A Grave Celebration

by Christine Trent

  Pasha! Pasha! Pasha!

  The khedive’s gratification at the crowd’s unchecked acclaim was visible even at Violet’s distance. “In true keeping with the international cooperation magnified here, the opera with an Egyptian setting and the scenario written by a Frenchman . . . will be composed by no less than the great Italian Giuseppe Verdi and performed in the new opera house in Cairo.”

  There were scattered gasps at this, followed by enthused clapping.

  “So Verdi has come out of his storage bin, eh?” Gautier said. “I thought he was busy walking the fields of his estate and playing the great landowner. Ah, well, whatever he does with it should prove interesting. I should think, though, that the Egyptians themselves are not quite as in love with Europe as Pasha is. I hope he does not have cause to regret so much importation of the Continent. Of course, all of it works mostly in France’s favor, so I have no cause to complain.”

  Something in Gautier’s tone put Violet on alert. “Do you worry for the khedive’s safety?” she asked.

  He smiled, once again transforming his frightful features into those of a kindly old bear. “I exaggerate, I assure you, Madame Harper. Act one, final scene: In a great tragedy, all of the Egyptian natives turn on the khedive and murder him in his sleep, thus turning the production into a one-act play. A little joke, a blague, yes?”

  Violet nodded. She had promised herself she would relax for just a short while, and here she was, already feeling tense again about the entire theater production, as Gautier would likely put it, that was the grand opening of the Suez Canal.

  Probably sensing her discomfort, Gautier changed the subject. “Where do you live in Great Britain, Madame Harper?”

  “London. I have a shop there. My husband is—” She stopped, realizing that Sam’s attention had returned to the stage. Sam was what? The poor man had left his homeland to join her back in England when her mother had been ailing, and then agreed to stay. Since then, he had been unsuccessful in two ventures, one involving dynamite manufacture and another with a coal mine. Tentative offers had been dangled before him, but it had been impossible to confirm anything, given that he had now followed Violet to Egypt. He had been ecstatic to help his old comrades put out the fire last night, and had avidly watched their demonstration today with a puppylike longing.

  She glanced at her husband through fresh eyes. Was Sam miserable, and Violet blind to it? A lump the size of a chunk of black coal formed in her throat, and she quickly blinked back tears.

  “My husband is—was—a lawyer by trade back in America, where he is from, and has been involved in several investments here,” she finished vaguely.

  It was good enough for Gautier, who probably didn’t care about the activities of anyone who wasn’t part of the current art movement. “Will you be staying for all of the canal events? I believe they will go on for days.”

  “Yes, we are committed to staying with Newport for as long as she’s here. We are most indebted to our queen for extending this invitation to us,” Violet said, happy to stop thinking about her husband’s contentment—or lack thereof—for the moment. “We plan to stop in Pompeii on our return to London,” she added. “An extra holiday for just the two of us.”

  “Ah!” Gautier dramatically put a hand over his heart. “You will be instantly transported to ancient Rome. I was so moved by my own visit there, so overwhelmed, that I wrote a story about it, ‘Arria Marcella.’ You have heard of it?”

  Violet shook her head. She knew almost nothing about great artists, composers, and writers. Her tastes ran more along the lines of the entertaining Mr. Dickens.

  Ibsen rolled his eyes. “They haven’t heard of it because it is such drivel. I will tell you what it is, monsieur and madame. Three friends visit a museum in Napoli. One of the friends, Octavien, is taken with a Pompeiian cast of a beautiful young woman. Because the young man is an idiot, his friends go on to visit Pompeii while he remains to daydream about the pile of ash. After his friends return, Octavien visits Pompeii himself, and is somehow transported back to AD 79, attending the theater, listening to Latin in the streets, and then, lo! He finds the beautiful woman from the museum, alive. What rot.”

  “It is immersion, Henrik. One must feel—” Gautier attempted to explain his beloved tale of love.

  “Even worse is his vampire tale, ‘La Morte Amoureuse,’ about a priest who falls in love with a female vampire who drinks drops of his blood at night while he sleeps so that she can survive. Vampires, can you imagine? What a canker for the brain.”

  At this, Gautier laughed aloud. He seemed to be taking his fellow author’s mockery with good-natured aplomb. “Ibsen takes himself far too seriously. He writes plays, but ah, the constant moralizing with you Germanics. The man is scathing in his commentary. Have you seen Brand?”

  Violet once more shook her head no, beginning to feel quite intellectually inadequate.

  Ibsen sniffed, temperamentally interrupting Gautier. “First, I am Norwegian, and only reside in Dresden for the moment. I’ll thank you not to refer to me as German again.”

  Now it was Gautier’s turn to roll his eyes. “You understand what I mean?” he said to Violet.

  Ibsen frowned and concentrated his intense gaze at the French playwright. “Second, the problem with you, Théo, is that you do not take your work seriously enough. You have a great power to influence, to right wrongs, within your grasp. But you believe that art should be ‘impersonal,’ and free of any moral lesson. I say you are wrong, and that the aim of the artist is not just to create a perfect form, but to create something that is divinely good.”

  The men were arguing, but Violet was beginning to see the affection they held for each other. It seemed as though the two had actually struck up an unlikely friendship here among the Egyptian palm trees. Actually, they were the first two genuine personalities she had encountered since landing. Everyone else was so concerned with their stature, their importance . . . their dignitas, as the ancient Romans would say. All of a sudden she was grateful that she and Sam were to be seated with writers at the Dinner of the Sovereigns.

  

  With the speeches finally over, the delegation members were escorted by Egyptian servants to the various tents assigned to them along what was interestingly marked as the Avenue of Victoria. The avenue was lined with exotic carpets so that guests did not have to step on exposed ground. The tents—there must have been more than a thousand of them—were arranged along either side of this makeshift street located near the red-roofed villa that Violet had noticed when they first arrived in Ismailia.

  “This is yours, my lord and lady,” their escort said, parting the curtained doorway before one of the tents. Potted palms stood on either side of the entry like sentries, and there was a rope-pulled bell on a post to the left of the doorway. The interior was surprisingly spacious, and outfitted with an opulently covered bed, a writing desk, and two tall chests with drawers, all in the very masculine Renaissance Revival style that was currently the rage in England. On top of one of the chests was a vase bursting with jasmine blooms, the sweet perfume filling every square inch of the space. The luxury of this tent town made it appear to be a palace turned inside out, with all of the decor gracing the outdoors.

  Sam stood in the middle of their private tent, which was at least ten feet tall, and shook his head in amazement. “Do you imagine the French delegates have tents full of tortoiseshell and ivory?”

  Violet laughed as she approached the framed tabletop mirror sitting next to the floral arrangement and took a quick glance to ensure that her bonnet sat properly on her head. “And I would wager that le bon Théo and Mr. Ibsen have sheaves of writing paper and dozens of ink pots in theirs.”

  Sam shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it carelessly over the bedpost, then sat on the bed. Within moments he was reclining, making himself comfortable against the pillows, his hands in their usual resting position, clasped on his chest. Violet opened a chest drawer to find that her garments were alrea
dy here and folded neatly inside the drawer. Since every possible detail had been taken care of for lowly delegation members like her and Sam, she could only imagine what sort of luxurious tents the royalty enjoyed. To think that the empress had her own villa constructed for just these few days was an astonishing thought.

  The servant cleared his throat from just outside. “If there will be nothing else, my lord and lady, His Highness Isma’il Pasha requests your presence at tonight’s dinner, in the Literary Corner.”

  Violet stepped out of the tent to speak to the servant, leaving Sam to what was apparently becoming a nap. “Yes, my husband and I will be in attendance. May I ask, who lives in the villa there?”

  The servant looked at her as if she were the stupidest human alive. “That is Monsieur de Lesseps’s villa, of course.”

  “I see,” she said. “And so that . . .” She pointed in the direction of the palace.

  “Is the khedive’s palace,” her escort finished for her.

  Violet wondered where Eugénie’s villa was, and how close it was to that of de Lesseps. Well, it was none of Violet’s business. She returned to the interior of the tent, where Sam was watching her with a quizzical expression. “Is something wrong, wife? You look unsettled.”

  His innocent observation rushed her previous insecurities about Sam’s contentment to the surface. “Now that you mention it, I was wondering . . .wondering if . . .” She wasn’t even sure how to phrase it.

  Sam sat up on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to him. “Sit with me.”

  She did so willingly, and he said, “Are you troubled about the bodies you found?”

  “No. I mean yes, of course that weighs on my mind, but there are other things that worry me a little.” Just sitting up against her husband’s warmth was reassuring. Maybe she was embracing foolishness to think there was anything wrong. Nevertheless . . .

  “It has occurred to me that your time since we returned from Colorado has been less than . . . engaging . . . for you, and I wonder if you are perhaps bored. Or dissatisfied. Or even . . . unhappy.”

  Violet cringed at hearing herself utter a word that had never even crossed her mind in their four years of marriage.

  To make it worse, Sam did not immediately rush to console her as he usually did. Instead, he deliberated for several moments, as if forming his thoughts. Then he took one of her hands carefully in his. “A man has to be useful, Violet,” he explained slowly. “Not just his wife’s appendage. I am proud of you, and the fact that you have royal notice and a flourishing undertaking trade, but I must have my own trade. I have been as unsuccessful in Britain as I can possibly imagine, and left a good law practice in our son-in-law’s hands to be here.”

  Violet felt the pinpricks of tears again, but was determined not to dissolve into a bout of uncontrolled weeping in front of him. “So you are miserable,” she accused gently.

  Sam flashed a smile and released her hand. “Not miserable, wife, as long as I have you.”

  It was a cryptic answer, and it left Violet feeling even further unsettled. She simply wasn’t used to any discord whatsoever between her and Sam, and the idea that he had been harboring a sense of despondency without her even having an inkling of it made her stomach roil. The worst part of it was that there was nothing she could do to fix Sam’s situation.

  They were interrupted by the ringing of the bell outside their tent. Sam rose and admitted Sir Henry Elliot. Violet also stood and greeted him.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Harper, we have a most unusual invitation.” The ambassador held up an open letter. “His Highness Franz-Josef wishes to receive the British delegation aboard his ship to discuss what he terms ‘important matters of state.’ ”

  “What matters are these?” Sam asked.

  Sir Henry shrugged. “I don’t know. Austria is in the midst of bitter arguments with Prussia, what with their continued attempts to unify Germany under the House of Habsburg, but it has nothing to do with Great Britain and we have no quarrel with them.”

  “But surely His Highness is seeking to meet with you and the Prince of Wales, and not lowly members like us,” Violet said.

  “That is probably quite true. But since he gives no reason for this summons, the prince believes that arriving in full strength will prevent the emperor from being too demanding. Besides, you are an official part of the delegation.”

  Their audience with the emperor of Austria would prove to be one of the strangest encounters with a royal Violet had ever had.

  Chapter 16

  The British delegation boarded SMS Viribus Unitis a half hour later. They were escorted into Franz-Josef’s reception quarters by Karl Dorn, the emperor’s chamberlain, who bowed stiffly before showing them down a wide staircase. Lining the center of each stairway tread was a uniformed, expressionless servant standing ramrod straight. The delegation passed down either side, holding the polished wood rails.

  A strange choreography commenced at the enormous double doors leading to the emperor’s presence. Rather than throwing open both doors for the entire delegation to enter at once, or at least to process in a line one at a time, Dorn instead maintained tight control of the opening and closing of the door in a bizarre routine. Both doors were opened to welcome in the Prince of Wales, with several of the servants who had been positioned on the stairs surrounding him as if they were escorting a precious transport of gold bars.

  The doors clicked shut behind the prince; then, moments later, only one door opened in its entirety and the ambassador was admitted. When the turn came for the Harpers, Asa Brooks, and even Commander Nares—for he had also been conscripted for the duty—the single door opened only wide enough to permit one of them at a time, and even then Violet’s skirts just passed through without crumpling.

  Inside was yet another miracle of wealth to which Violet should have been accustomed, having witnessed so much luxury in the past day, yet she found she was still breathless at the sight of it. The interior of what could hardly be termed a cabin, for surely it extended half the length and width of the entire ship, was awash in gilding, crystal, and priceless artwork. At one end stood Emperor Franz-Josef himself, resplendent in his red-striped trousers, with medals bedecking his chest.

  Sam, handsome in his own uniform, Captain Nares, and Asa Brooks were presented first to the emperor, and all bowed stiffly before the foreign sovereign. Violet was presented last, and she took her turn with a deep curtsy. Was it her imagination, or did Franz-Josef’s eyes narrow suspiciously at her?

  Except for Bertie, the other delegation members then unashamedly soaked in the opulence, Violet included. It was difficult to remember that they were on a ship, docked at least a thousand miles away from the nearest European palace.

  Franz-Josef came directly to the point. “I requested the British delegation’s presence for a specific purpose,” he stated. “One of great import that must be addressed right away prior to this evening’s dinner, and I—”

  “Have you nothing to smoke?” Bertie interrupted.

  The emperor’s eyes narrowed again, but he signaled to Dorn, and from some magical place a box of thin cigarettes was produced. Franz-Josef’s movements were controlled, but Violet could see him mentally tapping his foot with impatience as the Prince of Wales took his time in selecting one. After it was lit, Bertie drew deeply from the wrapped tobacco and slowly exhaled in pleasure. “As you were saying?” he said casually.

  “Yes, there is a grievous situation at hand.”

  “I do not know how Great Britain can assist you. We are not involved in your affairs, nor do they interest us,” Bertie said, verbally dismissing the emperor’s concerns.

  “Even if the very future of Europe is at stake?” Franz-Josef challenged coolly. He had hardly moved from his rigid military stance since they had entered the room.

  This finally piqued interest, and Bertie waited expectantly for Franz-Josef’s next words, but Sir Henry abruptly broke in. “Are you Germanic states on the brink of war again, as
we have suspected?” the ambassador said.

  Franz-Josef nodded once, the movement quick and clipped. “Thus vhat happens in the next few hours is critical.”

  “What is the trouble, Your Highness?” Sir Henry asked, in far more solicitous tones than Bertie had used.

  The emperor gave the ambassador an appreciative nod. “I have the seating chart for tonight’s dinner. It is unacceptable. I am seated below Frederick.”

  The only sound that could be heard was the distant screeching and cawing of red-throated loons outside. Inside the room, no one even dared breathe.

  Finally, Bertie broke the tense silence. “Pardon, I’m not sure I understand. You are seated below me and the Empress Eugénie, as well.”

  “Yes, I am villing to concede a lesser place to Great Britain, but I vill not do so for the Prussians.”

  Violet could hardly believe her ears. This was the matter of international import? A seating chart? How absurd!

  The Prince of Wales must have thought so also, as Bertie started to laugh heartily. Sir Henry dove in and tried to steer the moment diplomatically. “Your Highness, I believe the Prince of Wales shares your disbelief at the great dishonor done to you, but isn’t this simply a matter for the khedive’s own chamberlain? Surely he could rearrange chairs to suit you.”

  Franz-Josef compressed his lips in great displeasure. He really was the most humorless man . . .until he was in Eugénie’s bewitching presence. Violet began to suspect he was far less concerned with the indignity of placement vis-à-vis Prussia and much more worried about having an opportunity to brush up against Eugénie and feed her from his plate all evening.

  “I have sent my man to see the khedive’s man, and Dorn vas told there could be no changes at this late date.”

  Sir Henry spread his hands helplessly. “I do not see how adding our own request to change the seating assignments can be of any help. Perhaps you need to supplicate directly to the khedive himself or de Les—”