The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

  He threw open a door, bowed, and stood back to admit us. Helen entered first, then we all bundled into the sanctum of Carter’s sitting room. I found myself in a square, pleasant space, lit by oil lamps and the flames of a huge banked fire. Removing my wet hat, rubbing rainwater from my eyes, I had a quick glimpse of bookcases, of maps, of plain plastered walls, a bright woven rug, and of welcoming chairs grouped around the fire; of a place where a man could be comfortably alone, and perhaps often was.

  ‘What a marvellous fire! Quickly, girls, come and dry off,’ Miss Mack was saying, extricating herself from the huddle we’d formed by the door. Leading the way, she was advancing towards the fireplace, her hands held out to the warmth of the flames, when she came to a halt so suddenly that we all cannoned into her. She said, ‘Gracious, Mr Carter – I didn’t see you. Oh, I’m sorry, we’re interrupting you —’

  Helen, who had been blocking my view, took a small step backwards; she appeared nonplussed, perhaps embarrassed. Peeping around her, I saw to my surprise that Carter was indeed already there – and that he had a guest. He’d been bending forward over a wing chair to the right of the fire, and had been speaking to its occupant in a low voice as we entered. Somehow he’d contrived to wash and change his clothes in the short interval since he’d ridden off ahead of us: he was now dust-free, improbably sleek and spruce in clean country tweeds. The occupant of the chair remained hidden from where we stood – but as Carter straightened and hastily stepped away, I realised that the tall back of the chair was concealing someone female. I could see two slender silk-stockinged legs, the pleated edge of a skirt that was inches shorter than any that Helen, let alone Miss Mack, would have countenanced, and a pair of exquisite snakeskin shoes, with little heels, a strap across the instep and gold buckles.

  I stared at those shoes. Frances gave a low gasp. The same idea entered both our heads at the same moment; our eyes met, hers alight with triumph. Her offerings and prayers had worked, I thought; I should never have doubted her. Isis and Nephthys had brought Poppy d’Erlanger back to us – and with astonishing speed. My heart lifted.

  Miss Mack and Helen had also registered the woman’s presence; they too had noted the haste with which Carter stepped back as we entered. Both now seemed rooted to the spot. I saw them exchange a quick interrogatory glance. A silence fell; it was broken not by Carter, who appeared incapable of speech, but by the occupant of the chair. The woman gave a muffled sound of distress, stood up and revealed herself: she was hatless, and her hair was dishevelled; her face was smudged with tears – or could it be the rain, had she been caught in the storm, as we had? I stared at this small, agitated stranger – I caught a drift of her scent. With a lurch of dismay, I recognised her. Not Mrs d’Erlanger.

  ‘Oh, Helen – Miss Mack, thank God you’re here,’ Eve said, holding out her hands in an odd imploring way. ‘I came over in the motorcar, I’ve been looking for you everywhere, I went to the American House, but they said you were in the Valley, so I started off for there… and then this awful storm came in out of nowhere, and everything was so dark. It was so hellish – the track turned into a river bed in seconds. I tried to turn back, and then I skidded, and the car got stuck and some natives pushed me out and I thought if I came here, Howard would––’

  ‘Eve, Eve, sit down, dear,’ Helen said, exchanging a quick anxious glance with Miss Mack. ‘My dear, you’re dreadfully overwrought – whatever has happened? Is it your father?’

  I could see her thoughts, racing ahead: she was thinking of Carnarvon’s collapse of the previous day, as I was. Frances was staring at Eve, white-faced. When Eve began crying, Helen took her hand.

  ‘Eve, dear – try to explain. Is your father ill? Has he —’

  ‘No, no – Pups is at the hotel now – he can’t leave. But we thought, I thought, perhaps if you and Miss Mack… I don’t know what to do. It’s all so terrible. I need your help. I must talk to you… ’

  ‘Tea. I prescribe sweet tea.’ Miss Mack advanced, helped Eve into her chair and with that air of quiet authority I remembered from my own sickroom in Cambridge, she turned to Carter. ‘Mr Carter, it isn’t for me to take charge, when we’re guests in your house – but I think, if Lady Evelyn could have something to eat, and a quiet talk with Helen and me? The children must be hungry after this adventure of ours, but I wonder… is there another room, where they could sit while we have our talk? Just until Evelyn feels calmer?’

  I expected Carter to demur. There was something I’d glimpsed between him and Eve as he’d bent over her chair, an intimacy that was unexpected, quite unlike their usual friendly, bantering demeanour. I felt he’d take affront at being effectively banished from her and his own hearth – but he gave no sign of it, and even seemed grateful for Miss Mack’s intervention. ‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘Of course. Yes… very sensible. We’ll have our tea across the hall in my study. Frances, Lucy – come with me.’

  He ushered us quickly from the room – so quickly that I felt he was glad to escape. Encountering Abd-el-Aal and Hosein outside the door, both carrying laden trays, he gave a series of quick commands in Arabic.

  ‘Well, you two look like drowned rats,’ he said, in a cheerful way, leading us into a room opposite, a small, spartan space that contained a desk, some armchairs and bookshelves. ‘Right, now let’s get organised, shall we? Frances – the fire’s already laid, here’s some matches, will you light it for us? And Lucy, you see that chest over there? That’s full of plaids and picnic rugs, I don’t want you two dying of pneumonia, so get those out, and wrap yourselves up and sit by the fire. How pale you both are! I expect the storm shook you up a bit. Tea will be here in a second – and while we have that, I’ll – let’s see, I know! I’ll show you my maps and my photographs and my notes, and – and we’ll discuss where I should dig in the Valley next autumn, how about that?’

  I could see Frances was as cold, as ill at ease and as miserable as I was: we both nodded wanly and did as instructed. Carter began bustling about, lighting oil lamps and arranging chairs. Once the fire caught and began to warm the small room, and once the lamplight banished the gloom, I felt a little reassured. Outside the wind was still moaning, and I could hear the distant wash of rain, but the shutters softened the sound, and the thunder was now diminishing, reduced to low growls, the intervals between them lengthening. Carter installed us in chairs either side of the fire, ensured we were well wrapped in rugs and, with the air of a magician, produced a toasting fork.

  ‘When I was a boy in Norfolk,’ he said, ‘I lived with my two aunties, in a little cottage on the outskirts of a town called Swaffham. I was ill a lot – that’s why I never went to a proper school – and there wasn’t much money around, and not many treats. But one treat we did have, and that was hot buttered toast, made on the fire. We’d sit round it and put our feet up, and get a nice fug going – there’s nowhere colder than Norfolk on a winter’s day – and then we’d have a slap-up tea. My aunties would knit and gossip and I’d sit there drawing and reading, and we’d have toast made on the fire, and some good strong Indian tea. Then we’d tuck in to my aunties’ famous fruitcake… and that’s what we’ll have today. I’ve taught my cook to make it – well, given him the family recipe, he’s done the rest. But he’s a smart boy, and cooks up good grub… Ah, Abd-el-Aal, there you are.’

  Carter paused to ask some questions and to listen to Abd-el-Aal’s lengthy and animated replies. Taking the tray from him, Carter glanced into the hall: from the room beyond we could just hear the low sound of women’s voices. Shutting the door firmly, he said: ‘Good. Eve’s calming down now, by the sound of it. Women’s work: I expect Helen and Miss Mack will sort things out in no time.’

  ‘Will they?’ Frances turned her pale face from the fire and looked at him intently. ‘Something’s happened, Mr Carter. What is it?’

  ‘Well, you know, I’m not really too sure, Frances. I’d only just that second got in. Eve didn’t have time to explain. And then she was very upset, as
you could see – been through a bit of an ordeal, driving over here, the storm, getting the car stuck––’

  ‘But she wouldn’t have done that unless something was badly wrong. And she was crying too – I’ve never seen Eve cry before.’

  ‘Well, I have,’ Carter replied, unexpectedly. ‘Eve has a very soft heart, she’s highly strung, and she’s easily upset. Good Lord, I remember one terrible occasion at Highclere —’

  ‘At Highclere? With Eve? Why – what happened?’ Frances asked, looking at him eagerly. She had taken the bait, I saw, and I knew that had been Carter’s intention.

  I stared at the fire and said nothing. Whatever had happened must have been sudden, had perhaps occurred at the Winter Palace, since Eve had come from there. Had there been some accident? I thought of the hotel’s balconies – and the sheer drop from them.

  ‘Well now,’ Carter replied, busily pouring tea, ‘Lord Carnarvon is a superstitious man in many ways: you may not know that, but you should see him at Newbury races, when one of his horses is running! What’s more, he has an extraordinary weakness for fortune-tellers, spiritualism, mediums, seances… I have no truck with such claptrap, but Carnarvon believes in it, so I stay mum and I go along with it – start toasting this bread, will you, Frances? And you, Lucy, you’re in charge of the buttering.’

  He plied us with hot sweet tea, and once we were engaged in the toasting process, settled himself in a chair and, with every appearance of enjoying himself, continued his story. ‘So, as I say, I go along with his superstitions and when I stay at Highclere Castle, which I do most summers for a few weeks, helping Lord Carnarvon catalogue his Egyptian collection… well, during that time, there’s always at least one seance. One evening last year, we all assembled in one of Highclere’s gloomiest rooms. There were twelve of us, seated around a table in the dark, and Carnarvon’s medium was trying to get through to her spirit guide. Nothing happened at first, then, without warning, she went into a trance, a really deep trance, I’d never seen anything like it in my life. Her eyes rolled back and her whole body went rigid. She began to speak, but in a guttural man’s voice, and a foreign language… Poor Eve was petrified. Out it came, sentence after sentence, and it was a language not one person at that table could understand.’ He paused. ‘No one except me, that is. It made absolute sense to me. I recognised it at once. And I said so, to everyone’s amazement. It was Coptic. How d’you explain that, eh?’

  ‘Gosh,’ Frances said, on cue, with a tired wan glance in my direction. ‘What did she say, Mr Carter? Was it a prediction… a terrible warning, perhaps?’

  ‘My lips are sealed.’ Carter gave us both a dark penetrating glance. ‘I can say nothing. More than my life’s worth to reveal it.’

  There was a silence. From the hall came a thin dry whistling sound, like the wind through a keyhole. Frances seemed disinclined to question Carter further, which surprised me. Could she have heard this tale before; was it perhaps part of Carter’s repertoire? Something in this tale did not fit, and it made me uneasy.

  ‘I wonder, did the medium woman speak Coptic herself?’ I asked earnestly, after a pause.

  ‘Of course she didn’t,’ Carter said, with scorn. ‘The woman didn’t speak Arabic, let alone Coptic. It’s a dead language. No one’s spoken it since the sixteenth century.’

  ‘But if no one speaks it,’ I said, ignoring Frances who was making a face at me, ‘if no one’s spoken it for hundreds of years, how did you recognise it, Mr Carter?’

  ‘Because I can read it,’ Carter replied brusquely. ‘Seen it on papyri a thousand times.’

  ‘But reading is different,’ I persisted. ‘It’s not at all the same as knowing how it sounds. My father can read Homer, but he says no two scholars agree as to how Homeric Greek actually sounded when spoken. They really have no idea. So if Coptic is as dead as you say, I still don’t see how you could possibly––’

  ‘Well, I did.’ Carter, his manner curt, interrupted me at exactly the moment that Frances gave me a warning kick. There was an awkward silence, then Carter, who had seen the kick, gave his bark of a laugh. ‘Well, that’s my story anyway… and it went down a darn sight better at Highclere Castle than it has here. Lord Carnarvon has never forgotten it.’

  He gave us both a dark considering look. ‘I can see I’ll have to watch my back with you two girls – you’re as sharp as needles. Wouldn’t do to reveal any more. I might have been tempted to… but no, better not. Let’s see: what started me off on all that? Ah yes, Eve… Well now, you may quibble, but this much is one hundred per cent true: Eve was so upset by that experience that she’s never attended one of her father’s seances since. She had sleepless nights for months afterwards. She’s of a nervous disposition, and can get far too worked up about things – women are like that, I have a sister just the same. If Eve’s upset, it’s nothing to worry about. Let’s have some more of that toast, shall we?’

  And so, with tales of his childhood, buttered toast and a ghostly story, he set about distracting us – I can see that now. I was half aware of his tactics, as was Frances, I think. At first, his success was intermittent: I kept straining to hear the voices from the other room, and I could see Frances, pale and tense, was still puzzling over Eve’s behaviour; but we were tired after the heat of the day and the hasty retreat from the Valley through the storm. It was warm and peaceful in the small room; as time passed, Carter’s attempts to divert us became more successful.

  Oddly enough – he was not in the least a paternal man, nor was he avuncular – I think Carter was enjoying our company: he seemed at ease in a way he rarely was with adults. Perhaps he felt we were too young and inexperienced to criticise him; maybe he was aware of the hero-worship Frances felt for him, and found it flattering: whatever the reason, he was as unguarded and confidential that afternoon as I ever saw him. I thought of Minnie Burton’s accusation – her claim that Carter never bothered with anyone unless that person could be useful to him. How wrong and mean-spirited she was, I told myself: Carter could gain nothing from Frances and me. I was beginning to believe that Frances had been right: put simply, Carter liked us, and that liking was completely disinterested.

  It is always reassuring, and flattering, to believe that one is liked, of course. Warmed by this feeling, lulled by toast, tea and fruitcake, and encouraged by Carter’s ebullient spirits, I forgot my unease. I forced all thought of accidents, of balconies, from my mind. Once our tea was finished, Carter dumped the crockery unceremoniously on his desk and, having cleared the small table in front of us, produced a pile of notebooks and maps. Unrolling one of the latter, which proved to be a large-scale plan of the Valley covered in neatly pencilled marks and notes, he said: ‘Right. Time for you two to advise me. Examine it closely. Where do I dig next autumn?’

  He moved away to some bookshelves, from which he took down a glass, a half-empty bottle of whisky and a soda siphon. ‘Sun over the yardarm now,’ he remarked, as Frances and I bent studiously over the map. ‘Cheerio,’ he said, raising his glass to us, and then added after a brief pause: ‘Come on, get a move on – we haven’t got all day, you know.’

  The prospect of a treasure map was exciting and I inspected it intently; but it wasn’t easy to see the details in the light from the oil lamps; Carter’s marks and notes were writ small and virtually unreadable. It might as well be a map of the moon, I thought, for all the help I’d be. Frances, who seemed to revive when the maps appeared, who knew this territory and was familiar with the similar maps her father used, traced some of the pencilled lines with her finger. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘this doesn’t show the whole Valley. It doesn’t show where we were today, for instance. But it does show your famous triangle.’

  ‘Good. Go on.’ Carter sat down at his desk, a few feet away. He lit a cigarette.

  ‘I can see which areas in the triangle you’ve already cleared – they’re the shaded squares. So I can see you’ve almost exhausted that whole area. You’ve done this wadi here, the one that leads u
p to Merneptah’s tomb. And you’ve cleared the area over there. So there’s very little left unexplored, except here, by the tomb of Ramesses VI… Daddy pointed that out to us yesterday, remember, Lucy? There are some ruins of workmen’s huts, ancient ones – but I thought you’d cleared most of those, Mr Carter?’

  ‘A year ago.’ Carter flicked ash on his desk and took a swallow of whisky. ‘January ’21. Didn’t finish the job, too late in the year, height of the tourist season – dig any more and I’d have been obstructing the entrance to Ramesses VI’s tomb, which gets scores of visitors. Same problem this year: if I could have started back in November, fine; but I was delayed by that blasted operation in London. Now it’s February, and the Valley’s infested with tourists again; if I blocked that entrance off with my diggings, it wouldn’t go down too well with the Antiquities Service, especially its esteemed Director. I’d have our dear friend Monsieur Lacau on my back – any excuse to nit-pick and interfere. Can’t stand the man – and he’s not too enamoured of me either.’

  He made a restless gesture, stubbed out one cigarette and lit another. In his odd, brooding, way, he said: ‘That area will have to wait until next autumn. Let’s try another tack. We’ll play a game: imagine you’re a king, and one fine day you’ve ridden out to select your final resting place in the Valley. What would influence your choice?’

  ‘It would depend on my dates,’ Frances replied, smothering a yawn. ‘If I was an early king, I’d be looking for a potential tomb in the cliffs, somewhere well hidden. A few hundred years later, and I wouldn’t be worrying about hiding my burial place, because there’s a system by then, and the Valley is well patrolled and guarded by the Medjay. So I’d make my tomb lower down in the talus – digging in through the mounds of scree to the cliff behind. And if I were later still, an eighteenth-dynasty king, say, I’d dig straight down in the Valley floor, and tunnel underground from there.’