He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [169]
“Oh, my dear, don’t pretend,” I said. My voice was unsteady; the cool, mocking tone jarred on me as never before. “I am so sorry, Ramses. How long have you . . .”
“Since the moment I set eyes on her. Fidelity,” Ramses said, in the same cool voice, “seems to be a fatal flaw of our family.”
“Oh, come,” I said, accepting the cigarette he offered and allowing him to light it for me. “Are you telling me you have never—er . . .”
“No, Mother dear, I am not telling you—er—that. I discovered years ago that lying to you is a waste of breath. How the devil do you do it? Look at you—ruffles trailing, gloves spotless—blowing out smoke like a little lady dragon and prying into the most intimate secrets of a fellow’s life. Spare me the lecture, I beg. My moments of aberration—and there were, I confess, a number of them—were attempts to break the spell. They failed.”
“But you were only a child when you saw her for the first time.”
“It sounds like one of the wilder romances, doesn’t it? Most authors would throw in hints of reincarnation and souls destined for one another down the long centuries. . . . It wasn’t so simple as I have made it sound, you know, or as tragic. A weakness for melodrama is another of our family failings.”
“Tell me,” I urged. “It is unhealthy to keep one’s feelings to oneself. How often you must have yearned to confide in a sympathetic listener!”
“Er—quite,” said Ramses.
“Does David know?”
“Some of it.” Glancing at me, Ramses added, “It wasn’t the same, naturally, as confiding in one’s mother.”
“Naturally.”
I said no more. I could feel his need to unburden himself; experienced as I am in such matters, I knew that sympathetic silence was the best means of inducing his confidences. Sure enough, after a few moments, he began.
“It was only a child’s infatuation at first; how could it be anything more? But then came that summer I spent with Sheikh Mohammed. I thought that being away from her for months, with the sheikh providing interesting distractions . . .” Catching himself, he added hastily, “Riding and exploring and strenuous physical exercise—”
“Of all varieties,” I muttered. “Shameful old man! I ought never have allowed you to go.”
“Never mind, Mother. I would apologize for referring, however obliquely, to a subject unsuitable for female contemplation, if I weren’t certain that you are thoroughly conversant with it. When David and I came back to Cairo, I thought I’d got over it. But when I saw her on the terrace at Shepheard’s that afternoon, and she ran to meet me, laughing, and threw her arms round me . . .” He plucked one of the drooping roses. Twirling the stem between his fingers, he went on, “I knew that day I loved her and always would, but I couldn’t tell anyone how I felt; a declaration of undying passion from a sixteen-year-old boy would have provoked laughter or pity, and I couldn’t have stood either. So I waited, and worked and hoped, and lost her to a man whose death came close to destroying her. She had begun to forgive me for my part in that, I think—”
“Forgive you!” I exclaimed. “What had she to forgive? You were the soul of honor throughout that horrible business. It is for her to ask your forgiveness. She ought to have had faith in you.”
“And I ought to have gone after her and shaken some sense into her. I realize now that that was what she wanted me to do—that perhaps she had the right to expect it of me, especially after—”
He checked himself. I said helpfully, “After having been such good friends for so long. That is what your father always did.”
“To you? But surely you never gave Father cause to—”
“Shake some sense into me?” My laughter was brief and rueful. “I am ashamed to admit that I did, more than once. There was one occasion—one woman in particular . . . I need not say that my suspicions were completely unfounded, but if love has an adverse effect on common sense, jealousy destroys it completely. Of course the cases are not entirely parallel.”
“No.” I could tell that he was trying to picture Emerson shaking me as I shouted accusations