Tutankhamun Uncovered (67 page)

“Great news! Sir John has turned up. Quite out of the blue! It’s marvellous. Just marvellous!”

Carter’s eyes lit up. “No mistrial?”

“No mistrial,” Maxwell confirmed. “Now that Sir John is here, they can have no legal grounds. And as added insurance, he has countersigned your renunciation. The endorsement will surely turn their heads to reinstatement.”

“Capital,” remarked Carter smugly. “That should seal it, then.”

“Well, we’ve not yet got them exactly where we want them, but a good deal closer, I’d say. I will ensure we retain dignity in our abdication. After Rosetti’s tainted litany at the outset of this contest, I am determined that we should not leave this place without setting the record straight.”

There was more than a note of professional competitiveness in Maxwell’s voice. Carter felt some foreboding in it. Nevertheless, the two marched together into the courtroom with straight backs and took their places at the table in front of the bench. They did not know it, nor did they sense it, but they were not alone.

Maxwell was one hour into relating the course of events as the Carter camp saw them when Crabites felt compelled to ask a question. He raised his hand to stop Maxwell in midsentence.

“Why, Mr Maxwell, did Mr Carter close up and abandon the tomb before he issued the writ which you are now presenting? It seems the wrong way about to me. Do y’ follow?”

As the cigarette smoke in the courtroom drifted up into the beams of sunlight cutting down from the open windows, Carter thought he noticed the faintest suggestion of a sparkle of colour just above Maxwell’s head.

“Your Honour,” Maxwell answered, quite taken aback and irritated by his lordship’s apparent lack of attention to the argument he had been so eloquently presenting. “Your Honour, that was not the case. Perhaps you misunderstand the situation. Mr Carter still retained possession when he issued his writ, but since then, and prior to this hearing, the government has come like a horde of bandits and forced him out of possession by nothing short of violence!”

As if a great hand had closed about the mouths of all those present, a muted silence fell upon the place. Suddenly the courtroom doors banged shut as three Egyptian journalists who had been taking notes rushed out to make their report.

Merton didn’t move, however. He was wondering how he was going to put this scene into words suitable for the British public.

The courtroom gradually came back to life. There were loud murmurings all about the public gallery.

Carter, still seated at the table, had his head in his hands. With just one word and a little accompanying anger, Maxwell had dismantled Carter’s confidence and replaced all his anxieties. Worse, he had earlier successfully persuaded his client to give away everything, only now to get absolutely nothing back in return. After just one word ‘Bandits’ there would be no way now for the government to concede a reestablishment of the concession.

Carter left the court without even so much as a farewell to Maxwell. Further discussion was pointless. There was nothing to do but book the very next passage home, leave this distasteful scene and, in different and more clement surroundings, try to put it out of one’s mind; purge the system of its miseries. A deck chair, a double whisky, and a fresh sea breeze would be a good start.

In Tutankhamun’s court that night, however, there was much to celebrate.

Chapter Twenty Two

The telephone rang. Carter lifted the earpiece. The voice at the other end

said, “This is a trunk call for a Mr Howard Carter.”

“My name is Howard Carter.”

“Caller, you are connected.”

“Howard? This is William.”

“Wil! How are you, old chap?”

“As well as can be expected. But not half as well as you, to be sure! I have had a devil of a time getting your number. I wanted to congratulate you personally on your magnificent achievement. What I should have given to have been there with you. Even Vernet tells me he’d promise not to whine about the heat if you’d return the favour by showing him around!”

Carter laughed out loud. “He lies, William!”

They both laughed.

“Howard. Seriously though... Reason for my telephoning you was to ask a favour.”

Carter sighed. “Anything, William, in my power...”

“Well, you are a famous man now. I have never been called forward to the presence of anyone famous before. No one of any great importance has ever commissioned my work. I would be greatly honoured, Howard, if you would do so. Do you have the time to sit for me during this summer’s holidays?”

Carter visibly flushed with embarrassment. The thought had not remotely occurred to him and he was deeply touched by the thoughtfulness of his brother’s request. “Oh, Wil. What can I say?”

“Yes would be acceptable, Howard.”

There was a moment’s silence.

Then Carter said, “But of course, Wil. And whatever my schedule I will make the time.”

“Smashing! Absolutely smashing! I’ll come up to visit you. Do it in your lodgings. Just name the day. At last I am going to paint the portrait of a famous man!”

“Not famous, Wil. At least, not yet. Lucky, that’s me. When I have my portrait, then I will be famous! How about a fortnight Monday?”

“It’s a date. See you then. Can’t tell you how happy this makes me. Toodleoo.” And he rang off before his brother could respond.

It was a foregone conclusion that Howard Carter would be pleased with the product. The finished painting was every bit the likeness he had expected. The quality of the brothers’ art was so consistently matchless that satisfaction had never been in question. It was indeed a finely painted, accurate portrait, neither flattering nor unflattering, a plain picture of a plain, ordinary, famous man.

Carter propped the unframed canvas against the desk and sat back in his easy chair. He regarded it from a distance.

‘Unassuming’, he thought, ‘and understated’. It was just the way he wanted it. He’d leave his fame to The Times. He relaxed back in the heavily upholstered cushions and for a moment put aside thoughts of the incredible complexity and prodigious quantity of the work and the politics that lay ahead of him.

‘I was lucky,’ he reflected, ‘but I was also damn right!’ He smiled to himself. “Got it right! Bang on!” he shouted out loud in the privacy of his empty study. ‘Lucky dear Tut, is still there. Very lucky.’

Then his eyes set upon the tiny ivory horse lying on the desktop and the realism of the situation came flooding back. The grandee was gone, secure within his own private tomb on the summit of a modest hill on a not so modest estate in Wiltshire. The grandee was gone and along with him the irreplaceable power of status and ability to communicate and negotiate with the policy makers. What remained would be an up hill climb from a position of permanent subordination. Carter’s personal fame, no matter what public heights it attained, would never compensate his social position, much less the loss of his patron.

The following day, Carter visited his niece’s school. He had promised her, in a brief letter hurriedly scratched during the previous heady season, that he would come to her school and give a short lecture describing the early days of discovery. The thought of speaking to a hall full of girls sounded like fun no one who could influence the future course of events in Egypt, no threatening personalities, just eager, fantasy hungry listeners and he had come well supplied with illustrations to excite their immature minds. He looked forward to it.

She ran to him as he emerged from his taxi. “Uncle Howard! Uncle Howard!” “Phyllis, my dear! How lovely to see you after all this time! And how lovely you are! My goodness, you look quite the lady.”

She kissed him on the cheek and whispered in his ear, “And now you are so famous! Everyone is asking me about you. I am so lucky to have you as my uncle!”

She paused a moment. “Oh, I am forgetting my manners. I am so sorry. I should like to introduce you to my very best friend, Miss Kellaway. She has been most anxious to meet you.”

She turned to her friend who had been standing to one side and presented her to her uncle.

Carter took the girl’s hand and gently shook it.

“I am honoured, Miss Kellaway. Are you two great friends?”

“Oh, we are, Mr Carter,” she replied. “Phyllis has told me so much about you. It is such an honour for me to shake the hand of so famous a man!”

Carter was quite softened by the young lady’s admiring comments. Previously hard won, he had not experienced such freely given appreciation before. The feeling was warming to him and he smiled broadly. Without thinking, he instantly proposed to the two that following his lecture they should skip the school supper that evening and permit him to take them out for a bite to eat in a nearby hotel. They jumped at the opportunity.

Carter’s hour-long lecture took place late in the day. Phyllis was becoming impatient for a square meal and fidgeted all the way through the talk, but not her friend. The young lady was quite star struck. Attentive to his every word, she studied each of his lantern slides with obvious intensity. When he had finished and the audience, excepting Phyllis who was by now standing at the speaker’s side, had dispersed, she remained in her seat, solitary, staring at the podium.

“Miss Kellaway?” said Carter, still on stage. “Is that you?”

She did not answer.

“Yes it is,” confirmed his niece. “Can we go now?” Phyllis tugged at his sleeve.

“Just a minute, my dear... Miss Kellaway, are you all right?”

Carter walked down from the stage and approached the single figure sitting alone in the hall.

Her eyes followed him as he walked up the isle to her chair. “Oh, I am just fine, Mr Carter... just fine. Your lecture... it’s all just so fascinating. I quite forgot myself. Please forgive me. I did not mean to be rude.”

“Good Lord! Think no such thing. I am pleased my talk sparked your curiosity. Did it not spark your appetite like it did my niece’s?”

The two girls giggled. Phyllis took Carter’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the door. “Supper, Uncle?”

He looked down at her.

“Supper, Uncle.” The determination in his niece’s expression made a clear statement.

“Supper it is then, my dears.”

They accompanied him in his taxi to the hotel. Carter had had a table reserved and his hungry guests settled themselves to studying the menu.

Phyllis noticed Carter observing their concentration and commented with some embarrassment, “It is so exciting to be treated to some real food for a change, Uncle Howard!”

They were not about to underplay the opportunity.

Having ordered their first course, Carter clinked glasses with the two girls. “A toast, ladies, before we embark on our feast. In great respect, great appreciation and fond memories... to his lordship, the Earl of Carnarvon. May he rest in peace.”

“The Earl of Carnarvon,” the two repeated and together took a sip of their orange squashes.

“Mr Carter,” Phyllis’s friend began, “your talk this afternoon was most interesting, about the finding of the tomb and all, but you didn’t say much about Tutankhamen himself. Could you tell us a little about his life and times?”

Carter smiled. The diversion was refreshing.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Miss Kellaway, I don’t know that much about him! Nobody does. Other than the grave goods none of which, I may add, so far includes anything written about the king and his exploits little remains that might help in constructing the story of his life. He came to power at a time of great instability in Egypt, as the country struggled to re-establish order between the reigns of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten and the army general who became Pharaoh, Horemheb. King Tut was one of three short-lived Pharaohs of the time his brother before him reigned perhaps only three years, he himself for no more than nine, and his uncle after him for perhaps just another three years. His much longer-lived general saw to it that everything he could find that related to King Tut’s reign and that of Akhenaten and the other two Pharaohs was destroyed or erased. Consequently, we know quite a lot about Horemheb and very little about the others.” Carter smiled. “But we may speculate to our hearts’ content!”

And then he launched into a lengthy personal interpretation of what the boy may have been like, his marriage, what he himself might have accomplished in his short life, what might have been accomplished during his reign and how he might have met his end.

Throughout it all, the girl was most attentive, throwing a question at him now and then, and not taking her eyes off him for a moment. By the time he had finished, with interruptions to take the odd mouthful of food and drink, the meal was over and the bill was paid.

He had come prepared to leave a small gift with his niece, but it was quite clear to Carter that Phyllis’s friend had been far more attentive to his storytelling. He felt compelled to make an additional gesture before he left.

“Before we part, Phyllis, I have a little something for you.”

He pushed a small, bow tied package across the table towards his niece. She took it, drew the bow, unfolded the wrapping and opened the box. On a bed of cotton wool lay what appeared to be a dried flower. It was a rather dull olive grey colour. She looked a little puzzled.

Carter leaned across and whispered directly into her ear, “Promise to keep a secret... forever... between you and I... ABSOLUTELY no one else?”

Without hesitation she nodded again.

He continued to whisper so her friend could not hear. “A fragment which I found on the floor of the antechamber to Tut’s tomb. It had fallen from a bouquet presumably left by the departing mourners over three thousand years ago. The oldest flower you will ever receive from a gentleman.”

She smiled.

“Remember. No one ever should hear of this. OUR secret. MOST important!”

She nodded once more.

He rested back in his chair and returned her smile. Then he turned to her friend. “And for you also, Miss Kellaway...”

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a ball of newspaper and unwrapped it carefully in front of her. Inside was an undecorated, tiny calcite oil lamp, so small it could be completely enclosed within his fist.