The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [13]
He stretched out his hand to me. I was about to take it when the door opened and Wilkins made his appearance. Emerson reacts very poorly to being interrupted when he is in a romantic mood. He turned to the butler and shouted, “Curse it, Wilkins, how dare you barge in here? What is it you want?”
None of our servants is at all intimidated by Emerson. Those who survive the first few weeks of his bellowing and temper tantrums learn that he is the kindest of men. Wilkins said calmly, “I beg your pardon, sir. A lady is here to see you and Mrs. Emerson.”
“A lady?” As is his habit when perplexed, Emerson fingered the dent in his chin. “Who the devil can that be?”
A wild thought flashed through my mind. Had Lady Harold returned, on vengeance bent? Was she even now in the hall carrying a basket of rotten eggs or a bowl of mud? But that was absurd, she would not have the imagination to think of such a thing.
“Where is the lady?” I inquired.
“Waiting in the hall, madam. I attempted to show her into the small parlor, but—”
Wilkins’ slight shrug and raised eyebrow finished the story. The lady had refused to be shown into the parlor. This suggested that she was in some urgency, and it also removed my hope of slipping upstairs to change.
“Show her in, then, Wilkins, if you please,” I said.
The lady’s urgency was even greater than I had supposed. Wilkins had barely time to step back out of the way before she entered; she was advancing toward us when he made the belated announcement: “Lady Baskerville.”
CHAPTER
Two
THE words fell on my ears with almost supernatural force. To see this unexpected visitor, when I had just been thinking and talking about her (and in no kindly terms) made me feel as if the figure now before us was no real woman, but the vision of a distracted mind.
And I must confess that most people would have considered her a vision indeed, a vision of Beauty posing for a portrait of Grief. From the crown of her head to her tiny slippers she was garbed in unrelieved black. How she had passed through the filthy weather without so much as a mud stain I could not imagine, but her shimmering satin skirts and filmy veils were spotless. A profusion of jet beads, sullenly gleaming, covered her bodice and trailed down the folds of her full skirt. The veils fell almost to her feet. The one designed to cover her face had been thrown back so that her pale, oval countenance was framed by the filmy puffs and folds. Her eyes were black; the brows lifted in a high curve that gave her a look of perpetual and innocent surprise. There was no color in her cheeks, but her mouth was a full rich scarlet. The effect of this was startling in the extreme; one could not help thinking of the damnably lovely lamias and vampires of legend.
Also, one could not help thinking of one’s mud-stained, unbecoming gown, and wonder whether the aroma of whiskey covered the smell of moldy bone, or the reverse. Even I, who am not easily daunted, felt a pang of self-consciousness. I realized that I was trying to hide my glass, which was still half full, under a sofa cushion.
Though the pause of surprise—for Emerson, like myself, was gaping—seemed to last forever, I believe it was only a second or two before I regained my self-possession. Rising to my feet, I greeted our visitor, dismissed Wilkins, offered a chair and a cup of tea. The lady accepted the chair and refused the tea. I then expressed my condolences on her recent bereavement, adding that Sir Henry’s death was a great loss to our profession.
This statement jarred Emerson out of his stupor, as I had thought it might, but for once he showed a modicum of tact, instead of making a rude remark about Sir Henry’s inadequacies as an Egyptologist. Emerson saw no reason why anything, up to and including death, should excuse a man from poor scholarship.
However, he was not so tactful as to agree with my compliment or add one of his own. “Er—humph,” he said. “Most unfortunate. Sorry to hear of it. What the deuce do you suppose has become of Armadale?”
“Emerson,” I exclaimed.