Carnarvon nodded his understanding with a gentle smile and touched Carter on the arm. The two knew they would have problems henceforward but, having cleared the air between them, each now would be internally sympathetic to the preoccupation of the other.
But not Dorothy. She had been seated at the adjoining table. She had overheard the conversation. She briskly gathered up her silk shawl and left the room.
Carter, still staring into his patron’s eyes, hadn’t noticed.
“Let’s seal the tomb, close the lab, and take a few days off.”
Carter’s welcome words came as he reported for work the following morning.
“It’s been wonderful but a bloody strain at the same time, and if we keep at it like this we shall all get sick and everything will suffer as a consequence. We all need a break... and perhaps a little solitude.” In this regard he spoke for himself.
Mace and Lucas were already at their labours, but they eagerly accepted Carter’s suggestion and both quickly finished what they were doing, and then assisted Carter with the ‘lock up’.
Carnarvon had been feeling out of sorts for some days now. Each evening he went to bed he thought he would be feeling better by morning, but each morning he felt the same some mornings a little worse.
A jumble of divergent thoughts were tumbling through his mind. He was perhaps coming down with something and he should see a doctor. He was still melancholy and overly reflective after what had so recently transpired between himself and his industrious colleague. A break in contact would be welcomed by both of them.
With so much wealth already uncovered in the tomb and riches many fold yet to come, he had some pressing unfinished business to settle in Cairo. Even though he hardly felt up to the trip, he must clarify with the Director of Antiquities, once and for all, a mutually satisfactory mechanism for the division.
To attend to these concerns, he decided to take the train that very evening. He welcomed Evelyn’s company on the journey. He was feeling weak, tired and lonely, and she brought him comfort. She had insisted on coming in any case. The deterioration in his mood and pallor was entirely visible to her and she fully understood that with his inadequate physical resources he required much closer attention than most. His health could slip so easily to a stage beyond help. So it was that she ensured their first business in Cairo was with his physician.
It was clear to the doctor that the earl was unwell, but he could not yet confirm a diagnosis. While he took time to ponder the symptoms, the doctor provided the earl with a tonic and some stern advice to rest.
With a considerable degree of determination quite disproportionate to his weakness, and ignoring the silent, unseen, viral cocktail brewing in his blood, the following evening Carnarvon went to the moving picture theatre
for some entertainment. Carter hadn’t even noticed the earl’s absence from Luxor. But Evelyn’s first letter brought him back to reality with a bang.
Porchy looks really awful. He is so much more pale than usual. He is really seedy, Howard. He won’t obey the doctor. He insists on dining out each night and returns to his bed totally washed out. I fear it will not be too long before he cannot get out of his bed. Perhaps a forced rest will help him recover, but quite frankly I fear for him. Do come, Howard dear. Do come to help me put some sense into him. He will listen to you.
Carter read the letter a second time, then folded it up and stuffed it into his coat pocket.
“Abdel!” he shouted. “Pack my things. I take the morning train to Cairo.”
The following morning, while Carter was crossing the river on his way to catch the train, Carnarvon was at his toilet, preparing himself for his important meeting with Lacau. This morning he felt still worse than the last. Nevertheless he was determined to confront Monsieur le Directeur and get this negotiation successfully behind him.
As Carnarvon arrived, Lacau’s imposing figure filled the door to the Antiquities Service building. The director quickly stepped down to help the earl up the stairs. The general appearance of the man and the weight that Lacau felt on his arm were sign enough that the earl was not himself.
“Some water, your lordship?”
“Thank you, Monsieur le Directeur. I apologise. I feel somewhat out of sorts today.” Lacau led the earl to a soft leather chair and poured him a glass of water. “I am very sorry to hear that, monsieur. It is no doubt the strain. In these
circumstances it must have been an immense effort to come all this way. We could always meet another time, when you are more yourself.”
“No.” Carnarvon was quite direct in his reply. “No.” He took a breath. “The season is all but over and I must return to England. But before I do so there is some business of great importance to us both which we must conclude.”
“You are talking of ‘the division’, are you not, sir?” “I am.” Carnarvon took a longer breath. The effort was enormous. He could feel his strength draining by the minute.
“As you know, while it might appear clear in the concession document that for an undisturbed tomb the objects are to be reserved to the State of Egypt, this tomb, replete as it is with the most wonderful things, has been disturbed at least twice in antiquity. Some...”
Lacau could see that the earl was struggling for breath and broke in. “Your lordship. Please forgive my interruption but I am aware of what you are trying to say. I, myself, have given this much thought in recent weeks. I have discussed it at length with my superiors in government and we have already reached our decision. So, to save you the energy and the time let me say this: Please be assured that the Carnarvon estate will be permitted a generous
share of the artefacts.”
The earl visibly relaxed back into his chair.
“This I can promise, but not in writing. You are appraised, I know, of the political upheavals which have become a part of everyday life in Egypt in Cairo in particular. Like it or not, we are guests in their country, and while we each of us contribute greatly to its wellbeing, it is an unavoidable fact that we remain foreigners in a foreign land and can expect to be treated as such. So, any official word that relates to foreign possession of Egyptian artefacts no, riches will immediately ignite anger and repercussions which neither of us would wish to be a party to. This means that the Nationalist Party must not must not have proof of this arrangement. It must remain verbal and solely between ourselves. Do you agree, sir?”
Carnarvon nodded.
“Thank you, monsieur. I could not have wished for more.”
“I, too. I am gratified that you are content with this informal arrangement.”
The earl was exhausted. It seemed to him the more so for his relief at hearing Lacau’s reassuring words. He struggled to get up to leave.
The director came to his aid once more and helped him back to his car. Lacau shook hands with the earl through the car window and bid him, “Bon chance.” He waved as the vehicle moved slowly off into the mass of thronging pedestrians. As he turned back towards his office, he stopped for a moment. “Peutêtre,” he sighed under his breath and disappeared inside.
Carnarvon slept a deep sleep, the discomfort of pneumonia notwithstanding. The congestion caused him to cough now and again, but this night it didn’t appear to bring him to consciousness. Yet his eyes were open, staring at the ceiling.
Carter was in the room next door and heard him move. He got up and headed for the bedroom door. By the time he had reached Carnarvon’s side Evelyn was already there, holding her father’s hand tightly. He didn’t move his head, but his eyes, full of tears, flicked from one to the other. His lips quivered for a moment and he murmured something indistinct. Before either of them could speak, he fell back to sleep.
Back at the excavation, the doors were secured for the summer recess and the staircase had been filled with rubble and sand and tamped down with water. Below, the darkened cavity was silent once more. Over the coming months of peace, the dust which still remained buoyant in the atmosphere would be allowed time to settl
e softly on the objects beneath.
As Carter’s party had left it, the antechamber was empty but for a couple of alabaster vases, a wooden figure of a black swan, the remains of a few rush baskets and the two life-size black and gold sentinels which still impassionately faced each other either side the opened doorway to the burial chamber and its golden shrine. But for the tiny pieces that the privileged party had secreted in their pockets on that first night of exploration and the treasures already removed to Cairo, all else that the tomb contained remained untouched and perched in rearranged stillness as it had been for centuries.
Thousands of miles away to the west, beneath an inclined marble tablet on a treeless hill overlooking Highclere House, the same darkness, the same silence enclosed the long oblong casket within. The final resting place of George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, Lord Porchester at least had this in common with Tutankhamen’s resting place.
This had been an event of the greatest significance. To Carter, the loss of a vital ally. Quite apart from the money, the earl had been the only man in the team who matched experience with standing more than sufficient to deal with the politics of any situation an area that Carter would never be able to handle effectively, much less want to. As for the money, he felt confident that it would still be there once Almina, the Lady Carnarvon, got over the shock.
To the world’s newspaper reading public, stories surrounding the circumstances of the grandee’s death the lights reportedly extinguishing in Cairo and at Highclere at the moment he expired; the coincidental death of Suzy, his fox terrier became undeniable evidence that a curse existed upon the tomb. Continued activity, they avidly reported, would surely lead to more deaths.
The Egyptologist, intent on completing the immense task ahead of him, never gave it more of a thought than to decry it in the text of the first volume of his book on the discovery which, with considerable help from Arthur Mace, he completed during the succeeding summer in England.
Carter now had a heavy additional responsibility, discounting the other current extraneous complications, heavier even than his task in The Valley. Lady Carnarvon had written to ask him no, it was more than that order him to hasten to Highclere to act as executor of his lordship’s collection of Egyptian antiquities.
He complied dutifully, notwithstanding the work of planning the forthcoming clearance of the tomb, and turned up at the elegant front door of that great place within a month of receiving her request.
“My lady,” he started, “it is with great sadness and a very heavy heart that I visit this house today.”
“I understand, Howard.” She gestured to the butler. “Tea, Robert, if you please.” She turned back to Carter.
“After tea, Howard, I wish you to begin the cataloguing and valuation of our entire collection. Then you must arrange to remove it to some safe holding place. The Bank of England, perhaps. I must sell it sell it all in its entirety. I cannot bear to have it about me. The constant reminder. You understand, of course?”
No, Carter could not wholly grasp her ladyship’s situation. His first love was and always would be for the objects. They were permanent, trustworthy, unpretentious; there to be appreciated for what they were, unlike people who, on balance, were quite otherwise. Besides, he had more than an academic attraction to the collection. He had helped Carnarvon build much of it over the many years of their close association. He felt he had almost as much right to possess it as his benefactor.
He had been thrown off balance. It was as if, quite out of his control, a great asset of his was to be taken from him. His initial reaction was to take his leave on some pretence, but for the life of him he could not think up a sufficiently plausible reason. In any event, if he would not help, her ladyship would get someone else to fulfil her wishes; better him than any other.
He bumbled a response, “I... I understand, your ladyship. But... may I be so bold as to ask... why... why at this particular moment? Why now? We have not yet completed the work his lordship began.”
“Howard, you must understand. I have thought long and hard on this. While this stuff is about me, I see him. I see him wandering about, looking at it, touching it. He fondles it. He kisses it. He even talks to it. Howard, I cannot stand these thoughts any more. I just cannot stand to see him when he is not in reality with us anymore. You do understand me, do you not?”
Carter was slow to reply. “I... I do think I understand, your ladyship. I think I understand your feelings. The hard part for me to be bluntly honest is... is to contemplate the breakup of this great collection. The years of sheer hard labour...”
Carter paused. He knew he was beginning to overstep the mark. Lady Carnarvon said nothing. At last he capitulated. “I will sell it. As you wish. It will be done. It will be done,” Carter repeated, as if to confirm he had indeed made the decision himself.
“Thank you, Howard. Porchy will be most grateful. I know he will.”
She turned her head away from Carter’s and quietly whimpered into her handkerchief.
Carter, with everything else that was on his mind, became more embarrassed than he could stand. “I will begin at once, your ladyship.”
He removed himself from the drawing room and, pocketbook already in hand, advanced towards the rooms containing the great collection. He did not look back.
Carter quickly became engrossed in the task. Within minutes he was oblivious to anything but the articles displayed before him. He walked over to a glass covered tray. Inside were small pieces, none of them as grand as the larger articles already retrieved from the tomb, but several in themselves individually magnificent.
“He would have wanted you to have that.” Lady Carnarvon was standing behind him.
“Your ladyship?”
“That one. I don’t know where he got it from but I know he wanted you to have it, Howard.”
She pointed to a tiny, carved ivory horse lying on its side on the floor of the cabinet.
That melancholy summer in England he received a second gift. When he returned to his lodgings in London, a small brown paper parcel, cross bound with string, the knots secured with ceiling wax, awaited him on his hall table. It was a copy of the privately printed edition of Seven Pillars of Wisdom. (see Lawrence, 1935).
Chapter Twenty One
Bandits
The death of Lord Carnarvon was attracting a good deal of alarmist publicity. In the royal party’s celestial home this was cause for a good deal of celebration. Successfully fuelled by a plethora of frustrated journalists, there was developing amongst the news hungry public a steadily maturing craving for the supernatural. The stories, amounting to no more than speculative conjecture, had been communicated virtually worldwide. Tutankhamun had become witness to many conversations concerning the various stories written by newspaper reporters in the United States, Great Britain, and in several European countries. There had been headline articles in India, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. Most chose to conclude that there must be some truth in the curse. Clearly this new public had an insatiable appetite for the occult. To the king, the nature of the response was most gratifying.
Unlike the reading public, however, his scholarly victims, busily planning their next season’s evil work in The Valley, did not appear to be so quick to make any connection with the supernatural. And the king knew it would not be long before Carter would return to attack the shrines. If the royal couple were to succeed in their endeavours to block further violation of the tomb, there was still a great deal to do.
The efforts of his entourage extended far and wide. Meneg and his colleagues were attempting to influence the authorities in Cairo. Ankhesenamun spent her time repetitively entering the dreams of the more impressionable on the team, although now that it was summer the team was separated, each member attending to his own personal business in England. Her hauntings had little effect. Each insomniac put the occurrences down to stress or the emotional eagerness to return the following season, and thought no more of it. Tutankhamun spent mos
t of his time closely observing Carter. He wanted to learn more about the man who was so hell-bent on breaking into the shrines and exposing the king’s earthly remains. This small foreigner was not at all like the robbers of Tutankhamun’s own era; unlike, even, those other alien plunderers of just one hundred years ago. Both he and his colleagues had, to a fault, been gentle and respectful in their handling of the grave goods. There had been no hurry to their work. He had witnessed no wilful damage. Each object taken from the holy sepulchre had been painstakingly preserved and carried with the greatest care to exhibition in Cairo. In the museum halls, the common people were now permitted to look upon but not to touch the possessions of a royal.
Tutankhamun Uncovered Page 54