Night Train to Memphis - Elizabeth Peters [32]
‘I needn’t tell you it was the other way round. Poor darling, she’s so devoted to John. She kept sighing and dropping hints about how lonely she’d be.’
So her doting son had yielded and let her come along? That theory certainly cast a new light on John’s character. When he had spoken of his mother – which wasn’t often – it had been with detached, amused exasperation.
‘John is a very private person in many ways,’ Mary went on. ‘And very reserved. He doesn’t make a public show of his feelings. When we’re alone . . .’ She broke off with an embarrassed laugh. ‘I don’t know why I’m saying these things. You have a way of inducing confidences, Vicky. I feel so comfortable with you.’
‘That’s nice.’ I didn’t trust myself to say more.
‘I hope you don’t mind my unburdening myself.’
I minded. The last thing I wanted was to be the recipient of her confidences about her relationship with John. Had he suggested she approach me? Surely not; it was to his advantage to keep us apart. More likely she had picked me as a confidante because I was unattached, and closer to her age than the other women on the boat. I had wondered – oh, yes, I admit I had – why he’d settled on a half-baked girl barely out of finishing school, but it was becoming clearer now. Adoration, that was what he wanted – unquestioning, doglike devotion. And money? It was one of his favourite things, and I had already noticed, as what woman wouldn’t, that Mary’s clothes had not been bought at Marks and Spencer.
‘Not a bit,’ I said, lying in my teeth. ‘Uh – I’ve been admiring your earrings. They’re excellent reproductions.’
She accepted this as a tactful, if ungraceful, method of changing the subject. ‘Oh, they aren’t copies. Second century B.C., according to John. He gave them to me.’
Before I could stop her she had unfastened one and handed it to me.
I was almost afraid to touch it. The miniature head was only three-quarters of an inch high, but every feature had been moulded with delicate accuracy. It was a classically Greek face, with the long unbroken line from the forehead to the end of the nose, but on its brow it wore an ornament that was not Greek – the horns and full moon of the Egyptian goddess Isis. A modern jeweller had added new wires. One wouldn’t want to keep bending the ancient gold; it was almost pure, close to twenty-four carat.
Silently I returned it to her. I had never seen anything I coveted more.
‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’ Casually she replaced the earring.
‘Gorgeous.’
‘He asked if I’d rather have diamonds,’ Mary said innocently. ‘But I prefer these. He has such wonderful taste.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said. The enamelled golden rose, invisible under my blouse, seemed to burn into my hide.
‘There he is.’ Mary looked past me. ‘I guess it’s time to dress for dinner. I’m so glad we had this talk, Vicky.’
She didn’t ask me to join them. I watched her hurry towards him; he stood waiting, arms folded, like the Emperor preparing to receive a humble subject, and then I turned to go – the other way.
There was no warning, not even a rush of running feet. He hit me hard and low, hurling me forward. I bounced off the rail with a force that knocked the breath out of me and crashed to the deck, derriere first, the back of my head a close second. Bright specks darted through the blackness like pretty little shooting stars.
After a while I opened my eyes, and immediately closed them again when I saw a familiar face hovering over me. Then I opened them again. Not that familiar. It was Foggington-Smythe.
‘Good old Perry,’ I croaked.
‘Good,’ said good old Perry. ‘You know me. You’d better lie still, though; that was quite a crack on the head.’
‘She’s not got concussion.’ John was sitting on the deck next to me. He was rubbing his wrist and scowling like a gargoyle on a cathedral. ‘I think I broke my arm,’ he went on bitterly.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘You were the one who knocked me down. I should have known.’
‘I think I broke my arm,’ John repeated.
It was like old