The Ape Who Guards the Balance - Elizabeth Peters [136]
“No, it’s mine!” Lia exclaimed. She caught David up and tried to put her arms round him. “I—I seduced him!”
“Oh, God,” said Ramses. There was such a strange note in his voice that I swung round to look at him. His face was alive with an emotion as strong as any I had beheld on that enigmatic countenance.
“Did you know?” I demanded.
“No.”
I turned back to David. “I presume Lia’s parents do not suspect this—this—”
“I am going to tell them now,” David said quietly. “No, Lia, don’t try to stop me; I ought to have done the decent thing long ago.”
“I’m going with you,” Ramses said. He picked me up, as if I had been a life-sized doll, and set me down out of his way.
“No, my brother. Let me have the courage for once to act without your help.”
He passed into the house. Lia started after him, and Nefret said with a gusty sigh, “Well, that’s done it. We may as well join in, Ramses, family arguments are the favorite form of amusement here and this looks like being a loud one.”
•
Twelve
•
Loud it most certainly was. I was ashamed of Walter. He behaved like an outraged papa in a stage melodrama, and I half-expected him to point a quivering finger at David and thunder, “Never darken my door again!”
David had been too nervous to break the news gently—but then I suppose it would not have mattered how he broke it. “Lia and I love one another. I know I have no right to love her. I ought to have told you at once. I ought to have gone away. I ought—”
He was not allowed to say more. Walter caught hold of his daughter, who was clinging to David’s arm, and dragged her out of the room. I do not suppose he had ever laid an angry hand on her, or any of his other children; so taken aback was she that she went unprotesting. We all stood like pillars of salt, avoiding one another’s eyes, until he returned to announce that he had locked her in her room.
“I must go to her,” said Evelyn.
It was the first time she had spoken since David had made his announcement. Her pale, silent look of reproach hurt David even more than Walter’s angry words. He bowed his head, and Ramses, who had been watching with the strangest expression, went to him and put his hand on David’s shoulder.
Walter turned on his wife. “You are not to go near her. Pack your things. We will take the morning train. As for you, David—”
“That will be enough, Walter,” Emerson said. His pipe had fallen from his mouth when David spoke. He picked it up from the floor, examined it, and shook his head. “Cracked. A perfectly good pipe ruined. That is what comes of these melodramatic scenes. Young people tend to be overly excitable, but I am surprised, Walter, to see a grown man like you lose your temper.”
“It runs in the family,” said Nefret. She went to David and took his other arm. “Professor darling, you won’t let Uncle Walter—”
“I will not allow any member of this family to behave in a manner unbecoming his or her dignity.”
Considering its source, this was an outrageous statement, but of course Emerson was sublimely unaware of that. He went on, “David, my boy, go to your room. Sit quietly and don’t do anything foolish. If I discovered that you had polished off your Aunt Amelia’s laudanum or hanged yourself with a bedsheet I would be seriously put out with you. Perhaps you had better go with him, Ramses.”
“No, sir,” Ramses said quietly. “He wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“I’m not leaving either,” Nefret announced.
“Do you believe he needs advocates here, to ensure fair play?” Emerson inquired.
“Yes!” Nefret exclaimed passionately.
“Yes,” said Ramses.
Nefret’s slim shoulders were thrown back and her eyes blazed. Ramses’s eyes were half-veiled by his lashes, and his face was no more expressive than usual, but his pose was as defiant as Nefret’s. They looked very handsome and very touching and very young. I wanted to shake both of them.
“Thank you, my friends,” David said softly. With a firm stride, not looking back, he left the room.
“Well now,” Emerson began.
He got no farther. Nefret turned on me. I had gone