The Curse of the Pharaohs - Elizabeth Peters [62]
“If one word of this incident gets into the newspapers,” I began.
“But what can I do?” O’Connell’s china-blue eyes widened. “Every journalist in Luxor will know of the affair by dinnertime, if they don’t know of it already. I would lose my position if I let personal feelings interfere with my duty to my readers.”
“You had better take yourself off,” I said, seeing that Emerson was beginning to shuffle his feet and growl, like a bull preparing to charge. Mr. O’Connell grinned broadly at me. With the assistance of Mr. Vandergelt I managed to remove my husband; and after an interval of profound cogitation he remarked glumly, “Vandergelt, I believe I will have to accept your offer after all—not to protect the ladies, but to protect me from them.”
“I’m tickled to death,” the American said promptly.
Returning to my rubbish heap, I saw that Mr. O’Connell had taken himself off. As I proceeded with the methodical and monotonous chore of sifting the debris I considered an idea that had come to me during my conversation with the young journalist. It was clear that he would cheerfully endure personal violence in his pursuit of a story, and sooner or later Emerson, if goaded, would oblige him. Since we could not rid ourselves of his attentions, why not turn them to our own advantage and control his comments by offering him the exclusive rights to our story? In order to maintain this advantageous position he would be obliged to defer to our wishes and refrain from baiting my excitable husband.
The more I thought about this scheme, the more brilliant it seemed to me. I was tempted to propose it to Emerson at once; but since his immediate reaction to my suggestions is usually an emphatic negative, I decided to wait till later, when he had, hopefully, recovered from the ill temper induced by the latest encounter with Madame Berengeria.
An alarming development occurred later that afternoon, when a section of the exposed ceiling of the passageway collapsed, narrowly missing one of the men. The rumbling crash and cloud of dust emerging from the stairwell caused a flutter of excitement among the watchers and brought me rushing to the spot. Through the fog of dust I saw Emerson, dimly visible like a demon in a pantomime, wiping his face with his sleeve and cursing nobly.
“We will have to shore up the ceiling and walls as we proceed,” he declared. “I saw that the rock was in bad condition, but hoped it would improve as we proceeded. Unhappily the reverse seems to be the case. Abdullah, send Daoud and his brother back to the house to fetch wood and a bag of nails. Curse it, this will slow the work even more.”
“But it must be done,” I said. “A serious accident now would convince the men that we are indeed under a curse.”
“Thank you for your tender concern,” Emerson snarled. “What are you doing down here anyway? Get back to work.”
Obviously the time was not ripe for me to discuss my scheme regarding Mr. O’Connell.
No one can accuse me of being an uncritically doting wife. I am fully cognizant of Emerson’s many faults. In this case, however, I recognized his evil temper as a manifestation of that well-nigh supernatural force of character which drove the men to efforts exceeding their natural powers. The ill-omened words of Madame Berengeria, closely followed by the rockfall, had rendered even more uneasy temperaments not wholly unaffected by earlier uncanny events. With a lesser man than my husband at the helm, they might have walked off the job that very day.
Unfortunately Emerson’s mood of majestic authority is accompanied, in the domestic sphere, by an arrogance that any woman less understanding than I would refuse to tolerate for an instant. I put up with it only because I was as anxious as he to see the work proceed apace.
Only with the imminence of night did Emerson dismiss the exhausted men. It was a weary group that started back along the rocky path. I had attempted to persuade Mary to go the long way around, on donkeyback, but she insisted on accompanying us, and