He Shall Thunder in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters [76]
I had been looking forward to making the acquaintance of Major Hamilton, but when his niece arrived she was accompanied only by her formidable governess.
“The Major asked me to convey his profound apologies,” the latter explained. “A sudden emergency necessitated his departure for the Canal last evening.”
“I am so sorry,” I replied. “It is sad, is it not, that the celebrations of the birth of the Prince of Peace should be interrupted by preparations for war.”
Emerson gave me a look that expressed his opinion of this sentiment, which was, I admit, somewhat trite. Miss Nordstrom appeared quite struck by it, however.
Miss Molly did not even hear it. Attired in the white muslin considered suitable for young girls, with a huge white bow atop her head, she delayed only long enough to thank us for asking her before darting away.
They were among the last to come, and after I had introduced Miss Nordstrom to Katherine and Anna, I felt I deserved a respite. As any proper hostess must do, I glanced round the room to make certain no one was alone and neglected. Everyone appeared to be having a good time; Miss Molly had detached Ramses from Woolley and Lawrence, and Mrs. Fortescue was talking with Cyrus, who responded to her smiles and flirtatious glances with obvious enjoyment. He had always been “an admirer in the most respectful way of female loveliness,” but I knew his interest was purely aesthetic. He was absolutely devoted to his wife, and if he appeared to be in danger of forgetting it, Katherine would certainly remind him.
Turning to my husband, I found him staring into space with a singularly blank expression. I had to speak to him twice before he responded.
“I beg your pardon, Peabody?”
“I invited you to join me in a cup of tea, my dear. What has put you in such a brown study?”
“Nothing of importance. Where is Nefret? I don’t see her or that young officer. Have they gone into the garden?”
“She does not require to be chaperoned, my dear. If the young man forgets himself, which I consider to be unlikely, she will put him in his place.”
“True,” Emerson agreed. “I will not take tea; I want to talk to Woolley about the Egyptian material he found at Carchemish.”
After a while someone—it was Mr. Pinckney—asked if we might not have a little informal dance, but his ingenuous face fell when Nefret went to the pianoforte.
“We do not have a gramophone,” I explained. “Emerson hates them and I confess I find those scratchy records a poor substitute for the real thing.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Pinckney. “I say, that’s a bit hard on Miss Forth, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have suggested it if I had realized she couldn’t dance.”
He was overheard by Miss Nordstrom, who must have had quite a lot of Cyrus’s champagne, for she beamed sentimentally at the young man and offered to take Nefret’s place. Mr. Pinckney seized her hand and squeezed it. “I say,” he exclaimed. “I say, that is good of you, Miss—er—mmm.”
So Mr. Pinckney got his dance. As is usual at my parties, there were more gentlemen than ladies present, so he had to share Nefret. Miss Nordstrom played with a panache I would not have expected from such a proper female, but her repertoire was more or less limited to the classics—polkas, mazurkas, and waltzes. Even Mr. Pinckney did not dare inquire whether she could play ragtime; but after a further glass of champagne, urged on her by Cyrus, she burst into a particularly rollicking polka, and Pinckney (who had also refreshed himself between dances) swung Nefret exuberantly round the room and ended by lifting her off her feet and spinning her in a circle.
Emerson glowered at the young fellow like a papa in a stage melodrama, but Nefret laughed and the others applauded. Miss Molly’s treble rose over the other voices. “Play it again, Nordie!” She ran to Ramses and held up her arms. “Spin me round like that, please! I know you can, you