By Annie Earnshaw
Nelly leaned against the SS Sudan’s cedar railing, its lacquer melting into her skin. Though the ship retained the day’s heat, the air had a distinctly unexpected chill. She closed her eyes to the night air, relishing the way it was cooling, but not quite cooled. She knew heat, Philadelphia’s oppressive, mechanical heat. But the stark openness of the Nile was otherworldly. She wanted to write to Thomas Cook, proprietor of this fine vessel, and thank him for discovering this little jewel of water and countryside.
Papyrus whispered against itself on the banks of the Nile, as if it were telling her sweet little secrets. Nelly felt a kinship with the spindly plants; they appeared twiggy and insignificant, but had mettle. The papyrus scrolls that Aunt Cornelia had purchased back in Cairo were enough to confirm this. The scrolls were ancient, Middle Kingdom, maybe older. The material was nearly perfect after two dusty millenia. Triangular letters told a story Nelly couldn’t read, but the colors were exquisite.
“Nelly,” Aunt Cornelia called from the salon doorway. Her aunt brandished a delicate cigarette between her fingers like a majorette before the band heats up. “Come play gin rummy.”
“I’m fine here,” Nelly countered, her tone sweet as spun sugar.
“That Avery fellow is dealing and we’ve already given you a hand.” Aunt Cornelia flicked a tiny snow of ash from the tip of the cigarette.
Nelly rapped her fingers on the railing once and retreated to the salon. Aunt Cornelia would not be deterred, and she was not afraid to make some sort of scene if the object of her desire warranted. Though she wasn’t a widow, Aunt Cornelia had the air of one. She moved through her world with gusto, not tact. Members of her set found her so entertaining, they didn’t question her demands. What must it be like for one’s whims to hold such weight, to exist with resonance and reverence?
In the middle of the salon, seven of their fellow travelers perched around a green felt table. A railroad man accompanied by his wife and a man who claimed royal blood and his wife. Nestled between the two men was a decadent, sly woman who, Nelly suspected, was one of their mistresses. She was determined to find out which man had been bold enough to bring both wife and lover on his exotic cruise.
Nelly didn’t often play games in mixed company, but with a small population of travelers on the cruise, she supposed they all had to compromise on some propriety. She felt small sitting at the table, like she was the daughter or little sister of the bunch.
As Nelly settled between Aunt Cornelia and one of the wives, the Avery fellow finished dealing. His fingers were long and lithe, like a pickpocketer’s. He’d shed his dinner jacket, plucked out his cuff links. Wisps of sun-bleached hair dusted the strip of skin above his wrists.
“I’ve never played with eight,” said the railroad man to Avery. “Is it terribly different from two, Jamison?”
“Not much,” said Jamison. “The difference is approximately six.”
This earned a hearty guffaw from the rest of the table. Jamison smiled cheekily, boyishly, as he raked in the spoils of his quick wit.
The viscount drew first and leaned over to ask Jamison for advice. As they continued to play, every conversation seemed to involve him. The viscount was curious as to how the Averys acquired their oil-rich land at such a fortunate time. The mistress wanted his opinion on the ship’s dining choices. And if he wasn’t the intended recipient of a comment, every remark still filtered through him. Nelly found herself glancing toward Jamison as Aunt Cornelia extolled the virtues of sailing over train travel.
“Far too dusty,” said Aunt Cornelia. “And the locomotives make such a terrible racket. It absolutely frays my nerves.”
This received a series of approving nods.
“I don’t much mind it,” Nelly offered. Her opinion was small, but the act of speaking slightly out of turn brought back that fizzy feeling.
“I must agree,” said Jamison, catching her gaze and holding onto it. It couldn’t have meant anything; they were seated directly across from each other, after all. It would have been impossible to go the entire game without sharing a glance. His gaze held a depth she couldn’t yet decipher.
After the railroad man and the mistress thoroughly trounced their opponents, Aunt Cornelia declared that she was taking her leave.
“Nelly,” she said with a quick downward nod.
Nelly stood, but didn’t follow her. “I think I’ll take the air again.”
Her aunt looked Nelly up and down, doing her own form of deciphering. “You let out the most luxurious yawn not three minutes ago.”
“Second wind,” Nelly said. “I found the last round to be most invigorating.”
Aunt Cornelia harrumphed as she gathered her beaded reticule. “Do have someone escort you back to the cabin when you’re thoroughly aired out.”
Nelly pursed her lips and made for the deck, relishing in the tiniest spot of rebellion.
“Trouble among the Cornelias?”
Nelly knew it was him; she had no need to look.
“The elder does like to make a spectacle,” Nelly said.
“From where I was sitting, the younger was egging her on.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Nelly countered. She let her body sag against the railing. Flicks of moonlight caught on the water’s surface as they looked over the landscape.
Jamison matched her posture, elbows braced, hips at ease. “I sincerely disagree. I know you to be quite meddlesome.”
“I wasn’t aware we’d met before,” said Nelly.
“Not before yesterday.”
“Then your suppositions about me must be false.”
Jamison chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I wouldn’t be so certain. I’m an adept judge of character.”
Nelly turned, opening her shoulders to him. “Well, tell me about myself.”
He chuckled once. “I’m not falling for that.”
“I can handle your honesty.”
“Of that, I have no doubt.” His gaze traced her up and down. “I’m abstaining out of self-preservation. If I have to be trapped in this tin can with you for 20 days, I daren’t play all my cards so early in the game.”
“That’s hardly fair,” Nelly said. “I don’t know what game we’re playing.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I would’ve thought that was obvious.”
Nelly exhaled, fingers clicking the ruby bracelet that Aunt Cornelia said paired nicely with her coloring. The stones shone like juicy pomegranate seeds against her pale, freckling skin.
Jamison looked back out to the opposite bank. “Was I too forward?’
Nelly shook her head. “No, I–”
“Avery!” bellowed a brandy-soaked voice from inside the salon. “We’re playing whist.”
Nelly inclined her head to the voice’s owner, who was teetering back to the card table. “You’re being summoned.”
Jamison knocked his knuckles twice against the railing before returning to the salon. Nelly half expected him to walk her to her cabin out of propriety’s sake. But Jamison Avery was deliciously improper.
“Behold the Speos Artemidos!”
A squat man with a chipper transatlantic accent swept one arm toward the temple. His abundantly-pocketed khaki outfit matched the dull, sandy expanse of rock behind him. Carved into the imposing hulk were six flat columns, each adorned with a series of equally flat carvings. The elements had withered away the exterior’s majesty, great swaths of carving were flaked away like aged plaster.
“One of the quainter temples we will see over the length of our voyage,” said the guide, jovial yet apologetic. “The lady Pharaoh Hatshepsut ordered it to be carved into the rock in honor of the lion goddess, Pakhet. You may more intimately know her as Artemis.”
As the guide continued his diatribe about reliefs and hieroglyphs and coup d’états, Nelly traced her eyes over the sandy horizon. Should the cloud of fly-addled donkeys dissipate, they would be utterly stranded. No distant sounds of machinery or civilization; no trickling of a resplendent stream; no humming on the horizon. No oasitic refuge or luxurious lap in which they could lie.
Juxtaposed against the endlessness, this hunk of rock was the perfect place for a temple. It carved up from the sand like a fist punched through a ceiling, a great disruptor among the monotony. The desolation made this place fearsome, but the temple made it holy.
“Oh Nelly, I may melt right into the sand,” said Aunt Cornelia as the guide led them through the temple’s modest entrance. “How you’re faring in this heat, I can’t be certain.”
“I’m feeling well enough,” Nelly said as a thimble-sized drop of sweat sluiced down the back of her right leg. On the left, another followed.
Next to Aunt Cornelia, the mistress leaned over to join the conversation. “The viscount told me the captain is organizing a swimming excursion when we return.” Her lips curled up at the mention of her supposed beloved.
“That will be just the ticket.” Aunt Cornelia dismissively snapped open her fan and stepped into the shade. She wove an arm through Nelly’s as they nestled themselves between more suitable company. Nelly had been hoping to catch a glimpse of the mistress’ rejected sneer.
Inside the temple, a damp, stifling heat settled over them, though a cool breeze rustled the hem of Nelly’s dress. The stillness and solitude reminded Nelly that, above all, this was a place for the worshipped.
“How strange it feels to be here,” Nelly mumbled in Aunt Cornelia’s direction, though she wasn’t necessarily speaking to her.
“In what way?” Jamison caught her eye above Aunt Cornelia’s fussy, wide-brimmed hat. His voice wasn’t particularly loud, but several pairs of eyes turned in Nelly’s direction.
She swallowed. “I feel like a trespasser, but also not quite.”
“Well, I can assure you,” interjected the curious little guide with a buoyant chuckle, “our presence here is perfectly good and right. Unless you lot decide to cut loose.”
This earned another hearty laugh from the rest of the patrons. As the laughter crowed around them, Nelly stubbed the cognac toe of her shoe into the stone floor.
“I didn’t care for that,” Nelly confessed as they boarded the ship that afternoon. Aunt Cornelia was several paces ahead of them, inundating the railroad wife with tales of her and Nelly’s laborious yet luxurious journey from Philadelphia to Cairo.
“I confess you’ve surprised me,” said Jamison. “I took you for a common criminal when we first met. I should think you would’ve enjoyed some trespassing.”
“It certainly does liven up the day.” Nelly discreetly wiped her palm on her linen-coated hip before offering her hand to Jamison. His grip was steady as he helped her from the gangplank. “I’m afraid I don’t have the backbone for a life of crime. My sensibilities are far too delicate.”
“I heartily disagree,” said Jamison as they drifted along the deck toward the cabins.
“About my penchant for crime?”
“About your delicate sensibilities.”
At the river’s edge, a bank of papyrus swished and rustled.
“In any case, I feel I should make an offering to Artemis now,” said Nelly. “As recompense for trampling through her temple.”
“I’ll let her know when I perform my evening offering,” Jamison said.
Nelly swatted his arm, ignored the cords of muscle and soft skin under his linen shirt. “Do you worship any other goddesses, or just the lady of the hunt?”
Jamison hesitated at this, and Nelly’s throat pinched. She didn’t think she’d spoken out of turn, but she’d certainly been more coy and facetious than was socially acceptable after seven days of knowing a man. When they spoke, she forgot he was a man at all; instead, he was simply Jamison.
“My father certainly wishes I would,” Jamison said after another moment of reflection.
Nelly quirked an eyebrow, not to be coy, but to encourage his confession.
“He’s selected a match for me,” said Jamison. “I thought I might escape that, being the fourth son and all.”
“I see.” Nelly shifted toward the railing and hoped he didn’t perceive the movement.
Jamison settled his hands in his pockets. “Though I have never been very good at complying with his requests.”
The party raged well past three. Coupes of champagne and decanters of wine and highballs of gin mixed with sinfully sweet cordial were distributed with alacrity. A real Egyptian band pounded drums made of stretched animal skin and wood that smelled of musk and spice. A troupe of dancers swirled over the deck in tantalizingly sheer cloth. The atmosphere was pure seduction and exoticism.
The next morning was anything but.
The sun illuminated a haggard load of passengers, half of whom couldn’t stand the thought of breakfast and half of whom couldn’t shove enough food down their gullets. Nelly fell into the latter. She slathered crisp toast with fig preserves and butter that, in the sunshine, was on its way to melted. Warm bacon grease saturated her tongue. Cinnamon-sweet pastries coated her teeth with a fuzzy sort of feeling.
“Did you sleep well, Auntie?” asked Nelly over a delicate glass of earthy, saccharine mint tea.
“Of course,” said Aunt Cornelia. Her traveling outfit was pristinely fashioned, though her skin held a certain pallor. Upon closer inspection, she looked vaguely green. “I’m most refreshed after last night’s exertions.”
“It was terribly exciting.” Nelly glanced around to the other patrons, observing their morning rituals. The railroad man and his wife sat across from each other, he vivacious and gesturing, she stoic. A pair of older women (though Nelly would never accuse them of being old aloud) took a full English at the table adjacent.
And at the end of the deck sat Jamison Avery, table empty save a newspaper and a hearty cup of coffee.
The steamship lurched below them.
“I’m going to the cabin.” The table rattled as Aunt Cornelia stood. “You look terribly pale, Nelly. Do stay on deck and get some sun.”
“Of course.” Nelly pressed her lips together as her aunt jostled toward the suite.
Jamison, brow furrowed, nodded at Aunt Cornelia.
Nelly shrugged, then took a knowing sip of her tea.
His eyebrows popped upward once before he stood, folded his paper, nimbly pinched the handle of his coffee cup. He didn’t appear unsteady, though he’d tried nearly every whisky behind the bar last night.
“Nelly,” he said, dropping his newspaper to the table.
“Now it’s my turn to confess that you’ve surprised me,” Nelly quipped.
“Is that so?” He tilted his head. “How have I managed to do that?”
Nelly took a delicate sip. “I expected you to have forgotten my name after imbibing so joyously.”
“Not to worry,” he said. “I’ve forgotten everyone else’s. Your assessment of me still holds water.”
“And the name of your fiancée? Is it still enshrined in your memory?”
“I don’t have a fiancée.” His response was quick, as if on instinct.
“But your father would like you to have one,” said Nelly.
Jamison leaned over slightly more than was proper. “Is this why you avoided me last night?”
“I haven’t the foggiest as to what you mean,” said Nelly. “I was rather distracted by the spectacle.”
“Care to guess what I was distracted by?”
“The drink,” Nelly deadpanned.
Jamison laughed mirthlessly. “From where I sat, you needed your fair share of distraction as well.”
He stood, chair skittering a few inches from the force of his body. He snatched his paper with one hand and stalked away. It was the second time someone had left her alone at the breakfast table in a short succession, but this absence felt more substantial than Aunt Cornelia’s. She turned in her chair to watch him palm the brass railing, descend the stairs. Nelly couldn’t decide whether or not she wanted him to look back.
She turned back to the table, lifted her glass to her lips, paused. With a delicate clink, she set it back in its saucer, and stood.
Nelly knocked on Jamison’s door with an open palm. The soft lumps of flesh made a duller sound than she was expecting, but she didn’t want to draw attention by rapping her knuckles against the lacquered oak.
The door whipped open and Nelly stepped back. He stood there, top button undone, hair raked askew.
“I didn’t feel satisfied with our conversation,” Nelly said.
“As I see.” Jamison stepped aside. “Are you coming in?”
“Certainly not,” said Nelly.
Jamison’s chest rose and sank, his gaze settling on something on the horizon. I don’t have a fiancée.”
“We differ on that assessment.”
Jamison sputtered for a response, and if Nelly was honest with herself, she understood. She was nearing that age as well, those middle twenties, when it’s time to pair off and copulate. Because no matter how exotic the dances or vibrant the gold jewelry, they had to pack up their papyrus scrolls and mother-of-pearl delicacies and go home. They came to this sacred river not to bathe in it, but to allow it to carry them further away from the things they left.
“Fine.” Jamison raked an open hand over his jaw; it was blooming with stubble. For the first time, he looked truly tired, as if he was relaxing the ligatures that had kept him together. “But right now, at this present moment,” he held out a hand in offering, “I am blissfully unattached.”
Good sense and propriety told her to stomp on his toe. But he had the haggard look of a man untethered.
He gazed at her the way children stare wide-eyed at juicy, delectable fruit, the way the devout gaze upon frescoes. And, if she was honest, she wanted to be worshipped.
Nelly looked left, right, saw that the deck was empty. She placed her fingers in his palm, his skin was feverish and desperate. And, with an unfamiliar prowess, she stepped over the threshold.
