The Last Camel Died at Noon - Elizabeth Peters [4]
The subject of discussion, or so I fondly believed, was the future intellectual development of our son.
“I fully sympathize with your reservations concerning the public-school system, Emerson,” I assured him. “But the boy must have some formal training, somewhere, sometime. He is growing up quite a little savage.”
“You do yourself an injustice, my dear,” Emerson murmured, glancing at the newspaper he was holding.
“He has improved,” I admitted. “He doesn’t talk quite as much as he used to, and he has not been in danger of life or limb for several weeks. But he has no notion how to get on with children his own age.”
Emerson looked up, his brow furrowed. “Now, Peabody, that is not the case. Last winter, with Ahmed’s children—”
“I speak of English children, Emerson. Naturally.”
“There is nothing natural about English children. Good Gad, Amelia, our public schools have a caste system more pernicious than that of India, and those at the bottom of the ladder are abused more viciously than any Untouchable. As for ‘getting on’ with members of the opposite sex—you do not mean, I hope, to exclude female children from Ramses’s social connections? Well, I assure you that that is precisely what your precious public schools aim to achieve.” Warming to his theme, Emerson leapt up, scattering papers in all directions, and began to pace back and forth on a path at right angles to mine. “Curse it, I sometimes wonder how the upper classes in this country ever manage to reproduce! By the time a lad leaves university he is so intimidated by girls of his own class it is almost impossible for him to speak to them in intelligible sentences! If he did, he would not receive an intelligible answer, for the education of women, if it can be dignified by that term—Oof. I beg your pardon, my dear. Are you hurt?”
“Not at all.” I accepted the hand he offered to assist me to rise. “But if you insist on pacing while you lecture, at least walk with me instead of at right angles to my path. A collision was inevitable.”
A sunny smile replaced his scowl and he pulled me into a fond embrace. “Only that sort of collision, I hope. Come now, Peabody, you know we agree on the inadequacies of the educational system. You don’t want to break the lad’s spirit?”
“I only want to bend it a little,” I murmured. But it is hard to resist Emerson when he smiles and… Never mind what he was doing; but when I say Emerson’s eyes are sapphire-blue, his hair is black and thick, and his frame is as trim and muscular as that of a Greek athlete—not even referring to the cleft or dimple in his chin or the enthusiasm he brings to the exercise of his conjugal rights… Well, I need not be more specific, but I am sure any right-thinking female will understand why the subject of Ramses’s education ceased to interest me.
After Emerson had resumed his seat and picked up the newspaper, I returned to the subject, but in a considerably softened mood. “My dear Emerson, your powers of persuasion—that is to say, your arguments—are most convincing. Ramses could go to school in Cairo. There is a new Academy for Young Gentlemen of which I have had good reports; and since we will be excavating at Sakkara…”
The newspaper behind which Emerson had retired rattled loudly. I stopped speaking, seized by a hideous premonition—though, as events were to prove, not nearly hideous enough. “Emerson,” I said gently, “you have applied for the firman, haven’t you? You surely would not repeat the error you made a few years ago when you neglected to apply in time, and instead of receiving permission to work at Dahshoor we ended up at the most boring, unproductive site in all of Lower Egypt? * Emerson! Put down that newspaper and answer me! Have you obtained permission from the Department of Antiquities to excavate at Sakkara