The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [108]
It is almost impossible to keep conversation at a meaningless social level with our lot, and the interesting events of the previous day were fresh in everyone’s mind. I knew Sennia would introduce the subject if Gargery did not find some means of doing so.
The child had coolly taken a chair next to Emerson and was cutting up his food for him, over his feeble protests. “Tell me again how you hurt your arm,” she demanded. “You made me go to bed last night before I heard the whole story and it is very important that I know all the facts.”
“And why is that?” I inquired, amused at her precise speech.
“So that I can help you, of course.”
Gargery coughed. His coughs are very expressive. This one indicated emphatic agreement.
Emerson glanced at me. I shrugged. Keeping the matter secret was now impossible.
“Well, you see . . .” he began.
Gargery had not heard the entire story either. In his interest he so forgot himself as to edge closer and closer to the table, until he was hovering over Emerson like a vulture. Emerson turned with a scowl. “Gargery, may I beg you to fill the glasses? If it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Gargery, backing off. “I must say, sir and madam, that I can find no fault in your actions.”
“Good of you to say so,” said Emerson, snatching the bottle from him. Gargery snatched it back.
“It might have occurred to you, perhaps,” he continued, splashing wine into the glasses, “to drop odds and ends along the way, to mark your trail.”
“Like the poor children in the fairy tale,” Sennia added approvingly.
“We hadn’t any odds and ends,” I explained, recognizing the start of one of those digressions that can, in our family, go on interminably. “Anyhow, it is over and done with. Thanks to the quick wits of Daoud, and Jumana’s excellent memory, we were found in time.”
Sennia demanded a detailed account of that, too, which Nefret gave. Jumana had spoken very little all morning and she did not add to the story, but Sennia’s praise of her cleverness brought a smile to her solemn face. “I should have remembered before,” she said modestly. “It was what Daoud said that made me think of it.”
“Memory,” I remarked, “is capricious and aberrant. It is not surprising that the import of Jamil’s remarks should have escaped you until a dire emergency recalled them to your mind. Without your assistance we might have perished in the trap he set for us.”
I had kept a close if casual eye on Najia, who had become increasingly clumsy and uncomfortable. When she slipped out of the room, observed only by me, I immediately rose.
“Nefret, will you come with me? The rest of you stay here. That includes you, Gargery.”
She had gone straight through the kitchen and out into the courtyard, and was, when I caught sight of her, trying to open the back gate. The unfortunate creature was already in a frightful state of nerves; her shaking hands could not work the latch. When I called to her to stop, she crumpled to the ground, her hands over her face, her body shaking with sobs.
We lifted her up and half carried her to a bench, and then Nefret waved me to stand back.
“She’s afraid of you, Mother.”
“Afraid of me? Good Gad, why?”
“Let me talk to her.” Her gentle voice and reassurances finally succeeded in calming the girl. She raised a face sticky with tears.
“I meant no harm. He told me I was beautiful—”
I was trying my best not to appear threatening, but the sight of me set her off again.
“I know you meant no harm, Najia,” Nefret said. “The Sitt Hakim knows that too. What was the harm in writing a message to his sister, and in borrowing my clothes? What else did you give him?”
She had not much to give, and she had given that, gladly and humbly. He had told her that he loved her, that the disfigurement did not mar her beauty in his eyes. She had never thought to attract any man, much less one as young