The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [58]
Are you happy on your Expedition? Where are you now, I wonder? Probably still at sea, consulting with the ship’s Captain, showing him your maps and your wicked pharaoh’s poems. You’re probably surrounded by girls again, just like when I met you. But you know they aren’t for you, Ralphie. Only your Devoted Queen-to-be is for you, and you are only for her.
Daddy asked me what you and I were thinking about for our residences after the Expedition and the wedding, and would we live in Boston only or would we move into Trilipush Hall. He looked at me all sentimental like he gets, said he’d always wanted to see me in a big English country house. What do you think? Would you consider going back to England, or would it still be too painful? Will there be enough money to open up the Hall again? Daddy is often an idiot, but on this I think he may be very right: I think I would be very happy as an English Lady.
That reminds me: this dream last night, in the medication-fog. It was just a little bit into the future. You and I were married. I was feeling so strong and healthy. We were so happy, and I never caused you any trouble with my moods or anything. Your digging had made us wonderfully rich, and you were famous, and we were welcomed everywhere with absolutely everyone, and you took me to England to meet the king and queen. And then we came back home and I was going to have our first baby. Ralph Chester Crawford Trilipush was a darling little thing, and just after he was born he was already talking! At first we were all so proud, but then we listened, and he was talking only the most terrible cursing, he just wouldn’t stop—the filthiest language you could imagine, and the doctors were shaking their heads and the nurses were all sobbing, and I didn’t know what to think, because they were giving me stronger and stronger things to take, and I was falling back into the special sleep again, but before I could relax into it, I looked up and, Ralph, you, you were just laughing and saying, “Oh, yes, that’s my lad, that is.”
Honestly, this letter writing is absolutely exhausting, I have to tell you. It’s still God-awful hot here, and I am sleepy just always. Inge will be back soon, which is good, because I want to send you this, but I also need something for the pain, which is bad today. You can’t imagine. It’s like an itch so bad you’d tear your head off to feel scratched properly. The stuff Inge gives me scratches me for a while, and when I’m asleep it doesn’t itch so bad. If it would just stop itching and I didn’t always feel so God-awful tired (excuse me for saying it straight), I’d be out having a gay old time on the town with my friends or with fellows. Oh, yes, Ralphie, you’d better come home soon all covered in laurels or I’ll find someone else to carry me away! Don’t think I won’t, Englishman. A good American, stout and strong, could have me in a second.
But I am so tired.
I kiss you, and so do Antony and Cleopatra. They send you licks. Their tails don’t wag as much since you’ve gone. It’s true. I really think they miss you just like I do.
Your Margaret
(Tuesday, 17 October 1922, continued)
To Margaret: My darling. Your second letter came today, hard on the heels of your first effort, and my heart steams with gratitude. Your charming Atum-haduan dream was delightful and put me in mind of our first meeting. I have never told you what I was thinking that day last April, but the memory is sweet to me in my isolation here.
My contribution to the Boston Historical Society’s Public Improvement Lectures had been promoted as a discussion of ancient Egyptian culture, and though I had promised the organisers I would not do so, I had always intended to read aloud from Desire and Deceit. A performer must face facts: the size of the gathered audience left no doubt as to the main attraction on the bills advertising the evening. While I do love my work, I would not be so foolish as to assert that hundreds of Bostonian ladies had gathered for a generic