The Egyptologist - Arthur Phillips [97]
These mad assertions of insidious, invisible Ferrell produce an absurd retroactive unwinding of the truth. If I was not at Oxford, how did I meet Marlowe? How did we come to find ourselves unearthing a pot containing Fragment C? If I was not his school chum, how did we come to be in the same unit in Egypt? If we did not enlist together, how did I find my way into the Army? Told this way the story makes no sense at all. Ferrell is a madman.
Reconstructing the order of events with these slow letters is maddening. Obviously, whatever poison ter Breuggen spilt into Finneran’s ear on the 19th would explain CCF’s financial delays and enigmatic cables. Whoever Ferrell is, he is on an incomprehensible quest to discredit me. He succeeded in ter Breuggen’s office, but the fear and incompetence there made for fertile ground. CCF is of sterner stuff. Oh God, M.
CABLE. LUXOR TO MARGARET FINNERAN,
BOSTON, 2 NOV. 1922, 5.47 P.M.
MY DARLING. HAVE LEARNT A LIAR LURKS, A STRANGER CALLED FERRELL. DO NOT KNOW HIM, DO NOT BELIEVE HIM. IGNORE AT ALL COSTS. YOUR CONQUERING LOVE. RMT.
CABLE. LUXOR TO C. C. FINNERAN,
BOSTON, 2 NOV. 1922, 5.49 P.M.
MASTER OF LARGESSE. HAVE LEARNT MORE OF FERRELL, A LIAR OF MYSTERIOUS MOTIVATION. YOU MAY SAFELY DISREGARD HIM AND INSTEAD COMFORTABLY AND QUICKLY PROCEED ACCORDING TO OUR ORIGINAL PLANS. RMT.
Margaret: I just sprinted back into town and cabled you to ignore this Ferrell. I am sure you will if you have not already. He is a mythical nemesis dispatched to harass me, by I cannot imagine what forces for I cannot imagine what reason. Even so, he is a clownish, flabby nemesis. And yet, also necessary! Great men, my darling, are often troubled by just such petty thugs and anaemic ill-wishers. These troubled, rodential men are driven by a need to tear down because they cannot create, they have been denied Atum’s spark, the bit of godness that great men desire—the power to create. And, sulphur-veined, they cling instead with ragged claws, driven by the satanic urge to destroy.
If you have heard his nonsense already—and I suppose you must have, since it appears he was in your home two weeks ago—then my heart breaks for you, because his hissing words no doubt sizzled away at the very idea you have of me. What must you have thought to hear the mad, impossible notion that Ralph was not at Oxford? If you believed for even a single, shocking moment, then I am so very sorry.
I know, Margaret—I am not such a fool as all that—I know that what first drew you to me was my manner and my history: an English explorer, sculpted from old gentry, Oxford education, War heroism. I know these were our foundation stones. But now, my love, Ferrell provides us an opportunity to grow stronger, to forge a deeper love and understanding. We both know that my curriculum vitae is not the best of me, nor the most of me. And if Oxford were not real—as Ferrell would have it—what would that change between us? Nothing. My accomplishments were the means to bring us together, not the sustenance off of which our love will last forever. If foiled Ferrell has helped us to see that, then our magnanimous thanks to him!
After a ghastly evening, I am finally feeling myself again. Is this what “court intrigue” actually felt like, when it was a daily reality and not an historian’s dry phrase? When Atum-hadu’s