Amelia Peabody Omnibus 1-4 (55 page)

The procession made its laborious way to where we stood staring. I then saw a man in European garb walking behind the palanquin. His hat was drawn down over his brows, but a few locks of red hair had escaped to betray an identity he seemed not eager to proclaim.

The panting, sweating bearers came to a halt and lowered the carrying poles. Unfortunately they did not move in unison; the palanquin tilted and spilled a stout form out onto the ground, where it lay emitting cries of pain and alarm. I had already surmised who the occupant of the weird structure must be. No one else in Luxor would have attempted to travel in such a way.

Madame Berengeria was wearing her linen robe, a clumsy copy of the exquisite pleated gowns noble ladies were accustomed to wear in pharaonic times. Her fall had disarranged this garment to betray a truly appalling extent of fat, pallid flesh. Her black wig, which was surrounded by a cloud of small insects, had tumbled over her eyes.

Emerson stood with his hands on his hips, staring down at the writhing form of the lady. ‘Well, help her up, O’Connell,’ he said. ‘And if you want to avert a nasty scene, shove her back into that ridiculous contraption and take her away.’

‘Mr O’Connell has no desire to avoid a scene,’ I said. ‘He promotes them.’

My acerbic comment restored the young man’s composure. He smiled and pushed his hat back so that it rested at a jaunty angle.

‘How unkind, Mrs Emerson. Will one of you give me a hand? I can’t manage the job alone, and that’s the truth.’

The bearers had collapsed onto the ground, panting and cursing. It was clear that we would get no help from them. Seeing that Emerson had no intention of touching the prostrate form – and indeed, I could not blame him – I joined Mr O’Connell in his attempt to hoist Madame Berengeria to her feet. We succeeded, though I think I strained several muscles in my back.

Hearing the altercation, the others emerged from the tomb. I distinctly heard Mary pronounce a word I never expected a well-bred English girl to say.

‘Mother, what in heaven’s name are you doing here? You should not have come. The sun – the exertion – ’

‘I was called!’ Madame Berengeria flung off the hand her daughter had placed on her shoulder. ‘I was told to come. The warning must be passed on. My child, come away!’

‘Curse it,’ Emerson said. ‘Clap your hand over her mouth, Amelia, quickly.’

Of course I did nothing of the sort. The damage was done. The watching tourists, the natives who had followed the palanquin – all were listening avidly. Striking an imposing attitude, Madame went on.

‘It came to me as I meditated before the shrine of Amon and Serapis, lord of the underworld. Danger! Disaster! It was my duty to come, at whatever effort, to warn those who profane the tomb. A mother’s heart gave a dying woman strength to fly to the aid of her child – ’

‘Mother!’ Mary stamped her foot. So might the divine Cleopatra have looked as she defied Caesar – if one could picture Cleopatra in a shirtwaist and walking skirt, with tears of embarrassment flooding her eyes.

Madame Berengeria stopped speaking, but only because she had finished what she wanted to say. Her mean little mouth was set in a self-satisfied smirk.

‘I am sorry, Mother,’ Mary said. ‘I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but – ’

‘I forgive you,’ Madame said.

‘But you must not talk like this. You must go home at once.’

One of the bearers understood English. He let out a howl and addressed Mary in impassioned Arabic. Though embroidered with expletives and complaints, the gist of his speech was simple enough. His back was broken, the backs of his friends were broken; they could not carry the lady another step.

Emerson settled the difficulty with a combination of threats and bribery. When the price had gone high enough the men discovered that their backs were not broken after all. We bundled Madame Berengeria unceremoniously into her palanquin, resisting her efforts to embrace Emerson, whom she addressed affectionately as Ramses the Great, her lover and husband. Groaning piteously, the men were preparing to lift the palanquin when Madame’s dishevelled head once more appeared between the curtains. Thrusting out an arm, she prodded the nearest bearer.

‘To the house of Lord Baskerville,’ she said.

‘No, Mother,’ Mary exclaimed. ‘Lady Baskerville does not want … It would be rude to call on her without an invitation.’

‘An errand of mercy requires no invitation,’ was the reply. ‘I go to cast the mantle of my protection over that house of blood. By prayer and meditation I will avert the danger.’ Then, with a sudden descent from her lofty tone, she added, ‘I have brought your things too, Mary; there is no need for you to return to Luxor tonight.’

‘You mean – you mean you are planning to stay?’ Mary gasped. ‘Mother, you cannot – ’

‘I certainly don’t intend to spend another night in that house where I was almost murdered in my bed yesterday.’

‘Why don’t you avert the danger by prayer and meditation?’ I enquired.

Madame Berengeria glowered at me. ‘You are not the mistress of Baskerville House. Let her ladyship deny me, if she can.’ Again she prodded the bearer. ‘Go – now – Baskerville House.’

‘It may be just as well,’ I said to Emerson in a low voice. ‘We can keep her under observation if she is actually living in the house.’

‘What an appalling idea,’ said Emerson. ‘Really, Amelia, I don’t think Lady Baskerville – ’

‘Then stop her. I don’t see how you can do it, short of binding and gagging her. But if that is your desire – ’

‘Oh, bah!’ Emerson folded his arms. ‘I wash my hands of the entire affair.’

Mary, overcome by shame, had also withdrawn from the discussion. Seeing she had won, Madame Berengeria’s face split into a narrow toadlike grin. The procession set out, leaving Mr O’Connell behind like a small dapper whale stranded on a sandy beach.

Emerson’s chest swelled as he turned on the young man, but before he could speak Mary anticipated him.

‘How dare you, Kevin? How could you encourage her to do this?’

‘Ah, my dear, but I did my best to stop her, and that’s the truth. What else could I do but come along to protect her in case of trouble? You do believe me, don’t you, Mary?’

He attempted to take her hand. She snatched it away with a gesture of ineffable disdain. Tears of distress sparkled in her eyes. Quickly she turned and walked back toward the tomb.

Mr O’Connell’s freckled face fell. The faces of Karl and Milverton took on identical expressions of smug pleasure. As one man they wheeled and followed Mary.

O’Connell caught my eye. He shrugged and tried to smile. ‘Spare me your comments, Mrs Emerson. I’ll be back in her good graces soon, never fear.’

‘If one word of this incident gets into the newspapers,’ I began.

‘But what can I do?’ O’Connell’s china-blue eyes widened. ‘Every journalist in Luxor will know of the affair by dinnertime, if they don’t know of it already. I would lose my position if I let personal feelings interfere with my duty to my readers.’

‘You had better take yourself off,’ I said, seeing that Emerson was beginning to shuffle his feet and growl, like a bull preparing to charge. Mr O’Connell grinned broadly at me. With the assistance of Mr Vandergelt I managed to remove my husband; and after an interval of profound cogitation he remarked glumly, ‘Vandergelt, I believe I will have to accept your offer after all – not to protect the ladies, but to protect
me
from
them.’

‘I’m tickled to death,’ the American said promptly.

Returning to my rubbish heap, I saw that Mr O’Connell had taken himself off. As I proceeded with the methodical and monotonous chore of sifting the debris I considered an idea that had come to me during my conversation with the young journalist. It was clear that he would cheerfully endure personal violence in his pursuit of a story, and sooner or later Emerson, if goaded, would oblige him. Since we could not rid ourselves of his attentions, why not turn them to our own advantage and control his comments by offering him the exclusive rights to our story? In order to maintain this advantageous position he would be obliged to defer to our wishes and refrain from baiting my excitable husband.

The more I thought about this scheme, the more brilliant it seemed to me. I was tempted to propose it to Emerson at once; but since his immediate reaction to my suggestions is usually an emphatic negative, I decided to wait till later, when he had, hopefully, recovered from the ill temper induced by the latest encounter with Madame Berengeria.

An alarming development occurred later that afternoon, when a section of the exposed ceiling of the passageway collapsed, narrowly missing one of the men. The rumbling crash and cloud of dust emerging from the stairwell caused a flutter of excitement among the watchers and brought me rushing to the spot. Through the fog of dust I saw Emerson, dimly visible like a demon in a pantomime, wiping his face with his sleeve and cursing nobly.

‘We will have to shore up the ceiling and walls as we proceed,’ he declared. ‘I saw that the rock was in bad condition, but hoped it would improve as we proceeded. Unhappily the reverse seems to be the case. Abdullah, send Daoud and his brother back to the house to fetch wood and a bag of nails. Curse it, this will slow the work even more.’

‘But it must be done,’ I said. ‘A serious accident now would convince the men that we are indeed under a curse.’

‘Thank you for your tender concern,’ Emerson snarled. ‘What are you doing down here anyway? Get back to work.’

Obviously the time was not ripe for me to discuss my scheme regarding Mr O’Connell.

No one can accuse me of being an uncritically doting wife. I am fully cognizant of Emerson’s many faults. In this case, however, I recognised his evil temper as a manifestation of that well-nigh supernatural force of character which drove the men to efforts exceeding their natural powers. The ill-omened words of Madame Berengeria, closely followed by the rockfall, had rendered even more uneasy temperaments not wholly unaffected by earlier uncanny events. With a lesser man than my husband at the helm, they might have walked off the job that very day.

Unfortunately Emerson’s mood of majestic authority is accompanied, in the domestic sphere, by an arrogance that any woman less understanding than I would refuse to tolerate for an instant. I put up with it only because I was as anxious as he to see the work proceed apace.

Only with the imminence of night did Emerson dismiss the exhausted men. It was a weary group that started back along the rocky path. I had attempted to persuade Mary to go the long way around, on donkeyback, but she insisted on accompanying us, and of course the two young men followed her like sheep. Vandergelt had left earlier, assuring us he would meet us at the house after he had collected his luggage from the hotel.

I was still pleased with my idea of enlisting Mr O’Connell, but I knew better than to mention it to Emerson. Hands in his pockets, head bowed, he tramped along in grim silence. In addition to the other disasters of the day, the final hours of work had brought to light some ominous evidence. The men had cleared almost ten yards of the corridor and had finally exposed the figure of a royal personage, probably the owner of the tomb; but, alas, the head of this figure had been savagely mutilated, and the royal name in the inscription above it had been similarly defaced. This proof that the tomb had been violated depressed us all. After moving mountains of stone, would we find only an empty sarcophagus?

This fear would have been enough in itself to justify my husband’s gloomy silence. The prospect of facing Madame Berengeria and Lady Baskerville, whose mood would undoubtedly be unpleasant, further depressed him.

If Mary was concerned about the social embarrassment awaiting her she showed no signs of it. She had endured the long day’s labour far better than her fragile appearance had led me to expect. She and the young men were ahead of us, for Emerson was not in any hurry, and I heard her chatting merrily and even laughing. I observed that she had accepted Karl’s arm and was addressing most of her comments to him. Milverton, on her other side, attempted without success to attract her attention. After a time Milverton stopped and let the others draw ahead. As Emerson and I came up to him, I saw that he was watching the girl’s slim figure with a look of poignant distress.

Emerson plodded on without so much as a glance at the disconsolate young man, but I did not feel it right to neglect such obvious signs of mental perturbation. I therefore let my husband go ahead and, taking Milverton’s arm, requested his assistance. I do not scruple to employ mendacity and a fictitious appearance of female incompetence when the occasion demands it.

Milverton responded like a gentleman. We walked in silence for a time and then, as I had expected, his wounded heart sought the relief of conversation.

‘What can she see in him?’ he burst out. ‘He is plain, pedantic, and poor!’

I was tempted to laugh at this damning and alliterative catalogue of deficiencies. Instead I sighed and shook my head.

‘I fear she is a heartless flirt, Mr Milverton.’

‘I beg to differ,’ Mr Milverton said warmly. ‘She is an angel.’

‘She is certainly as beautiful as an angel,’ I agreed amiably.

‘She is; she is! She reminds me of that Egyptian queen, don’t you know? – I forget the name – ’

‘Nefertiti?’

‘Yes, that’s the one. And her figure…. Look how gracefully she walks.’

This was not easy to do, for dusk was far advanced, and as I realised this a new uneasiness shadowed my mind even as twilight shadowed the scene. The path was difficult enough in daylight; the rocky descent would not be easy in the dark. Also, night would serve as a cloak to enemies. I only hoped that Emerson’s stubbornness had not exposed us to accident or worse. I took a firmer hold of Milverton’s arm and quickened my pace. We had fallen far behind the others, and Emerson’s form, some distance ahead, was now no more than a shadowy outline against the blossoming stars.

Milverton was still alternately rhapsodising and reproaching Mary. Conquering my apprehension, I attempted to make him see the situation in the calm light of reason.