The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [4]
Emerson was, from the first, quite besotted with the creature. He took it for long walks and read to it by the hour, not only from Peter Rabbit and other childhood tales, but from excavation reports and his own History of Ancient Egypt, which he was composing. To see Ramses, at fourteen months, wrinkling his brows over a sentence like “The theology of the Egyptians was a compound of fetishism, totem-ism and syncretism” was a sight as terrifying as it was comical. Even more terrifying was the occasional thoughtful nod the child would give.
After a time I stopped thinking of Ramses as “it.” His masculinity was only too apparent. As the summer drew to a close I went, one day, to the estate agents and told them we would keep the house for another year. Shortly thereafter Emerson informed me that he had accepted a position as lecturer at the University of London.
There was never any need to discuss the subject. It was evident that we could not take a young child into the unhealthy climate of an archaeological camp; and it was equally obvious that Emerson could not bear to be parted from the boy. My own feelings? They are quite irrelevant. The decision was the only sensible solution, and I am always sensible.
So, four years later, we were still vegetating in Kent. We had decided to buy the house. It was a pleasant old place, Georgian in style, with ample grounds nicely planted—except for the areas where the dogs and Ramses excavated. I had no trouble keeping ahead of the dogs, but it was a running battle to plant things faster than Ramses dug them up. I believe many children enjoy digging in the mud, but Ramses’ preoccupation with holes in the ground became absolutely ridiculous. It was all Emerson’s fault. Mistaking a love of dirt for a budding talent for excavation, he encouraged the child.
Emerson never admitted that he missed the old life. He had made a successful career lecturing and writing; but now and then I would detect a wistful note in his voice as he read from the Times or the Illustrated London News about new discoveries in the Middle East. To such had we fallen— reading the ILN over tea, and bickering about trivia with county neighbors—we, who had camped in a cave in the Egyptian hills and restored the capital city of a pharaoh!
On that fateful afternoon—whose significance I was not to appreciate until much later—I prepared myself for the sacrifice. I wore my best gray silk. It was a gown Emerson detested because he said it made me look like a respectable English matron—one of the worst insults in his vocabulary. I decided that if Emerson disapproved, Lady Harold would probably consider the gown suitable. I even allowed Smythe, my maid, to arrange my hair. The ridiculous woman was always trying to fuss over my personal appearance. I seldom allowed her to do more than was absolutely necessary, having neither the time nor the patience for prolonged primping. On this occasion Smythe took full advantage. If I had not had a newspaper to read while she pulled and tugged at my hair and ran pins into my head, I would have screamed with boredom.
Finally she said sharply, “With all respect, madam, I cannot do this properly while you are waving that paper about. Will it please you to put it down?”
It did not please me. But time was getting on, and the newspaper story I had been reading—of