Chapter Seven

The sun was setting, its blood-red colour staining the plains as though a great god had died there. I shaded my eyes with one hand and watched the shadows grow longer; the worst heat of the day was past now, but to compensate for this the mosquitoes were out in force pestering us with a never-ending whine.

Behind me our little camp was spread out among the lush plains that made up the fertile river country of the Nile. I say little, but in fact it was the most luxurious campsite I had ever been in. When Papa and I came here, it was usually only us and whatever visiting archaeologists or historians we had with us at the time, although for the last year that had been precious few.

But now I was getting a glimpse of how the truly wealthy travelled. Besides myself and the other five immediate members of the group, Mr. Tillyard had brought with him from London two secretaries and a skilled watercolourist to transcribe any texts found. There was also a cook, a couple of general servants, a boy employed exclusively to fetch and carry water, and grooms to see to the donkeys and horses.

It had taken us all day to travel from the river to the plains and then set up this small canvas town, so by the time there was some semblance of order, evening was coming on and there was no chance of doing anything more constructive than have our evening meal. I had enquired rather sarcastically of Bella whether we were expected to dress for dinner, and she had seemed surprised that I even remarked on it. So I had hurriedly searched among my meagre wardrobe for something that might just pass as evening wear. The only thing I had that looked even remotely suitable was a blue muslin teagown. Hoping it would do, I had quickly put it on and left Bella to complete her own evening toilet with the inexpert attentions of the little Egyptian girl Lady Faversham had insisted accompany us. As Bella and I had already agreed to share a tent before we left, I had wondered what function this child might serve and now I knew. Karima had many talents, I’ve no doubt, but as I left Bella with her that first evening, I had the feeling being an English lady’s maid was not one of them.

One glance at the cooking tent and the ridiculously large table that had been set up told me that dinner was not yet served, so I wandered away from the site and climbed a small hillock, settling myself down to await the call to dinner, enjoying the smells of cinnamon and saffron that wafted across from the kitchen. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a gong sounded. Looking down on the scene before me, there was something almost surreal about the dinner table laid out among the tents. I couldn’t help laughing. English people abroad were truly insane.

“Kate, can I join you?”

I looked up and saw Alice. She was elegant and sophisticated as always in a gorgeous evening dress of black crape, clinging to her trim waist before flowing out into a wide, circular skirt. Her décolletage was low with triple shoulder straps, and her hair was dressed with jet beads, which also adorned her ears and throat. She looked sumptuous and beside her I was just a provincial book-worm with no money or prospects.

“Hello, Alice,” I said, trying to sound pleasant. After all, we needed the museum. “You look lovely.”

She laughed. “We both know I’m completely overdressed for a camping trip by the Nile. But I can’t get out of the habit. I’ve been doing this for too many years to feel happy in anything other than a proper evening gown at night. You look just right for this place,” she added, coming to sit down beside me and putting an arm through mine.

I shrugged. “Usually Papa and I just sit by the fire in the evenings with blankets round us, writing up our notes. We save on water by eating out of the tins.”

“Don’t be naughty.” She laughed. “You do no such thing.”

I smiled, aloof but curious about Alice. Her manner mystified me. A year ago she had done everything she could to ruin my romance with her cousin, for reasons I didn’t understand, and yet here she was, behaving as though she had nothing but the warmest feelings towards me and expected the same in return. And now I thought about it, she had been just as gracious when she arrived at our house last week, showing me the same kindness and compassion that she had displayed eight years ago escorting home an obnoxious little schoolgirl. It made no sense at all.

“It really is such a pity poor James can’t be here,” she continued, waving a folding silk fan with ivory sticks. “I hope he gets better soon.”

“Thank you,” I said. There was a slight pause, while we watched the groom begin feeding the horses and donkeys. “We were sorry to hear about Sir Henry, Alice. Didn’t you say in your last letter that his health seemed to be improving?”

“That’s what the doctors said, and we all thought the worst was over. But apparently more heart attacks are not uncommon, and of course the nearer they are to one another the more dangerous it is.” She sighed. “He died instantly for which I’m glad. There was no pain. I know things weren’t at their best between James and Henry during the last two years, but believe me Kate, he always wished for the best.”

“I’m sure he did.” What else could I say?

“Miss Wyndham-Brown is a delightful person,” Alice continued, changing the subject in her best society hostess manner. “And she seems very fond of you.”

“Well, it’s nice to know one has some friends.”

My tone must have been more bitter than I intended, because Alice looked at me keenly for a moment before taking my hand.

“Oh dear. Does this mean you and Adam still aren’t talking?”

“I’m sure you know exactly how things are between Adam and me, Alice,” I said, coldly. “If I remember correctly, Adam used to tell you everything.”

She looked away at the direction of the setting sun. The shadows were getting even longer now, and it was becoming harder to distinguish between tents and rocky outcrops. Still holding my hand, she said, “Yes, he did, didn’t he? And I wasn’t always as considerate as I could have been, Kate. I…regret that.”

She looked so forlorn as she spoke that for a moment I almost felt guilty for the sharpness of my tone. Then I remembered all the letters and telegrams she had sent from England forcing Adam to go scurrying to and fro on her errands. This was a woman who knew how to manipulate people. I decided to take the bull by the horns.

“Alice,” I said. “Why did you write last summer, asking him to return home?”

She stiffened almost visibly. Behind us the camels and donkeys were being fed now, and their noisy appreciation of their evening meal echoed around the valley.

“I don’t know what you mean, dear. I didn’t write to him asking him to return. It was his mother who wrote. I think we should return now. Dinner must be ready.” And she got up abruptly and made her way back to the campsite.

I watched her go, my eyes narrowed coldly in suspicion. First Adam had lied to me, and now Alice was too. Suddenly I began to wonder just exactly what was going on between Adam and Alice. I had always assumed that Adam’s slavish hero-worship of his older cousin was just a hangover from his youth, something that Alice took advantage of because she was so used to it and she barely noticed what she was doing anymore. I had been jealous of her, certainly, and irritated that she had amused herself with him as she did, but up until this moment, I had always assumed their relationship was entirely innocent. Now for the first time I began to have my doubts.

As I mulled over these thoughts, a gong did indeed sound, the hollow, tinny echo faintly ludicrous in the balmy heat of an Egyptian evening. I walked slowly back to the camp.

“Here, Miss Kate. Can you help me a minute?”

I looked over in the direction of the speaker and smiled. One of the few genuinely pleasant surprises of this trip so far was the presence of Ruby, my little friend from London. I knew that for the last few years Alice had travelled without a lady’s maid, having learnt the hard way that English servants and hot, foreign countries don’t mix. When Rose had come out eight years ago, she had been sick so many times Alice had had to employ a servant to look after her in the end. Rose had spent the few hours she wasn’t ill vowing she would starve on the streets before following her ladyship out of England again and I remember, at fourteen, being vastly impressed at the seemingly endless hours she could devote to vomiting, despite appearing to eat hardly anything. By the end of the trip, Rose had lost two stone in weight, and Alice nearly lost a good lady’s maid.

But Ruby had managed to persuade Alice that she would not succumb to the same condition, and so far the experiment seemed to be working out well. Indeed the Egyptian heat seemed to agree with her, she looked so tanned and fit. At the moment she was standing beneath a huge palm tree, scowling at the water boy.

“What’s the matter, Ruby?” I asked, walking across to them.

“I need some water to do some washing for her ladyship, miss, and I can’t get this ’ere imp to understand a blessed word. He’s being very uncooperative,” she added darkly, as Naguib turned his back on her.

“I see. Naguib, Ruby needs some water for her mistress’s laundry. Could you take some across to her tent, please.” I made sure to speak politely in the hope Ruby might notice.

“Yes, Miss Katie. She doesn’t need to shout at me,” Naguib said, clearly offended.

“Thank you, Naguib,” I said and he turned and bowed slightly to me before taking a large jug across to Alice’s tent.

Mollifed by the sight of Naguib doing my bidding, Ruby was fairly receptive to my suggestion that learning a few words of Arabic might help, and I spent the next five minutes schooling her to pronounce minfadlak and shukran, “please” and “thank you” respectively. I watched for a while as she dipped a delicate silk stocking into the now soapy water and tried not to laugh as she screwed up her face in disgust at the strong smell of incense coming from the Egyptians’ tents. I loved its pungency myself, but I knew many English people did not. Then something suddenly occurred to me. Ruby would almost certainly have been at the house the day Adam returned.

“Ruby, do you remember Dr. Ellis coming back to England last summer?” I asked.

“’Course I do, Miss Kate. We was all so glad to see him.” Ruby rubbed the washing briskly. “Especially her ladyship. It did her the power of good.”

“Did it?” I said acidly.

“Oh yes, miss. Her ladyship’s very fond of Mr. Adam. You know, she really missed him while he was away with you and the professor.” Ruby squeezed hard on the stockings, making her face go red, and for a moment I wanted to tell her to be careful. Then, maliciously, I decided I liked the idea of Alice having ruined stockings. “When he come back,” Ruby continued, chattily, “Cook said to me ‘Mark my words, Ruby, it’ll—’ ”

I never did find out what words of wisdom Cook imparted to Ruby because just then Bella found me.

“Kate, darling, we’re waiting for you. Didn’t you hear the gong?”

“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry,” I said, picking up the skirt of my dress to hold it clear of the dusty red soil as I followed her to the table. Actually I wasn’t a bit sorry. Now I knew that when Adam had returned to England last year, Alice had been visibly elated. It was just a little bit more evidence against the two of them.

The meal itself was every bit as unreal as I had imagined it to be. Adam and Mr. Tillyard were polite when they remembered to be, but they were clearly too excited by what they had already seen of the tomb to be able to do more than answer questions put to them briefly before returning to their almost exclusive conversation about digs and equipment and methods of extraction, which peeved Bella, who wasn’t used to being ignored at the dinner table. I tried to keep her entertained, but I had my own demons to wrestle with.

Also it had been a long time since I’d sat at such a sumptuous dinner table, and it took me a while to work out which pieces of cutlery went with which dish. There seemed to be endless courses set out on fabulously coloured platters of Muski glass, in turquoise, aquamarine and purple, and if we were to dine so lavishly every evening I couldn’t see us accomplishing anything other than getting very fat. I’d also drunk more wine than I was used to, making me feel even more sluggish. So when Alice got up and announced that we ladies would be leaving the gentlemen to their port and cigars, I was caught unawares and found myself halfway across to the tents before I even knew what was happening.

“Alice, where are we supposed to go?” I said as we stood by her tent. “This isn’t a house in Surrey, you know.”

Alice put one hand on the canvas, rubbing her forehead distractedly with the other. “I’m sorry, darling, force of habit. Actually I’ve got the beginning of a headache. Would you think me a terrible bore if I retired for the evening?”

“Not at all, Lady Faulkner,” said Bella with concern. “Would you like some eau-de-cologne? I have a—”

“That’s very kind of you, my dear, but no, thank you. I have some medication with me. Good night.” She smiled and disappeared into her tent.

“Let’s go up and sit by the tombs,” I said to Bella. “It’s too beautiful a night to go to bed yet.”

More than willing to comply, Bella went off to fetch a couple of shawls from our luggage, while I found a lantern and then raided Adam’s tent for his cigars. I knew where he kept them and didn’t feel at all like I was stealing. After all, he had walked out on me a year ago. It was the least I deserved.

Very shortly we were sitting halfway up a dry, limestone hill by an abandoned tomb, the bleakness of our surroundings softened by the veil of night. The cicadas chirruped their familiar soothing song. For a while we sat and listened to traditional music being played by some of the servants on dulcimers and drums. Then, to Bella’s surprise and obvious delight, I took out a cigar and lit it. She grinned.

“So you do smoke. I heard Mrs. Fotheringay telling Aunt Augusta you’d been seen smoking before, but I didn’t believe it. Neither did Aunt Augusta.”

“Why not?”

“Aunt Augusta thinks you’re a much maligned character. She was very impressed with your lecture on Khaemwaset. I think you remind her of herself when she was young.”

“Good grief, I hope not,” I said, as I wafted the smoke around us to ward off the mosquitoes. “To be honest Bella, I just use it as an insect repellent.”

“Really?” She sounded disappointed, but it was true. Papa had allowed me a puff on his cigar when I was twelve, and I had been violently and copiously sick.

“Really. I love the smell of cigars, but they taste vile. So now I just use them to keep the midges away.”

To demonstrate, I waved the cigar around and Bella watched as the tiny, black smudges in the air around us danced away from the smoke like iron filings being repelled by the anti-polarity of a magnet.

“Kate, I’m disappointed in you,” she said mildly. “And here was I thinking you were such a fast girl.”

I grinned. “Sorry. I won’t tell anyone else if you won’t. Would you like me to point out some constellations?”

“Certainly not,” she said, settling the full skirts of her shell-pink silk dress around her feet. “That would be incredibly dull. What you can do is finish off telling me the story of why you and Dr. Ellis are no longer friends.”

I blew on the ruby-red tip of the cigar to keep it alight and softly blew its pungent aroma into the sharp night air. I didn’t want to tell even Bella about my suspicions regarding Adam and Alice. No matter how hurt and angry I was, even I couldn’t be that malicious. But I did want to talk to someone. I was so tired of having to pretend I didn’t care. I sighed.

“He betrayed me.”

Bella’s reaction was satisfyingly aghast. “No!”

“Well—I think so.”

Now she stared at me, less aghast. “You think so? What do you mean, you think so?”

I pulled the shawl tighter round my shoulders. “It’s rather hard to explain.”

Bella looked unconvinced. “Well, my dear,” she drawled in her best heiress voice. “Usually it’s considered good manners to be absolutely certain about that kind of thing.”

“Well, I am certain. At least—that he lied to me.”

“How?” I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was rapidly becoming less sympathetic.

“Because he told me he had received a letter from his mother begging for his return, when I knew for a fact that he hadn’t and that it had come from someone else entirely.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I recognised the handwriting,” I said.

“Oh.” She raised her finely marked eyebrows. “I see.” And I knew that despite her youth, Bella did see. “And did you confront him with this?”

I laughed shortly. “Of course I did. And he denied it, and we had a blazing row, and said the most awful things to each other, and he left a few days later. And of course after a while, I was so miserable I wrote asking him to forgive me. Several times in fact, which just goes to show how foolish I can be, but he never wrote back except for one dreadful letter, accusing me of being obstinate and vindictive, and I was so angry I swore I would have nothing more to do with him.”

“I see,” she said again. “And what was his explanation of the letter?”

“He insisted it came from his mother. In the end I began to wonder if I had gone mad and imagined it.”

“But you don’t really?” She took my hand as she asked me this, and I shook my head.

“No.” I sighed. “I know that particular handwriting too well.”

She continued to pat my hand for a few moments. “Men can be very cruel, Kate. You have to protect yourself against them.” There was a bitter note in her voice as she said this, and I must have looked surprised, because she smiled coldly. “You’d be amazed at how many I’ve met already. When you’re worth as much as I am, darling, you either learn to spot them very quickly, or you have get used to being constantly disappointed.”

I pressed her hand in mine and wondered for the first time what exactly had been wrong with the wrong young man at the ball. But before I could ask there was a noise in the distance. We heard the crunch of stones beneath boots, and then Adam appeared. He still had on his evening clothes, but over that he wore a thick coat against the evening chill. Evidently he had not forgotten everything about real life in Egypt.

“Ah. I wondered where my cigars had gone. I see you haven’t lost your touch, Kate.”

I looked at him coolly. “Well, since we were banished from the dinner table so that you men could enjoy yourselves, I thought lending us some cigars was the least you could do.”

“Don’t blame me,” he said as he sat down next to me. “I don’t make the rules. Although you know, Kate, many people consider it unbecoming for a woman to smoke.”

“Do they really?”

I took a deep pull on the cigar and managed to blow a respectable cloud in his direction. The pompous look left his face, and he smiled mischievously as he turned to Bella.

“I love doing that. Kate’s so easy to tease. Do you know, sometimes I think about telling her I disapprove of women jumping off mountains just to see if she’d do it to spite me.”

“What are you doing here, Adam?” I snapped. “Did the after-dinner talk get boring? Or did you run out of port?”

“You should be more grateful. I’ve just headed off a major search party on your behalf.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Karima got worried when Miss Wyndham-Brown went off into the night apparently on her own. It seems Lady Faversham gave her express instructions never to let the young miss out of her sight—”

“Oh Lord,” said Bella in exasperation. “I thought she was being very nosy. I told her to go to bed.”

“Well, she didn’t. She went straight to Sir George just like she’d been told to do, and when it was discovered you were missing too, Kate, Sir George and Tillyard started to get very anxious.”

“But you didn’t, of course,” I remarked.

He grinned. “I know what you’re like, Kate. I told them you’d both be fine. Sir George seemed reassured, although Tillyard insisted on searching the main site. I think you’ve got an admirer there, Kate.” He paused. “Anyway, what are you two ladies doing out here?”

“I was pointing out the different constellations to Bella,” I said, waving vaguely at the night sky. “Orion’s Belt is very clear at this time of year.”

Bella tilted her head back obligingly to stare at the stars. “Yes, very pretty,” she said. “But perhaps we should go and find Mr. Tillyard to let him know we’re safe.”

“If you wish,” Adam said lazily. “Although I daresay he’ll find us in due course.”

As he said this, there was another sound of gravel being crunched underfoot, and Mr. Tillyard suddenly appeared, with a lantern in one hand and waving a small gun in the other.

“Good God, Tillyard, what have you got there?” said Adam. As he spoke, two things occurred simultaneously to me: one, that Adam didn’t care for Mr. Tillyard very much, and two, that I was rather alarmed myself at the thought of one of our party carrying guns around. Mr. Tillyard, however, seemed unperturbed by his tone.

“A derringer, Dr. Ellis. I always carry one on my trips here, especially when I go upriver. One never knows when it might prove useful. Are you all right, ladies?”

“Of course, Mr. Tillyard. It’s very kind of you to be concerned for us, but I beg of you to keep that”—I pointed to his gun—“safely locked away. It really isn’t necessary.”

“Certainly. I didn’t wish to startle you, Miss Whitaker or Miss Wyndham-Brown, but I do like to be prepared.”

“Prepared for what?” asked Adam.

“For whatever comes along, Dr. Ellis.” At last Mr. Tillyard seemed to notice his tone. “Well, since the ladies are safe, I’ll bid you goodnight. I apologise if I’ve intruded.”

He began to walk back the way he had come, and I felt suddenly guilty. Both Adam and I had been a little censorious of his gun, when really it wasn’t that ridiculous a precaution. News of Papa’s find had indeed spread, and there was evidence that plunderers had already made preliminary forays at our original digs. It wasn’t completely beyond the realms of possibility that we might find ourselves in need of protection. “Not at all, Mr. Tillyard,” I said, getting up quickly. “You weren’t intruding at all, and Bella and I were about to retire to bed anyway, weren’t we, Bella?”

“Oh. Of course.” Bella seemed surprised but she stood up too. “Yes. How kind of you to think of us. Goodnight, Mr. Tillyard. Dr. Ellis.” And she followed me down the hill, delicately stepping over the rocks and doing her best to avoid squashing the little lizards that lived in the tombs and scuttled about underfoot at night hunting.

“Do you think Mr. Tillyard admires me?” I asked when we were finally in our own tent.

“I don’t know. Perhaps. Why?”

“Oh, no particular reason,” I said, lighting the lantern by the side of my bed. “Did Adam seem a little put out when he appeared, did you think?”

“Well, not that I noticed. Although now I come to think of it, he—” Suddenly she grinned at me. “Kate Whitaker, don’t tell me you were trying to make him jealous?”

“I don’t see why he shouldn’t have a taste of his own medicine,” I said, blowing out the match in my hand. “Let’s see how he likes it.”

Bella sat down on her bed and began to laugh. “You know, Kate, with a little effort, I do believe we can have you behaving like a proper young lady after all.”