The Buried Pyramid

by Jane Lindskold

  Sir Neville intended to arrive in Egypt around the ebb of the inundation of the Nile. Travel upriver would be easiest then, and the whole of the cooler winter season would remain for exploration. He admitted that he had no idea how long it would take for them to locate the Valley of Dust once they reached the Hawk Rock, and even less idea how long they would wish to remain there when—and Jenny noted with some amusement that Uncle Neville persistently said “when,” never “if”—they found it.

  At this point, “they” and “them” still referred exclusively to Uncle Neville, Stephen Holmboe, and the mysterious Edward Bryce, but Jenny felt certain that long before the time came for the members of the expedition to board the steamer that would carry them upriver, she would be included in their number.

  And if not officially, she thought, I’ll just stow myself in a trunk ’til they can’t possibly leave me behind.

  With the aim of making herself as useful as possible, Jenny applied herself to learning basic hieroglyphs—at least this way she’d recognize characters, if not always be able to interpret their meaning. She also took advantage of the long days traveling by train across France to demonstrate her skill for accurate sketching. Uncle Neville had decided not to trouble with the delicate and expensive bother of a camera, so an artist other than the already overextended Mr. Holmboe would not come amiss.

  Jenny’s thoughts were so focused on Egypt that France went by in a blur. Only after they had reached the port where they would board the steamship that would carry them across the entire length of the Mediterranean Sea did she wonder if this had been deliberate—an avoidance, not so much of the country, as of the inevitable memories of her French-born father that it would bring.

  When they arrived aboard Neptune’s Charger , a not completely pleasant surprise awaited them. Bert and Emily had gone ahead to settle their belongings while the remaining members of the group took care of some last minute shopping. The shops were crowded, and the French merchants obstructive until Jenny flourished her best French at them. Consequently, they arrived just before departure. Neptune’s Charger had left port and was well out to sea when they discovered who was among their traveling companions.

  Jenny was standing on an upper deck, looking down at the churning water, when a light, laughing voice spoke from close beside her. “I do always wonder why Homer called the Mediterranean the ‘wine-dark sea,’ ” the voice said. “It looks rather like water anywhere. Maybe these blues and greens are more lustrous, but certainly the waters are not wine-purple.”

  Jenny turned to find Lady Audrey Cheshire leaning with studied elegance against the rail. Her first inclination was to blurt out “What are you doing here?” Her second to wonder if this meeting was completely coincidence. She might have gaped open mouthed for a moment, but her reply pleased her with its cool control.

  “Lady Cheshire, is it not?” Jenny said, giving a slight dip of her skirts. “I believe we met on the day I arrived in England.”

  “Was that the very day you arrived?” Lady Cheshire asked. “I recall Sir Neville saying you were newly come from America, but I hadn’t realized you had landed that same day. Are you then leaving again so soon?”

  Jenny nodded. “Uncle Neville offered me the opportunity to accompany him to Egypt, and I was happy to take him up on his kind offer.”

  Lady Cheshire looked more interested than that simple response deserved. “Surely you must be apprehensive about venturing into the Egyptian wilds.”

  “Wilds?” Jenny laughed. “I understand Cairo is very civilized. It was an old city before London had its Great Fire.”

  “True.” Lady Cheshire opened a fan and waved it languidly, though the sea breeze was fresh and pleasant. “Cairo is rather marvelous. I have visited her many times, and would be happy to show you the sights.”

  Knowing her uncle’s desire for secrecy, Jenny didn’t know how to respond to this ostensibly kind offer. She was saved from needing to do so by the arrival of that gentleman himself.

  “Lady Cheshire?” Sir Neville said. “Is that you?”

  Audrey Cheshire turned and subjected him to the full glow of one of her magnificent smiles. “Surprised, Sir Neville?” she said archly. “Well, you have no one but yourself to blame for my being here.”

  “Oh?”

  Although the fashion in which Sir Neville bowed over the lady’s hand was perfectly cordial, Jenny could hear the suspicion in her uncle’s voice. She wondered if Lady Cheshire heard it as well. If so, she did not give any indication.

  “That’s right,” the lady continued. “Thinking about your traveling to Egypt awoke in me a longing for those happy winters I spent in the Land of the Pharaohs with my late husband. Suddenly, the prospect of another winter in London, another dreary round of the sparrow chatter of gossipy matrons, of making calls and attending dressmaker’s fittings, seemed overwhelming rather than inviting. My man of business made some inquiries, and here I am.”

  Her explanation seemed to relax Sir Neville somewhat, but Jenny was not convinced. The explanation seemed too pat to her. Hadn’t Lord Cheshire been an archeologist? Might not his widow have gotten wind that Sir Neville was onto something big? Anyhow, Jenny didn’t like the way Lady Cheshire was laying on the charm. She’d seen the same smiles on the faces of dance hall girls, and those women usually had only their own gain in mind.

  Jenny hid a smile as she imagined what Lady Cheshire might think if she knew herself compared to those soiled doves of the West. Then she remembered that lady’s comments about the dubious reputation of young widows, and wondered if Lady Cheshire might be cynical enough to see the similarities for herself.

  Sir Neville was making conversation, comparing notes on their journeys across France and about the high prices the French charged for everything. Jenny knew it was only polite for her to join the pair, but felt rather thankful that it was a young woman’s place to be seen but not heard.

  Lady Cheshire was not traveling alone, and soon Mrs. Syms joined her on deck. Mrs. Syms was very excited about returning to the Land of the Pharaohs.

  “They had secrets, you know,” she said, animation lighting her rather horsey features. “Those pyramids were meant to focus psychic emanations, and they still do so today. The people of Egypt are wonderfully spiritual. Our own gypsies are debased Egyptians, don’t you know, and even in their degraded state can still tell fortunes and all that kind of thing. One can expect marvels from the undiluted stock.”

  Jenny managed to keep a straight face. There was something pathetic about the woman’s enthusiasm that made it easy. She was willing to bet anything that when in England Mrs. Syms attended seances and spiritualist lectures.

  With the arrival of Mrs. Syms, they drifted over to a sheltered grouping of chairs, and there Captain Brentworth found them. Jenny saw the dark look he shot Uncle Neville, but that gentleman was too busy laughing over one of Lady Cheshire’s witticisms to notice.

  If she’s not careful, Jenny thought, there will be trouble between them over her.

  She wondered if this was precisely what Lady Cheshire desired. Perhaps Captain Brentworth was becoming too proprietary, and Lady Cheshire wished to keep him in line. That theory didn’t seem to quite fit with the way she kept turning those green eyes on Captain Brentworth, drawing him in even when he grew sullen and distant. Maybe Lady Cheshire was simply one of those women who couldn’t bear not to captivate each and every male around her.

  If this was the case, she was going to have a good audience aboard Neptune’s Charger . Among those aboard were a smattering of military men moving to new posts, a clergyman off to convert the heathen, and a few business travelers representing interests that supplied cotton to England’s mills.

  One of the military men, a Colonel Travers, had served with Sir Neville at some point in their overlapping careers. He seemed rather glad to renew their acquaintance, though perhaps with a trace of condescension on his part since Sir Neville was no longer in active service. Doubtless some of Colonel Traver
s’s eagerness was due to the fact that he was senior among the military contingent and thus was barred from undue fraternization. Another reason was that he was traveling with his wife and daughter, for the posting to Egypt was intended to last some years.

  Jenny’s presence meant that the daughter, Mary, was supplied with a companion of about her own age. However, Jenny thought that Sir Neville, though over forty, was still considered a potential catch in the marriage sweepstakes, his former military connections, current knighthood, and tidy fortune outweighing any disadvantage that age might convey. For her part, Mary made polite conversation with Sir Neville, but Jenny thought her preference was for any of several of the younger officers under her father’s supervision.

  Over the next few days, several of these young men paid Jenny a fair amount of attention, more so after Emily rather acidly commented to her mistress that gossip had confirmed that Jenny was the likely heir to her uncle’s estate. However, having been belle by default of many a frontier post, Jenny was pretty well able to judge men. Alice Benet had met with her share of flirtatious advances herself, and had not left her daughter unequipped with the benefits of her experience.

  There was one man—or youth—who did catch Jenny’s eye, though not for his marriageability. On the second or third day out from their original port, Jenny was enjoying the pleasant weather on one of the forward decks in company with Lady Cheshire, Mrs. Syms, Mrs. Travers, and Miss Travers. Several of the men were playing cards a short distance away, Captain Brentworth among them. He looked into his cigarette case, found it empty, and barked at the nearest steward.

  “Hey, you. Call my boy and tell him I need more cigarettes.”

  The steward made some polite response and vanished. Jenny was musing over how the English treated their servants rather like Southerners had treated slaves, when a slim, dark youth emerged on deck. He was dressed in a hybrid of English and Arabic costume, trousered, but turbaned, the lines of his attire looser and more flowing than was usual. The light color of the fabrics contrasted handsomely with the warm golden brown of his skin. He looked, Jenny thought, her mind filled with her daily lessons in Egyptology, like one of the young men in the tomb reliefs come to life.

  The young man salaamed deeply, extended what should have been a filled cigarette case but proved to be a single carpet slipper.

  “Cigarette case!” Captain Brentworth bellowed, throwing his empty case at the boy in illustration. “Why the deuce would I want a slipper?”

  The young man bent and picked the empty case from the deck, salaamed again, and went below, leaving the slipper behind.

  “Idiot!” Captain Brentworth fumed. “I have half a mind to return him to the orphanage when we arrive in Cairo. Natives are often slow, but this one can be positively moronic.”

  Captain Brentworth’s rant was interrupted by the return of the boy, his cheeks flushed, his gaze downcast. He flung himself clumsily to the deck, extending a filled cigarette case with one hand.

  “Take this,” Captain Brentworth growled, tossing the slipper at the boy, “and listen to what I say from now on.”

  The boy took the slipper and was about to withdraw when Lady Cheshire called out.

  “Rashid! Come here, please.”

  Jenny gave the woman a point for the “please,” but Lady Cheshire’s tone was as imperious as that with which Captain Brentworth had addressed the steward.

  “I feel rather dull,” Lady Cheshire said when the youth had hastened over, salaamed, and stood waiting, his unfocused gaze on the deck. “Do you have mischief with you?”

  Jenny was still puzzling over this odd question when Rashid bowed again, and, reaching into the folds of his shirt, removed a small monkey from where it clung against the warmth of his chest. Slender and long-limbed, the monkey possessed a graceful tail nearly as long as itself. Bright eyes, far more alert and intelligent than those of its master, surveyed the gathering from a face furred mostly white, white face and ruff providing striking contrast to the monkey’s nut-brown coat.

  Rashid presented the little animal to Lady Cheshire, who took the monkey without any of the shrinking that so many women seemed to think was required if the animal in question was anything other than a lapdog, a very somnolent cat, or a riding horse.

  Reluctantly—for several days further acquaintance had not made Jenny any more willing to trust Lady Cheshire—Jenny was forced to award her another point. After further consideration, Jenny realized she was not certain what game she was scoring, or whether Lady Cheshire even knew they were playing. All she was certain of—this with no evidence at all—was that Lady Cheshire’s departure for Egypt on the very ship on which they themselves were traveling could not be coincidence.

  However, Jenny was very aware that she had no evidence to support this certainty, so said nothing of her suspicions to either Uncle Neville or Mr. Holmboe.

  Mischief turned out to be the monkey’s name, and he had a half-dozen or so tricks he would do, including putting a handkerchief over his head like a bonnet and peeking out. He had clever little fingers, and delighted at being given something to handle. It was almost as if Mischief saw the world through those agile little fingers, not through the slightly worried eyes that darted from face to face as he performed, as if the monkey was wondering which among his audience were the screamers and which might become friends.

  “Rashid seized Mischief from some street performer in London,” Lady Cheshire explained, while Mischief clung to her arm and chattered nervously. “I don’t know the exact circumstances, but the poor little beast was very ill when Rashid brought it back. Rashid nursed him as faithfully as any mother, and now Mischief is completely devoted to him—though I like to think that the darling little creature knows his friends.”

  Jenny longed to hold the monkey, but knew without asking that this was Lady Cheshire’s show. Still, she could assert herself, too, and did so by opening the book of hieroglyphs that Uncle Neville had loaned her and making a point of attending to her studies, rather than to Lady Cheshire.

  This didn’t bother Lady Cheshire one bit. That lady’s intended audience was not the small circle of women, but the men gathered over at the card tables. Before long, a deep voice interjected itself into the female twittering, and then another, and when Jenny slipped away to her cabin, no one noticed her departure.

  Emily was in the cabin, folding away some freshly laundered clothing. She offered to excuse herself, but Jenny was glad for her company. Both Emily and her Bert were the kind of direct, honest hardworking folk Jenny had frequently met on the frontier, and seemed more real to her than the majority of the first class passengers.

  For her part, Emily had forgiven Jenny for the incident of the six-guns, especially after Jenny had told her any number of stories about real Indians and cattle drives—the retelling of which had made Emily very popular with her associates.

  “Emily,” Jenny asked, “had you met Lady Cheshire before this voyage?”

  “Her?” Emily said, pursing her lips in a momentary frown. “We haven’t been introduced, if that’s what you mean, she being gentry and all.”

  “Did she ever call on Uncle Neville?”

  Emily considered.

  “I believe she might have been to Hawthorne House a time or two, for the master’s lecture nights. He was holding those fair regular for a while, belonged to some association for antiquities. They met at the houses of the members until the group grew so large they thought a hall might be better.”

  “And Lady Cheshire came to some of those?”

  “I think so,” Emily said. “She seems familiar. I’d be helping out you see, with coats and things, and she’s a striking lady, with those green eyes and all that dark hair.”

  “Yes, she is,” Jenny agreed. “So she’s genuinely interested in Egyptology, then.”

  “I believe so, Miss. Lady Cheshire’s maid was saying that the lady has all sorts of horrid things at her house: mummy cases, bones, bits of hair and linen.” Emily shuddered.
“I don’t mind saying, Miss, that I wouldn’t want to have the dusting of such trash. Sir Neville’s collection is much nicer. The alabaster is lovely stuff and so is that fay-ance glass, though why anyone would want broken old pots is beyond me.”

  “I like them for the wonder of touching something made by people who lived so very long ago,” Jenny said. “So you know Lady Cheshire’s maid?”

  “Can’t hardly help it on a boat like this,” Emily sniffed, “though I fancy she wouldn’t give me the time of day in other circumstances. She’s French—gives herself airs for knowing about high fashion and being able to do delicate lacework and such. The other woman’s maid, she who waits on that Mrs. Syms—Polly, her name is—she’s a simple countrywoman with no nonsense to her.”

  “Not very much like her mistress, then,” Jenny said with a light laugh. “Mrs. Syms believes all sorts of nonsense.”

  Surprisingly, Emily, who was a good churchgoing woman and should have no truck with things like spiritualism, softened.

  “Ah, but then the poor woman has had her share of hardship, she has.”

  Jenny tilted her head inquiringly.

  So encouraged, Emily went on, “You knows Mrs. Syms is a widow, but do you know how her husband died?”

  “I do not. Mrs. Syms is remarkably silent on the subject, given how much she likes to talk on other things. Only yesterday Mrs. Travers was talking about how her sister had recently lost her husband. I noticed that Mrs. Syms became quite pale, and soon after she excused herself.”

  “Mr. Syms died saving her life, he did,” Emily explained in hushed tones. “They were traveling by carriage from some country ball and highwaymen pulled them over and were going to rob them. The thieves hit the coachman over his head and left him senseless. Mrs. Syms was quite terrified, so Polly says, especially when it came clear that the men were more than a bit gone in drink and might be thinking of more than robbery.