He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [42]
He handed the servant a few coins and slipped out into the alley behind the brothel. Gradually his steps slowed until he was standing stock-still. A single phrase had lodged in his mind. “. . . he would make no demands on her. . . .”
No demands of any kind? Was it possible? It would explain so many things. Losing the baby had been the final blow that had broken her spirit. If that brief, miserable marriage had not been consummated—if she had discovered, too late, that she was carrying his child—if she still loved him, and believed her lack of faith in him had destroyed his love for her . . .
A flood of pity and tenderness and remorse filled him. I’ll make it up to her, he thought. If it’s true. If she’ll let me. If it’s not too late.
First, though, there was the other business.
:
The Yuletide season was fast approaching, but I was unable to work up much in the way of Christmas spirit. Small wonder, with the family scattered, and rumors of Turkish troops approaching the Sinai, and the casualty lists from the Western Front appallingly high. When I thought of those two handsome sensitive lads, whom I loved so dearly, in the mud of the trenches facing death, my spirits sank. It was even harder for their parents, of course, and for the girl to whom Johnny was engaged. What agonies she must be suffering!
However, I am never one to shirk my duty, and in my opinion the general gloom made it all the more imperative to celebrate the season and enjoy the company of those friends who were still with us. There were, alas, fewer than in other years. M. Maspero had retired as head of the Antiquities Department; he had been ailing for some time, and the wounding of his son Jean earlier that autumn had been a bitter blow to him. The young man, a fine scholar in his own right, was now back in the trenches. Howard Carter had remained in Luxor for the winter; his patron, Lord Carnarvon, had been awarded the firman for the Valley of the Kings after Mr. Theodore Davis gave it up. Howard did not agree with Davis that there were no more royal tombs in the Valley. He was itching to get at it.
Our closest friends, Katherine and Cyrus Vandergelt, were working nearby, at Abusir. Katherine would need comforting too; her son had been among the first to enlist. Bertie had been slightly wounded at Mons, but was now back in action.
So I sent out my invitations and accepted others. Emerson complained of taking time away from his work, as he always did, and when I inquired whether he would care to attend a costume ball at Shepheard’s, his indignation reached such a pitch I was obliged to close the door of my study, where the conversation was taking place.
“Good Gad, Peabody, have you forgotten what happened when last we attended a masked ball? Had I not arrived in the proverbial nick of time, you would have been carried off by a particularly unpleasant villain whom you took for me! Nobody knows who anybody is in those costumes,” Emerson continued, abandoning syntax in the extremity of his passion.
He looked so handsome, his sapphirine eyes blazing, his teeth bared, the cleft in his chin quivering, that I could not resist teasing him a bit. “Now, Emerson, you know you enjoy wearing disguises. Especially beards! It is most unlikely that any such thing could happen again. Anyhow, I had a more revealing costume in mind for you. You have such well-shaped lower limbs, I thought a Roman centurion or a kilted Scot, or perhaps a pharaoh—”
“Wearing nothing but a short skirt and a beaded collar?” Emerson glowered. “And you in one of those transparent pleated robes, as Nefertiti? See here, Peabody . . . Oh. You are joking, aren’t you?”
“Yes, my dear,” I said, laughing. “We needn’t attend if you don’t want to, the affair is several weeks off. You had better run along now; I will just finish these notes before I join you.”
Believing the discussion was at an end, I turned back to the desk and picked up my pen.
“I would like to see you as Nefertiti, though.” Emerson came to stand behind me, his hand on my shoulder.
“Now, Emerson,