Daughter of Isis

by Belinda Grey

  ‘In his Last Will and Testament he appointed me as guardian to the surviving members of his family, and also verbally expressed the desire that his daughter, Miss Ellen Parry, should pay an extended visit to the land where he spent so many useful and felicitous years. It also accords with my own wish to meet the young lady who is now my ward.

  ‘May I therefore prevail upon your kindness, sir, and request that you make arrangements for Miss Ellen to travel out to join me? The enclosed draft will cover all necessary expenses. Let me further assure Your Lordship that my ward will be treated with the utmost courtesy and consideration, if only on account of the high esteem in which I hold her late father.

  ‘Your respectful servant, ‘Henry Bligh, Esquire.’

  ‘He wants me to go to Egypt,’ Ellen said blankly.

  ‘As your legally appointed guardian he could insist upon it,’ Lord Buckleigh said, ‘but he is evidently a man of sensibility, for he merely invites you in the kindest possible manner.’

  ‘To go to Egypt,’ she said. ‘All by myself!’

  ‘By no means,’ he contradicted. ‘No young lady could make such a journey alone. It would be most improper.’

  ‘Aunt Kate Evans would never agree to leave the valley,’ Ellen said despondently.

  ‘She is the one who has reared you?’

  Ellen nodded, her face rueful. ‘Aunt Kate Evans won’t even go for a visit to London,’ she said. ‘She certainly wouldn’t consider going all the way to Egypt.’

  ‘Fortunately the necessity won’t arise,’ Lord Buckleigh said. ‘By a most happy coincidence, an acquaintance of mine is sailing to Alexandria at the beginning of next month. Mrs. Faversham is going out to join her husband, and will be glad to chaperone you.’

  ‘Does—did my father live in Alexandria?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe he had property further up the Nile, but escort will doubtless be arranged for you. If you wish I can write to Mr. Bligh and tell him when you will be arriving. You will require a passport and a ticket, but there is sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements. But you will have to decide swiftly, so that I can inform Mr. Bligh and get in touch with Mrs. Faversham.’

  ‘To go to Egypt!’ Ellen could only repeat the phrase helplessly.

  ‘If that is what you wish.’ He was watching her closely.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to travel,’ she confided. ‘When I was small I used to wonder what was at the other side of the mountain, but Aunt Kate Evans said that was foolishness.’

  ‘Your aunt is doubtless a worthy woman, but not one overburdened with too vivid an imagination,’ Lord Buckleigh said dryly.

  ‘I used to hope that perhaps, one day, my father would send for me,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Your father hoped for a son,’ the old man told her. ‘When your mother died giving birth to a female it soured him very much. He devoted the rest of his life to archaeological research—though not, I fear, with any great success, else we should have heard more of him ‘

  ‘Digging up old graves,’ Ellen nodded.

  ‘A son could have helped him,’ Lord Buckleigh said. ‘Not that I believe such thoughts were in his mind when he first went to Egypt. He wanted simply to get away.’

  ‘Because my mother had died. He must have been very fond of her,’ Ellen said softly.

  ‘I believe he was.’ Lord Buckleigh took the letter from her and scanned through it rapidly. ‘It seems that your father was perhaps regretting the fact that you had been reared as a stranger to him, and hoping that you would agree to pay a visit to Silver Moon.’

  ‘To where?’ Her head jerked up sharply.

  ‘Silver Moon. That is apparently the name of your father’s house at Wadi Amarna. The address is at the top of the page.’

  ‘Silver Moon. Wadi Amarna!’ Ellen repeated slowly.

  ‘Presumably the house now belongs to you,’ Lord Buckleigh said. ‘I don’t suppose you thought of that.’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘When your father paid me back twelve years ago he enclosed a short letter. I have it still, if you would like to read it?’

  ‘Please.’ She took it from him, seeing the same neat, scholarly hand that had penned the mysterious poem.

  ‘My Lord Buckleigh,

  ‘It gives me pleasure to be able to repay the final instalment of the generous loan which you so kindly pressed upon me when I was a young man with no expectations. Now my life has taken a very different turn and I am settled in a charming house in a locality which, though remote, has many features of ancient interest. However, I will not forget the debt I owe to you, nor the kindness which made it possible for me to pursue an archaeological career.

  ‘Your obedient servant, ‘Hywel Parry.’

  ‘As you see that letter was also written from “Silver Moon”,’ Lord Buckleigh pointed out. ‘Your father did indeed settle down there.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ellen laid the letter down on the desk, thinking a little sadly that her father had not even troubled to enquire about the six-year-old daughter whom he had never seen.

  Yet he had sent her the ivory heart and the strange little poem. He must have sent it only a few days before he died, but she had no idea why.

  ‘I would like to go, sir,’ she said at last, ‘but I wouldn’t know how to make the arrangements by myself. If it’s hot out there I’ll need thinner garments, won’t I?’

  ‘Miss Bates, who is governess to my youngest girl, would assist you in those matters. She spent several years in India when she was younger. As to the rest, I have said I will see to everything for you.’

  ‘And you will write to Mr. Bligh, telling him to expect me?’

  ‘I will write to him and to Mrs. Faversham this evening,’ he assured her.

  ‘Then it would be a very great pity to waste such an opportunity,’ Ellen said firmly, shutting the doors of her mind on further doubts.

  ‘You have much of your father in you,’ Lord Buckleigh said, ‘It’s a great pity that he never knew you, for then he might have ceased to regret his lack of a son.’

  He had risen and was holding out his hand, evidently to signify that the interview was at an end. As she put her own into it she asked, ‘Do you know Mr. Henry Bligh, sir?’

  ‘Never met him, though I know of the family. Sir John Bligh’s younger son. Old Sussex family. Respectable but not brilliant connections.’

  ‘And he is now my guardian.’ She had never thought of herself as being in need of anyone except Aunt Kate Evans, and even her aunt had never wielded any really stern discipline.

  ‘Your father evidently thought highly of him,’ Lord Buckleigh said.

  ‘Then I must learn to think highly of him too. Thank you again, sir, for your kindness.’

  She bobbed a curtsy and went out into the slate-floored corridor again, through to the yard where the solemn-faced coachman leaned against the crested vehicle. Living in such grand surroundings didn’t seem to have made him very cheerful. Ellen thought, giving him her most brilliant smile as she climbed up into the padded interior. Even Lord Buckleigh, who owned the quarries and the mansion, had a look of settled discontent.

  ‘But I,’ she thought, anticipation rippling through her, ‘have so much ahead of me.’ A voyage to Egypt, a meeting with Mr. Henry Bligh, perhaps even an explanation of the gift and poem her father had sent. A trifle guiltily, she wondered if it was right for her to be so happily excited when she had just learned of her father’s death, but try as she might, she could summon up only a fleeting wistfulness because they had never met.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  ‘Well, my dear Ellen, we will soon be in Alexandria!’ Mary Faversham glanced across from the chair where she reclined towards her younger companion, who stood at the rail, gazing out over the intensely blue water to the crowded skyline of the approaching port. She had grown fond of the girl during the weeks they had spent together. Having no daughters of her own, Mary Faversham had greatly enjoyed taking this unsophisticated child un
der her wing, helping her to choose clothes that would enhance her slim darkness, chatting with her about the conditions she would be likely to encounter,

  ‘Not that I have ever ventured into the interior, my dear. My husband has been stationed either at Alexandria or Cairo, and the society there is largely cosmopolitan. There is quite a round of dinner parties and sightseeing trips. You will like the pyramids. They are really most impressive, though a little alarming.’

  ‘Alarming?’

  ‘So huge!’ Mary Faversham signed. ‘Really, it makes one feel exhausted to contemplate what effort went into the building of them!’

  ‘You don’t know Mr. Henry Bligh?’

  ‘Not personally, though I did meet his elder brother once. Sir Clive Bligh inherited the estate, you know, and married quite well. One of the Dartmouth girls—the Essex branch, not the Sussex line who, of course, are far more highly connected. But Henry Bligh, though he has spent most of his adult life in Egypt, does not mix much in polite society. I believe his interests are archaeological.’

  ‘Like my father,’ Ellen said.

  ‘Another whom I never had the pleasure of meeting,’ Mary Faversham regretted. ‘This must be quite an adventure for you—to travel all this way to visit your guardian and see the country where your father spent his life.’

  It was all an adventure, Ellen, thought, as each new experience unfolded itself before her. There had been the pleasure of visiting Chester in the company of Mrs. Faversham to buy clothes. White and pastel shades will repel the heat and wide-brimmed hats will mitigate the worst effects of the sun. I would advise your wearing a veil, and carrying a parasol until the cool of the evening, and you must be careful to put cream on your face if you wish to avoid dryness and flaking. The water is fairly safe in the cities, but I drink Vichy water myself, or lemonade.’

  So much advice, not only from Mary Faversham who had been to Egypt before and so could be credited with some knowledge, but also from Aunt Kate Evans, who had never been further than Llandudno in her life.

  ‘Keep your money in the top of your corsets now, and don’t go wandering off anywhere by yourself. And if anyone wants you to go into one of those heathen temples, you tell them you were brought up Chapel and don’t hold with idols. And if Mr. Bligh isn’t a gentleman you’re to turn right round and come home now—guardian or no guardian.’

  Her aunt had continued to fret and scold, but at the last she had given Ellen a rare kiss and said harshly. ‘Don’t you take any nonsense from anybody! You’ve been a good girl, and those foreigners are lucky to be getting the chance to meet you!’

  The excitement of the train journey to Southampton had palled beside the glories of the great passenger liner with its three decks, its gleaming brass-railed dining saloon, the small cabin with its bed and washstand nailed down, and its porthole giving her a marvellous view of the sea and sky. In her pale blue travelling costume, her long, straight hair drawn back under a feathered toque, Ellen had looked every inch the aristocratic young traveller. Several of the young officers had eyed her with admiration,

  Mary Faversham, however, for all her amiable gossiping, had strict notions of propriety. ‘Young officers are very unsuitable husbands, my dear Ellen, for most of them have little money and they spend far too much time away from home. You would do well not to encourage them.’

  Ellen would have no leisure in which to encourage them, even if she had felt so inclined, because scarce were they on the open sea when Mary Faversham succumbed to a long bout of feverish nausea, which necessitated the younger girl’s constant attention.

  ‘Once we are through the Bay of Biscay I will be myself again,’ Mary moaned through chattering teeth. ‘At present I am too ill to raise my head!’

  She was not too prostrate, however, to wish to be left alone for more than a few minutes at a time. Ellen was kept busy fetching handkerchiefs wrung out in eau-de-cologne, doses of sal volatile, glasses of soda water and shawls in which the sufferer could wrap her icy feet. Hurrying up and down the narrow companion-way or fanning the invalid in the stuffiness of the cabin, Ellen held down her own impatience to be up on deck or making friends with the other passengers.

  Most of her fellow travellers were Army wives sailing to join their husbands. There was a sprinkling of children, two nurses on their way to a hospital in Malta, and a priest rejoining his Order in Crete. The latter was a plump, benign little man who paced the deck on sandalled feet, raising his head occasionally from his Breviary to give a slightly startled smile as if he were not at all certain what he was doing there.

  The ship would dock at Alexandria to discharge some of its passengers and pick up some fresh supplies and continue down the Suez Canal towards India. Ellen wondered what it would be like to be one of the wives, making the arduous voyage to rejoin the man she loved.

  As soon as Mary Faversham was sufficiently recovered to venture up into the air the tempo of the voyage altered. Now there was time for Ellen to enjoy the fresh, salty breeze and the sunshine glinting on water more deeply blue than she had ever imagined. She had not felt even a qualm of sea-sickness, and it was irritating to have to remember to put down her veil to avoid the ravages of sunburn.

  They had stopped at Malta where the nurses, crisp in their starched skirts and blue cloaks, disembarked, together with the priest who was to spend a week at a monastery before continuing his journey. Ellen noted with amusement that he still had his eyes on his Breviary as he went down the gangplank. She had hoped that they might spend a few hours on the island themselves, but Mary Faversham said apologetically, ‘If I set foot on dry land I will only be sick again, my dear. And I assure you that Valetta is nothing but churches and a very vulgar place, with everything costing twice as much as it does elsewhere.’

  Ellen had swallowed her disappointment and contented herself with watching the other ships and boats going in and out of the harbour, and the long rows of twinkling lights strung along the quayside. She had taken advantage of the stopover to write a letter to Aunt Kate Evans, describing the voyage in terms that would satisfy the elder woman, who had been concerned that her niece would have no opportunity to attend a chapel service. Her aunt would be very pleased to learn that there had been a minister on board, Ellen thought as she licked the flap of the envelope, and there was no need to let her know he’d been a Roman priest—a church which, in Aunt Kate Evans’s eyes, was only slightly better than a heathen temple!

  From Malta they had steamed further east into the brilliance of the Mediterranean sunshine. Mary Faversham’s sea-legs were now steady enough to permit her to take several turns about the deck before joining the other passengers for meals in the saloon. It was clear that she took her duties as chaperone very seriously and was determined to deliver her charge unscathed to her destination, and Ellen couldn’t help feeling intensely amused by the ferocious scowl with which the normally amiable Mrs. Faversham greeted the approach of any male under the age of forty.

  For her own part she found no difficulty in avoiding shipboard flirtations. Ellen had never been very interested in any of the young men with whom she had been in contact. The boys at school had often teased her for being ‘stuck up’, and at the local Band of Hope, which she had always dutifully attended, nobody had ever tried to snatch a kiss when the minister’s back was turned. Despite her prettiness there was a quality in her that repelled familiarity. It had never particularly worried her, for deep down she had always felt that somewhere in the world waited a man who would be the one love of her life, and for the moment she was content to wait.

  ‘As soon as we land and have been cleared by customs, we will drive to the Hotel St Just,’ Mary Faversham told her. ‘I am certain there will be a message for you from your guardian.’

  ‘Do we have to have our luggage searched?’ Ellen asked. In England their luggage had been cleared without being opened, and the heart pendant and the poem remained unseen in the work box.

  ‘They are unlikely to do more than open a suitcase f
or appearance’s sake,’ Mary Faversham said. ‘People are more likely to want to smuggle things out of the country than into it.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Oh, jewels and pictures and carvings. Only a certain amount are permitted to be sent out of the country each year, but I believe some of the officials are very corrupt and can be bribed to turn a blind eye when something is sent out.’

  Ellen wondered if her father had needed to bribe an official in order to send her the gift, and then her attention was distracted by the bustle of preparation for departure. Mary Faversham was shaking hands with those passengers who were continuing the journey to Aden, and their cases were being collected by swarthy porters with turbaned heads and long robes.

  ‘Come along, Ellen dear. We will take a carriage to the Hotel St Just,’ Mary Faversham said briskly. ‘My husband will be here in a day or so to escort me to quarters, but you will probably hear from your guardian before that.’

  Obediently Ellen followed her chaperone down the gangplank and stepped on to the quay, where a way was being cleared for them by shouting, gesticulating porters. There were people everywhere. White suited Europeans in panama hats, small children swarming barefoot over coils of rope, sailors in flared trousers and striped tops, women with silver hoops in their ears and baskets of fruit and vegetables on their heads, priests in soutanes of black piped with red—white, brown, copper and black-skinned faces and what seemed like a dozen different languages, all shouted at once in a hundred different voices.

  Out of the press of people she became aware of a burning, insistent gaze and, turning her head as she stepped up into the small open carriage, looked into eyes so darkly brown that they seemed black. Their owner sat a white horse, and under the flowing robes of his burnous his shoulders were broad, his frame lean. Ellen could see only the eyes and deeply tanned forehead, for the rider was turbaned, with the lower part of his face swathed in a fold of his headdress. But the eyes held hers with an almost magnetic intensity.