The Visitors (49 page)
‘I saw them leave for the Valley last night,’ I said, after a long silence. ‘I couldn’t tell who it was then, Miss Mack. But I heard their donkeys and saw their lanterns.’
‘What time was that, Lucy?’
‘About half past eleven.’
‘You’re sure of that?’ I nodded, and she looked at her watch. ‘They’ve been away nearly five hours. How very, very strange. To go to the Valley at night, under cover of darkness. To return at first light. It does seem–– I fear it seems clandestine.’
She rose and looked down at me sadly. ‘We must never speak of this, Lucy,’ she went on. ‘You do understand, dear? I’m sure there will be a perfectly reasonable explanation – and perhaps we’ll hear it in due course from Eve or her father or Mr Carter, though we mustn’t
dream
of asking them, of course. But at the moment, with all these rumours of theft already flying about – you do see, Lucy, don’t you, how badly this could look? It could be very damaging. We must never, never speak of it – not to anyone.’ She paused.
‘I want you to give me your solemn word, Lucy.’
I gave it to her – and I kept that promise for eighty years. I told no one what we’d seen, not even Frances. I finally broke my word late that evening in my garden in Highgate, when – knowing by then it could do no harm, all the participants being long dead, the events of that night having in the intervening decades gradually leaked out, though not, perhaps, in their entirety – I told Dr Benjamin Fong what Miss Mack and I had seen, from the deck of the
Queen Hatshepsut.
When I’d finished my account of a sighting that had taken on a dreamlike quality, as if it had been an apparition, Dr Fong sighed. ‘The Monday night,’ he said. ‘So it
was
then. I’d suspected as much. It had to be one of two days. It could have been the Sunday night, but the Monday always seemed the more likely to me. They had the advantage of electricity in the tomb by then. They must have decided to make their move between Ibrahim Effendi’s inspection Monday afternoon and Rex Engelbach’s at noon on the Tuesday – and they couldn’t risk being seen, so they had only the hours overnight at their disposal. So that is when they did it.
That’s
when the deceptions began.’
He rose, and stood looking down at me. ‘Will you tell me one last thing, Miss Payne, before I leave? When you and Miss Mackenzie finally met up with Carter and Carnarvon, with your friend Eve, did any of them mention that expedition, explain why they’d gone to the Valley that night in secret? Did they tell you why they went, and what they found?’
‘No. We saw them some days later, at Castle Carter. Nothing was said on that subject. Miss Mackenzie and I kept our secret – and they kept theirs.’
I hesitated, and made to rise from my chair. ‘Meanwhile, it’s late – and it’s getting cold. I’m very tired. No more questions, Dr Fong. You must leave me now.’
To my relief, he did not argue. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘No – please don’t get up, Miss Payne. I can see myself out. I know the way now.’
Our meeting with Lord Carnarvon, Eve and Howard Carter took place later that week, some days after the official, ceremonial ‘opening’ of the tomb. Eve finally ‘ferreted us out’, as she put it. Radiant with happiness, excited and nervy, she called at our houseboat, reproached us for not letting her know we were there, and invited us to tea at Castle Carter. She and her father would shortly be returning to England, she said: they’d be there for Christmas, and would return to Egypt some time in January – there was so much to arrange regarding the tomb and the way its excavation should be handled, but her father was anxious to see us before they left.
‘Prepare for a surprise,’ she said, her eyes sparkling, ‘you won’t recognise him, Miss Mack – nor you, Lucy! Pups is like a new man – so much stronger than he was in the summer at Highclere. Discovering the tomb has revived him – he says it acts on him like a magnum of champagne. I shan’t say a word now, because I know he’ll want to describe it all to you – and Howard will too, of course.’
I was sure that amiable Miss Mack would be a welcome guest at Castle Carter; I was less sure of my own welcome, given what Carter had said to me at our last meeting at Nuthanger. When we reached his house that day, I hung back shyly, half afraid that Carter would order me to leave. But he gave no sign of animosity, or even of remembering that incident. Instead, he bustled us onto his terrace, where a tea table had been set up and where Lord Carnarvon, Eve and another man were waiting for us. In the burst of excited greetings that broke out, he drew me aside and to my great surprise said, in his brusque way: ‘You’re looking well. In at the kill, I see. Been here long? Heard from Lady Rose yet? How’s that little dog of hers?’
The little dog was happy and fit, or so Rose and Peter had informed me in their last letter. I told Carter this, and then, summoning my nerve, offered my congratulations. ‘Blessed by the gods,’ he replied, ‘three days into the dig – and there it was. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Lord Carnarvon will tell you all about it. Let me get you some tea. And before you leave, you must admire my canary. Not
the first one that brought us such luck, but the one Eve brought me from Cairo – the golden bird who’ll ensure our luck continues.’
He placed me in a chair next to Eve, who smiled up at him, and told me this canary was called Fidelio: it was a sweet little bird that sang from dawn till dusk. ‘The first one did that too,’ said the other man present, a tall, heavily built stranger, to whom I’d not been introduced, but whom I recognised at once as the fourth member of that secret night-time expedition to the Valley. He was standing just behind Eve’s chair, puffing on a cigarette, his expression sorrowful; he seemed uncertain whether to go or stay.
‘Oh yes indeedy,’ he went on, in a reflective tone, ‘that first canary carolled away. Morning, noon and night. Relentless it was. Until the cobra got it.’ He thrust a large hand in my direction. ‘Haven’t done the honours. I’m Arthur Callender. Call me Pecky: everyone does.’
‘Mr Callender is a very old friend of Howard’s,’ Eve put in sweetly, and with a dimpling smile, as she introduced us. Mr Callender trapped my small hand in his large one, gripped it hard and shook it manfully. ‘He’s the most – brilliant engineer, with many years of experience on the Egyptian railways. It’s he who contrived to light the tomb for us and – and a thousand other things.’
‘Semi-retired,’ Callender put in. ‘Have a farm now. In Armant. Not far from here. On the river. Sugar cane… and suchlike. Old Egyptian hand. Out here too long for my own good. Hail from Lancashire originally. Know Lancashire, do you? No? Neither do I, not any more. Left when I was three. Been to Australia, by any chance, Miss Payne?’ He cocked a nervous, bloodshot eye in my direction. ‘No? Pity. Great place. Marvellous country. Yes, indeedy. Opportunities aplenty. I spent time there. Years ago now, of course.’ He took a gulp of breath, stroked his pencil moustache, smoothed back his gingery hair and, having given this lurch of biography, lapsed into musing silence.
He had not been handed any tea, I realised – and no cup seemed to have been provided for him. Eve, who noticed this in the same second as I did, leaned towards Carter and said something inaudible.
‘Oh, Callender won’t be wanting tea,’ Carter said, breaking off the conversation he’d been having with Miss Mack, tantalising phrases of which had drifted across to me. ‘He’s off on a walk – he told me. Going for a stroll by the river, aren’t you, Callender?’
‘Wouldn’t say no to a cuppa first, old boy, actually. If there’s one going,’ Callender said mildly, eyeing the teapot and a cake that was now circulating. He caught Carter’s gaze and seemed to reconsider. ‘Except – well, maybe not,’ he went on, his tone resigned. ‘Time calls. The river beckons. Better shift myself. Nice to meet you, Miss Payne, Mrs – er – Macpherson. Jolly exciting times, eh?’
He ambled away and was shortly to be seen ambling out of the gates to Castle Carter.
‘
Lancashire
,’ said Eve thoughtfully, with another dimpling smile. ‘Does that explain it? I’d felt
sure
it was South Africa. But then I’m simply hopeless at accents.’
‘Heart of gold,’ Carter said in a forceful tone.
‘Lord, yes. Absolutely,’ Carnarvon confirmed, with a tiny satirical glance at Eve.
‘Callender’d give his right hand for me,’ Carter said, even more firmly. ‘Bit of a rough diamond, but a damn good engineer, nothing he can’t contrive. If we’d needed to shore up the roof in the tomb, Miss Mackenzie, he’d have been our man. And when we start bringing out the things we’ve found – we’ll need his expertise then. It’s going to be a difficult business: the entrance and the stairs are narrow, you see, and… ’
That was Mr Callender: disposed of. Carter, Eve and her father then began to tell us about the tomb, how they had felt, what they had discovered. All three kept speaking at once and, once they began, couldn’t stop. Miss Mackenzie was listening closely, as I was; she could not, of course, produce her notebook, but had resolved to remember everything we were told for transcribing later that day. I could see she was trying hard; but very soon we were both lost, dazzled and confused in a bewilderment of riches. There were several magnificent gilded couches, one with lion heads; there was a throne, the most beautiful object Lord Carnarvon had ever seen in Egypt, its workmanship exceptionally fine: it showed Tutankhamun as a young man, with his wife tenderly bent towards him; there were caskets, golden chariots; strange white oviform boxes whose contents had not yet been examined – all of it stacked, higgledy-piggledy, under, behind and above; treasures undreamed of, all infinitely precious, their position frighteningly precarious.
‘It was like looking into the property shop of some ancient opera company,’ Carter said. ‘And in this first room, which we’re calling the Antechamber, there was an opening into another small space – we’re calling that the Annexe––’
‘And inside
that
,’ Carnarvon interrupted, ‘the confusion and disorder were even greater. It’s another storeroom – everything Tutankhamun could have needed in the afterlife. We just peered into it, Miss Mackenzie. You couldn’t have risked entering it. There are thousands of objects there, heaped on top of one another, tossed onto the floor. One step inside and you’d risk breaking the most astonishing, exquisite things. We’re facing a gargantuan task. We’ll need expert help – we hope the Metropolitan may assist us.’
‘We think the tomb was broken into twice in antiquity,’ Carter put in. ‘That accounts for the disorder. We may have to revise that view, but that’s what we think at present. One party of thieves seems to have been after the perfumes and the anointing oils, the cosmetic creams and unguents – they were priceless then. We found the containers they’d left behind. Glorious things, finely carved, made of calcite, alabaster, but they left them – all they wanted was the face creams. We even found their fingerprints in the residue.’
‘And the other party of thieves was after gold,’ Carnarvon interjected. ‘We could see the places where they’d snapped statues off their bases, and tried to prise the beaten gold from the chariots and the throne.’
‘Howard found this ancient piece of cloth, Lucy,’ Eve said, ‘the kind of linen the natives still wind around their heads to this day. It was just tossed down – and bundled up inside it were some of the king’s beautiful, beautiful gold rings––’
‘So we think the thieves may
have been disturbed,’ Carter interrupted. ‘Caught in the act. Then, when the necropolis officials returned to the tomb, to restore some semblance of order, they simply left the rings in the thief’s turban, just as they’d found them.’
‘Oh heavens,’ Miss Mack cried, ‘you think the thieves were caught in the act, Mr Carter? Imagine it, Lucy!’
‘I do. That is my belief at present. And if they were, Miss Mackenzie, we know precisely what fate awaited them. Torture. Impalement. A slow and a hideously painful death.’
‘Oh, please don’t talk about thieves, Howard,’ Eve said quickly, and I saw she had paled. ‘Please don’t let’s think of that, or of them. We can’t be sure that happened – they may have escaped.’ She hesitated, with an odd pleading look at her father. ‘The
important
thing, Myrtle, is that the robbers seem to have taken very little, hardly anything at all really, almost nothing – and – and they’ve left us so much. So many, many lovely things. When we first went inside the – oh, it was the day of days, wasn’t it, Pups?’
‘The greatest day of my life, my darling,’ Carnarvon said quietly. He reached across and took Eve’s hand in his. There was a silence. ‘Though there may yet be an even greater one, Miss Mackenzie,’ he continued, in a careful, measured way, as if rehearsing his words. ‘We may have penetrated only
part
of Tutankhamun’s tomb, you see. Beyond the north wall of the Antechamber, which is sealed, as the first two walls were, there may be another chamber. We believe we may find the king’s burial place. The Holy of Holies.’
‘A
third
wall? The king’s actual
sarcophagus
? Mercy!’ Miss Mack coloured.
‘That wall is
guarded,
’ Eve said, her voice unsteady. ‘Standing either side of it there are twin statues, of the king and his
ka
, and
they’re like – sentinels
.
They’re life-size, deathly black like Osiris, with eyes made of obsidian. Their eyes glitter. They’ve been keeping watch for over three thousand years, and I felt they were watching
us
. I wanted to explain to them –
we
hadn’t come to rob or disturb. We came – reverently.’ Her voice caught and tears sprang to her eyes. Carter immediately interrupted.
‘All that’s in the future,’ he said briskly. ‘We shan’t know what’s behind that north wall for weeks yet. We can’t think of investigating it, let alone dismantling it, until after the Antechamber is cleared. That space is extremely cramped; we can’t risk damaging the objects there. They have to be recorded, conserved, removed to safety. We have weeks of the most delicate, painstaking work ahead of us. When that’s complete, and not before, we’ll investigate what’s behind that wall. Its wonders – if such they prove – must wait. Meanwhile, we’ll
hope
.’ He glanced at Carnarvon, who, meeting his gaze evenly, inclined his head. ‘Eve, why don’t you take Lucy to see our little canary?’ Carter added.