She detached the little flake and replaced the cup in its place.
After that she showed me some queer little terra-cotta figurines - but most of them were just rude. Nasty minds those old people had, I say.
When we went back to the porch Mrs. Mercado was silting polishing her nails. She was holding them out in front of her admiring the effect. I thought myself that anything more hideous than that orange red could hardly have been imagined.
Mrs. Leidner had brought with her from the antika-room a very delicate little saucer broken in several pieces, and this she now proceeded to join together. I watched her for a minute or two and then asked if I could help.
"Oh, yes, there are plenty more." She fetched quite a supply of broken pottery and we set to work. I soon got into the hang of it and she praised my ability. I suppose most nurses are handy with their fingers.
"How busy everybody is," said Mrs. Mercado. "It makes me feel dreadfully idle. Of course I am idle."
"Why shouldn't you be if you like?" said Mrs. Leidner.
Her voice was quite uninterested.
At twelve we had lunch. Afterwards Dr. Leidner and Mr. Mercado cleaned some pottery, pouring a solution of hydrochloric acid over it. One pot went a lovely plum colour and a pattern of bulls' horns came out on another one. It was really quite magical. All the dried mud that no washing would remove sort of foamed and boiled away.
Mr. Carey and Mr. Coleman went out on the dig and Mr. Reiter went off to the photographic room.
"What will you do, Louise?" Dr. Leidner asked his wife. "I suppose you'll rest for a bit?"
I gathered that Mrs. Leidner usually lay down every afternoon.
"I'll rest for about an hour. Then perhaps I'll go out for a short stroll."
"Good. Nurse will go with you, won't you?"
"Of course," I said.
"No, no," said Mrs. Leidner. "I like going alone. Nurse isn't to feel so much on duty that I'm not allowed out of her sight."
"Oh, but I'd like to come," I said.
"No, really, I'd rather you didn't." She was quite firm - almost peremptory. "I must be by myself every now and then. It's necessary to me."
I didn't insist, of course. But as I went off for a short sleep myself it struck me as odd that Mrs. Leidner, with her nervous terrors, should be quite content to walk by herself without any kind of protection.
When I came out of my room at half-past three the courtyard was deserted save for a little boy with a large copper bath who was washing pottery, and Mr. Emmott, who was sorting and arranging it. As I went towards them Mrs. Leidner came in through the archway. She looked more alive than I had seen her yet. Her eyes shone and she looked uplifted and almost gay.
Dr. Leidner came out from the laboratory and joined her. He was showing her a big dish with bulls' horns on it.
"The prehistoric levels are being extraordinarily productive," he said. "It's been a good season so far. Finding that tomb right at the beginning was a real piece of luck. The only person who might complain is Father Lavigny. We've had hardly any tablets so far."
"He doesn't seem to have done very much with the few we have had," said Mrs. Leidner dryly. "He may be a very fine epigraphist but he's a remarkably lazy one. He spends all his afternoons sleeping."
"We miss Byrd," said Dr. Leidner. "This man strikes me as slightly unorthodox - though, of course, I'm not competent to judge. But one or two of his translations have been surprising to say the least of it. I can hardly believe, for instance, that he's right about that inscribed brick, and yet he must know."
After tea Mrs. Leidner asked me if I would like to stroll down to the river. I thought that perhaps she feared that her refusal to let me accompany her earlier in the afternoon might have hurt my feelings.
I wanted her to know that I wasn't the touchy kind, so I accepted at once.
It was a lovely evening. A path led between barley fields and then through some flowering fruit trees. Finally we came to the edge of the Tigris. Immediately on our left was the Tell with the workmen singing in their queer monotonous chant. A little to our right was a big water-wheel which made a queer groaning noise. It used to set my teeth on edge at first. But in the end I got fond of it and it had a queer soothing effect on me. Beyond the water-wheel was the village from which most of the workmen came.
"It's rather beautiful, isn't it?" said Mrs. Leidner.
"It's very peaceful," I said. "It seems funny to me to be so far away from everywhere."
"Far from everywhere," repeated Mrs. Leidner. "Yes. Here at least one might expect to be safe."
I glanced at her sharply, but I think she was speaking more to herself than to me, and I don't think she realized that her words had been revealing.
We began to walk back to the house.
Suddenly Mrs. Leidner clutched my arm so violently that I nearly cried out.
"Who's that, nurse? What's he doing?"
Some little distance ahead of us, just where the path ran near the expedition house, a man was standing. He wore European clothes and he seemed to be standing on tiptoe and trying to look in at one of the windows.
As we watched he glanced round, caught sight of us, and immediately continued on the path towards us. I felt Mrs. Leidner's clutch tighten.
"Nurse," she whispered. "Nurse..."
"It's all right, my dear, it's all right," I said reassuringly.
The man came along and passed us. He was an Iraqi, and as soon as she saw him near to, Mrs. Leidner relaxed with a sigh.
"He's only an Iraqi after all," she said.
We went on our way. I glanced up at the windows as I passed. Not only were they barred, but they were too high from the ground to permit of anyone seeing in, for the level of the ground was lower here than on the inside of the courtyard.
"It must have been just curiosity," I said.
Mrs. Leidner nodded.
"That's all. But just for a minute I thought -"
She broke off.
I thought to myself, "You thought what? That's what I'd like to know. What did you think?"
But I knew one thing now - that Mrs. Leidner was afraid of a definite flesh and blood person.
Chapter 8
NIGHT ALARM
It's a little difficult to know exactly what to note in the week that followed my arrival at Tell Yarimjah.
Looking back as I do from my present standpoint of knowledge I can see a good many little signs and indications that I was quite blind to at the time.
To tell the story properly, however, I think I ought to try and recapture the point of view that I actually held - puzzled, uneasy, and increasingly conscious of something wrong.
For one thing was certain, that curious sense of strain and constraint was not imagined. It was genuine. Even Bill Coleman the insensitive commented upon it.
"This place gets under my skin," I heard him say. "Are they always such a glum lot?"
It was David Emmott to whom he spoke, the other assistant. I had taken rather a fancy to Mr. Emmott; his taciturnity was not, I felt sure, unfriendly. There was something about him that seemed very steadfast and reassuring in an atmosphere where one was uncertain what anyone was feeling or thinking.
"No," he said in answer to Mr. Coleman. "It wasn't like this last year."
But he didn't enlarge on the theme, or say any more.
"What I can't make out is what it's all about," said Mr. Coleman in an aggrieved voice.
Emmott shrugged his shoulders but didn't answer.
I had a rather enlightening conversation with Miss Johnson. I liked her very much. She was capable, practical and intelligent. She had, it was quite obvious, a distinct hero worship for Dr. Leidner.
On this occasion she told me the story of his life since his young days. She knew every site he had dug, and the results of the dig. I would almost dare swear she could quote from every lecture he had ever delivered. She considered him, she told me, quite the finest field archaeologist living.
"And he's so simple. So completely unworldly. He doesn't know the meaning of the word conceit. Only a really great man could be so simple."
"That's true enough," I said. "Big people don't need to throw their weight about."
"And he's so light-hearted too. I can't tell you what fun we used to have - he and Richard Carey and I - the first years we were out here. We were such a happy party. Richard Carey worked with him in Palestine, of course. Theirs is a friendship of ten years or so. Oh, well, I've known him for seven."
"What a handsome man Mr. Carey is," I said.
"Yes - I suppose he is."
She said it rather curtly.
"But he's just a little bit quiet, don't you think?"
"He usedn't to be like that," said Miss Johnson quickly. "It's only'since -"
She stopped abruptly.
"Only since -?" I prompted.
"Oh, well." Miss Johnson gave a characteristic motion of her shoulders. "A good many things are changed nowadays."
I didn't answer. I hoped she would go on - and she did - prefacing her remarks with a little laugh as though to detract from their importance.
"I'm afraid I'm rather a conservative old fogy. I sometimes think that if an archaeologist's wife isn't really interested, it would be wiser for her not to accompany the expedition. It often leads to friction."
"Mrs. Mercado -" I suggested.
"Oh, her!" Miss Johnson brushed the suggestion aside. "I was really thinking of Mrs. Leidner. She's a very charming woman - and one can quite understand why Dr. Leidner 'fell for her' - to use a slang term. But I can't help feeling she's out of place here. She - it unsettles things."
So Miss Johnson agreed with Mrs. Kelsey that it was Mrs. Leidner who was responsible for the strained atmosphere. But then where did Mrs. Leidner's own nervous fears come in?
"It unsettles him," said Miss Johnson earnestly. "Of course, I'm - well, I'm like a faithful but jealous old dog. I don't like to see him so worn out and worried. His whole mind ought to be on the work - not taken up with his wife and her silly fears! If she's nervous of coming to out-of-the-way places, she ought to have stayed in America. I've no patience with people who come to a place and then do nothing but grouse about it!"
And then, a little fearful of having said more than she meant to say, she went on:
"Of course I admire her very much. She's a lovely woman and she's got great charm of manner when she chooses."
And there the subject dropped.
I thought to myself that it was always the same way - wherever women are cooped up together, there's bound to be jealousy. Miss Johnson clearly didn't like her chief's wife (that was perhaps natural) and unless I was much mistaken Mrs. Mercado fairly hated her.
Another person who didn't like Mrs. Leidner was Sheila Reilly. She came out once or twice to the dig, once in a car and twice with some young man on a horse - on two horses I mean, of course. It was at the back of my mind that she had a weakness for the silent young American, Emmott. When he was on duty at the dig she used to stay talking to him, and I thought, too, that he admired her.
One day, rather injudiciously, I thought, Mrs. Leidner commented upon it at lunch.
"The Reilly girl is still hunting David down," she said with a little laugh. "Poor David, she chases you up on the dig even! How foolish girls are!"
Mr. Emmott didn't answer, but under his tan his face got rather red. He raised his eyes and looked right into hers with a very curious expression - a straight, steady glance with something of a challenge in it.
She smiled very faintly and looked away.
I heard Father Lavigny murmur something, but when I said "Pardon?" he merely shook his head and did not repeat his remark.
That afternoon Mr. Coleman said to me:
"Matter of fact I didn't like Mrs. L. any too much at first. She used to jump down my throat every time I opened my mouth. But I've begun to understand her better now. She's one of the kindest women I've ever met. You find yourself telling her all the foolish scrapes you ever got into before you know where you are. She's got her knife into Sheila Reilly, I know, but then Sheila's been damned rude to her once or twice. That's the worst of Sheila - she's got no manners. And a temper like the devil!"
That I could well believe. Dr. Reilly spoilt her.
"Of course she's bound to get a bit full of herself, being the only young woman in the place. But that doesn't excuse her talking to Mrs. Leidner as though Mrs. Leidner were her great-aunt. Mrs. L's not exactly a chicken, but she's a damned good-looking woman. Rather like those fairy women who come out of marshes with lights and lure you away." He added bitterly, "You wouldn't find Sheila luring anyone. All she does is to tick a fellow off."
I only remember two other incidents of any kind of significance.
One was when I went to the laboratory to fetch some acetone to get the stickiness off my fingers from mending the pottery. Mr. Mercado was sitting in a corner, his head was laid down on his arms and I fancied he was asleep. I took the bottle I wanted and went off with it.
That evening, to my great surprise, Mrs. Mercado tackled me.
"Did you take a bottle of acetone from the lab?"
"Yes," I said. "I did."
"You know perfectly well that there's a small bottle always kept in the antika-room."
She spoke quite angrily.
"Is there? I didn't know."
"I think you did! You just wanted to come spying round. I know what hospital nurses are."
I stared at her.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Mrs. Mercado," I said with dignity. "I'm sure I don't want to spy on anyone."
"Oh, no! Of course not. Do you think I don't know what you're here for?"
Really, for a minute or two I thought she must have been drinking. I went away without saying any more. But I thought it was very odd.
