Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (31 page)

My self-control, ordinarily excellent, suddenly snapped. I was utterly disgusted with the lot of them – with Evelyn and her morbid love of martyrdom, with Lucas and his arrogance, with Walter’s hang-dog suffering acceptance – and most of all with Emerson. He thought he had won, and I feared he had; by handing Evelyn over to Lucas he kept his brother bound to his selfish wishes and now he was twisting the knife in the wound, convincing Walter that the girl was marrying Lucas out of the desire for wealth and worldly position. His smile maddened me; I could no longer hold my tongue.

‘Bring it off!’ I cried. ‘I would rather see Evelyn in a – in a monastery than married to that wretch. She does not love him. She loves – someone else, and thinks she will save him by accepting Lucas. Perhaps she is right after all. The man she loves is a poor-spirited wretch, who will not even take the trouble to declare himself!’

Walter grasped my hands. His face was transfigured.

‘You can’t mean it,’ he whispered. ‘You can’t mean that I – ’

‘Yes, you young fool.’ I gave him a shove that sent him staggering. ‘She loves you; why, I cannot imagine, but she does. Now go and stop her!’

Walter gave me a look that made me tremble. He bounded off down the ledge; and I turned to face his brother, throwing my shoulders back defiantly. I had done a foolhardy thing; I did not know what would come of it. But at that moment I was prepared to face a whole horde of mummies, much less Emerson, to defend my act.

He was rocking back and forth in his chair, shaken by silent spasms of laughter.

‘My dear Peabody,’ he gasped. ‘You amaze me. Can it be that you are a secret romantic after all?’

He was impossible. I turned my back on him and watched the tableau down below.

Walter ran like a deer; he soon reached the others, and the three stood talking. It was only too easy to follow the conversation; Walter’s impassioned gestures, Evelyn’s startled response, and Lucas’s angry interruption.

‘I am going down,’ I said uneasily. ‘I may have acted a trifle precipitately….’

‘Intervention might be advisable,’ Emerson agreed calmly. ‘His noble lordship is not above striking a wounded man; and Walter is no match for him with only one arm. Damnation! I have waited too long!’

He
had
waited too long; and he had been correct in his assessment of Lucas’s character. He struck; Walter went staggering back. Emerson was already halfway down the path, leaping along like a mountain goat. I followed; I dared not go quickly, for I could not remove my eyes from the little drama below.

Evelyn tried to intervene; Lucas shook her off. Walter had been shaken but not felled; he returned to the fray. Ducking his head under the other man’s flailing blows, he returned them with interest; and I could scarcely repress a cheer when his clenched fist struck Lucas’s outthrust jaw with a solid smack. Lucas fell just as Emerson came running up. He seized his brother’s arm – unnecessarily, for Walter was not the man to take advantage of a fallen opponent. Running as fast as I could with the handicaps of full skirts and drifted sand, I came up to them as Lucas was rising to his feet.

He stood swaying unsteadily, his hand rubbing his chin. The fall had scarcely rumpled his elegant attire, but there was little of the English gentleman about him as he glared at Walter, his liquid black eyes hot with Latin rage.

‘Two against one?’ he inquired with a sneer. ‘Very sporting, gentlemen!’

‘You are a fine one to talk of sportsmanship,’ I exclaimed. ‘To strike an injured man – ’

‘He used terms I allow no man to use to me,’ Lucas interrupted.

‘I regret the terms,’ Walter said in a low voice. ‘But not the emotion that prompted them. Miss Amelia – Radcliffe – if you had heard the things he said of Evelyn – the implications he was vile enough to make – ’

‘They were true,’ Evelyn said.

All eyes turned toward Evelyn.

White as the lace at her throat, straight as a young birch tree, she faced the staring eyes without flinching. She stepped back – not in retreat, but in a deliberate movement that separated her from support. She waved me back with an irresistible gesture of command as I started toward her, expostulations rising to my lips.

‘No, Amelia,’ she said, in the same quiet voice. ‘I had, for a time, the cowardly hope of avoiding this. But in justice to Lucas – and to all of you – I cannot remain silent. In the heat of anger Lucas spoke the truth. Not only have I lost a woman’s most priceless jewel, I gave it up to a profligate, a wastrel, and a ruffian. I acted of my own free will. I abandoned an old man who loved me, and was only saved from the ultimate sin of taking my own life by Amelia’s charity. Now that you know the worst, you will no longer seek to detain me. And you will accept my thanks for saving me, in the nick of time, from the despicable act I was about to commit. I see now that I cannot injure Lucas by taking advantage of his noble offer of marriage. That would be a fine way to repay his kindness, would it not?’

‘Evelyn, my dearest,’ Lucas began.

She shook her head. It was a mild enough gesture, but even Lucas was convinced by the unalterable firmness of her expression. His outstretched hand fell to his side.

‘I shall never marry. By devoting my life to good works and charitable undertakings I may one day partially redeem my ruined character.’

She had intended to say more; she was proceeding in fine dramatic style, poor young thing, carried away by the tragedy of it all, as the young are. But her emotions were too genuine, too painful; her voice broke in a sob. She continued to stand pilloried under the astonished gaze of – Walter. She had spoken as if to all of us; but it was Walter she had really addressed.

He looked like a man who has received a mortal wound and does not yet realize that he ought to fall down. Emerson’s countenance was as blank as the rock cliff behind him. Only his eyes were alive. They moved from Evelyn’s ashen face to the equally corpselike countenance of his brother; but that was the only movement he made; he did not speak.

Suddenly the colour rushed back into Walter’s face, so hectically that he looked fevered. His dull, blank eyes came alive. Stepping forward, he dropped to his knees before Evelyn.

I thought that the long-expected collapse was about to occur. It was with an indescribable thrill of emotion that I realized he had grasped Evelyn’s limp hand in his and was pressing his lips against it. I did not need to hear his words to know he had risen to heights I never really expected a man to reach.

‘You are the noblest girl I have ever met,’ he cried, raising his eyes to Evelyn’s astonished face. ‘The truest, the most courageous, the loveliest…. I don’t know many men who would have the strength to do what you have just done! But my dearest, sweetest girl….’ he rose, still holding her hand and looking down at her with tender reproach. ‘Do you think so little of me that you suppose I would not understand your tragic story? Evelyn, you might have trusted me!’

For a moment she returned his gaze, her eyes wide, wondering, unbelieving. Then, with a tired little sigh, she closed her eyes and let her golden head fall upon his breast. His arm round her waist, Walter held her close.

I watched them with the most thorough satisfaction I had ever felt in my life. I did not even wipe away the tears that rained down my face – although I began to think it was just as well Evelyn was leaving me. A few more weeks with her, and I should have turned into a rampageous sentimentalist.

‘Thank goodness that is settled,’ said Emerson. ‘It took long enough, heaven knows, and became sickeningly maudlin towards the end. Come, Walter, kiss your fiancée, and let us all go back to camp. I am hungry; I want my dinner.’

I don’t think Walter heard a word of this speech. It struck just the right note for me; I needed some vent for my overflowing emotions.

‘No one would ever accuse you of being sentimental,’ I said angrily. ‘Are you trying to suggest, you dreadful man, that you expected this development? Will you allow your brother to throw himself away on a penniless girl?’

‘Not only penniless,’ said Emerson cheerfully, ‘but ruined. Although why “ruined”, I cannot make out; she seems to be quite undamaged in all meaningful respects. A capable artist will be a useful addition to the staff. And I shan’t have to pay her a salary – just think of the savings!’

‘This is a trick.’

The voice spoke just behind me. I started, and turned. Incredible as it seems, I had quite forgotten Lucas.

His passions were under control; only the intense glitter of his eyes betrayed his feelings as, ignoring me, he walked up to Emerson.

‘A trick,’ he repeated. ‘You cannot mean to encourage this, Emerson. You don’t mean it.’

‘Your lordship fails to understand my character,’ said Emerson smoothly. ‘Who am I to stand in the path of true love? I honestly believe,’ he added, looking intently at Lucas, ‘that this is the best of all possible arrangements for all of us. Don’t you agree, my lord?’

Lucas did not reply immediately. I felt a faint stir of pity for him as he struggled with his emotions. They were intense; I wondered if, after all, he did love Evelyn, as much as a man of his limited capacity was capable of love. And when he finally spoke, I had to admire his attitude.

‘Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this is how it was meant to be. “There is a fatality that shapes our ends,” as Shakespeare has put it….’

‘If not precisely in those words,’ Emerson agreed. ‘May I congratulate you, my lord, on behaving like a true British nobleman. Will you heap coals of fire on our heads by joining us in a toast to the engaged couple? Walter – come, Walter, wake up, Walter – ’

He joggled his brother’s elbow. Walter raised his face from where it had been resting on Evelyn’s bowed head; he looked like a man waking from an ecstatic dream to find that the dream is reality.

Lucas hesitated for a moment, looking at Evelyn. She didn’t see him; she was gazing up into Walter’s face like an acolyte adoring a saint. Lucas shrugged, or perhaps he shivered; the movement rippled through his body and was gone.

‘I am not so noble as that,’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘Excuse me. I think I want to be alone for a while.’

‘Off into the sunset,’ said Emerson, as Lucas’s retreating form was silhouetted against the west. ‘How theatrical these young persons are! Thank God for our sober, middle-aged common sense, eh, Peabody?’

I watched Evelyn and Walter walk away. His arm was about her waist; her head still rested on his shoulder, and if he felt pain, where it pressed against the bullet wound, he showed no signs of it.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I replied sourly. ‘Thank God for it.’

I
NEVER
expected I would be concerned about Lucas, but as the hours passed and he did not return, I began to worry.

We had eaten one of the vilest dinners imaginable. It had been cooked by Abdullah; he explained that Lucas’s cook and the waiter who had accompanied us to camp that morning were not to be found. I found this alarming, but Emerson, who was in an inexplicably good mood, shrugged it away.

We were all sitting on the ledge together, watching the moon rise; but Emerson and I might as well have been alone, for all the conversation we got out of the other two. They didn’t hear a word anyone said to them. I was therefore forced to confide my worries about Lucas to Emerson, although I did not expect to find much concern in that quarter. In this assumption I was correct.

‘He has probably gone with his men,’ Emerson said calmly. ‘I think, Peabody, that we have seen the last of his lordship.’

‘You mean – he has deserted us? He would not be so cowardly!’

‘I fancy he might. But let me do him justice; he has not abandoned us to danger. Indeed, I think it possible that we have also seen the last of the mummy.’

‘Nonsense,’ I said irritably. ‘Lucas could not have been the mummy. We saw them together on more than one occasion.’

‘I may be wrong,’ said Emerson – in a tone that contradicted the false modesty of his words. ‘His suggestion – which had also occurred to me – may be the correct one: that there is an unrobbed tomb back in the hills which the villagers hope to exploit. In any case, it must be obvious even to you, Peabody, that the instigator of the plot is not an Egyptian; it contains too many features that could have been invented only by a European or an Englishman. Or perhaps an American; they have their share of unscrupulous collectors….’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Professional jealousy, Peabody. No doubt it seems incredible to you that any reasonable man would act so, but I assure you, there are colleagues in my field who would go to any extreme to exploit a sensational discovery such as a royal tomb. I have the concession at Amarna; I had a devil of a time wringing it out of Maspero, but not even he would dare take it away now. The man is quite capable of employing such tricks to make me abandon my excavation and leave the field open to him. Another feather in his cap! Not that Maspero is the only one – ’

‘Of all the absurd ideas!’

‘What is the alternative? If not the place, it is a person who is under attack. I have no enemies – ’