Tutankhamun Uncovered (31 page)

It warmed Carter’s heart to see such a demonstration of commitment from the aristocrat. A close bond had developed between them. Perhaps it was true after all they would achieve great things. But slower days lay ahead.

The house built, furnished and occupied, once more the two returned to excavation. They chose to move the site of their investigations to a concession in the Nile delta. Now far distant from Castle Carter and any hotel, of necessity they worked out of a field camp, but not your average field camp.

Carnarvon, despite his persistent ailments, enjoyed ‘roughing it’, but in his own fashion. He would willingly abandon himself to the discomfort of living in, on and with things that could be carried, provided, of course, there were enough men available to do the carrying. Apart from the usual canvas for tents and cots, folding tables and chairs, also included amongst his travelling paraphernalia was a full wardrobe of suits, shirts, ties, hats and accessories, tablecloths, silver, cut glassware, crested porcelain for the dining table, candelabra, etc, etc. Since her ladyship would be present on this occasion, her maidservant would have to be in attendance. With his manservant already present and his personal doctor also at hand, additional tents were required. One was given over to the storage of claret from the cellars at Highclere and, of course, the provision of separate facilities for bathing and for toilet. It was a temporary, canvas country seat.

However, notwithstanding these extravagant preparations entirely normal for the likes of his lordship the excavation team’s stay was short-lived.

The pegs had been in the ground just ten days.

Lady Carnarvon was at her toilet in preparation for dining that evening. As she watched her maidservant pick out a relatively plain, long linen evening dress from her trunk, she detected a movement in the clothing beneath as if her dress had come alive.

She cautioned her unaware maid. “Jane, stand away from the chest! I’m sure I saw something move in there.”

They both looked intently at the clothing in the trunk.

“There! See? It moved again!”

“Oh, my lady. Whatever do you think it can be?”

The clothes were now in continuous motion, rippling right across the trunk. It was either a number of small creatures or perhaps one large one.

“Summon Ali,” ordered Lady Carnarvon. “But help me on with that dress first.”

Ali hurried into her ladyship’s tent and quickly began prodding about amongst the clothes in the trunk with his walking stick. As the end of his stick pushed into something sausage like and soft, the clothes sprang up as if unnaturally levitated and flipped backwards over themselves to reveal the diamond shaped head of a viper. Its head was perched erect on its arched neck, tongue flicking at the air sensitively, poised to strike. The snake’s eyes stared directly at Lady Carnarvon. For a moment she froze; she didn’t even take a breath, the blood draining from her face as shock overcame her senses. Ali was equally transfixed. It took a second head to emerge from the clothing to move him to action. Ali withdrew his stick, both vipers striking at it as it moved, and slammed the lid of the chest closed. “I will get rid of them, my lady. Do not worry. Your clothes may get a little dirty but I shall wash them straight away. Do not worry.”

He was worried even as much as her, though she could not tell it and did not much care. All she was thinking of was her own safety and how close she had come to what might have been an agonising death. She gave little thought to the task that Ali now had before him. She frantically gestured at him with her hands. The action was enough to convey the purpose of her thoughts.

“Get the box out of here and quickly, you silly little man.”

Ali manhandled the chest out of the tent and into some nearby reeds. He lay it down on its side. Standing away from it, he poked the catch with his stick so that the lid fell backwards to the ground, and waited for the creatures to emerge. They did not. He moved slowly around to the opening so that he could better see if there was any movement inside. The clothes lay half spilled onto the sand. Nothing moved. Like snakes in a snake charmer’s basket, the docile two lay motionless, entwined in the folds of cloth.

Still in her tent, Lady Carnarvon sat down on a canvas folding chair and looked about her. Hiding places were everywhere. Could there be others in her bed? She began to shake uncontrollably. This was not Highclere. This was not the Elysean fields of England, raining, grey and cold, infested with rabbits and squirrels and foxes and badgers and weasels and stoats and cats and dogs. This was a foreign desert, an eternal beach with no water; dry, golden and blistering hot during the day, freezing cold at night, and infested with venomous lucifers. She had so wanted to share the experience of adventure and discovery with her husband and demonstrate her ability to tolerate the discomforts of this alien environment. She had determined to be strong. She would support him when he, often flagging in energy because of his intermittent ill health, would turn to her for help. But now cold fear and a building sense of panic filled her head. When he returned from the field that night, it would be all she could do to hold herself back from dashing into her husband’s arms in tears and relief. She knew she would have to admit her weakness sooner or later before her self-control broke down.

She moved out of the tent backwards, surveying all items for signs of movement as she left. As she emerged, she turned to see Ali holding a snake down with his stick and beating at it with his knife.

“All dead, my lady. Nothing to fear now.” But she could not stop herself shaking and clasped her arms about herself in a vain attempt to still her shivering body.

Preoccupied with her fear, she did not hear the men approach. She continued to stare at the chest until the figure of Lord Carnarvon moved across her line of sight. On recognising him, the sense of relief took the strength from her legs and she almost collapsed to the ground. It was all she could do to maintain her stature and some semblance of dignity. She tried hard to control her expression. Her face displayed a normal welcoming smile which belied her unfathomable relief at his return.

Carnarvon took off his panama. “That’s it! Had enough! Ali, get packing. We’re moving back to Cairo tonight. Damn place is infested with vipers. Can’t abide snakes. Neither can Mr Carter. Damn dig isn’t worth the risks. Sorry, my dear. Know you had been looking forward to roughing it a bit but I don’t think I’ve got your grit!”

Lady Carnarvon felt all the tension leave her in an instant and she burst into uncontrollable laughter.

The earl glared at her. “Might sound amusing to you, my dear, but it was damn scary out there for a moment or two. Damn scary. Don’t think you have any comprehension.” He turned to Carter who was helping one of the fellahs with his load. “Her ladyship finds our experiences amusing, Howard. Damned if I’m not of a mind to take her out there and have her taste it for herself. Would if I wasn’t such a coward.”

They both began to chuckle.

Ali, all the while, had been surreptitiously kicking sand over the dead serpents’ bodies.

Ludwig Borchardt, a name that, second only to the French of Carter’s earlier career, was to engender intense dislike within our hero’s breast, had arrived in El Amarna during Carnarvon’s abortive excavations in the delta. The man himself, distinguished as an Egyptologist for some years had, like so many who attain some populist recognition, built on the natural foundation of arrogance that is so characteristic of that nationality and obtained a reputation for bigotry that transcended even that of Carter. His excavations had met with little success that year and, hungry for the regular publicity to which he had grown accustomed, he looked for something that could make more of a statement. Something that would be lapped up by the German press and, perhaps, others.

He decided to build a reconstruction of an Egyptian villa of the Amarna period a replica, as he imagined it, of one of the houses that Tutankhamen might have enjoyed as a child. Other than the ground plan he did not know what such a building should look like. But that mattered little. Neither did the public and, after all, it was he who was the Egyptologist. He could construct what he liked. The layman would tacitly accept the personal endorsement of Ludwig Borchardt.

He employed a horde of labourers and set them to constructing his ‘villa’. The site he chose for the building was on the tourist route to the two royal necropolis valleys. In such a location it was assured that most who visited the west bank would see it and be impressed with its insightful beauty. In other words, it could hardly be missed.

On the return trip from the delta, Carnarvon had elected to stay in Cairo to placate his wife, by now desperate for some home comforts. Carter continued on to his ‘castle’.

When he disembarked on the west bank, Abdel was there to help him onto his donkey. The journey took its usual slow, ambulatory course through the green fields in the flood plain of the river and up the winding, dusty track to the mouth of The Valley of the Kings. Although Carter was tired from his journey, it would be a real pleasure to get back to the house he had built and the location on the threshold of his ultimate quarry. He drank in the familiar scenery as he approached. But, as they turned north, Carter caught sight of a vulgar, red construction.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief. “Abdel!” he yelled, the sound of his voice echoing for a few seconds. “Abdel. What has happened here? Who built that... that thing?”

“The German master, sir. He who talks much and does little. Many men were employed. Very happy they were. There has been little work in the area this season, so they were glad of the opportunity. It is good, yes?”

“Bloody monstrosity. What the hell’s it for? What’s it s’posed t’ be?”

“It is for the tourists, sir. He said it is a copy of a villa in El Amarna.”

“Looks like a bloody tenement block. Bet they build things like that all over Berlin. Who d’you think’s seen a villa of the Amarna period, Abdel? No one, that’s who. Not even a reasonable illustration of one in any of the texts I have looked at. A combination of poor taste and the man’s inept imagination is what we’re looking at. Nothing more. It’s a bloody disgrace. How could the Director General have allowed it?”

Fact was, Monsieur le Directeur himself was as yet unaware of the building’s existence.

It was late April and Carter, in the sole company of his brandy, sat on the terrace of the Hotel Royal. It was early evening and he enjoyed his solitude. He contemplated the events of that day.

He had received and responded to several letters since she had left sweet letters. He had kept them all, read and reread them from time to time when the mood took him. He rolled the crystal goblet between his palms and looked through it at the shards of glowing light thrown by the sunset.

Will she want to see me this summer? he thought. Will she be there or on her holiday excursions once again to some other country?

He had missed her so many times during his earlier summer visits to England. It had been his own fault. Absentminded about matters not directly associated with the work at hand, he would never think to write advising her of his return. This time, to ensure that at some point during his leave their paths might cross, he would write sufficiently in advance of his leaving Egypt.

The reappearance of the waiter brought Carter back to the present. Poised delicately on the four fingers of the waiter’s right hand was a silver salver, the yellow envelope of a telegram centred on it. Carter picked up the envelope and tipped the waiter. Tapping it on the edge of his wicker chair he tore off one edge, withdrew the slip of paper and unfolded it.

His earlier expression of pleasant contentment fell all at once into one of visible concern. “Waiter!” he shouted in Arabic. “Summon the concierge immediately. I must leave for England as soon as I can obtain a berth.”

The spring in England that year was more colourful than he had remembered it. The exceptional precipitation of the winter months had, it seemed, enriched the ground with water sufficient to sustain, as it were, the lush jungles of the Amazon Basin. The rains were now gone and everything about him was growing. After the unyielding starkness of the desert environment to which Carter had become so accustomed, this blazing array of colour was like arc lights turned on in the darkness.

He took the train to Swaffham and secured a horse and carriage for the trip to Didlington Hall. The entire journey was a delight and the sight of the Hall after all these years filled his heart with emotion. The rhododendrons were just beginning to go past their prime, and the lawns were a brilliant, fresh green. But, as he got nearer, he could see that things were not quite as he had remembered them. The grass had not been cut for some time. Much of the shrubbery had remained unpruned that winter. The gardens were much overgrown. There was no evidence of outside activity.

He drew up at the front door, alighted from the carriage and walked up the steps. No one was there to open the door as he arrived. No one had been watching for him. He heard no lilting voices from the garden behind.

He knocked on the door. A stranger answered. A dour man in a black suit. ‘Looks like an undertaker,’ Carter thought.

“My name is Howard Carter,” he announced.

“Ah. You were expected some weeks ago. Where have you been? We had given you up and were looking for another.”

“I have come as quickly as I could. I was in Egypt, y’ know.”

“Better late than never, I am sure her Ladyship would have said, but now you’re here you’d better get about your business right quick. The vultures are at the door.”

“Are her ladyship or his lordship present?”

“Gone this long since, Mr Carter. Living with friends in Marylebone. You are to report to his lordship when you have finished here. I will give you the address.”

Carter couldn’t believe it. He was standing in a house that, once vibrant with aristocratic life, was now filled with sheet draped furniture, insects and little else but Egyptian ghosts. He could still hear the echoes of Lady Amherst’s children playing on the terrace, and Amherst’s authoritative instruction in the library. Where had it all gone? How had it all gone?