The Falcon at the Portal - Elizabeth Peters [183]
“It is very good of you to make little jokes in an attempt to cheer me, Emerson.” I drew away from him and smoothed my hair.
“That was not a joke.” But his blue eyes shone with mingled amusement and tenderness, and he put his arm round my waist. “What is it, Peabody? What troubles you? We’ve come through another bad time relatively unscathed, and the ending, though dreadful enough, was at least … an ending.”
“It was mercifully quick and final,” I agreed. “Even the … the other business … Cruel as it may sound, one must regard the sad event as a blessing in disguise.”
“Does she regard it as a blessing in disguise?”
“I didn’t say that to her, Emerson! What sort of clumsy fool do you take me for? She wept very much. And oh, Emerson—” My tears could not be restrained. Mumbling incoherent words of affection, Emerson picked me up and took me onto his lap. “She didn’t want me,” I snuffled, against his shoulder. “Whenever she looked at me she started crying again.”
A week later I met the morning train from Luxor and greeted my dear old friend Doctor Wiloughby. My telegram had said only that he was needed; good man that he was, he had abandoned his patients and his clinic and come at once. As we proceeded by carriage to the house, I told him the entire story, holding nothing back, for I trusted his discretion as I trusted his expertise in nervous disorders.
“Physically she has fully recovered, Doctor, and she tries to eat and exercise and do all the other things I ask. It is heartbreaking to see how hard she tries—to see the effort it costs her to smile and pretend she is glad to see me. She doesn’t want to see me, Dr. Willoughby! She doesn’t want any of us. Most of the time she lies there without moving or speaking, and when she thinks we are not looking she starts to cry again.”
“My dear Mrs. Emerson, it is not surprising,” the good man said soothingly. “I have seldom heard such a tragic story. Wife and widow in the space of only a few weeks—learning that the young husband she had loved was a monster of villainy—seeing him die in such a horrible fashion—and then her hopes of motherhood destroyed! You cannot expect complete emotional recovery in so short a time. Don’t apologize for summoning me; I would have been offended if you had not.”
I had not told him the thing that worried me most. Try as she might to hide it, she shrank from me and from Emerson, the very sight of whom brought tears to her eyes; but Ramses she would not see at all, and he made no effort to see her. Surely, I told myself, she could not be so unjust as to blame him for what had happened. It was the only interpretation that occurred to me, however, and I dared not ask her pointblank while she was in her present state. Lia, from whom I had hoped to gain additional information, was unable or unwilling to give it. She claimed—and I had no reason to doubt her—that Nefret would not talk to her either. I would have worried about Lia too, if I had not had more pressing matters on my mind; she crept about the house like a little shadow of herself, finding solace only in the company of her husband. I thought I understood the cause of her distress; did we not all feel the same?
Dr. Willoughby stayed with us for two days. On three separate occasions he was alone with Nefret, but he would not discuss his diagnosis until after the final visit. We were all waiting for him in the courtyard that afternoon, and when he joined us Emerson jumped up and poured whiskey and soda for everyone, including Lia, who never drank whiskey and soda. Willoughby took his glass with a nod of thanks.
“I won’t mince words, my friends,” he said gravely. “The situation is more serious than I thought. I believe I have won her confidence, up to a point, but there is something preying on her mind she won’t speak of even to me.” His tired, kindly gray eyes—the eyes of a man who has seen too much sorrow—moved around the circle of anxious faces. “One thing you must understand; it may help to relieve you. She holds no one except herself accountable