Виктория Холт - Curse of the Kings

I waved him off at Plymouth station and I couldn't help thinking of Lavinia's going on that same journey with her baby in her arms and Dorcas and Alison seeing her off. And then an hour later she was dead.

To love intensely was a mixed blessing I decided. There are moments of ecstasy but it seems that these have to be paid for with anxiety. One was completely happy only when one had the loved one safe beside one. When he was absent one's imagination seemed to take a malicious delight in presenting all kinds of horrors which could befall him. Now I must visualize the piled-up carriages, the cries of the injured, the silence of the dead.

Foolish! I admonished myself. How many people travel on the railways? Thousands! How many accidents are there? Very few!

I went back and threw myself into the nursing of Nanny Tester.

That evening as I sat with Tabitha I told her of my fears.

She smiled at me gently. "Sometimes it is painful to love too well."

She spoke as though she knew and I wondered afresh what her life had been. I wondered why she never spoke of it. Perhaps she will one day, I thought, when she gets to know me better.

Nanny Tester was recovering.

"But," said Tabitha, "these attacks always leave their mark. After she's been ill she always seems to emerge a little more feeble. Her mind wanders quite a bit."

I had noticed that. I noticed too that my presence seemed to soothe her, so I used to take up her food and sometimes I sat with her. I would take a book and read or do odd bits of needlework. Sabina used to call often. I would hear her chattering away to Nanny Tester and her visits were always a success.

One day I was sitting by her bed when she said: "Watch her. Be careful."

I guessed she was wandering in her mind and said: "There's no one here, Nanny." She had asked me to call her this. "People in the family do," she explained.

"I could tell you some things," she murmured. "I was always one to keep my eyes open."

"Try to rest," I said.

"Rest! When I see what's going on in this house. It's him and it's her. She eggs him on. Housekeeper! Friend of the family! What is she? Tell me that."

I knew then that she was talking about Tabitha, and I had to hear what it was she wanted to tell me.

"Him and her . . . ?" I prompted.

"You don't see. That's how it often is. Those it concerns most don't see what's under their very eyes. It's the one who looks on, who sees."

"What do you see, Nanny?"

"I see the way things are between them. She's sly. We can do without her. There's nothing she does I couldn't do."

That was hardly true but I let it pass.

"I never knew housekeepers like that one. Sitting down to dinner every night with the family; running the house. You'd think she was the mistress. Then he goes away and what happens. She's called away. Oh it's some family affair. Family! What family? She'll be called away now he's away, I can see it coming."

She was wandering obviously. "You watch out, my lady," she murmured. "You're nursing a viper in your bosom."

The term made me smile; and when I thought of all Tabitha did in the house and how charming and helpful she was I was sure that the old woman had got an obsession, probably because she was jealous.

The house seemed different without Tybalt; the bedroom was full of shadows. A fire was lighted every night and I lay in bed watching the shadows. I often fancied I heard noises in the next room and one night got out of bed to see if anyone was there. How ghostly it looked with the light of the crescent moon faintly illuminating it; the books, the table at which Sir Edward had often worked, the spot where the sarcophagus had stood. I half expected Mustapha and Absalam to materialize. I went back to bed and dreamed that I went into the room and the sarcophagus was there and from it rose a mummy from which the wrapping suddenly disintegrated to show Mustapha and Absalam. They kept their dark eyes on me as they advanced pointing to me; I heard their voices distinctly as they echoed through emptiness. "Stop him. A man listens to his beloved. The Curse of the Kings will come upon you."

I awoke shouting something. I sat up in bed. There was no light but that from the crescent moon, for the fire was nothing but a few embers. I got out of bed; I opened the door expecting to see the sarcophagus there, so vivid had the dream been. The room was empty. I shut the door quickly and got back to bed.

I thought: When we come back I will change this house. I will have the dark shrubs taken away; I will plant beautiful flowering shrubs like the hydrangeas which grow so luxuriantly here—lovely blues and pinks and white blooms and red fuchias dripping their bells from the hedges. We will replace the darkness by the brightest of colors.

In that mood I slept.

Every morning I went hopefully to the breakfast table looking for a note from Tybalt to say that he would be back. None came.

Tabitha had a letter in her hand when I went down.

"Oh, Judith. I'll have to go away for a few days."

"Oh?"

"Yes, a ... a relative of mine is ill. I must go."

"Of course," I said. "I haven't heard you speak before of relatives."

"This one is in Suffolk. It's a long journey. I think I ought to leave at once."

"Today?"

"Yes, I'll get the ten-thirty for London. I shall have to go to London first, of course, and from there to Suffolk. You'll manage without me."

"Yes," I said. "Of course I shall."

She left the table hurriedly. She seemed very embarrassed, I thought. Jenner, the coachman, drove her in the jingle to the station.

I watched her go and I kept thinking of Nanny Tester. What had she said? "He goes away . . . and she's called away." But how could she foresee this? But that was what she had done.

I went upstairs to Nanny's apartment. She was standing by the window, her old-fashioned flannelette dressing gown wrapped about her.

"So she's gone," she said, "eh, my lady, she's gone. Didn't I tell you?"

"How did you know?"

"There's things I know, my lady. I've got a pair of eyes in my head that see far and they see for them I care for."

"So . . . you care for me."

"Did you doubt it? I cared for you the first minute I clapped eyes on you. I said: 'I'll watch over this one all the days of my life.'"

"Thank you," I said.

"It hurts me though to see the way you're treated. It hurts right in here." She struck her hand on where she supposed her heart to be. "He goes away . . . and she goes to join him. He's sent for her. They'll be together tonight . . ."

"Stop it! That's nonsense. It's absolutely untrue."

"Oh," she said. "I've seen it. I knew it was coming. She's the one he wanted. He took you for your money. That's it. And what for? So that they can go and dig up the dead. It's not right."

"Nanny," I said, "you're not yourself."

I looked at her wild eyes, her flushed cheeks. It was not without a certain relief that I saw that she was rambling.

"Let me help you to bed."

"To bed . . . why to bed? It's for me to put you to bed, my precious."

"Do you know who I am, Nanny?"

"Know you. Didn't I have you from three weeks after you were born?"

I said, "You're mistaking me for somebody else. I'm Judith, Lady Travers . . . Tybalt's wife."

"Oh yes, my lady. You're my lady all right. And a lot of good that's done you. I'd have liked to see you wife to some simple gentleman who didn't think more of digging up the dead than his own young wife."

I said: "Now I'm going to bring you a hot drink and you're going to sleep."

"You're good to me," she said.

I went down to the kitchen and told Ellen to prepare some hot milk. I would take it up to Nanny who was not very well.

"You'd think she'd be better now Mrs. Grey's gone," said Ellen. "Goodness, my lady, she does seem to hate Mrs. Grey."

I did not comment. When I took the milk up to Nanny she was half asleep.

Tabitha came back with Tybalt. On her way back she had had to go to London and as Tybalt was ready to return they had come back together.

I was uneasy. There were so many questions I wanted to ask; but it was so wonderful to have Tybalt back and he seemed delighted to be with me.

He was in a very happy and contented state. The financial problems had been straightened out. We should be leaving in March instead of February as he had hoped— but it would only mean delaying our start by two weeks.

"Now," he said, "we shall be very busy. We must prepare to leave in earnest."

He was right. Then there was nothing to think of but the expedition.

And in March we left for Egypt.

The Chephro Palace stood majestic, golden colored, aloof from the village. I was astounded that the great Hakin Pasha should have put so much magnificence at our disposal.

I was, by the time we arrived, completely under the spell of the strange, arid, and exotic land of the Pharaohs. The reality was no less wonderful than the pictures created by my imagination when I had nothing but dreams and a few pictures in the books I had read to guide me.

Several members of the working party had gone on ahead of us. They would be lodged about the site, and they had taken with them a good deal of the equipment which would be needed.

Hadrian, Evan, and Theodosia with Terence Gelding and Tabitha were sailing from Southampton with Tybalt and me, but as Tybalt had some business to settle in Cairo, he and I would spend a few days there before joining the party in the Chephro Palace.