The Snake, The Crocodile, And The Dog Part 2

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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sengers. 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 pa.s.s. 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 b.u.t.tonhook 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 b.u.t.toned 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 a.s.sured 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 b.u.t.tons 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 ma.s.sive acc.u.mulation 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 ent.i.tled 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- "