The Collector's Daughter

by Gill Paul

  “Did I pass muster?” she asked as he packed up again. “Not time for the knacker’s yard yet, is it?”

  “You’ve made a remarkable recovery from last year’s stroke,” he said. “You deserve a medal for effort. You’re an inspiration.”

  But she caught snatches of the conversation as he talked to Brograve by the front door afterward. “It may have been a TIA,” he said, and she knew that meant “transient ischemic attack,” a kind of mini-stroke. “Keep an eye . . . avoid stressful situations . . .”

  She’d been in a good mood earlier, looking through her Tutankhamun cuttings, but overhearing the doctor’s words upset her. She knew TIAs were not a good sign. Her stupid brain! Why did it keep misbehaving? It was horrible to think another major stroke might be just around the corner and then she’d be back in the hospital, learning how to swallow all over again. Or worse. What if she died, and the truth about the tomb died with her?

  Since she started having strokes, the possibility of dying had always been there. Each time could be the last. She tried not to dwell on it, because otherwise she would sit around feeling anxious, but it lent an urgency to her search for the gold container. She had to find it and return it to Egypt while she was still capable.

  * * *

  After the doctor left, Eve picked up the cuttings folder to take it back to the cupboard and a letter fell out. A handwritten letter, with large, loopy writing, dated December 1922. She checked the signature—Marie Corelli, a popular novelist who wrote mystical melodramas with titles like The Sorrows of Satan and Treasure of Heaven. She was much maligned by the literati of the day for her belief in reincarnation and out-of-body experiences, as well as her overblown writing style.

  The letter had been waiting when Eve got to Highclere for Christmas Day 1922, flushed with triumph from her visit to the palace with Pups. A weird feeling had crept over her as she read the words:

  I understand the excitement you must feel about your father’s discovery but I am bound to warn you of the danger you and your loved ones could face if the pharaoh’s burial chamber is disturbed. I’m sure you have read of the curses placed by ancient priests on other tombs. In that of Khentika Ikhekhi were found the words “as for all men who shall enter this tomb, there will be judgment . . . an end will be made for him . . . I shall seize his neck like a bird.”

  Eve thought of Howard Carter’s canary and shivered.

  According to the letter, another curse read: “They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease no doctor can diagnose.”

  She ran to the library, then the smoking room looking for Pups, and finally found him out by the stables. “Look!” she cried, and waited for him to read it. “What do you think?”

  He rubbed his forehead with his knuckle. “Marie Corelli is seen as a fantasist in spiritualist circles, but I have certainly heard of curses of the pharaohs before now. Perhaps I should ask Sirenia’s advice.”

  Eve winced. She had no faith in the histrionic clairvoyant her father used for his séances. “Howard has been entering pharaohs’ tombs for over twenty years now without suffering ill effects. Perhaps we should consult him on our return to Egypt.”

  “Howard is bound to dismiss it,” her father said. “He’s a scientist to the core.”

  “Then perhaps we should dismiss it too,” Eve said. “I can’t imagine how an Ancient Egyptian could have cast a spell that would affect us three thousand years later.”

  “Their knowledge was advanced in many areas, so I wouldn’t rule it out,” he replied.

  As it happened, other business got in the way and Pups was forced to return to London before he was able to consult Sirenia. Marie Corelli wrote to the newspapers about the “curse in the tomb” and soon after that, Arthur Weigall of the Daily Mail picked up the story and the other papers followed. Some speculated that microscopic spores in the air could cause fatal illnesses in those who visited it, or that there was a disease spread by bat droppings; others stuck to the supernatural interpretation.

  Eve told herself it was all nonsense, but still she had a moment of trepidation when she caught a cold that January. Was it just a cold? Or her reaction to spores in the tomb? She had felt uneasy in the burial chamber, maybe for good reason.

  * * *

  Looking back now, at the age of . . . She hesitated. What age was she again? Seventy-one . . . As the first person in the chamber, she should have been the first victim of any curse, yet here she still was, fifty years later, having lived to tell the tale. And Howard had lived almost two decades after the tomb was opened.

  Brograve came in to tell her luncheon was ready and asked what she was reading, so she handed it over.

  “I remember this,” he said, glancing at it. “What a load of tosh. The woman should have stuck to novels. She clearly had a lurid imagination.”

  Eve frowned, a memory coming to her. “That’s exactly what you said at the time. Those exact words. Did I show it to you? Were we married in nineteen twenty-two?”

  “Engaged,” he said, taking the folder from her and slipping the letter back inside.

  That puzzled Eve. She could remember them getting engaged but she couldn’t remember Brograve being her fiancé when the tomb was discovered. Why hadn’t he been there with her? Events had gotten shuffled in her head and now they were out of sequence, like a card index that has been dropped on the floor and hastily shoved back together.

  “I’ve been trying to decide what to do about Ana Mansour,” he said. “She’s keen to talk to you again while she’s in London, but I don’t want you to be under any pressure. Why don’t I write to her saying that we are looking through our family archives and that we’ll get in touch when we have anything to share?”

  “It’s the truth. We are, aren’t we?” Eve realized she had gotten waylaid. She’d meant to look for the gold container that morning and instead she’d lost herself in the cuttings folder. She closed her eyes, trying to picture where she had put her memento from the tomb. Fragments of memory floated around her brain, too vague to pin down. She had the impression she’d been in a rush. And she could remember thinking she wouldn’t tell Brograve. But that didn’t make sense. Why shouldn’t he know?

  Thinking about it gave her a creepy feeling, like a ghostly finger pressing on the back of her skull. It reminded her that after all the excitement of finding the tomb, events became darker and everything changed for the worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  London, January 1973

  While Eve was taking an afternoon nap on the sofa, a plaid blanket draped over her, Brograve sat in the window seat to write to Ana Mansour. She had given him the address of a London hotel just off the Edgware Road. He kept it short, his fountain pen scratching across the Basildon Bond paper with their personal letterhead: the names Lord and Lady Beauchamp in fancy scroll and the family crest, parts of which dated back to his fourteenth-century ancestor Guy de Beauchamp.

  It was snowing outside: gusty, horizontal snow that was settling on the roof of the townhouse opposite. The sky was so gray it felt almost like the middle of the night, although it was only three in the afternoon. Typical January weather.

  He looked at Eve, sleeping peacefully, a fire glowing in the grate, and felt a fierce rush of protectiveness. During most of their married life she hadn’t needed his protection because she was such an independent character, but these strokes were cruel. They made her fragile in a way she’d never been before.

  He was glad he had been able to provide for her materially, although their lifestyle was nothing like as grand as the one she had grown up with at Highclere. He remembered being awestruck the first time they turned into the estate’s twisting drive and the Italianate towers came into view. He hardly uttered a word as the butler greeted them at the front door and Eve led him through the hall into the gothic-style saloon at the center of the house. It had a vaulted ceiling two stories high, and a colonnaded gallery that ran around the first floor, with arches around the ground
floor leading off to the other main rooms. Heraldic crests and ancestor portraits lined the walls, making it look more like a museum than a home.

  Eve took him up a curved oak staircase and showed him to his room at a corner of the building, with a tall window looking out over the grounds and its own bathroom through a connecting door. “Where’s your room?” he asked, hoping it was nearby, but she explained it was on an upper floor reached via the red staircase, not the oak. After she left, he unpacked and hung his clothes in the oak closet, then sat on the edge of the bed feeling nervous and unworthy. The purpose of the trip was for him to ask Lord Carnarvon’s permission to marry his daughter, and he didn’t have a clue what to say. He’d rehearsed several speeches in his head but none sounded right.

  There was a knock on the door and a liveried footman asked if he could unpack his bags for him.

  “It’s already done,” he said. “Thank you.” Then he wondered if he had committed a faux pas by doing the man out of a job.

  “Lord and Lady Carnarvon are having sherry in the drawing room. They invite you to join them when you are ready,” he said, giving a little bow and starting to withdraw.

  “Wait!” Brograve said. He checked his hair in the looking glass, smoothing it quickly with his hand. “Could you show me where the drawing room is? I’m afraid I’m hopelessly lost.”

  * * *

  Lord and Lady Carnarvon were sitting opposite each other, and Eve was next to her father but she leaped to her feet and rushed over when she saw him, taking him by the arm and bringing him to greet his hosts. A footman handed him a glass of sherry from a silver tray and he lowered himself carefully into a chair, terrified of spilling a drop on the irreplaceable brocade or the plush Persian carpet. When he dared look around, his first impressions were of pistachio-green silk wallpaper and gilded moldings. Oil paintings lined the walls, and the furniture looked priceless, certainly far too grand to place a drink on, so he clutched his glass in his hand.

  Porchy arrived soon after with his new wife, Catherine. Eve bombarded them with questions about married life, keen to hear every last detail. Everyone kept glancing at him, though, and he got the impression they knew why he was there, but it wasn’t mentioned, as if there were protocols that must be observed.

  They went through to the dining room for dinner and Brograve shivered as he looked up at the imposing equestrian portrait of Charles I, the king who lost his head after the English Civil War.

  “It’s a Van Dyck,” Lady Carnarvon said, the first words she had spoken to him directly. Her expression was cold. She didn’t approve of him.

  After the meal, Lord Carnarvon rose and beckoned for Brograve to follow, saying, “Shall we?” It was time. Eve gave his hand a quick squeeze of encouragement.

  They walked across the entrance hall and into a book-lined room with ornate wood-paneled ceilings and crimson velvet chairs. Two pillars separated this room from the main library, which stretched off into the distance. Lord Carnarvon poured him a snifter of brandy and he breathed in the rich aroma, then took a sip for Dutch courage, topping up the sherry and wine he’d already consumed.

  “I understand you want to marry my daughter,” Lord Carnarvon said, saving him from having to raise the subject himself. “And that she is in agreement with the plan.” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “Yes, I b-believe so,” Brograve said, nerves making him stutter. “In fact, I was being altogether too slow in the matter so she p-proposed to me.” Immediately he’d said it, he wondered if he was being ungallant, but Lord Carnarvon bellowed with laughter.

  “That’s my Eve! God bless her, you’ll have your hands full, but I imagine you know that already.”

  He flicked open a silver table lighter and toasted a fat cigar over its flame, while Brograve pondered how to answer.

  Lord Carnarvon puffed on his cigar until the tip glowed. “I’ve never done this before, but I imagine I had better ask how you plan to provide for my daughter. What is your profession?”

  Brograve explained that he had started a company producing copper cables, and that he already had substantial orders. “I should also tell you that my father wants me to stand for parliament in his seat of Lowestoft at the next general election.” He winced, sure that Lord Carnarvon was not a Liberal.

  “Is that not somewhat of a suicide mission?” he replied. “The Liberal Party is in shambles, is it not? That Lloyd George coalition has well-nigh killed them off.”

  “It will be tricky,” Brograve agreed. “I think the chances of winning are slim, but my father is retiring and it’s his dearest wish that I should fight the seat, so . . .” He spread his hands. He knew he wouldn’t win. In fact, it would be hugely inconvenient if he did because the new company took all his time, but he had to try for his father’s sake.

  “Your father’s at Lloyd’s of London, is he not? I look forward to meeting him. Perhaps we could all dine together at my club in the autumn?”

  Brograve’s heart gave a little leap. “Does that mean . . . ? Do you mean that I have your permission to marry Eve?”

  “Good grief, man, of course you do! I would never go against Eve’s wishes. She simply wouldn’t have it.”

  Brograve heaved a sigh of relief and Lord Carnarvon laughed again. “Her mother might be a tad frosty because you weren’t her first choice of candidate and Almina likes to be in charge, but my advice is to ride out the storm. When were you thinking of tying the knot?”

  “Next April?” Brograve said, a question in his voice. “Eve wants a spring wedding.”

  “April it is, then.” He put down his cigar and rose from his chair. Brograve rose as well, and Lord Carnarvon first of all shook his hand, then threw his arms around him and embraced him, patting his back. “Welcome to the family, young man.”

  Almina didn’t say anything to Brograve’s face but he heard that she berated Eve in private. “I offered you the son of an earl,” she said, referring to Tommy Russell, “and instead you chose the son of a boring old baron.” Eve imitated her mother’s voice as she passed this on, doing an uncannily accurate impression. It didn’t endear his future mother-in-law to him.

  Still, April 1923 was decided on, and the women planned a trip to Paris to start researching wedding dresses. Almina rang to book the church, and spoke to her favorite florist and photographer. This was her forte. She loved organizing events and would oversee every detail with fierce perfectionism.

  And then everything changed: an election was called for November fifteenth, and Brograve was in the midst of campaigning when Eve and Pups received the telegram from Howard Carter about the discovery of the tomb. Had it not been for politics, Brograve would have joined them, and he would have been there when they crawled into the burial chamber for that illicit nighttime visit instead of hearing about it secondhand. He wished he had been; Eve was raving about it afterward.

  She and Pups were halfway to Egypt when the election result was announced: Brograve got a measly 25 percent of the vote in Lowestoft, and his Conservative opponent took 57 percent. Across the country, the Liberals were decimated and the fledgling Labour Party had its fortunes boosted.

  Brograve wouldn’t see the tomb until the following February, when he visited with his mother and father. And if he thought their wedding in April would be a straightforward matter, he had another think coming.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  London, January 1973

  January drew to a close with a dramatic winter storm that brought down an ancient oak in the street outside Eve and Brograve’s apartment. She was sad to see such a mighty creature felled and she took the lift down to the street to pick up a twisty twig with a shriveled acorn still attached to remember it by. She met the postman in the foyer and he handed her a letter addressed to her, in handwriting she didn’t recognize.

  “Glad to see you out and about again, Lady Eve!” he said. He always called her that and Eve never corrected him. In fact, the title should only be used with her surname, Lady Beauch
amp or Lady Evelyn Beauchamp, but what did it matter?

  “I’m greased lightning on my stick,” she said, waving it. “Don’t tell anyone but I’m training for the next Olympic Games.”

  “I’d put money on you in a heartbeat,” he said.

  Eve opened her letter over morning coffee. It was from Ana Mansour, and it was written on the stationery of a hotel off the Edgware Road.

  Ana began by hoping that Eve was entirely recovered. “Please forgive me if my questioning upset you. It certainly wasn’t my intention. Your husband has asked me to leave you in peace, and I fully understand that he wants to protect you. I just wanted you to know that I will remain at this address until I complete my research and you can contact me anytime if you think of anything that might help.”

  Ana wrote that she was sorry she hadn’t had a chance to ask about Eve’s recollections of the burial chamber. “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I got the impression you remembered something about the wishing cup I showed you a picture of, and possibly the gold unguent container. If you did, I beg you to tell me whatever you know.”

  What on earth had she done with that gold container? Eve wondered yet again. It must be somewhere in the flat. Surely she should be able to track it down by the scent?

  “I’m sorry to press you after your husband asked me not to,” Ana wrote. “This winter is hard for me because my two children are in Cairo, with their father’s family, and I can’t return home until my research is finished. As a mother, I’m sure you will sympathize.”

  Eve was surprised. How could any woman leave her children for months on end? Perhaps they were at school and she had decided not to disrupt their education, but the separation must be heart-wrenching. Could she not fly home for a visit or two? Personally, she could never have left Patricia when she was young. The only time they spent a night apart was when Eve was in the hospital after her accident.