Elizabeth Peters: Crocodile On The Sandbank

I did not reply in words, but I think my answer was satisfactory. When Emerson had regained his breath he let out a great hearty laugh.

"Archaeology is a fascinating pursuit, but, after all, one cannot work day and night -- Peabody, my darling Peabody – what a perfectly splendid time we are going to have!"

Emerson was right – as he usually is. We have had a splendid time. We mean to work at Gizeh next year. There is a good deal to be done here yet, but for certain practical reasons we prefer to be nearer Cairo. I understand that Petrie wants to work here, and he is one of the few excavators to whom Emerson would consider yielding. Not that the two of them get along; when we met Mr. Petrie in London last year, he and Emerson started out mutually abusing the Antiquities Department and ended up abusing one another over pottery fragments. Petrie is a nice-looking young fellow, but he really has no idea of what to do with pottery.

The practical reasons that demand we work near Cairo are the same reasons that keep me here, in my chair, instead of being down below supervising the workers as I usually do. Emerson is being overly cautious; I feel perfectly well.

They say that for a woman of my age to have her first child is not always easy, and Emerson is in a perfect jitter of apprehension about the whole thing, but I have no qualms whatever. I do not intend that anything shall go amiss. I planned it carefully, not wanting to interrupt the winter excavation season. I can fit the child in quite nicely between seasons, and be back in Cairo ready for work in November.

We are now awaiting news from Evelyn of the birth of her second child, which is due at any moment. She is already the mother of a fair-baked male child, quite a charming infant, with a propensity for rooting in mud puddles which I am sure he inherited from his archaeological relatives. I am his godmother, so perhaps I am biased about his beauty, intelligence, and charm. But I think I am not.

Walter is not with us this season; he is studying hieroglyphics in England, and promises to be one of the finest scholars of our time. His library at Ellesmere Castle is filled with books and manuscripts, and when we join the younger Emersons there for the summer and early fall each year, he and Emerson spend hours arguing over translations.

Lucas? His present whereabouts are unknown to us. Without the money to support his title he could not live respectably in England. I wanted to prosecute the rascal as he deserved; but Baring dissuaded me. He was very helpful to us when we reached Cairo with our boatload of criminals; and he was present on the momentous occasion when Evelyn opened her boxes and found, among the diaries and books, an envelope containing her grandfather's last, holograph will. This was the final proof of Lucas's villainy; but, as Baring pointed out, a trial would bring unwished for notoriety on all of us, particularly Evelyn, and Lucas was no longer a danger. He lives precariously, I believe, somewhere on the Continent, and if he does not soon drink himself to death, some outraged husband or father will certainly shoot him.

I see Alberto whenever we pass through Cairo. I make a point of doing so. As I warned him once, Egyptian prisons are particularly uncomfortable, and the life does not seem to agree with him at all.

Michael has just rung the bell for lunch, and I see Emerson coming toward me. I have a bone to pick with him; I do not believe he is correct in his identification of one of the sculptured busts as the head of the heretic pharaoh. It seems to me to be a representation of young Tutankhamen, Khuenaten's son-in-law.

I must add one more thing. Often I find myself remembering that blustery day in Rome, when I went to the rescue of a young English girl who had fainted in the Forum. Little did I realize how strangely our destinies would be intertwined; that that act of simple charity would reward me beyond my wildest dreams, winning for me a friend and sister, a life of busy, fascinating work, and…

Evelyn was right. With the right person, under the right circumstances – it is perfectly splendid!