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"And what about the shareholders of Stratford Shipping? Have you done your best for them? Or is that quite beyond my judgment also?"
"Be careful, my girl," he said. He drew close to her. He gave one arrogant glance to the mummy on his left almost as if it were another presence, another full person, and then he turned his shoulder to it a little, and narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. "Father and I are the only family you have left now. You need us more than you think, perhaps. After all, what do you really know about trade or shipping?"
How curious. He had made a good point and then ruined it. She needed them both, but it had nothing to do with trade and shipping. She needed them because they were her blood, and to hell with trade and shipping.
She didn't want him to see the hurt in her. She turned away and looked down the length of the double drawing rooms, towards the pale northern windows on the front of the house, where the morning seemed scarcely to be happening.
"I know how to add two and two, my dear cousin," she said. "And that has put me in a very awkward and painful position."
With relief, she watched Rita enter from the hall, her back bent uncomfortably as she carried the heavy silver coffee service. On the center table of the rear drawing room she set it down, only a few feet from where Julie stood.
"Thank you, dear. That's all for now."
With a pointed glance at the thing in the coffin, Rita was gone. And once again Julie was alone with this exquisitely painful moment. Slowly she turned and saw that her cousin was standing directly in front of Ramses.
"Then I should come right to the point," he said, and he turned around to face her. He reached up and loosened his silk tie, and then pulled it off and stuffed it in his pocket. His gait was almost shambling as he approached her.
"I know what you want," she said. "I know what you and Uncle Randolph both want. And more important, I know what you both need. What Father left you won't begin to cover your debts. Lord, but you've made a mess of things."
"So sanctimonious," Henry said. He stood only a foot from her now, his back to the brightening sun and the mummy. "The suffragette, the little archaeologist. And now you'll try your hand at business, will you?"
"I'll try," she said coldly. His anger was igniting hers. "What else can I do?" she asked. "Let it all slip through your father's hands! Lord, but I pity you!"
"What are you trying to tell me?" he asked. His breath stank of liquor, and his face was shadowed with coarse unshaven hair. "That you'll ask for our resignations? Is that it?"
"I don't know yet." She turned her back on him. She walked into the front drawing room and opened the small secretaire. She sat down before it, and removed her book of bank drafts. And uncapped the inkwell.
She could hear him pacing behind her as she wrote the cheque.
"Tell me, cousin, does it feel good to have more than you can ever spend, more than you can ever count? And to have done nothing to get it?"
She turned, her eyes down, and she gave him the cheque. She rose and went to the front window. She lifted the lace curtain and looked out at the street. Please go away, Henry, she thought dully, disconsolately. She didn't want to hurt her
uncle. She didn't want to hurt anyone. But what could she do? She'd known for years about Randolph's embezzling. She and her father had discussed it last time she was in Cairo. Of course he had meant to take the situation in hand, always meant. And now it fell to her.
She turned suddenly. The silence made her uneasy. She saw her cousin standing in the Egyptian room. He was staring at her, his eyes cold and seemingly lifeless.
"And when you marry Alex, will you disinherit us as well?"
"For the love of heaven, Henry. Go away and leave me alone."
There was something stunning about his expression, about the sheer hardness of his face. He wasn't young anymore, was he? He looked ancient in his habits and in his guilt and in his self-deception. Have pity, she thought. What can you do to help him? Give him a fortune and it will be gone within a fortnight. She turned round again and looked out into the wintry London street.
Early passersby. The nurse from across the way with the twins in their wicker carriage. An old man hurrying along with a newspaper under his arm. And the guard, the guard from the British Museum, slouching idly on the front steps just beneath her. And down the street, in front of her uncle Randolph's, Sally the parlour maid shaking a rug out the front door because she was sure that no one was awake to see.
Why was there no sound behind her in the double rooms? Why didn't Henry storm out, slamming the front door? Perhaps he had left, but no, she heard a tiny furtive noise suddenly, a spoon touching china. The damned coffee.
"I don't know how it could have come to this," she said, still gazing at the street before her. "Trust funds, salaries, bonuses, you had everything, both of you."
"No, not everything, my dear," he said. "You have everything."
Sound of coffee being poured. For the love of heaven!
"Look, old girl," he said, his voice low and strained. "I don't want this quarrel any more than you do. Come. Sit down. Let's have a cup of coffee together like civilized people."
She couldn't move. The gesture seemed more sinister than his anger.
"Come and have a cup of coffee with me, Julie."
