The Visitors

by Sally Beauman

No putrefaction to fear, here’s to mummification, my dear

  Get the latest sensation

  Watch that boy-king’s gyration –

  It’s the Tut-tut-tut-HANK-HANK-HANK

  It’s the Tut-HANK-amun RA-AG…

  ‘Reprehensible,’ Miss Mack was saying, as I surfaced. ‘Such delicious cake. I wonder – is Mr Callender not joining us?’

  ‘Gone for a walk, I expect,’ said Mace, who was sitting next to her; he lowered his voice. ‘Things are getting difficult at the Castle, Miss Mackenzie. Carter’s moods. The rest of us can escape at the end of the day, but poor old Pecky can’t. It’s been getting pretty bad – we all catch the edge of Carter’s tongue, and it’s not pleasant. Not even Lord Carnarvon escapes. Sometimes Carter dresses him down as if he’s a naughty two-year-old.’

  He broke off with an expressive glance as Carter himself entered the room; Eve immediately hastened to welcome him. Mrs Lythgoe and Mrs Burton clustered around him, pressing him to take some cake, some sandwiches.

  ‘Lord Carnarvon will be joining us in a moment,’ Carter said, settling himself in an armchair. ‘He’s just having a cigarette on the veranda. No, no, I won’t eat anything, thank you. Just tea. Gyppy stomach, not feeling too bright today.’

  ‘Oh, poor you,’ Eve said, perching on the arm of his chair. ‘You must be exhausted. How many people did you have to conduct around the tomb today?’

  ‘God alone knows. Forty? Sixty? It took up the entire day. I’ve been at it all week. I’m a tour guide now, didn’t you know that?’

  That remark might have been a jest, but the tone in which it was said was not pleasant. Carter looked ill; it must have been at least two weeks, perhaps more, since I’d last seen him close to, and the alteration in his appearance was marked. He’d lost weight, and his face, puffy around the eyes, drawn around the mouth, had acquired a sickly pallor.

  I saw Herbert and Helen Winlock exchange a warning glance; leaning forward, Helen said in a quiet tone: ‘You need a rest, Howard. Everyone does. Things will get better once you close the tomb for the season – they’ll quieten down then.’

  ‘If you say so. I beg to differ. They’ll improve when Carnarvon realises I’m not running some blasted salon, I’m running a scientific dig. When he realises I’ve got better things to do than escort Lord-this and Lady-that around the Burial Chamber – when he understands I have work to do, and can’t spend all day every day answering damn-fool questions – yes, maybe then they’ll improve. Not before.’ He paused, glaring at Eve. ‘You might like to tell your father that. Maybe he’ll listen to you. I’m sick to death of telling him.’

  Eve coloured and did not reply; everyone else began speaking at once. Frances gave me a small nudge in the ribs: ‘KV,’ she whispered. She knew we were about to be banished from the danger zone of Carter’s irascibility – and so we were. I saw Mrs Lythgoe and Helen exchange a few quick words, and in moments we’d been extricated, sent on an errand. We were dispatched to the veranda outside: Frances carried a plate with cakes and sandwiches, I carried a cup of tea with lemon. We found Lord Carnarvon, stretched out on one of the planter’s chairs, feet up, and eyes closed. He was wearing his Tennysonian hat, a three-piece tweed suit and an ancient brown cardigan for extra warmth. The temperature was by then in the high nineties; he appeared to be sleeping.

  ‘We bring victuals, Lord Carnarvon,’ Frances said, as he opened one pale grey eye. ‘I added an extra slice of fruitcake, because I know you like that.’

  ‘Oh I say, how tremendously kind,’ he replied gallantly, rousing himself. ‘How uncanny. I was just lying here thinking how peaceful and quiet it was, and how nice, how very restorative a slice of fruitcake would be – and lo and behold, here it is. Brought by two ministering angels.’ He inspected the plate, which Frances had piled high. ‘By Jove – don’t think I can quite manage all that by myself. You two had better help me out. Draw up some chairs. This is fortuitous. I was hoping to have a brief word in private with you two, and now here you are. Excellent.’

  We sat down as invited. Carnarvon sipped his tea and ate one cucumber sandwich. He talked on in a desultory way, as we munched fruitcake. Unlike Carter, he appeared unruffled by that day’s events – indeed, they seemed scarcely to have registered with him. Instead he lapsed back into the past. ‘My doctors sent me to Egypt,’ he said, his eyes on the river below, ‘after I had that motoring accident in Germany. Years ago now… That had left me badly smashed up, as I expect you’ve heard. Even when the bones mended and the wounds healed, I got every infection going – couldn’t deal with English winters at all. Too damp, you know. So they sent me here for the warmth, and the air – and the air is marvellous, don’t you find? So pure. So dry. Never fails to restore me.’

  Frances was not interested in the qualities of Egyptian air. ‘I hear there were over twelve thousand people in the Valley today,’ she said. ‘That must have been terrible.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Frances,’ he replied, in his genial way. ‘They’re interested – and why wouldn’t they be? It’s the find of the century. Makes it tricky for Carter, of course – he doesn’t like showing people round the tomb. I can’t blame him for that, but one’s friends turn up, and what is one to do? Naturally, they want to see what we’ve found, and one can’t just turn them away. Don’t want to be uncivil… Anyway, things will quieten down now. We’ll close the tomb next week, and then Eve and I are going to take a little holiday. A few days in Aswan. Get away from newspapers, escape the journalists.’

  ‘Do you mind about them?’ Frances asked. ‘Mrs Burton thinks they ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered,’ she added imaginatively.

  ‘By Jove, does she really?’ He smiled. ‘Well, no, Frances – I wouldn’t go that far. Some of those reporter johnnies are quite amusing – resourceful too. I just wish they’d stop painting me as this arch villain.’ He gave us a perplexed look. ‘It’s awfully rum, reading about yourself in the papers. I can’t say I like it. I look at some of the stuff they write, and I think – That’s not me, they must be mixing me up with some other fellow. D’you know the latest accusation? They’re saying I want to remove poor old Tutankhamun and take him back to the British Museum – or maybe post him off to the Metropolitan; they can’t seem to decide which.’

  He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Why are they saying that, d’you think? I just can’t understand it. I can’t seem to grasp the way their minds work. It’s not true, and they know that, so why do they go on repeating it? We’ll have to open Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus and examine him in due course, but that won’t be for at least another year. And when all that gruesome business is over, I want Tutankhamun returned to his tomb in the Valley. That’s where he rightly belongs. I don’t want him in any museum, not even in Cairo. I don’t intend him to be a public spectacle. I’ve made that very clear to Lacau, to Allenby, to everyone. And I shall ensure it happens.’

  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 habi
t 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.