Tomb of the Golden Bird - Elizabeth Peters [176]
“You are, aren’t you?” Emerson demanded. “I can see your face. You are smirking. When did you know? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I have known for some time. There are certain indications…But it was their little secret, Emerson.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
I turned my head to look at him. Slowly and carefully Emerson removed his other shoe, weighed it in his hand, and threw it, with perfect aim, at a rather ugly lamp.
“Why, Emerson,” I exclaimed. “What is the matter?”
Emerson rose to his feet. “This entire season,” he said, in a voice like a distant rumble of thunder, “you have deceived me, worked behind my back, left me out of your confidence. I have had enough, Peabody! I will endure no more!”
“But, Emerson—”
“Not another word!” Emerson shouted. He crossed the room in a single bound and snatched me up into his arms.
“Well!” I said, when I had got my breath back. “I have been waiting months for you to do that. Have you concluded that I am not breakable?”
“I have concluded,” said Emerson, carrying me toward the bed, “that you are immortal. Age cannot wither…nor time decay your infinite variety.”
“Poetry, Emerson!” I cried.
“Shakespeare,” said Emerson proudly. “I know another poem, Peabody.”
“May I hear it?”
“‘It little profits that an idle king…matched with an aging wife…’”
I put the pillow over his face. After a short interval he broke off to say breathlessly, “You did not allow me to finish, Peabody. How does it go? ‘’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.’ Shall we get the Amelia back on the river and go sailing again? ‘Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows?’”
“‘It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,’” I went on dreamily.
“And see the great Abdullah, whom we knew.”
“You are making a dreadful hash of Tennyson, Emerson.”
“It’s the thought that counts, Peabody. ‘One equal temper of heroic hearts,’ that’s what we are. We will strive and seek and find, and never yield.”
AFTERWORD
Apparently Mrs. Emerson felt that the quotation from one of her favorite poets served as a fitting conclusion to this volume of her journals—or perhaps she believed other writers would describe subsequent happenings which did not affect her family directly. Many thousands of words have been written about the events surrounding the discovery of Tutankhamon’s tomb. The accounts differ in a number of ways, some significant, some not. One would suppose that the most accurate would be that of Howard Carter himself; yet, as recent investigation has proved, he was not entirely candid. Some of the so-called eyewitness accounts were written after the event and are therefore contaminated by inaccurate memory. The editor feels she owes it to the Reader to point out certain of these discrepancies.
The well-known story, that Carnarvon told Carter in the summer of 1922 that he had decided not to finance any further excavations in the Valley, and that he was persuaded into one more season by Carter’s offer to pay for the work himself, rests on hearsay—the statement of Charles Breasted, son of the famous American Egyptologist. Charles Breasted claimed that he heard the story from Carter. Carter himself never mentioned it. The ill-conceived intervention of Emerson makes even better sense, and it is understandable that neither Carter nor Carnarvon would admit it.
The day-by-day events leading up to the great moment when Carter gazed into the gold-filled outer room of the tomb have been well documented, and agree in general with Mrs. Emerson’s description. What Carter actually said on that momentous occasion, in response to Carnarvon’s eager question, is in some doubt. “Wonderful things” has become the official version, recorded by Carter himself. According to an account written by Carnarvon a few days afterward, Carter said, “There are some marvelous things here.” In my opinion Mrs. Emerson’s version