The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [16]
Emerson, who is very sentimental, though he does not admit it, had turned his head away and was fumbling in his pocket. I was not surprised when he failed to locate his handkerchief. He never can locate his handkerchiefs. I slipped mine into his hand. Face still averted, he blew his nose loudly.
“Thank goodness that’s over,” he declared.
I started. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, it was very pretty, no doubt, but all that praying became tedious. Why don’t young people just go off and—er—set up housekeeping, as the ancient Egyptians did?”
Chalfont Castle, Evelyn’s ancestral home, is a gloomy old pile of a place and the Great Hall is the oldest and gloomiest part of it. The fabric dates from the fourteenth century, but early Victorian enthusiasm for the Gothic had resulted in some unfortunate additions and restorations, including several hideous carved oak chandeliers. Rain clouds darkened the stained-glass windows but a fire blazed on the hearth, lamps and candles twinkled everywhere, and flowers and greenery brightened the hoary stone walls. The floor was covered with Oriental rugs. The long refectory table had been spread with food; melodious sounds issued from the gallery at the north end, where the musicians were stationed.
Katherine Vandergelt joined me at the table and accepted a glass of champagne from the servant. “You do have the most unusual friends, Mrs. Emerson,” she remarked with amiable irony. “Egyptians in native attire, servants mingling with their masters on equal social terms, and a former spiritualist medium who was only saved from prison by your kindly intervention.”
She was referring to herself, though she was guilty of a certain degree of humorous exaggeration. Financial need and the desire to provide for her fatherless children had driven her to take up that questionable profession, which she had been happy to abandon. Her marriage to our wealthy American friend Cyrus had resulted from mutual attraction, with only a little help from me. I had no reservations about my part in that affair, for they had been exceedingly happy together. Like ourselves, the Vandergelts were on their way to Egypt where they spent the winters, sometimes with and sometimes without Katherine’s children from her first unhappy marriage.
“Not to mention the aunt and uncle of the bride, whose encounters with ambulatory mummies and master criminals have only too often been featured in the sensationalist press,” I replied, with an answering smile.
“I notice none of your kinsmen are here.”
“Good Gad, Katherine, you have heard enough about my brothers to understand why they are the last persons I would want. My nephew Percy, whom you met when he was out a few years ago, is typical of the rest of them. I suppose you’ve read his wretched little book. He sent copies to everyone.”
“It is extremely entertaining,” said Katherine, with a smile that rounded her cheeks and narrowed her slanted eyes. I had thought when I first met her that she reminded me of a plump-faced tabby cat; her smile had the same touch of cynicism that marks the countenance of a feline—most of whom are cynics by nature as well as experience.
“So I have been informed. I have not the time to waste with such stuff. As for Emerson’s family, it consists solely of Walter. There was an estrangement, I believe; when I suggested this might be a suitable occasion for mending relations, Emerson informed me it