Agatha Christie: Death Comes as the End

"Exactly. It pleases him that everyone in the household should be dependent upon him - and upon his whim of the moment. It is bad, that, and it will get worse. This time when he comes home you must tackle him boldly - you must say that you demand a settlement in writing, that you insist on having a regularized position."

"He would not listen."

"Then you must make him listen. Oh, that I were a man! If I were in your place I would know what to do! Sometimes I feel that I am married to a woman."

Yahmose flushed.

"I will see what I can do - I might, yes, I might perhaps speak to my father - ask him -"

"Not ask - you must demand! After all, you have the whip hand of him. There is no one but you whom he can leave in charge here. Sobek is too wild; your father does not trust him, and Ipy is too young."

"There is always Hori."

"Hori is not a member of the family. Your father relies on his judgment but he would not leave authority except in the hands of his own kin. But I see how it is; you are too meek and mild - there is milk in your veins, not blood! You don't consider me or our children. Not till your father is dead shall we ever have our proper position."

Yahmose said heavily:

"You despise me, don't you, Satipy?"

"You make me angry."

"Listen, I tell you that I will speak to my father when he comes. There, it is a promise."

Satipy murmured under her breath:

"Yes - but how will you speak? Like a man - or like a mouse?"

II

Kait was playing with her youngest child, little Ankh. The baby was just beginning to walk and Kait encouraged her with laughing words, kneeling in front of her and waiting with outstretched arms until the child lurched precariously forward and toddled on uncertain feet into her mother's arms.

Kait had been displaying these accomplishments to Sobek, but she realized suddenly that he was not attending, but was sitting with his handsome forehead furrowed into a frown.

"Oh, Sobek - you were not looking. You do not see, little one, tell your father he is naughty not to watch you."

Sobek said irritably:

"I have other things to think of - yes, and worry about."

Kait leaned back on her heels, smoothing her hair back from her heavy dark brows where Ankh's fingers had clutched it.

"Why? Is there something wrong?"

Kait spoke without quite giving all her attention. The question was more than half mechanical.

Sobek said angrily:

"The trouble is that I am not trusted. My father is an old man, absurdly old-fashioned in his ideas, and he insists on dictating every single action here - he will not leave things to my judgment."

Kait shook her head and murmured vaguely:

"Yes, yes, it is too bad."

"If only Yahmose had a little more spirit and would back me up there might be some hope of making my father see reason. But Yahmose is so timid. He carries out every single instruction my father gives him to the letter."

Kait jingled some beads at the child and murmured:

"Yes, that is true."

"In this matter of the timber I shall tell my father when he comes that I used my judgment. It was far better to take the price in flax and not in oil."

"I am sure you are right."

"But my father is as obstinate over having his own way as anyone can be. He will make an outcry, will shout out, 'I told you to transact the business in oil. Everything is done wrong when I am not here. You are a foolish boy who knows nothing!' How old does he think I am? He doesn't realize that I am now a man in my prime and he is past his. His instructions and his refusals to sanction any unusual transactions mean that we do not do nearly as good business as we might do. To attain riches it is necessary to take a few risks. I have vision and courage. My father has neither."

Her eyes on the child, Kait murmured softly:

"You are so bold and so clever, Sobek."

"But he shall hear some home truths this time if he dares to find fault and shout abuse at me! Unless I am given a free hand, I shall leave. I shall go away."

Kait, her hand stretched out to the child, turned her head sharply, the gesture arrested.

"Go away? Where would you go?"

"Somewhere! It is insupportable to be bullied and nagged at by a fussy, self-important old man who gives me no scope at all to show what I can do."

"No," said Kait sharply. "I say no, Sobek."

He stared at her, recalled by her tone into noticing her presence. He was so used to her as a merely soothing accompaniment to his talk that he often forgot her existence as a living, thinking, human woman.

"What do you mean, Kait?"

"I mean that I will not let you be foolish. All the estate belongs to your father - the lands, the cultivation, the cattle, the timber, the fields of flax - all! When your father dies it will be ours - yours and Yahmose's and our children's. If you quarrel with your father and go off, then he may divide your share between Yahmose and Ipy - already he loves Ipy too much. Ipy knows that and trades on it. You must not play into the hands of Ipy. It would suit him only too well if you were to quarrel with Imhotep and go away. We have our children to think of."

Sobek stared at her. Then he gave a short surprised laugh.

"A woman is always unexpected. I did not know you had it in you, Kait, to be so fierce."

Kait said earnestly:

"Do not quarrel with your father. Do not answer him back. Be wise for a little longer."

"Perhaps you are right - but this may go on for years. What my father should do is to associate us with him in a partnership."

Kait shook her head.

"He will not do that. He likes too much to say that we are all eating his bread, that we are all dependent on him, that without him we should all be nowhere."

Sobek looked at her curiously.

"You do not like my father very much, Kait."

But Kait had bent once more to the toddling baby.

"Come, sweetheart - see, here is your doll. Come, then - come..."

Sobek looked down at her black bent head. Then, with a puzzled look, he went out.

III

Esa had sent for her grandson Ipy.

The boy, a handsome, discontented-looking stripling, was standing before her whilst she rated him in a high shrill voice, peering at him out of her dim eyes that were shrewd although they could now see little.

"What is this I hear? You will not do this, and you will not do that? You want to look after the bulls, and you do not like going with Yahmose or seeing to the cultivating? What are things coming to when a child like you says what he will or will not do?"

Ipy said sullenly:

"I am not a child. I am grown now - and why should I be treated as a child? Put to this work or that with no say of my own and no separate allowance! Given orders all the time by Yahmose! Who does Yahmose think he is?"

"He is your older brother and he is in charge here when my son Imhotep is away."

"Yahmose is stupid - slow and stupid. I am much cleverer than he is. And Sobek is stupid too for all that he boasts and talks about how clever he is! Already my father has written and has said that I am to do the work that I myself choose -"

"Which is none at all," interpolated old Esa.

"And that I am to be given more food and drink and that if he hears I am discontented and have not been well treated he will be very angry."

He smiled as he spoke, a sly up-curving smile.

"You are a spoiled brat," said Esa with energy. "And I shall tell Imhotep so."

"No, no, Grandmother, you would not do that."

His smile changed; it became caressing, if slightly impudent.

"You and I, Grandmother, we have the brains of the family."

"The impudence of you!"

"My father relies on your judgment - he knows you are wise."

"That may be - indeed it is so - but I do not need you to tell me so."