The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog (3 page)

CHAPTER 2

"One may be determined to embrace martyrdom gracefully,
but a day of reprieve is not to be sneezed at."

I believe in the efficacy of prayer.
As a Christian woman I am obliged to do so. As a rationalist as well as a Christian (the two are not necessarily incompatible, whatever Emerson may say), I do not believe that the Almighty takes a direct interest in my personal affairs. He has too many other people to worry about, most of them in far greater need of assistance than I.
Yet almost could I believe, on a certain afternoon a few months after the conversation I have described, that a benevolent Being had intervened to answer the prayer I had not dared frame even in my most secret thoughts.
I stood, as I had done so many times before, at the rail of the steamer, straining my eyes for the first glimpse of the Egyptian coast. Once again Emerson was at my side, as eager as I to begin another season of excavation. But for the first time in oh! so many years, we were alone.
Alone! I do not count the crew or the other passengers. We were ALONE. Ramses was not with us. Not risking life and limb trying to climb onto the rail, not with the crew, inciting them to mutiny, not in his cabin concocting dynamite. He was not on the boat, he was in England, and we ... were not. I had never dreamed it would come to pass. I had not ventured to hope, much less pray, for such bliss.
The workings of Providence are truly mysterious, for Nefret, whom I had expected to be an additional source of distraction, was the one responsible for this happy event.

*  *  *

For some days after the younger Emersons left us, I watched Nefret closely and concluded that the forebodings I had felt that pleasant June afternoon were no more than melancholy fancies. Evelyn had been in a strange mood that day, her pessimism had infected me. Nefret seemed to be getting on quite well. She had learned to manipulate a knife and fork, a buttonhook and a toothbrush. She had even learned that one is not supposed to carry on conversations with the servants at the dinner table. (That put her one step ahead of Emerson, who could not, or would not, conform to this rule of accepted social behavior.) In her buttoned boots and dainty white frocks, with her hair tied back with ribbons, she looked like any pretty English schoolgirl. She hated the boots, but she wore them, and at my request she folded away her bright Nubian robes. She never breathed a word of complaint or disagreed with any of my suggestions. I therefore concluded it was time to take the next step. It was time to introduce Nefret into society. Of course the introduction must be gradual and gentle. What better, gentler companions, I reasoned, could there be than girls of her own age?
In retrospect, I would be the first to admit that this reasoning was laughably in error. In my own defense, let me state that I had had very little to do with girls of that age. I therefore consulted my friend Miss Helen Mclntosh, the headmistress of a nearby girls' school.
Helen was a Scotswoman, bluff, bustling and brown, from her grizzled hair to her practical tweeds. When she accepted my invitation to tea she made no secret of her curiosity about our new ward.
I took pains to ensure that Nefret would make a good impression, warning her to avoid inadvertent slips of the tongue that might raise doubts as to the history we had told. Perhaps I overdid it. Nefret sat like a statue of propriety the whole time, eyes lowered, hands folded, speaking only when she was spoken to. The dress I had asked her to wear was eminently suitable to her age— white lawn, with ruffled cuffs and
a wide sash. I had pinned up her braids and fastened them with big white bows.
After I had excused her, Helen turned to me, eyebrows soaring. "My dear Amelia," she said. "What have you done?"
"Only what Christian charity and common decency demanded," I said, bristling. "What fault could you possibly find with her? She is intelligent and anxious to please—"
"My dear, the bows and the ruffles don't do the job. You could dress her in rags and she would still be
as exotic as a bird of paradise."
I could not deny it. I sat in— I confess— resentful silence while Helen sipped her tea. Gradually the lines on her forehead smoothed out, and finally she said thoughtfully, "At least there can be no question as to the purity of her blood."
"Helen!" I exclaimed.
"Well, but such questions do arise with the offspring of men stationed in remote areas of the empire. Mothers conveniently deceased, children with liquid black eyes and sun-kissed cheeks . . . Now don't glower at me, Amelia, I am not expressing my prejudices but those of society, and as I said, there can
be no question of Nefret's . . . You must find another name for her, you know. What about Natalie? It
is uncommon, but unquestionably English."
Helen's remarks induced certain feelings of uneasiness, but once her interest was engaged she entered
into the matter with such enthusiasm that it was hard to differ with her. I am not a humble woman, but
in this case I felt somewhat insecure. Helen was the expert on young females, having asked her opinion
I did not feel in a position to question her advice.
It should have been a lesson to me never to doubt my own judgment. Since that time I have done so
only once— and that, as you will see, almost ended in a worse catastrophe.
Nefret's first few meetings with Helen's carefully selected "young ladies" seemed to go well. I thought them a remarkably silly lot, and after the first encounter, when one of them responded to Emerson's
polite greeting with a fit of the giggles and another told him he was much handsomer than any of her teachers, Emerson barricaded himself in the library and refused to come out when they were there. He agreed, however, that it was probably a good thing for Nefret to mingle with her contemporaries. The
girl seemed not to mind them. I had not expected she would actively enjoy herself at first. Society takes
a great deal of getting used to.
At last Helen decided the time had come for Nefret to return the visits, and issued a formal invitation for the girl to take tea with her and the selected young "ladies" at the school. She did not invite me. In fact, she flatly refused to allow me to come, adding, in her bluff fashion, that she wanted Nefret to feel at
ease and behave naturally. The implication that my presence prevented Nefret from feeling at ease was of course ridiculous, but I did not— then!— venture to differ with such a well-known authority on
young ladies. I felt all the qualms of any anxious mama when I watched Nefret set off, however, I assured myself that her appearance left nothing to be desired, from the crown of her pretty rose-trimmed hat to the soles of her little slippers. William the coachman was another of her admirers, he had groomed the horses till their coats shone and the buttons of his coat positively blazed in the sunlight.
Nefret returned earlier than I had expected. I was in the library, trying to catch up on a massive accumulation of correspondence, when Ramses entered.
"Well, what is it, Ramses?" I asked irritably. "Can't you see I am busy?"
"Nefret has come back," said Ramses.
"So soon?" I put down my pen and turned to look at him. Hands behind his back, feet apart, he met my gaze with a steady stare. His sable curls were disheveled (they always were), his shirt was stained with dirt and chemicals (it always was). His features, particularly his nose and chin, were still too large for his thin face, but if he continued to fill out as he was doing, those features might in time appear not displeasing— especially his chin, which displayed an embryonic dimple or cleft like the one I found so charming in the corresponding member of his father.
"I hope she had a good time," I went on. "No," said Ramses. "She did not."
The stare was not steady. It was accusing. "Did she say so?"
"SHE would not say so," said my son, who had not entirely overcome his habit of referring to Nefret in capital letters. "SHE would consider complaint a form of cowardice, as well as an expression of disloyalty to you, for whom she feels, quite properly in my opinion— "
"Ramses, I have often requested you to refrain from using that phrase."
"I beg your pardon, Mama. I will endeavor to comply with your request in future. Nefret is in her room, with the door closed, I believe, though I am not in a position to be certain, since she hurried past me with her face averted, that she was crying"
I started to push my chair back from the desk, and then stopped. "Should I go to her, do you think?"
The question astonished me as much as it did Ramses. I had not meant to ask his advice. I never had before. His eyes, of so dark a brown they looked black, opened very wide. "Are you asking me, Mama?"
"So it seems," I replied. "Though I cannot imagine why."
"Were not the situation one of some urgency," said Ramses, "I would express at length my appreciation
of your confidence in me. It pleases and touches me more than I can say."
"I hope so, Ramses. Well? Be succinct, I beg."
Being succinct cost Ramses quite a struggle. It was a token of his concern for Nefret that on this occasion he was able to succeed. "I believe you should go, Mama. At once."
So I did.
I found myself strangely ill at ease when I stood before Nefret's door. Weeping young ladies I had encountered before, and had dealt with them efficiently. Somehow I doubted the methods I had employed in those other cases would work so well here. I stood, one might say, in loco parentis, and that role was not congenial to me. What if she flung herself sobbing onto my lap?
Squaring my shoulders, I knocked at her door. (Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as human beings.) When she replied I was relieved to hear that her voice was perfectly normal and when I entered, to find her sitting quietly with a book on her lap, I saw no trace of tears on her smooth cheeks. Then I realized that the book was upside down, and I saw the crumpled ruin on the floor near the bed. It had once been her best hat, a confection of fine straw and satin ribbons, its wide brim heaped with pink silk flowers. No accident could have reduced it to such a state. She must have stamped on it.
She had forgotten about the hat. When I looked back at her, her lips had tightened and her frame had stiffened, as if in expectation of a reprimand or a blow.
"Pink is not your color," I said. "I should never have persuaded you to wear that absurd object."
I thought for a moment she would break down. Her lips trembled,then they curved in a smile.
"I jumped on it," she said.
"I thought you must have."
"I am sorry. I know it cost a great deal of money."
"You have a great deal of money. You can stamp on as many hats as you like." I seated myself at the foot of the chaise longue "However, there are probably more effective ways of dealing with the matter that troubles you. What happened? Was someone rude to you?"
"Rude?" She considered the question with an unnervingly adult detachment. "I don't know what that means. Is it rude to say things that make another person feel small and ugly and stupid?"
"Very rude," I said. "But how could you possibly believe such taunts? You have the use of a mirror, you must know you outshine those plain, malicious little creatures as the moon dims the stars. Dear me, I believe I was on the verge of losing my temper. How unusual. What did they say?"
She studied me seriously. "Will you promise you will not hurry to the school and beat them with your parasol?"
It took me a moment to realize that the light in her blue eyes was that of laughter. She hardly ever made jokes, at least not with me.
"Oh, very well," I replied, smiling. "They were jealous, Nefret— the nasty little toads."
"Perhaps." Her delicate lips curled. "There was a young man there, Aunt Amelia."
"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed. "Had I but known— "
"Miss Mclntosh did not know he was coming either. He was looking for a school for his sister, for whom he is guardian, and expressed a wish to meet some of the other young ladies in order to see if they would be suitable associates for her. He must be very rich, because Miss Mclntosh was extremely polite to him. He was also very handsome. One of the girls, Winifred, desired him." She saw my expression and her smile faded. "I have said something wrong."
"Er—not wrong. That is not quite the way Winifred would put it . . ."
"You see?" She spread her hands wide in a gesture as graceful as it was somehow alien. "I cannot speak without making such mistakes. I have not read the books they have read or heard the music I cannot
play on the piano or sing as they sing or speak languages— "
"Nor can they," I said with a snort. "A few words of French and German— "
"Enough to say things I do not understand, and then look at one another and laugh. They have always acted so, but today, when Sir Henry sat beside me and looked at me instead of looking at Winifred, every word was a veiled insult. They talked only of things of which I am ignorant, and asked me questions—
oh, so sweetly!— to which I did not know the answers. Winifred asked me to sing. I had already told her I could not."
"What did you do?"
Nefret's expression was particularly demure "I sang I sang the Invocation to Isis."
"The ..." I paused to swallow. "The chant you sang in the temple of the Holy Mountain? Did you . . . dance, as you did then?"
"Oh, yes, it is part of the ritual. Sir Henry said I was enchanting. But I do not think Miss Mclntosh will ask me to come to tea again."
I could not help it. I laughed till the tears flowed from my eyes. "Well, never mind," I said, wiping them away. "You will not have to go there again. I will have a word to say to Helen! Why I ever listened to her— "
"But I will go back," Nefret said quietly "Not soon, but after I have learned what I must know, when I have read the books and learned their silly languages, and how to stick myself with a needle." She leaned toward me and put her hand on mine— a rare and meaningful gesture from so undemonstrative a girl
"I have been thinking, Aunt Amelia. This is my world and I must learn to live in it. The task will not be
so painful, there are many things I desire to learn. I must go to school. Oh, not to a place like that, it cannot teach me quickly enough, and I am not— quite— brave enough to face girls like those every day. You say I have a great deal of money. Will it pay for teachers who will come to me?"
"Yes, of course. I was about to suggest something of the sort, but I thought you needed time to rest and accustom yourself to— "
"I did, and I have had it These weeks with you, and the professor, and my brother Ramses, and my friends Gargery and the cat Bastet have been like the Christian Heaven my father told me about. But I cannot hide in my secret garden forever You had thought, I believe, to take me with you to Egypt this winter."
"Had thought . . ." For a moment I could not speak. I conquered the unworthy, contemptible emotion
that swelled my throat, and forced the words out. "We had, yes. You seem interested in archaeology— "
"I am, and one day, perhaps, I will pursue that study. But first it is necessary to learn many other things. Would Mrs. Evelyn and Mr. Walter Emerson let me stay with them this winter, do you think? If I have
so much money, I can pay them."
Tactfully, as is my wont, I explained that friends do not accept or offer payment for acts of kindness,
but in every other way the plan was exactly what I would have suggested myself, if I had dared to propose it. I could have hired tutors and teachers who would have stuffed Nefret with information like
a goose being fed for foie gras, but she could not learn from them what she really needed— the graciousness and deportment of a well-bred lady. There could be no better model than Evelyn, nor a more sympathetic guide. Walter could feed the girl's lust for learning while satisfying his own In short,
the solution was ideal. I had not proposed it because I did not wish to be accused, even by my own conscience, of neglecting my duty. Besides, I had not imagined for a moment that it would be considered acceptable by any of the parties concerned.