of wood, every nail would be of use to them.
“They will waste a good deal of time arguing about what to do and who is to do it,” I remarked. “A woman’s clear head is what is needed,