Read Online Jane by Robin Maxwell - Free Book Online Page B

Egyptian archaeology,” Father told me. “It was a big moment, that. Took what had been a mere pastime for enthusiastic amateurs and turned it into a respectable science.”
    “What we expect will happen soon with paleoanthropology,” my mother added.
    “’Course with Petrie in England,” Ral went on, “I was out of work. I tried hiring up with some of the other digs but, frankly, they were haphazard. Some of them were still using dynamite in their excavations.”
    “It was Professor Petrie, wasn’t it,” I asked, “who taught that dirt should be pared away inch by inch to see all that was in it, and how an artifact lay in the surrounding earth?”
    Ral nodded. “I was spoiled by the best. But I couldn’t sit around waiting, could I? So I took myself off to whatever part of the world interested me. India, Tibet, Java. Not much digging going on, but there were a few natural history museums that paid well for specimens for their collections, and lots of wealthy men who wanted trophies hanging on their library walls. I was a damn good shot—pardon my French—and I wasn’t afraid of exotic locations. So I took up big-game hunting for a bit. While I was in the Javanese jungle I heard that a pal of mine—an engineer who’d worked at Tel-el-Amarna—was digging at Trinel.”
    “That’s how you came to Eugène’s site,” Father said.
    “Exactly. But Dubois was in India trying to get someone to believe he’d found the missing link. So I missed the great man.” Ral paused and, quite daringly, I thought, caught and held my eye before continuing his story. “It was my good fortune that the next year Petrie was back in Egypt, digging at Luxor. I signed on, and to my delight, he remembered me.”
    Ral’s expression softened, an attitude, I thought, that was most uncommon in the man.
    “We had some good times, Bill and me. He didn’t mind a few whiskeys at night after Hilda went off to bed.”
    My father said to me, “Hilda was Petrie’s wife. The love of his life. She went on all his digs with him. Assisted him.”
    “And never grumbled about living without the comforts she was used to,” Ral added with obvious admiration. “Quite a gal, Hilda.” He paused for a breath, then added, “You know, everybody always called Bill Petrie difficult. Arrogant. Even insensible. But to me, he was just eccentric. Do you know what he told me?” Ral leaned forward as though to tell a secret. All of us Porters, entirely enthralled, leaned forward, three eager conspirators.
    “Now I grant you we’d had a few, maybe one too many, but he said that when he died, he was going to have his head cut off and donated to science so they could study his brain.”
    I watched as my mother’s jaw fell open, and even Father sat back hard in his chair.
    “That was a touch arrogant, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Conrath?” I said.
    “Yeah, but he was a genius,” Ral countered. “I can only hope to have a career half as fine as his.”
    “I don’t doubt you’re looking at a great future ahead,” Father said, thoroughly pleased with our unusual dinner guest.
    Ral glowed with the praise. “From your lips to God’s ear,” he said.
    “You’d best find someone else for Archie to talk to,” said Mother. “My husband and daughter are avowed atheists.”
    “As so many thinking men and women are today,” he observed, then turned. “And you, Mrs. Porter?”
    “I’m an Episcopalian. Nonpracticing.”
    “Good Lord, I’ve landed in a hotbed of heretics!”
    “I say we drink to that!” Father cried, and the four of us clinked congenial glasses.
    “Eleanor,” Mother called out in the direction of the kitchen door, “bring us more wine.” She smiled prettily. “We seem to be having a celebration.”
    The talk went on uninterrupted for hours, and while the many courses were consumed, no one at the table, if asked, would have had the faintest idea of what we had been fed. Finally, before Ral and Father retired to his laboratory