Lord of the Silent - Elizabeth Peters [31]
Anyhow, it was time Sennia got some formal schooling. She soon would be, or had just become, six years of age. We did not know the precise date of her birth, so we had selected an arbitrary date in September on which to celebrate that anniversary. The festivities had been extravagant and well-received; more to the point, Sennia herself had announced that now she was six she was practically grown up and should be treated accordingly. This seemed an appropriate time to remind her that persons of six were old enough to attend school.
I trust I will not be accused of insularity when I say that the only proper institution was the English School. Most of the others, especially the American Mission schools, had a strong religious orientation, and I knew Emerson would never stand for that—nor was I keen on having my grandniece turned into a Methodist. Methodists are worthy individuals, but we have never had one in the family. The English School was coeducational, which was another point in its favor. I do not believe in wasting time, so I went round to the school the day after my discussion with Emerson, to inform the Headmaster that our ward would be attending.
He knew our family—everyone in Cairo does—and he knew about Sennia. Every gossip in Cairo did—or thought they did. When I informed him that her father was my late nephew and her mother an Egyptian woman—additional details being, in my opinion, irrelevant—his high forehead creased into rows of parallel wrinkles, and he said, without much hope, “Perhaps the—er—child would be better off at Saint Mary’s.”
Saint Mary’s English School was for “natives.”
“Had I believed that to be the case I would not be here,” I retorted. “Kindly give me a list of the clothing and supplies she will need. I will bring her here on Monday next. Thank you.”
Emerson was genuinely worried about the Luxor tombs—his in particular—so it was not difficult for him to put on a convincing show of concern. We were eating our luncheon in the courtyard of the small tomb we had begun to excavate when he raised the subject for the fifth time in two days.
“I’m tempted to take a quick trip to Luxor myself,” he declared.
“It couldn’t be quick,” Ramses said, watching his father bite savagely into a sandwich. “You would have to spend some time there if you were to have any lasting effect.”
“Quite, quite,” Emerson agreed.
“And it is unlikely that you would succeed in having anyone arrested. You remember what happened to Carter, after the tomb of Amenhotep II was robbed; not only did the guards state they had recognized two of the Abd er Rassul brothers, but Carter photographed the footprints of one of the thieves and found they matched those of Mohammed. Yet the court refused to convict.”
“I don’t intend to waste time trying to get anybody arrested,” said Emerson.
Nefret chuckled. “You intend to beat them up, I suppose.”
Her fair skin glowed with the golden hue it acquired after a few days in Egypt, and her laughter was as carefree as that of a child; but I sensed she was concealing something from me. She had spent the morning at the hospital for women she had founded several years earlier, and her eyes kept returning to the bandage on Ramses’s forearm. Its primary function was to keep sand and dirt from infecting the wound, which was not deep. I