The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [131]
We were alone in the courtyard. Everything was ready; the dining table set, the flowers arranged. Cyrus had gone up to join Emerson in his study. I had no idea where Ramses had got off to. For the past few days he had spent all his spare hours in the filthy alleyways of Cairo, trying to find the miserable girl whose silence had supported the untruthful accusation against him. He had not even accompanied us to the railroad station to meet David and Lia; a rumor had reached him from one of his sources that Rashida had been seen the previous night and he had gone immediately to investigate. When he returned to the house later that day he said only that his informant had been mistaken. I hadn’t seen him since.
“I feel certain you are worrying unnecessarily,” Katherine said in her comfortable way. “You said you had seen Nefret this morning and told her about the child?”
“I had already written her. I knew she and Geoffrey were staying at Shepheard’s; I ought to have called earlier, but I took the coward’s way out by writing first.”
“You were still angry with her.”
“Yes,” I admitted. “And not only on Ramses’s account. I had always believed we were close, Katherine; why should she keep her engagement to Geoffrey a secret from me?”
“They were engaged?”
“They must have had an understanding, if not a formal engagement. A woman doesn’t turn to a stranger when she is in distress.”
“Not unless the foundations of her world have been utterly shattered,” Katherine murmured.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t believe I know myself. It was only a passing fancy.” She gave herself a little shake and returned to the subject at hand. “The understanding may have been quite recent. She didn’t question your explanation, did she?”
“No; she said she ought to have known, and that she hoped he would forgive her, and … That was odd. She never mentioned his name—Ramses, I mean. She kept saying ‘he’ and ‘him.’ Geoffrey wasn’t there. I don’t know whether that was due to tact or his fear of facing me!”
“You don’t dislike the young man, do you?”
“Quite the contrary. He is of good family—not that that sort of thing matters to me!—well-bred, cultured, and a first-rate archaeologist. That does matter, you know, especially to Emerson. No doubt it will work out for the best. But we have a number of things to decide. Geoffrey is committed to Mr. Reisner for the rest of this season, and you may be sure Emerson won’t allow Nefret to shirk her duties on account of something as inconsequential as a honeymoon. And where are they to live? Harvard Camp is a bachelor establishment and I don’t like the idea of them staying with Jack Reynolds. They had better come here to us.”
“You might wait to see what they have to say on that subject,” Katherine said with a smile.
A sharp but abortive yip from Narmer informed me of the identity of an arriving individual. Only Ramses and Nefret could get the confounded dog to hush and it usually took her longer than it did him.
My deductions were correct as usual. Seeing Katherine, Ramses raised his hand to his head, discovered he was not wearing a hat, and lowered it again.
“David and Lia will be along in a few minutes,” he announced. “She couldn’t decide which hat to wear. They all looked much the same to me.”
“Oh, is that where you were? Did you have tea with them?”
“Yes. Are you ready for your usual, Mother, or will you wait for Father and the others?”
“I will wait, thank you.”
“Mrs. Vandergelt?”
“Thank you, Ramses, I will finish my tea.”
I watched him walk to the sideboard. Except for his windblown hair he looked quite neat and tidy, in a nice tweed suit and a tie. It was not like him to begin drinking so early, though.
“You had better go up and see Sennia,” I said. “Otherwise she will come looking for you.”
“Of course.” He put his empty glass down and mounted the stairs.
Another outburst from the dog, this one of longer duration, brought Emerson and Cyrus out of the former’s study.
“Damned dog,” said Emerson. He went out of the house, and I heard him and Narmer barking at one another. The dog