Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (41 page)

‘Don’t be a fool, Peabody,’ Emerson growled. ‘No one could make an impression on the solid stupidity of that woman and her husband. I told you not to attempt it.’

This touching and magnanimous speech brought tears to my eyes. Seeing my emotion, Emerson added, ‘You had better join me in a little spirituous consolation. As a general rule I do not approve of drowning one’s sorrows, but today has been a trial for both of us.’

As I took the glass he handed me I thought how shocked Lady Carrington would have been at this further evidence of unwomanly habits. The fact is, I abominate sherry, and I like whisky and soda.

Emerson raised his glass. The corners of his mouth lifted in a valiant and sardonic smile. ‘Cheers, Peabody. We’ll weather this, as we have weathered other troubles.’

‘Certainly. Cheers, my dear Emerson.’

Solemnly, almost ritually, we drank.

‘Another year or two,’ I said, ‘and we might consider taking Ramses out with us. He is appallingly healthy; sometimes I feel that to match our son against the fleas and mosquitoes and fevers of Egypt is to place the country under an unfair disadvantage.’

This attempt at humour did not win a smile from my husband. He shook his head. ‘We cannot risk it.’

‘Well, but the boy must go away to school eventually,’ I argued.

‘I don’t see why. He is getting a better education from us than he could hope to obtain in one of those pestilential purgatories called preparatory schools. You know how I feel about them.’

‘There must be a few decent schools in the country.’

‘Bah.’ Emerson swallowed the remainder of his whisky. ‘Enough of this depressing subject. What do you say we go upstairs and – ’

He stretched out his hand to me. I was about to take it when the door opened and Wilkins made his appearance. Emerson reacts very poorly to being interrupted when he is in a romantic mood. He turned to the butler and shouted, ‘Curse it, Wilkins, how dare you barge in here? What is it you want?’

None of our servants is at all intimidated by Emerson. Those who survive the first few weeks of his bellowing and temper tantrums learn that he is the kindest of men. Wilkins said calmly, ‘I beg your pardon, sir. A lady is here to see you and Mrs Emerson.’

‘A lady?’ As is his habit when perplexed, Emerson fingered the dent in his chin. ‘Who the devil can that be?’’

A wild thought flashed through my mind. Had Lady Carrington returned, on vengeance bent? Was she even now in the hall carrying a basket of rotten eggs or a bowl of mud? But that was absurd, she would not have the imagination to think of such a thing.

‘Where is the lady?’ I inquired.

‘Waiting in the hall, madam. I attempted to show her into the small parlour, but – ’

Wilkins’ slight shrug and raised eyebrow finished the story. The lady had refused to be shown into the parlour. This suggested that she was in some urgency, and it also removed my hope of slipping upstairs to change.

‘Show her in, then, Wilkins, if you please,’ I said.

The lady’s urgency was even greater than I had supposed. Wilkins had barely time to step back out of the way before she entered; she was advancing toward us when he made the belated announcement: ‘Lady Baskerville’.

T
HE
words fell on my ears with almost supernatural force. To see this unexpected visitor, when I had just been thinking and talking about her (and in no kindly terms) made me feel as if the figure now before us was no real woman, but the vision of a distracted mind.

And I must confess that most people would have considered her a vision indeed, a vision of Beauty posing for a portrait of Grief. From the crown of her head to her tiny slippers she was garbed in unrelieved black. How she had passed through the filthy weather without so much as a mud stain I could not imagine, but her shimmering satin skirts and filmy veils were spotless. A profusion of jet beads, sullenly gleaming, covered her bodice and trailed down the folds of her full skirt. The veils fell almost to her feet. The one designed to cover her face had been thrown back so that her pale, oval countenance was framed by the filmy puffs and folds. Her eyes were black; the brows lifted in a high curve that gave her a look of perpetual and innocent surprise. There was no colour in her cheeks, but her mouth was a full rich scarlet. The effect of this was startling in the extreme, one could not help thinking of the damnably lovely lamias and vampires of legend.

Also, one could not help thinking of one’s mud-stained, unbecoming gown, and wonder whether the aroma of whisky covered the smell of mouldy bone, or the reverse. Even I, who am not easily daunted, felt a pang of self-consciousness. I realised that I was trying to hide my glass, which was still half full, under a sofa cushion.

Though the pause of surprise – for Emerson, like myself, was gaping – seemed to last forever, I believe it was only a second or two before I regained my self-possession. Rising to my feet, I greeted our visitor, dismissed Wilkins, offered a chair and a cup of tea. The lady accepted the chair and refused the tea. I then expressed my condolences on her recent bereavement, adding that Lord Baskerville’s death was a great loss to our profession.

This statement jarred Emerson out of his stupor, as I had thought it might, but for once he showed a modicum of tact, instead of making a rude remark about Lord Baskerville’s inadequacies as an Egyptologist. Emerson saw no reason why anything, up to and including death, should excuse a man from poor scholarship.

However, he was not so tactful as to agree with my compliment or add one of his own. ‘Er – humph,’ he said. ‘Most unfortunate. Sorry to hear of it. What the deuce do you suppose has become of Armadale?’

‘Emerson,’ I exclaimed. ‘This is not the time – ’

‘Pray don’t apologise.’ The lady lifted a delicate white hand, adorned with a huge mourning ring made of braided hair – that of the late Lord Baskerville, I presumed. She turned a charming smile on my husband. ‘I know Radcliffe’s good heart too well to be deceived by his gruff manner.’

Radcliffe indeed! I particularly dislike my husband’s first name. I was under the impression that he did also. Instead of expressing disapproval he simpered like a schoolboy.

‘I was unaware that you two were previously acquainted,’ I said, finally managing to dispose of my glass of whisky behind a bowl of potpourri.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Lady Baskerville, while Emerson continued to grin foolishly at her. ‘We have not met for several years; but in the early days, when we were all young and ardent – ardent about Egypt, I mean – we were well acquainted. I was hardly more than a bride – too young, I fear, but my dear Henry quite swept me off my feet.’

She dabbed at her eyes with a black-bordered kerchief.

‘There, there,’ said Emerson, in the voice he sometimes uses with Ramses. ‘You must not give way. Time will heal your grief.’

This from a man who curled up like a hedgehog when forced into what he called society, and who never in his life had been known to utter a polite cliché! He began sidling toward her. In another moment he would pat her on the shoulder.

‘How true,’ I said. ‘Lady Baskerville, the weather is inclement, and you seem very tired. I hope you will join us for dinner, which will be served shortly.’

‘You are very kind.’ Lady Baskerville removed her handkerchief from her eyes, which appeared to be perfectly dry, and bared her teeth at me. ‘I would not dream of such an intrusion. I am staying with friends in the neighbourhood, who are expecting me back this evening. Indeed, I would not have come so unceremoniously, unexpected and uninvited, if I had not had an urgent matter to put before you. I am here on business.’

‘Indeed,’ I said.

‘Indeed?’ Emerson’s echo held a questioning note; but in fact I had already deduced the nature of the lady’s business. Emerson calls this jumping to conclusions. I call it simple logic.

‘Yes,’ said Lady Baskerville. ‘And I will come to the point at once, rather than keep you any longer from your domestic comforts. I gather, from your question about poor Alan, that you are au courant about the situation in Luxor?’

‘We have followed it with interest,’ Emerson said.

‘We?’ The lady’s glowing black eyes turned to me with an expression of curiosity. ‘Ah, yes, I believe I did hear that Mrs Emerson takes an interest in archaeology. So much the better; I will not bore her if I introduce the subject.’

I retrieved my glass of whisky from behind the potpourri. ‘No, you will not bore me,’ I said.

‘You are too good. To answer your question, then, Radcliffe: no trace has been found of poor Alan. The situation is swathed in darkness and in mystery. When I think of it I am overcome.’

Again the dainty handkerchief came into play. Emerson made clucking noises. I said nothing, but drank my whisky in ladylike silence.

At last Lady Baskerville resumed. ‘I can do nothing about the mystery surrounding Alan’s disappearance; but I am in hopes of accomplishing something else, which may seem unimportant compared with the loss of human life, but which was vital to the interests of my poor lost husband. The tomb, Radcliffe – the tomb!’

Leaning forward, with clasped hands and parted lips, her bosom heaving, she fixed him with her great black eyes; and Emerson stared back, apparently mesmerised.

‘Yes, indeed,’ I said. ‘The tomb. We gather, Lady Baskerville, that work has come to a standstill. You know, of course, that sooner or later it will be robbed, and all your husband’s efforts wasted.’

‘Precisely!’ The lady turned the clasped hands, the lips, the bosom, et cetera, et cetera, on me. ‘How I do admire your logical, almost masculine, mind, Mrs Emerson. That is just what I was trying to express, in my poor silly way.’

‘I thought you were,’ I said. ‘What is it you want my husband to do?’

Thus directed, Lady Baskerville had to get to the point. How long she would have taken if she had been allowed to ramble on, heaven only knows.

‘Why, to take over the direction of the excavation,’ she said. ‘It must be carried on, and without delay. I honestly believe my darling Henry will not rest quietly in the tomb while this work, possibly the culmination of his splendid career, is in peril. It will be a fitting memorial to one of the finest – ’

‘Yes, you said that in your interview in the
Yell,’ I
interrupted. ‘But why come to us? Is there no scholar in Egypt who could take on the task?’

‘But I came first to you,’ she exclaimed. ‘I know Radcliffe would have been Henry’s first choice, as he is mine.’

She had not fallen into my trap. Nothing would have enraged Emerson so much as the admission that she had approached him only as a last resort. And, of course, she was quite correct; Emerson
is
the best.

‘Well, Emerson?’ I said. I confess, my heart was beating fast as I awaited his answer. A variety of emotions struggled for mastery within my breast. My feelings about Lady Baskerville have, I trust, been made plain; the notion of my husband spending the remainder of the winter with the lady was not pleasing to me. Yet, having beheld his anguish that very evening, I could not stand in his way if he decided to go.

Emerson stood staring at Lady Baskerville, his own feelings writ plainly across his face. His expression was that of a prisoner who had suddenly been offered a pardon after years of confinement. Then his shoulders sagged.

‘It is impossible,’ he said.

‘But why?’ Lady Baskerville asked. ‘My dear husband’s will specifically provides for the completion of any project that might have been in progress at the time of his demise. The staff – with the exception of Alan – is in Luxor, ready to continue. I confess that the workers have shown a singular reluctance to return to the tomb; they are poor, superstitious things, as you know – ’

‘That would present no problem,’ Emerson said, with a sweeping gesture. ‘No, Lady Baskerville; the difficulty is not in Egypt. It is here. We have a young child. We could not risk taking him to Luxor.’

There was a pause. Lady Baskerville’s arched brows rose still higher, she turned to me with a look that expressed the question she was too well bred to voice aloud. For really, the objection was, on the face of it, utterly trivial. Most men, given an opportunity such as the one she had offered, would coolly have disposed of half a dozen children, and the same number of wives, in order to accept. It was because this idea had, obviously, not even passed through Emerson’s mind that I was nerved to make the noblest gesture of my life.

‘Do not consider that, Emerson,’ I said. I had to pause, to clear my throat; but I went on with a firmness that, if I may say so, did me infinite credit. ‘Ramses and I will do very well here. We will write every day – ’

‘Write!’ Emerson spun around to face me, his blue eyes blazing, his brow deeply furrowed. An unwitting observer might have thought he was enraged. ‘What are you talking about? You know I won’t go without you.’

‘But – ’ I began, my heart overflowing.

‘Don’t talk nonsense, Peabody. It is out of the question.’

If I had not had other sources of deep satisfaction at that moment, the look on Lady Baskerville’s face would have been sufficient cause for rejoicing. Emerson’s response had taken her completely by surprise; and the astonishment with which she regarded me, as she tried to find some trace of the charms that made a man unwilling to be parted from me was indeed delightful to behold.