The Hippopotamus Pool - Elizabeth Peters [36]
I shook off the dark foreboding this realization inspired. I had no proof that it was so. And if it was, I would get it out of Emerson one way or the other.
Ramses was examining the photographs of the Tetisheri statue with his usual concentration. Then he looked directly at Nefret. She turned away, and as Ramses’ eyes moved from her delicate profile back to the photograph, and back again to Nefret, I saw it too.
Nonsense, I told myself. The resemblance was coincidental. All young women of a certain type look much alike. Maturity has not yet stamped their features with a distinctive cast of character. Thousands of girls have delicate pointed chins and rounded cheeks
The remainder of the voyage was without incident, except for one occasion on which Emerson got away from me and I discovered him on the lower deck with Hassan and the men telling vulgar stories and smoking hashish. At least the men were smoking hashish. Emerson was smoking his pipe. I had no reason to doubt his assertion that he had smoked nothing else.
If I have not mentioned Miss Marmaduke (which in fact I have not) it is because she kept to her cabin for the first several days, suffering, as she claimed, from a mild case of catarrh. Such afflictions are common to newcomers, so, aside from visiting her daily to supply medication and inquire after her condition, I respected her request to be left alone. I hoped I had not made a mistake in employing such a feeble individual and one, moreover, who appeared to lack the neatness of mind and person I had expected. I was willing to make allowances for the faintly unpleasant odours that pervaded her room – they were not those of illness but of a herb or variety of incense, which I supposed were intended to be medicinal – but her references to prayer and meditation as a means of restoring her health forced me to warn her not to repeat those references to Emerson. He believes that God helps those who help themselves – or would, I daresay, if he believed in a god of any variety.
Whether it was prayer or the herbal incense or my medication or simply the passage of time, Miss Marmaduke reemerged into the world much improved in appearance and in manner. At dinner that evening I was surprised to see her wearing a forest-green frock that flattered her sallow complexion and displayed a figure more shapely than I had expected. For the first time since I had met her she looked as young as she claimed to be – in her early twenties, to be precise.
When I complimented her on her frock she lowered her eyes. ‘I hope you do not think me frivolous, Mrs Emerson. My illness, brief and inconsequential though it was, made me realize that I had wandered from the way. The physical body and its trappings, of grief or vanity, are meaningless; I have rededicated myself to the higher path.’
Good Gad, I thought. She is almost as pompous as Ramses.
Ramses it was who responded, with a long-winded lecture in the course of which he referred to the system of Hegel, The Kabbalah and Hindu mysticism. I have no idea how he picked up such stuff. After a while Emerson, who is quickly bored by philosophy, turned the conversation to Egyptian religion. Miss Marmaduke responded with wide-eyed interest and breathless questions. It was constantly Professor this and Professor that, and what is your opinion, Professor?
Being a man, Emerson did not at all object to these attentions. Not until the end of the evening was I able to raise the rather more important subject of lessons.
‘Whenever you like, Mrs Emerson.’ was the immediate response. ‘I have been ready all this time –’
‘There is no need to apologize,’ I said rather brusquely. ‘You could not help being taken ill, and before that we were busy making the arrangements for departure. Tomorrow, then? Excellent. French, English history – you may start with the Wars of the Roses, they have already got to that point – and literature.’
‘Yes, Mrs Emerson. Under the