The Mummy Case - Elizabeth Peters [60]
I was about to reply with a decided negative when I saw the group coming toward me and forgot what I was going to say. Brother David, looking like a young saint, had given his arm to a lady—the same lady I had seen with him at Shepheard’s. Her gown that morning was of bright violet silk in a broché design; the short coat had a cutaway front displaying an enormous white chiffon cravat that protruded a good twelve inches in front of her. The matching hat had not only ribbons and flowers, but an egret plume and a dead bird mounted with wings and tail uppermost, as if in flight.
Completing the trio was Ramses, his hand in that of the lady. He was looking as pious as only Ramses can look when he was contemplating some reprehensible action, and he was smeared with dust from his once-white collar to his buttoned boots. Ramses is the only person of my acquaintance who can get dirty sitting perfectly still in a church.
The group bore down on me. They all spoke at once. Ramses greeted me, Brother David reproached me for not coming into the chapel, and the lady cried, in a voice as shrill as that of a magpie, “Ach du lieber Gott, what a pleasure it is! The famous Frau Emerson, is it you? I have often of you heard and intended on you to call and now you are here, in the flesh!”
“I fear you have the advantage of me,” I replied.
“Allow me to present the Baroness Hohensteinbauergrunewald,” said Brother David. “She is—”
“A great admirer of the famous Frau Emerson and her so-distinguished husband,” shrieked the baroness, seizing my hand and crushing it in hers. “And now the mother of the liebe Kind I find you are—it is too much of happiness! You must me visit. I insist that you are coming. My dahabeeyah is at Dahshoor; I inspect the pyramids, I entertain the distinguished archaeologists, I gather the antiquities. This evening come you and the famous Professor Doctor Emerson to dine, nicht?”
“Nicht,” I said. “That is, I thank you, Baroness, but I am afraid—”
“You have another engagement?” The baroness’s small muddy-brown eyes twinkled. She nudged me familiarly. “No, you have not another engagement. What could you do in this desert? You will come. A dinner party I will have for the famous archaeologists. Brother David, he will come also.” The young man nodded, smiling, and the baroness continued, “I stay only three days at Dahshoor. I make the Nile cruise. So you come tonight. To the famous Professor Doctor Emerson I show my collection of antiquities. I have mummies, scarabs, papyrus—”
“Papyrus?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, many. So now you come, eh? I will the young Ramses with me take, he wishes to see my dahabeeyah. Then at night you will come and fetch him. Good!”
I gave Ramses a searching look. He clasped his hands. “Oh, Mama, may I go wit’ de lady?”
“You are too untidy—” I began.
The baroness guffawed. “So a small boy should be, nicht? I will take good care of him. I am a mama, I know a mama’s heart.” She rumpled his ebony curls. Ramses’ face took on the fixed look that usually preceded a rude remark. He loathed having his curls rumpled. But he remained silent, and my suspicions as to his ulterior motives, whatever they might be, were strengthened.
Before I could frame further objections the baroness started, and said in what is vulgarly called a pig’s whisper, “Ach, he comes, der Pfarrer. Too much he talks already. I escape. I come only to see Brother David, because he is so beautiful, but der Pfarrer I do not like. Come, Bübchen, we run away.”
She suited the action to the words, dragging Ramses with her.
Brother Ezekiel had emerged from the chapel. Behind him was Charity, hands clasped and face obscured by the bonnet. At the sight of her John jumped as if a bee had stung him. “Madam,” he groaned piteously, “may I—”
“Very well,” I said.
The baroness was certainly one of the most vulgar women I had ever met, but her instincts were basically sound. I also wished to run away from Brother Ezekiel. As I beat a hasty retreat I felt as if I had tossed John to him like a bone to a