The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [3]
I perused the telegram. “No,” I said. “On the contrary, it appears to be good news. We will be leaving for Chalfont tomorrow, Wilkins. Make the arrangements, if you please.”
“Yes, madam. I beg your pardon, madam…”
“Yes, Wilkins?”
“Will Master Ramses be returning home with you?”
“Possibly.”
A shadow of some passionate emotion passed rapidly over Wilkins’ face. It did not linger; Wilkins knows what is proper.
“That will be all, Wilkins,” I said sympathetically.
“Yes, madam. Thank you, madam.” He weaved an erratic path to the door.
With a last wistful look at my beautiful garden I returned to my labors. Emerson found me so engaged when he returned. Instead of giving me the affectionate embrace to which I was accustomed, he mumbled a greeting, flung a handful of papers at me, and seated himself at his desk, next to mine.
An ordinary, selfish spouse might have made a playful comment on his preoccupation and demanded her due in the form of non-verbal greetings. I glanced at the new notes and remarked temperately, “Your date for the pottery checks with Petrie’s chart, then? That should save time in the final—”
“Not enough time,” Emerson grunted, his pen driving furiously across the page. “We are badly behind schedule, Peabody. From now on we work day and night. No more strolls in the garden, no more social engagements until the manuscript is completed.”
I hesitated to break the news that in all probability we would soon have with us a distraction far more time-consuming than social engagements or strolls. And, since most archaeologists consider themselves prompt if they publish the results of their work within ten years, if at all, I knew something must have happened to inspire this fiend-ridden haste. It was not difficult to surmise what that something was.
“You saw Mr. Petrie today?” I asked.
“Mmmp,” said Emerson, writing.
“I suppose he is preparing his own publication.”
Emerson threw his pen across the room. His eyes blazed. “He has finished it! It goes to the printer this week. Can you imagine such a thing?”
Petrie, the brilliant young excavator, was Emerson’s bête noire. They had a great deal in common—their insistence on order and method in archaeology, their contempt for the lack of order and method displayed by all other archaeologists, and their habit of expressing that contempt publicly. Instead of making them friends, this unanimity had made them rivals. The custom of publishing within a year was unique to the two of them, and it had developed into an absurd competition—a demonstration of masculine superiority on an intellectual level. It was not only absurd, it was inefficient, resulting, at least in Petrie’s case, in rather slipshod work.
I said as much, hoping this would comfort my afflicted husband. “He can’t have done a good job in such a short time, Emerson. What is more important, the quality of the work or the date on which it is published?”
This reasonable attitude unaccountably failed to console Emerson. “They are equally important,” he bellowed. “Where the devil is my pen? I must not waste an instant.”
“You threw it against the wall. I doubt that we will be able to get the ink off that bust. Socrates looks as if he has measles.”
“Your humor—if it can be called that—is singularly misplaced, Peabody. There is nothing funny about the situation.”
I abandoned my attempts to cheer him. The news might as well be told.
“I had a telegram from Evelyn this afternoon,” I said. “We must go to Chalfont at once.”
The flush of temper drained from Emerson’s face, leaving it white to the lips. Remorsefully I realized the effect of my ill-considered speech on a man who is the most affectionate of brothers and uncles and the most fatuous of fathers. “All is well,” I cried. “It is good news, not bad. That is what Evelyn says.” I picked up the telegram and read it aloud. “‘Wonderful news. Come and share it with us. We have not seen you for too long.’ There, you see?”
Emerson’s lips writhed