The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [158]
“Even the mighty ones guess, Carter!” I could not stop laughing at his nervous speculations. “Do just try and wait, old boy. You will have a tour with the rest of the swells.”
“Of course. Well, do have the Inspector in, Trilipush. Glad to know where to find you if we need you. Do let me know if I can be of any assistance.” He turned away, then came back at once, reaching into his pocket; I suspected a weapon, and cursed myself for having left my Webley inside. “Nearly forgot why I came. This arrived at my camp, mixed up with our post.” He handed me a letter from my fiancée and pottered off in his superior way, not looking back to see if his arrows had landed. God alone knows how long he has been intercepting my mail, which letters he has kept.
Nov. 29
So everything is clear to me now. Daddy has just explained it and asked me to sign a cable and write you a letter. So here it is: I release you. I must be a joke to you, Ralph. I suppose I disgust you, just a rich girl too stupid to see what’s going on. So now you are free. I must even thank you, to be fair, because for all the time I thought you loved me, I was happy. And even if Daddy tells me now it wasn’t true, that you wanted only his money from me, that is still not so terrible, because for a while I was going to marry an English Lord and explorer. I hate you. I hate you and I don’t know why I ever didn’t hate you. Ferrell and you and Daddy are all hateful. I hope you enjoy our money and your precious treasure and the hell with you all.
Margaret Finneran
(Tuesday, 19 December, 1922, continued)
Carter’s little missile was nothing at all, just an expanded version of your cable of the 29th, and no less a forgery, though it appears to be your handwriting. They must have medicated you thoroughly before that conjuror’s trick. But now the best antidote to such venom is work.
The hammer blows might as well have been delivered directly to my weeping leg, Margaret. I ran through the ninth chamber and pounded against its next door until a crack appeared, and I looked, and then I wept, I think, for hours. I confess it to you. More than I have wept since I was a young boy, before I had yet learnt that tears are the most useless, most unquenching liquid there is.
A sliver of moon is enough to conjure you up, confess to you.
What might I still accomplish, if I begin again, back home. Home? Could I argue you back to me? You need success. Your father, too. Without it, I would bore you. I sparkled for you, once, I think. And with this find? The forged cable will become real after the fact. A neat trick, that.
What would she feel if I were something else? I have any number of possibilities within me. Would she be troubled if I were someone else? Of course she would: we respect the well-born, well-raised conquerors. Me.
It does not matter. I am who I am and you love that man and so he will come home to you. I will start again, take you away with me, away from your father and everything else that poisons you. I will burn all these papers, and we will start again from nothing, far away. I will sleep now, and when I wake I will throw all this away. A failed expedition is not the end of anything, does not even prove that I am wrong. The actual tomb may be hidden mere yards from here. I can return, with Carnarvon or some other rich man. Margaret, you will not turn me away simply for being the man I was when I left, and for not yet becoming even more. Enough. I have only to earn some money to pay my way home and we will begin again. Tomorrow, the 20th, we begin again. I am decided. Are we agreed? Tomorrow I will leave all of this behind me and I will be off at first light, trekking home to you, as I once trekked all the way from Turkey to Egypt. I will cable you that I am coming home, I will beg you only to wait, wait, make no rash decisions. Are you brave? Be brave, my sweet girl, for me. We will sleep now, your statuette come to life next to me. Close your eyes, as I am about to close mine,