Seeing a Large Cat (44 page)

She drew in a long, difficult breath. "Most people do, don't they?"

"Yes, and quite rightly. I have had a good deal of experience in such things. I have known Cyrus for many years, and I believe he would be happy with you. You are certainly the most-er-interesting woman he has ever proposed marriage to; you can keep him entertained. I presume there is no difficulty about... no reason of a personal nature why you would ... You understand me, I believe?"

Every muscle in her face loosened, and for a moment I thought she was going to cry. Instead she threw her head back and burst into a shout of laughter. "No," she gasped. "That is-yes, Mrs. Emerson, I do understand you. There is no difficulty about . . . Quite the contrary. Oh, dear. Where is my handkerchief?"

I gave her mine. She covered her face; when she removed the handkerchief I saw her eyes were wet. Prolonged laughter does have that effect.

"Better now?" I inquired. "Good. What I propose is that you escort Dolly to Cairo and hand her over to one of the ladies from the consulate. By the time those arrangements have been completed you will have been able to consider your own feelings more rationally. Take a day or two longer if you like; visit the museum and the Pyramids, have a nice rest. You can telegraph Cyrus when you have reached your decision."

Recognizing that there was nothing more to be said at that time, she rose. "If I needed a further reason to accept, Mrs. Emerson, the possibility of improving my acquaintance with you would certainly be an inducement. You are really the most-"

"Many people have been kind enough to say so," I assured her.

I told Emerson and the children all about it when we met for dinner. Emerson had to have an additional whiskey and soda before he was calm enough to comment.

"Peabody, your incredible effrontery never ceases to amaze me! What will Vandergelt say when he learns you have interfered in his private affairs?"

"If it works out, Mr. Vandergelt will be pleased and grateful," Ramses said. I believe he was mildly amused. "Mrs. Jones is a remarkable woman. She should be an interesting addition to Luxor society."

"Quite," Nefret said, stroking Sekhmet. She was unques tionably amused (Nefret, I mean). "Well done, Aunt Amelia. I like Mrs. Jones, and I hope she will make Mr. Vandergelt the happiest of men!"

"Hmph," said Emerson. "I hope your meddling in the Frasers' affairs will have an equally happy result. You were not able to talk with Donald Fraser-"

"You are, mistaken, Emerson. I would not have neglected something so important. I spoke with Donald two days ago, that morning I went to Luxor."

"Oh, good Gad!" Emerson looked at me almost in awe. Musingly he added, "I would give a great deal to have overheard that conversation."

"I expressed myself with the utmost delicacy," I assured him. "I simply pointed out that since heaven had granted him the extraordinary favor of uniting the two women he loved in a single body-er-person-the least he could do was abandon unseemly habits that might offend an aristocratic lady. Excessive eating and drinking, insufficient exercise, and-and that sort of thing."

"Excellent advice," Emerson said. "Did you also recommend a course of selected readings?"

"Certainly." I thought it wiser to pretend I did not know what he meant. "It is necessary to exercise the mind as well as the body."

Emerson nodded gravely, but there was a gleam in his sapphirine orbs that warned me I had better change the subject. Nefret was leaning forward, lips parted, David's eyes were very wide, and Ramses ... Well, heaven only knows what was going on behind that blank, bland face of his!

"Mens sana in corpore sano," I summarized. "As Donald strives to please his wife, so will she endeavor to please him. Eventually the fantasy will fade; he will find in Enid all the attributes of his desired princess, and she will no longer have to pretend to be Tasherit. Though she may find that she rather enjoys ... I beg your pardon, Ramses. Did you speak?"

Ramses raised his glass in salute. "I only wanted to say: You are right as always, Mother."

From Manuscript H:

They had their own celebration that night on the dahabeeyah, sitting on the deck so the smell of the forbidden cigarettes would not linger in Ramses's room. The awning had been rolled back; the moon and stars made the night bright as day. Seated next to Ramses on the settee, Nefret reached for the whiskey she had "borrowed" and ceremoniously poured it into three glasses.

"It tastes even nastier than the cigarettes," she decided after a tentative sip.

"I don't like it very much either," Ramses admitted.

"Then why did you keep asking for it? " David inquired curiously.

"You know why. Mother understood too; it was a rather touching gesture, really."

David leaned back in his chair. "Perhaps now she will admit you are a man and will let you do what you like-even smoke cigarettes! "

Ramses smiled. "If she had not read me so many lectures about the evils of smoking, I probably would not do it."

Nefret put her glass on the table and nerved herself to speak. He looked all right and he sounded all right, but she knew he wasn't. Something had to be done about it. She couldn't bear the thought of him lying awake night after night, staring into the darkness. "Do you want to talk about it? " she demanded.

"No."

"Then I will. Did you mean to kill him?"

"Nefret!" David exclaimed.

"Be still, David. I know what I'm doing." At least I hope I do, she thought. She reached for Ramses's hand. It was like holding a bundle of sticks. "Did you, Ramses?"

"No! No, I only..." He tried to pull his hand away, but she hung on. There was no way he could free it without hurting her. "I don't know," he said in a ragged whisper. "Oh, God. I don't know!"

He turned blindly toward her and she moved to meet him, holding him close with his face hidden against her breast.

"You did what had to be done," she said softly. "Do you think I would not have done it if I could, or David? You have friends who love you, Ramses. Don't shut us out. Don't try to bear everything alone. You would do the same for us, my dear."

She felt his breath go out in a long sigh. He raised his head, and she sat back, letting him draw away.

"Thank you," he said formally.

"There are times when I could cheerfully kill you, Walter Peabody Emerson," Nefret said in a choked voice.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm not very good at this sort of thing." He caught her hand and raised it to his lips. "Some day, perhaps, you will teach me how to do it."

"Are you feeling better? " David asked anxiously. "Perhaps you ought to have another glass of whiskey."

They all had one, and after they had talked a while longer they went with Nefret to where Risha was waiting. She graciously consented to be lifted onto his back. After she had gone they went to Ramses's worn, where they found the bed already occupied.

"I suppose Nefret brought her," Ramses said resignedly, trying to remove Sekhmet from the pillow. Claws extended, body flattened, she adhered like a limpet. Ramses threw himself down next to the cat and clasped his hands behind his head.

"Do you want to go to sleep? " David asked, sitting cross-legged on the floor. "I will leave if you are tired."

"I'm not tired. Is there is something you want to talk about?"

"Only-I hope you are all right now. I saw you were troubled, but I did not know what to say."

"I'm all right."

"Nefret always knows the right thing to say."

"She knew that time. I still don't know the answer to her question, but it had to be asked. And now. . . now I can face it, whatever the answer is."

"She is wonderful. What a woman!"

"Yes. I hope you are not going to fall in love with her, David."

"She is my sister, my comrade. Anyhow, you will marry her one day-"

"Will I?"

"But surely it is the most suitable arrangement," David said, puzzled by his reaction. "It is how such things are done, even in your England. You like one another, and she is very wealthy as well as very beautiful. Why, don't you want to marry her? "

Even David, who knew Ramses better than anyone else, had never seen his friend look like that. It was as if the skin had been stripped from his face, baring not bone and muscle, but raw emotion. David caught his breath. "Forgive me. I did not understand."

"You still don't. Not entirely."

"No," David admitted. "I have read the stories you gave me, and the poems; there are poems in Arabic too, about the desire of a man for a woman. I understand that, but your Western talk about love confuses me a great deal. You make such a fuss about such a simple thing!"

"It really cannot be described," Ramses said, staring abstractedly at the cat, now lying across his stomach. "It must be experienced. Like being extremely drunk."

"Perhaps you would rather not talk about it." "Why not? This has been a night for exposing myself, I may as well finish the job. Nefret was right about that, bless her; it is a relief to unburden oneself to a friend, but I could not talk about this to her."

David made an encouraging noise. Ramses started to sit up, but Sekhmet refused to move. "Damn," he said. "Well, let me think how to explain it. Take my mother, for example. Would you call her beautiful? " "Well-"

"No, David. She is a handsome lady, and she has many admirable qualities. But to my father she is quite simply the most beautiful, desirable, intelligent, amusing, exasperating, infuriating, wonderful woman on the face of the earth. He loves her for all those qualities, including the ones that drive him wild; and that is how I feel about Nefret. She does have a few maddening characteristics, you know." "But she is beautiful," David said, bewildered. "Yes. But that is not why I... I said it was impossible to explain."

"All right, then," David said with the air of a man trying to follow a maze blindfolded and in a thick fog. "You feel this- feeling. Why is that a difficulty? You want her, why should you not have her? Your parents would be pleased, I think, and she is very fond of you-"

Ramses groaned. "If you were starving, would a crust of bread content you? "

"It would be better than nothing. Oh," David said. "A poetic metaphor, was it? "

"Not a very good one, evidently. I know she is fond of me. She is fond of you too, and of Mother and Father, and the damned cats!" Unconsciously he had begun stroking Sekhmet, who had the good sense, for once, not to react by sticking her claws into him. "Do you suppose I could be satisfied with that? She mustn't know how I feel about her, David, not unless-until-I can prove I am worthy of her and make her feel the same for me. Rather a tall order, that! As for my parents, it will be years before they consider me old enough to marry."

"How old must you be? " David asked.

Ramses groaned again and raised his arms to cover his face. "My father was almost thirty. Uncle Walter was twenty-six. Mr. Petrie was well over forty!"

The methodical catalogue would have sounded funny if he had not been so tragically in earnest. David found it equally discouraging. To eighteen, thirty sounds like the brink of senility.

"Your feelings may change," he suggested.

"I wish I could believe they would."

David did not know quite what to say to that. He ventured, "I must say it sounds damned uncomfortable."

Ramses laughed wryly and sat up, cradling the cat in one arm. "The most difficult part is keeping my feelings hidden. She is so sweet and so affectionate, and when she touches me I. . . What the devil, I may be lucky; I may have to control myself for only ten or eleven years instead of fifteen or twenty. What am I going to do with this damned cat? "

"Let her stay with you," David said. "You shouldn't blame her because she is not Bastet. She cannot help that."

"You are quite a philosopher, David. Why don't you point out that I should sympathize with another creature suffering the pangs of unrequited love?" He added in a gentler voice, "Thank you, my brother. It has helped me to talk of her."

"Whenever you like," David said. "Even if I do not understand."

They embraced in the Arab fashion, and Ramses clapped his

412 friend on the back as the English do. "Perhaps you will someday."

"God forbid," David said sincerely.

By Saturday we were ready to resume work-though not on tomb Twenty-A. After mapping its position and dimensions, Emerson had ordered the entrance filled. He had gone back to his original plan, and we would begin that day on number Forty-four. My limb was still a bit stiff, so he considerately slowed his steps to mine and let the children go on ahead. Ramses had Sekhmet draped over one shoulder; he had hold of her hindquarters to keep her from slipping off and I could see her face, set in a blissful smirk.

"I am relieved he has taken to the poor thing at last," I remarked. "She was positively pining away."

"'You are a hopeless sentimentalist, Peabody," Emerson said. "That cat doesn't give a curse who holds her, so long as someone does."

"She may not need Ramses, but he needs her," I said. "And now poor Anubis can return. He was jealous, you know."

"Of me? Nonsense." But he looked pleased all the same. Anubis had brought him a rat that morning, the first time in weeks he had offered that courtesy.

"We have had a good many cats around in one form or another," I said jestingly. "Mrs. Jones's name is Katherine, and she does remind one of a pleasant tabby. I think Cyrus calls her Cat when they are-er-when they are in private. He slipped once, and used that name."

"That is a commonplace and rather insulting observation," Emerson scoffed. "Men who despise women speak of them as cats or kittens; I am surprised you should countenance it."

"There are worse things one might be compared with," I replied. "Have I ever reminded you-"

"Never, my dear. A tiger, perhaps, but never anything so harmless as a domestic cat."

The sound of Nefret's laughter floated back to us and Emerson smiled. "It is good to see them so fond and friendly. You must be as proud of them as I."

"Now you are being sentimental, Emerson."