“Mr. Khoury.”
“Miss Regina.”
She lowered her voice, as if to impart a secret or something unsavory. “Is it true what my brother tells me—even the more educated people in your region are often illiterate?”
Ah. “It’s true,” he said after a pause.
“A pity,” she said, a crease between her brows. “I thought there were many schools. Universities, even.”
“There are, of course, but there is a great divergence between spoken and formally written Arabic. It’s not the same as an English speaker learning to write English.”
“How peculiar.”
“It’s hardly unique,” Catriona said unexpectedly. “Think of the difference between classical and vulgar Latin—people in all provinces could speak vulgar, or common, Latin, but few could write the classical form.”
Miss Regina gave her a polite smile. “Of course.” And, to Elias: “What about watches? Wilfie said you don’t have them because so few people can read the time on a clock?”
He carefully put his wineglass back down. “I have no trouble reading a clock, ma’am.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said quickly, and moved her hand across the tablecloth. “But you are different.”
“Ah,” he said, “I’m quite the same.”
Her cheeks dimpled; she thought he was joking because he was a Cambridge man and wore an academic gown from Ede & Ravenscroft. She should see him at home. He wouldn’t repeat the mistake he had made in Blackstone’s reception room and explain things, how keeping time was bound up with modes of production and that industrialization was fanning outward from Europe, or that mechanical clocks had first been invented in the West and their hourly gong in public places disturbed prayer time in the East, all good reasons why people still relied on other ways of keeping time.
“The people who work the land don’t have watches because the time on a clock is irrelevant for successful farming,” he said to Miss Regina.
She nodded slowly. “I suppose they simply feel the time,” she said, “as they are so attuned to nature—they are still one with the land. It is something we have lost here, with most of the workers now in factories. Some days I worry Marx was right and the poor souls will become part of the machinery.”
“Good lord,” Catriona muttered under her breath. Elias cut her a warning glance. The last time she had exuded such coldness, she had lectured a hapless nobleman in front of his friends. She was supposed to charm these ones here, to facilitate, diplomatically—
“Mr. Leighton,” she said, her voice so low that one had to pay attention to hear her. “We were so pleased that you accepted our invitation at such short notice.”
Leighton waved his hand in an appeasing gesture. “The pleasure is mine. I had thought to myself, just before your invitation arrived: these pieces belong in a museum. As it is, the rooms for my private collections are becoming a little crowded, too.”
“What a well-timed coincidence,” Catriona remarked.
“It shall be a loan, of course, but I’m contemplating a very long loan indeed,” Leighton amended. The parsley bit had attached itself to his front tooth. “As my wife and my niece here inform me, when a man is in the position to do so, sharing the heritage of humankind with the broadest possible audience is his moral duty.”
Both Miss Regina and Wester Ross nodded. Elias forcibly relaxed his jaw, trying to shake the feeling that his negotiation was unfolding in front of him like an absurd stage play.
“Now, tell me more,” Leighton said to Catriona. “What do you have in mind for the exhibition? The bulls ought to take center stage, of course. I envision an entire room just for them.”
Catriona inclined her head as if impressed. “We could certainly try to interest the curator in this idea.”
Leighton lifted the lid off the terrine on his plate. “Yes, yes, that would be splendid.”
“It would of course be truly revolutionary,” Catriona continued, “if you considered a museum closer to the audience where the pieces were found.”
Subtle, thought Elias.
Leighton appeared confused. “What can you mean?”
“I mean that locals would have to travel quite far to see their own heritage displayed if the pieces were exhibited in London,” Catriona ventured.
Miss Regina blinked.
Leighton chuckled. “Ha ha, I like your humor.”
“How so?” asked Wester Ross.