The Emerald Embrace

by Briskin, Jacqueline;

  My orgy of buying wasn’t done from delight but fear. Each time I opened scented, crackling tissue paper to show Stephen my purchase, I was trying to convince him that I was a real woman.

  Stephen invited French maritime dignitaries to sup with us. Originally the Delaplanes came from La Rochelle in France, and he spoke the language without an accent. I, too, spoke fluently, for under Father’s tutelage I had learned the poems of Malherbe and Ronsard. I sat at the foot of the oval table, a smiling hostess, until Stephen’s guests were ready for brandy and more naval talk, and then I retired. In my curtained bed, I would lie listening to the rumble of faraway masculine voices.

  At least I’m not locked away in a harem, I would tell myself. But I was invariably awake when Stephen climbed the narrow stairs, and though his step never faltered as he passed my room on the way to his own, I would realize that I was as locked away from the real meaning of my life as I’d ever been in Cairo.

  The Friday morning of the ball my gown hadn’t yet arrived. In my new preoccupation with clothes it seemed a terrible tragedy. Briefly I considered going in my rose silk supper gown. That would let Stephen down in front of the entire court, I decided.

  In a hired hack, I rushed to Monsieur Sancerre’s. His best apprentice finished hemming the sea-green satin and the couturier himself carried the long box, escorting me from his shop. He was still apologizing.

  As we stepped into the crowded street, I happened to glance in the next doorway.

  A short, dark-skinned man was loitering there.

  A narrow scar ran from the corner of his left eye to his jaw, giving his face the look of being seamed. He wore French attire, yet from the way he pulled at his high white neckband, I knew the clothing was strange to him. He was no European.

  For a long second the swarthy, scarred face fixed on mine. And I was thrust back into my frenzied terror in Bir Oman Pass. Had the Pasha sent him?

  “Adieu, Mademoiselle Moore,” said Monsieur Sancerre, taking my trembling hand to help me up the carriage step.

  When I looked out the window, the dark man was gone.

  Two

  I forgot the incident in my preparations for the ball, which took Uisha and me the rest of the day.

  When at last Uisha, with reverent fingers, fastened the tiny covered buttons of the ball gown she sighed. The green satin décolletage was low. She gestured sadly, indicating I needed jewelry.

  “Ladies in the West don’t adorn themselves so much,” I said, but my voice held regret. Tonight the court would glitter, and in my mood of inferiority I couldn’t bear for Stephen to see me as less than the French ladies.

  Uisha held up a finger, indicating I shouldn’t move. She dug in the bottom drawer of the bureau under my lacy new night shifts, drawing out the Emerald Embrace.

  In Egypt I had always experienced a strange vibrancy the moment the ancient gold circled my flesh. Here, as Uisha fastened the clasp, I felt nothing. Nothing. The splendor of the necklace was merely a perfect foil for the sea-green décolletage.

  A knock sounded at the bedroom door. “The carriage is here, Liberty,” Stephen called—he had hired a landau for the night.

  Uisha, smiling, opened the door—as her master, Stephen was permitted to see her unveiled.

  He remained in the doorway. His dress uniform’s high gold-braided collar emphasized his erect head as he stared at me. In his brown eyes was none of the admiration for which I had hoped. “Where did you get that?” he demanded angrily.

  “The gown?” I faltered, baffled by his rage. “Monsieur Sancerre designed it.”

  “I’ve received enough bills to know where you get your clothes!” he snapped. “The necklace. In Bir Oman Pass you told me you didn’t have it. I never realized I should have searched you!”

  My legs grew weak and I leaned against the gilt dressing table. Though Stephen had been remote, these past days he had never behaved in any way short of decent generosity. “I wanted to tell you.…”

  “Oh? Then why didn’t you?”

  “The wrong words just came,” I said feebly.

  “And it never bothered you on the caravan journey that the bauble could have betrayed us all? Not only you and me? Uisha and Yacub as well as us would have been returned to Egypt to die.”

  “Of course I cared. I tried to get rid of it.” My fingers shook on the lotus clasp as I fumbled to undo it. “I scratched holes in the sand, but something always prevented me from burying it.”

  “What? The fact that the necklace was a gift from your owner—your debaucher?”

  My hands dropped. “The Pasha,” I said coldly, “treated me with decency according to the ways of Islam.”

  “And so because of him you risked two completely innocent lives.”

  “That’s not true,” I cried. “The necklace has a power over me.”

  “You’ve already told me. You inherited another woman’s desire.”

  His anger had found my weak spot. I yearned to throw myself at his feet and beg his pardon. Instead, I said without warmth, “Stephen, there’s no point in jealousy. I love you.”

  “Love? Your passionate emotions seem reserved for the man who rules Egypt.”

  “If you wish, I’ll take off the necklace.”

  “Why? Here it endangers no one.”

  For a moment I had a vision of that dark, scarred face. Was that man connected to my past? Could the Emerald Embrace still be perilous to us?

  Stephen said, “We’re already late.”

  His footsteps receded angrily down the staircase.

  Tears stung my eyelids. Uisha, realizing I couldn’t bear sympathy, stood back to survey me with impersonal eyes. She nodded. However unhappy I felt, my appearance was satisfactory.

  She rested the satin pelisse around my shoulders.

  I removed the cloak in the brilliantly lit vestibule of the Tuileries Palace. For a moment Stephen’s gaze rested on the necklace, but he said nothing. We joined the glittering throng that climbed the broad marble staircase.

  In the noisy ballroom, crowds of people milled near the frescoed walls, chattering and greeting one another. Stephen bowed to the right and left. His acquaintances, who wore naval uniforms of various countries, bowed back, eyeing me.

  We joined a cluster of French maritime ministers. A liveried servant was offering around a large vermeil tray: Stephen took a glass, gulping down the champagne.

  The orchestra, hidden in a flower-screened balcony, struck up a tune and couples whirled onto the shining parquet floor.

  Stephen didn’t ask me to dance.

  But a gray-haired admiral wearing a star did. He swooped me away: my dancing feet seemed detached from the rest of me, and I glanced continually over at Stephen. A servant approached, and he took a fresh drink. The dance ended. Other partners crowded around me. I was a brilliant success, but miserable, for Stephen never asked me to dance. Drinking steadily, he resolutely avoided my eyes.

  It was nearly midnight when I escaped to one of the suites set apart for lady guests. Holding back my tears, I rested my hot cheek against a cool mirror. Prinking, elegant women darted contemptuous, envy-tinged glances at me.

  When, finally, I emerged, the orchestra was silent. Voices roared up the marble staircase from the dining salons, where the midnight buffet was being served.

  Only a few remained in the ballroom. A huge, bulky man was plowing his way toward me. His magnificently tailored suit was black, his enormous shining dance pumps black, and his snowy linen and the huge, twinkling diamond in his cravat did nothing to relieve the somberness of his appearance.

  My hand went to my mouth in horror.

  It was Amos Thornton.

  Thunderstruck, I stared at him. After all these years, the thought of his whipping me still gave me nightmares. Despite my horror, I wasn’t totally surprised at his presence. He had always traveled extensively. And with his wealth and social position, he certainly would be invited to a state ball.

  “Liberty,” he said ponderously. “
I heard you were in Paris. And when I found out you’d be at this ball, I came tonight.”

  My gloved hand clutching my painted ivory fan, my back defiantly straight, I retorted, “We have nothing to say to one another, Mr. Thornton.”

  “On the contrary,” he said, reaching for my arm. “We have everything to discuss.”

  As he grasped my elbow, a faint revulsion swept me, and I pulled away, swiftly preceding him across the empty dance floor to a window embrasure.

  “You’re in Paris with Commodore Delaplane,” he said in a heavy, censuring tone.

  “We’re betrothed,” I said, quickly looking down into the courtyard, where smoking torches lit the mass of waiting carriages.

  “You’re living together openly. It’s the talk of Paris,” Amos Thornton said. “I’m ashamed to think you’ve fallen to this.”

  “You have no reason to feel pride or shame in me,” I said, starting away from the window.

  His bulk blocked me. “My dear child, that’s not true. I’m your guardian—”

  “Was,” I interjected.

  “And these years I’ve worried constantly, not knowing whether you were dead or alive.” He frowned. “It was reprehensible of Captain Yarby to come between us, and wicked of him to risk your life by taking you aboard the Ithaca—But the man’s dead, and one must speak only good of the dead.” He paused. “I heard when he was killed that you were captured, but nothing was certain. Where have you been?”

  “Cairo,” I said tersely.

  “Egypt? It’s only just opened to Westerners. How did you get there?”

  I recalled the long journey with Ahmed teaching me Arabic and Uisha soothing my loneliness. “With friends,” I said truthfully.

  “It’s unnatural for an unprotected woman to go carousing around the world,” he said. “And that necklace—where did you get that necklace? From a wealthy admirer?” His voice dropped momentarily into that strange, lustful timbre. “Liberty, you always were incorrigible. You would have had a better life by far if Delaplane hadn’t interfered that night in Washington.”

  I looked up at him in surprise, as he examined me.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know it was him. Since then I’ve met him several times. And it’s most apparent that he’s not guided by my own principles.”

  “He’s our country’s hero!” I cried.

  “Nobody argues his courage. I said he’s lacking in rectitude. You’ve known him since Washington fell. That’s been many years. He should have made you a decent woman.”

  “We haven’t been together!” My voice rang loudly in the near empty palace ballroom. Two matrons turned toward the embrasure, then avidly bent their plumed coiffures together.

  “I’m not going to delve into your past,” Amos Thornton announced. “It’s the present that’s my concern. You say you haven’t been with Delaplane. But you are now. Why hasn’t he married you?”

  “He will,” I said. But my voice had gone dull. I’d already accepted that marriage was impossible.

  “You’re not sure, are you? Liberty, you’re more seductively beautiful than ever. Radiant. Believe me, that’s his interest, not your moral welfare.”

  He continued on in that righteous manner, but I wasn’t listening. Stephen stood at the doors of the ballroom, speaking to a whiskered adjutant in a white uniform. When Stephen saw us, he nodded, then strode toward us.

  He and Amos Thornton exchanged small, frigid bows. Stephen turned to me. “His Majesty wishes to be presented to us,” he said with remote courtesy.

  We followed the adjutant to a large, tapestry-paneled salon. In one corner Madame de Cayla, the royal mistress, conversed with a group of attentive courtiers. The king, a stout elderly little man, sat apart, his right leg raised on a gout stool. The nostrils of his beaklike nose were distended, from pride or snuff, I couldn’t decide which.

  The king asked a few questions about the United States Navy, then said, “We hear you recently traveled to Egypt, Commodore. We would like your opinion of that country.”

  “It’s true I was in Egypt, Your Majesty,” Stephen retorted, his voice going hard. “But Miss Moore can tell you more than I. She was there longer.”

  “Ah yes, mademoiselle. That is where you acquired your necklace.” He paused. “We hear many stories of this Mohammed Ali Pasha. He slaughters his guests. He confiscates property. He changes judges at whim.”

  The king’s haughty tone dismissed the Pasha as a mere despot. With Stephen reacting in such unfamiliar cold anger, I should have walked on eggs. Yet, eager to defend the Pasha, I didn’t stop to consider my words. “Under the Pasha Egypt’s infinitely better off. The fellaheen no longer starve. And as for the new judges, Your Majesty, people speak highly of their honesty. The Pasha has instituted a legal code, and for the first time all Egyptians are governed by the law.”

  “He’s taken much territory. Our ministers inform us the West is endangered by so powerful a Turk.”

  “He’s Albanian,” I cried hotly. “And everybody in Egypt agrees he wishes only friendship with the West.”

  The king eyed my heaving bosom with the lecherous look for which the Bourbon royalty was famed. “So he writes. His letters request that we send him French agriculturists and engineers. Our ministers warn us, though, that this is a ruse to worm himself into our confidence so that he can strike at us.”

  “Your Majesty, it seems to me your ministers aren’t using common sense. Would any monarch invite emissaries of those he wishes to fight? Your engineers and agriculturists could be spies. Surely his letters make it plain that the Pasha wants only technical knowledge and friendship.”

  “Mademoiselle, we are pleased to hear your opinion on this matter,” the French king drawled, and turned to his adjutant.

  I glanced at Stephen, but he refused to look at me. Once again the knowledge sank like a stone into my heart that our relationship had disintegrated beyond repair.

  The king bowed a dismissal.

  As soon as we had backed out of the salon, Stephen said, “I have to talk to Admiral Besançon.” And he strode away.

  I stood uncertainly in the wide corridor, which was lined at intervals with white-wigged footmen. People were returning from the buffet tables.

  Amos Thornton’s thick shoulders towered over the other guests. He was listening attentively to a short man whose shoulders were hunched under his blue coat, and who wore his neckband awkwardly tied.

  In my discouragement, I longed for the scented quiet of the ladies’ suite, but the oddly assorted pair were moving in my direction, and I certainly wasn’t going to give Amos Thornton the satisfaction of watching me run away.

  He introduced me to his companion.

  It was Monsieur Champollion.

  As the two men guided me to a quiet alcove, the famed Egyptologist said, “I cannot tell you how delighted I was to find your note this afternoon, when I returned from Grenoble. At last I have the pleasure of meeting my esteemed colleague’s daughter.” And for several minutes, while I sat on the gilt love seat, Monsieur Champollion spoke with sincere regret of Father’s death, and of how much their correspondence had meant to him. All the time he was glancing surreptitiously at the Emerald Embrace. “Mademoiselle Moore,” he said finally. “I mean no rudeness, but I can’t help admiring that splendid pectoral. Tiens, what a treasure! It appears to have come from a freshly opened tomb, but I have heard of no such important find.”

  “There is none,” I sighed. “And how the necklace remains in such perfect condition is a mystery.”

  “Maybe,” said Monsieur Champollion slowly, “just maybe I could shed a little light if I could examine the falcon’s body.”

  “Have you learned to read the hieroglyphs?” I asked, surprised.

  “A very little. You have heard perhaps of the Rosetta stone?”

  I shook my head.

  Amos Thornton put in knowingly, “It’s a proclamation stone written in three languages. One is Greek, one demotic Egyptian and one hieroglyphic.”<
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  “With it as a guide,” said Monsieur Champollion, “I can make out a few words here and there.”

  “But eventually you’ll decipher more?” I asked.

  “I hope so,” he said.

  A tingle of excitement stirred within me. “Maybe you can help prove Father’s theory.”

  Amos Thornton peered down at me disapprovingly. “Are you still brooding about that, Liberty?” He turned to Monsieur Champollion. “Alas, Professor Moore fell into error in his declining years. But I’ve never held that against so brilliant a scholar.”

  I clenched my painted ivory fan.

  “Professor Moore,” retorted Monsieur Champollion angrily, “dedicated his last decade to his brilliant book.”

  “Egyptians moved either on the Nile or on established caravan routes,” asserted Amos Thornton, “not beyond!”

  “Monsieur Thornton, how are you so positive?”

  Amos Thornton retorted in a calm voice, “There’s never been the least proof otherwise, has there?”

  “None,” Monsieur Champollion admitted regretfully. He smiled down at me. “Mademoiselle Moore, if you’d give me the great pleasure of coming to my study, I could show you a copy of the Rosetta stone.”

  “I would enjoy that.”

  The hunched little scholar gave me his address, repeating the directions, and I agreed to be there at three the following afternoon.

  “And if you wish to give me even more pleasure,” he said, “you’ll bring this pectoral.”

  Stephen joined us then, his handsome features flushed with wine and anger. Amos Thornton glanced from him to me.

  “Our carriage is waiting,” Stephen said rudely.

  Turning away from my onetime guardian, I rested my fingers lightly on Stephen’s gold-braided cuff.

  Three

  At the house the groom let down the carriage steps with a bang and Yacub, stifling a yawn, opened the front door. The dining room was lit. The cook had left a repast of cold meats, cake and wine on the oval table.

  Stephen said, “S’late, Yacub. Go on t’bed.” His pleasant voice was thick, slurred. He was very drunk, I saw with shocked disbelief. Though I had seen him down glass after glass of champagne at the ball, I hadn’t fully grasped that Commodore Stephen Delaplane could become intoxicated like any mortal man.