The Visitors (60 page)

He paused, his eyes resting on the Valley, and then, after a pause, he asked Frances if she’d bring him some more tea. She left us, and he continued to gaze out across the river for some minutes until, rousing himself, as if suddenly remembering I was there, he said: ‘So, Eve tells me you and Miss Mackenzie are leaving us – I’m sorry to hear that. Where are you off to, Miss Payne? Back to England – Cambridge, I think it was?’

I explained I was going to Paris first, because my father and stepmother were there.

‘I’ve never been to Paris before,’ I said, trying to fill the silence. ‘My father is writing a book. It’s about Euripides, and his influence on French dramatists. He’s working in the Bibliothèque nationale at the moment.’

‘Excellent. Writer, eh? Hadn’t realised. Good for him. Wonderful city, Paris – you’ll like it. My wife and I go there every year – she grew up in France, prefers it to England, I often think. We always stay at the Ritz and they look after one jolly well, we find, Miss Payne. I recommend it. Charming rooms, excellent breakfasts. I always like guava jelly at breakfast, funny habit of mine, don’t know where that came from – and they get it in especially for me. Might you be staying there?’

‘I don’t think so. No.’

‘Pity. Bit stuffy, of course. I’m sure there are many livelier places. Goodness, yes. Places where painters and writers go, Left Bank, Montmartre, that sort of thing. That might be more your father’s line, maybe. I’ve always thought
I
’d like to be an artist, Miss Payne, dabbled with it a bit. I have a good eye, or so I like to think – well, you need a good eye to
collect
things, and I’ve always done that. I take photographs too, you know: pride myself on those – not just your common-or-garden snaps. I’m not in Harry Burton’s league, of course, but I try to be artistic.’ He paused.

‘Hollywood’s interested in our tomb – did you hear? So I had a go at writing a cinematic treatment, thought I might as well give it a try. I could see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, but it was a bit tricky to get down on paper, I found. Don’t know why, but I’m not always too comfortable on the writing front – I expect your father could teach me a thing or two there. But I plan to help Carter out with this book of ours. I thought I might write an introduction to it. Nothing too wordy, just a modest contribution – what do you think, Miss Payne?’

‘I’m sure that would be a help, Lord Carnarvon.’

‘Well, I hope so. Not too sure if Carter welcomes the book idea. Difficult to tell with him at present. Under a lot of strain, you know. Eve says he finds it hard to cope with that… ’ He let the sentence tail away and turned his eyes back to the river.

There was a silence during which I tried to think of something to say, and failed. I suspected Carnarvon’s predicament was similar; after an awkward interval, he turned to me, his eyes bright with inspiration, with information lost and now recalled.

‘Rose… ’ he said. ‘Rose and little Peter – heard from them, have you, Miss Payne?’

‘Yes, I had a letter last week. They’re – very well.’ That letter had contained the news of Rose’s birthday puppy, its illness and demise. I wasn’t sure whether to mention this.

‘Delightful children – very fond of them. Devoted to their poor mother. A sad business, that. I still miss Mrs d’Erlanger. A beautiful woman and one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever known. I can’t believe that door is forever closed… It’s been a year now, you know. Terrible for Rose and Peter. I hear their father is remarrying. An American.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ I looked at him uncertainly; the ghost of Poppy d’Erlanger rose up before my eyes; I caught the drift of her scent. ‘
Oh, hellishness
,’ she remarked. I think perhaps Carnarvon also sensed her presence.

‘Well, that’s what I’ve
heard
, Miss Payne.’ He turned his cool grey eyes to mine. ‘I know I can rely on your discretion. Say nothing to Rose and Peter – I may be misinformed. Probably rumour and surmise – probably nothing to it
,
like all this stuff they write about me in the papers. Ah, Frances, there you are. Thank you.’

He drank the tea Frances brought – I think he was relieved at her return, as I was. Poppy’s ghost sighed and vanished. Carnarvon rummaged in the deep pockets of his elegant, shabby jacket. ‘Now where did I put them?’ he said, patting one, then another. ‘Ah, here we are… ’

He extracted two small parcels, wrapped in newspaper and tied up with string, and examined them with a frown. ‘The thing is,’ he began in a hesitant way, ‘you two girls have been very kind to Eve recently, and I’m grateful. It’s far worse for her than it is for me, all this guff in the newspapers. I can shrug it aside, water off a duck’s back – but she tends to brood on it. Eve is sensitive, imaginative – and she has me to look after on top of everything else. Not always in the best of health, which is a worry for her and – well, never mind all that. No man could have a better or a more loving daughter, or a more loyal friend and ally, that’s my point. The apple of my eye. Eve told me how you came to her aid in the Valley the other week, how kind you were – and how discreet.’ He paused. ‘These little things are our way of thanking you for that.’

He handed the two parcels across. ‘To be opened when you get home to England, Miss Payne – and you, Frances, when you’re back in America. Not before, agreed? And no need to discuss them. Just a small memento. Our little secret, eh?’

With that, he shook hands with us in turn and strolled into the American House. He left not long afterwards with Carter, the two men setting off for the Castle. Eve kissed Miss Mack and me goodbye, then left in the opposite direction for Luxor. Frances and I escaped to her bedroom and said our farewells there, in front of the small shrine of photographs: her little brother, lost in the waters of Penobscot Bay, watched over us.

‘I think our presents are identical,’ Frances said, examining her parcel and mine in a covetous way. ‘Same size, same shape, same weight… Oh, what can they be? Shall we open them now, Lucy?’

‘No, no, no, no,’ I said, though I could tell from the wicked glint of amusement in her eyes that she’d probably open hers the second I’d gone.

‘Oh, very well,’ she replied, and then held up her hand and pressed my palm against hers.

‘Eternal truth, for ever and always, remember,’ she said fiercely, and when we’d solemnly renewed our pledge, we hugged, kissed goodbye and then I left. Miss Mack descended the track to our houseboat slowly. I ran all the way to the Nile.

It didn’t take me long to pack. My standards would have disappointed the perfectionist Nicola Dunsire, but I was torn by grief at leaving and excitement at where I’d be next, so I dispensed with tissue paper and just stuffed my clothes into cases. I packed my prize possessions more carefully, the little Egyptian library, all my letters and diaries, Peter’s drawing of a rainbow, the books on my reading list… I could tick them all off except for one, a translation of Flaubert’s
L’Éducation sentimentale
, which Nicola had told me to save for my journey. In half an hour the task was complete – and throughout that half-hour the keys of the Oliver No. 9 clattered away without pause. They fell silent as I left my cabin to go on deck, and not long afterwards Miss Mack joined me there, her face pale, her brow concentrated. Sinking into a chair, giving me a dreamy, seraphic smile, she broke with routine, lit her daily cigarette two hours early and inhaled deeply.

‘Lucy, my dear,’ she said, ‘it is done.’

The solemnity with which she spoke could mean only one thing. I said: ‘The Book?’

Miss Mack inclined her head in assent. ‘It suddenly came to me, dear, walking back from the American House. There the ending was, as clear as could be. It was like taking dictation, like being a
medium
, Lucy dear. Most extraordinary. I simply sat there, and my fingers
flew
over the keys. Two paragraphs – well, maybe four; five or six at the most – and it was over. I do hope I have done it all justice. I have tried very hard, you know. Triple-spaced. Four hundred pages, Lucy, imagine that! I have wrapped it in my best silk scarf, the one Mother bought me in Florence all those years ago, and the second I get back to Princeton I shall take it to a publisher my dear father knew. He’s a little elderly now, and retired of course, but he will know
exactly
where I should place it.’

Tears had welled up in her eyes. I embraced, kissed and congratulated her. This was wonderful news, a fitting climax to our stay – perhaps, I suggested shyly, we should drink a toast to it? Miss Mack thought that an excellent idea, so Mohammed was asked to fetch wine, and two glasses were poured. The Book, which had been rechristened several times over the course of the past two months, now had its final title:
In Search of a Lost Tomb.

We drank to its success, and, as the light began to burn red over the Theban hills, Miss Mack, in an act of great daring, poured us both a second glass, diluting mine very heavily with Evian. We were sipping these when we were suddenly interrupted by halloos, huffings and puffings from the river path; seconds later, pale, sweating and deeply agitated, Pecky Callender appeared.

Miss Mack, rising in surprise to greet him, took one look at his expression and sent me below. I lay in my cabin and read the first chapter of the Flaubert, wondering what could be happening on the deck above, from which the sound of Callender’s voice, but not his words, drifted down to me. He spoke, with brief interjections from Miss Mack, for half an hour. Then I heard his footsteps descend the gangplank and set off on the track along the river.

Could it be – was it possible? I hastened back to the deck: one look at the consternation on Miss Mack’s face and I knew my surmises were wrong.

Callender had come to say his goodbyes to us, but his chief reason for visiting was not as I’d supposed. He’d been escaping from the Castle, Miss Mack explained – and from a bitter quarrel that had broken out between Carnarvon and Carter, only minutes after they’d arrived there. Callender had quickly made himself scarce and fled to his own room – but he’d still been able to hear their voices, especially Carter’s. It had gone on for a good hour and had left him shaken. It had ended, he’d related unhappily, when Carter ordered Lord Carnarvon to leave his house that instant and never return.

‘He banned Lord Carnarvon from his house?’ I stared at Miss Mack. ‘I can’t believe that. Did Mr Callender explain why they quarrelled? Lord Carnarvon seemed perfectly calm when Frances and I were speaking to him.’

‘Lucy, I truly don’t know – and I don’t think Pecky knows either. He said Carter was shouting about
partage
,
about what should go to the Egyptian Museum and what shouldn’t – he and Lord Carnarvon differ in their views on that issue, I think, though I can’t be sure. At one point,’ she lowered her eyes, ‘at one point, Mr Carter must have poured himself a drink, and Pecky thinks Lord Carnarvon told him he should ease up on the amount he drank, that it wasn’t good for him… One can imagine, can’t one, dear: that would be like waving a red rag at a bull. Beyond that––’

‘Was it about Eve?’ I interrupted.

‘My dear, I’m not sure. I feel Eve is already coming to her senses in that respect. She is very fond of Mr Carter, that I don’t doubt – but she is a young woman of spirit, and she does
not
take kindly to that bullying tone he can use. That was very evident this afternoon, Lucy. He spoke slightingly of her father, in front of everyone, as you heard. Eve let it pass. But while you were outside, he did it again. Eve reprimanded him, quite lightly, but the line was drawn. When he crossed it a
third
time, she snubbed him – and most effectively too.

‘My own opinion, Lucy, is that Mr Carter sometimes attempts to drive a wedge between father and daughter, for reasons I don’t begin to understand. Possibly because that is his nature – he is quarrelsome. Possibly because he seeks to influence her father through Eve. Mr Carter, I fear, does not understand one simple rule:
never
attempt to come between two people who love one another. Anyone who does that will always and inevitably lose.’

Miss Mack spoke with authority; I listened closely to her words – and would remember them.

We ate our last meal on the
Queen Hatshepsut
and the quarrel was not mentioned again, except once, when we glimpsed Callender, returning to Castle Carter.

‘Will you need to alter anything in The Book, Miss Mack?’ I asked. ‘In view of what’s happened tonight – will you need to make changes?’

‘Certainly not, Lucy,’ she replied crisply. ‘I have no doubt that this quarrel will be mended, and it is a private affair. Besides, The Book has done with me. I have served its purposes. It is now writ in stone.’

As it turned out, that was far from the case – but I wasn’t to know that then. I went to bed for the last time on our
dahabiyeh
and dreamed of The Book. It harried me all night, taking different forms: one minute, fragile leaves that I was trying to retrieve and rescue as they fluttered into the sky; the next, oppressive Old Testament tablets, tumbling down on me like a collapsing wall. I woke very early, glad to see the first light, glad to be rescued from
In Search of a Lost Tomb
at last.

I went out on deck to watch the beauty of the Nile at dawn: the rose sky reflected in the river water, the slow eclipsing of the stars, the humming of insects and the cry of birds as the light reached the reeds and made their black shapes emerald. I was still there an hour later, as the light strengthened, and it was then that I saw a small swift figure, running down the track from the American House. It was Frances, and she sped straight to me. ‘I crept out,’ she said, catching her breath. ‘I’ll have to get back before they notice I’ve gone, so we must be quick. Fetch that parcel from Carnarvon, Lucy – fetch it now.’

I retrieved it and returned. ‘Open it,’ she said. ‘I opened mine after you’d gone.’

Something in her expression told me not to argue, so I did so. I unwrapped the string and newspaper; inside it, padded in cotton wool, was a small blue faience
shabti
figure. Without speaking, Frances reached into her pocket and drew out its twin. We held the two figures next to each other: they were almost exactly the same size and colour; their glaze was identical – there was a slight difference in the expressions of our answerers’ faces but beyond that it was hard to tell them apart.