Chapter Four
HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND
The guests make a merry noise as we step out of the vehicles Papa sent to fetch us from our outdoor luncheon, his way of participating from afar in an activity he dislikes.
The gravel crunches as we close the doors to the Rolls-Royces, Fords, and Renaults and cross the courtyard.
Once inside the cool entrance hall, we wish our guests a tranquil respite before the evening’s activities, and Mama’s eyes fix on me as the hall empties.
What offense have I committed now? I think.
“You did yourself no favors at the luncheon, Eve.” She scolds me in a low voice. “Much depends on you making a prosperous match, and I find it disrespectful for you to ignore that responsibility.”
I’ve learned to brace myself for critiques after social occasions, and thus this particular comment comes as no surprise. But I must feign bewilderment, or risk being accused of intentionally thwarting her plans. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t give me those doe eyes of yours. I’ve used that insincere expression far too often myself to be moved by it,” she snaps.
“What I mean should be abundantly clear. By keeping to yourself—instead of maneuvering to sit next to the only two young men in the party besides your brother—you undermined the very purpose of the ball and this weekend: to find you a suitable husband.”
I want to rail against the future she’s orchestrating for me, but I know a row will ensue and I’ll be thwarted in my afternoon plans.
She neither cares nor understands that the war has changed me, making plain the fleeting nature of life.
I’m determined not to waste mine on a future without meaning, one that’s easily erased like that of my female Carnarvon ancestors.
I let the mask of civility descend upon me, and say, “I’ll do better this evening.”
“You best. Now upstairs with you.”
“I think I’ll relax in the Library with a book.”
Raising her eyebrows, Mama tilts her head in judgment. “I think you’d be better served taking your rest in your bedroom, Eve. The banquet tonight will be long, and I expect you to be in your best form. Especially after the luncheon.”
While I’m no stranger to defying Mama’s orders, I typically do so quietly. But today, I have no choice other than to stand my ground. “I’ll return there soon enough. An hour with a book in the much cooler Library will do me more good than my stifling bedroom.”
Without waiting for her reply, I enter the Library and settle onto a sofa before an empty hearth.
Feeling her eyes still on me, I pick up the volume sitting on the side table and pretend to be reading.
It isn’t until I hear the clip of her heels marching up the entrance hall stairs that I place the book back down and scamper toward the secret door to the Music Room.
Pulling out the book that operates as a handle for the private door, I enter the Music Room, then quickly close the door behind me.
The space is so bright I nearly shield my eyes.
Sunlight pours into the windows offering a view of the Heaven’s Gate folly, and reflects off the gilt molding, the sixteenth-century Italian embroideries from the Malatesta Palace that cover the walls, and the glass cabinets holding my father’s renowned collection of Egyptian antiquities.
But the room’s sole occupant seems unaffected by all this honeyed illumination. In fact, he does not even seem to notice my entrance.
“Mr. Carter,” I say, keeping my voice just above a whisper. Never mind her ostensible trip upstairs to her bedroom, Mama has been known to lurk.
“Ah, Lady Evelyn.” He glances up from a table. He sits with a sheaf of paper and several small artifacts set before him, a magnifying glass in one hand and a fountain pen in the other.
“I was wondering when you’d turn up,” he says, his eyes back down on the object he’s studying.
“It’s no small feat to escape the clutches of the weekend guests and my mother,” I answer with a grimace.
Mr. Carter knows well my mother’s expectations for me, and the ball only reinforced that understanding. But he would never speak ill of her. She and my father are his patrons, after all. And even if he primarily deals with Papa, it is Mama’s Rothschild money that keeps the excavations afloat.
“Well, I am delighted that you plotted your getaway. We have much to discuss.”
“Yes.” I settle in the chair across from him. “I’ve been desperate to hear more about what Mr. Budge said.”
With care, he places the cartouches and pottery fragments down on the desk, then says, “As I mentioned last night, he believes that the scarab may have been made for Hatshepsut, but interestingly—”
“Yes?” I interrupt him. I’m so eager to hear Mr. Budge’s insights about the purpose and time period of this particular scarab that I can’t help myself.
Scarabs were usually worn or carried by common folks as protective amulets.
But they could also be used by the elite and administrators as an official seal. Could this be one of those rarer sorts?
Anything to shed light on the life of the enigmatic Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
She successfully ruled in the late 1400s BC and helped build a country that was unusually peaceful and economically prosperous.
Since I was a lonely little girl with a penchant for the past, I’ve been entranced by stories about the singular reign of one of the only female pharaohs ever to rule over the land of the pyramids, especially the manner in which she climbed from princess to queen to regent, then finally becoming pharaoh herself.
When Mr. Carter described to me all the various places Hatshepsut’s name has literally been scratched out—on monuments, stelae, temple walls, and statues—I became fixated on solving the conundrum of why attempts were made to eliminate her from the historical record.
“When Mr. Budge and I compared it to the other scarabs in the British Museum collection that are linked to Hatshepsut, they have a similar look and the hieroglyphs do indeed name her. But the name on this scarab isn’t the exact one we typically associate with her as queen or pharaoh, which may be how we missed it at first. As you know, the Egyptians tended to shift titles and names as an individual’s role changed.
The name inscribed on the scarab is that of Hatshepsut as a young woman, when she was the daughter of Pharaoh Thutmose the First. Most of her power at that time came from her role as a priest called the God’s Wife of Amun. The scarab is a rare find.”
At this pronouncement, I fall back onto the hard, hand-embroidered, gilt-legged chair.
Not only is this scarab—previously ignored by my father and Mr. Carter—associated with Princess Hatshepsut, but it’s a relic of her early years, when she was also the most powerful female priest, the hemet-netjer.
“I’m stunned that Mr. Budge agrees with my theory. It was just a guess—” I stammer.
Mr. Carter interrupts me. “Your theory was no mere guess. You know the history, the hieroglyphics, and the way these objects were used. It was an educated proposal.”
I can scarcely move. Mr. Carter is a man of few words and fewer compliments.
To be called a “colleague” and have my pet theory described as an “educated proposal” by one of the foremost Egyptologists—a man who served as Inspector of Monuments for Upper Egypt in the Egyptian Antiquities Service—has left me momentarily immobile and speechless. As has the nature of this discovery.
“Now, someone other than Hatshepsut could have owned this scarab,” he posits.
“They were sometimes carried as lucky charms, as you know. But it’s not very likely that someone other than Hatshepsut would posses a scarab with this particular name.
This title precedes her time as queen or pharaoh, so wouldn’t have been a popular choice as a good-luck talisman. ”
“Could it have been in her tomb?” I suggest, thinking about how the pharaohs’ burials included a vast array of objects deemed necessary for the afterlife, including sentimental ones.
“Possibly. It would explain why we found such a unique item in the burial area at the Valley of the Kings as opposed to her temple complex,” he says, referring to the sprawling mortuary temple she constructed for herself near the valley.
Mortuary temples were not usually places where pharaohs were buried but rather where they were commemorated.
For nearly seven years, Papa and Mr. Carter had been assigned excavation sites at Hatshepsut’s temple, a huge, resplendent, terraced structure built into the hills on the west side of the Nile opposite the sacred, ancient city of Thebes, modern-day Luxor.
Mr. Carter was, in fact, an expert in Hatshepsut’s temple, having helped reassemble it in the 1890s when it was still a pile of rubble and he was just a young man.
But as the Valley of the Kings—a dry, rocky gorge just west of Hatshepsut’s temple—was the place where pharaohs and royals of the New Kingdom built rock-cut tombs, Papa and Mr. Carter lobbied for the concession there.
They finally received it in 1914 when the American businessman Theodore Davis gave it up.
“Yes, you’d expect to discover Hatshepsut’s scarabs in her tomb.”
We give each other a long glance; we both know that Hatshepsut’s tomb has never been found. To my mind, Mr. Carter’s look contains an invitation. But will he extend it? One never knows with the reserved archaeologist.
I wait, and finally he says, “I think we need to reevaluate all the artifacts related to this scarab in storage here at Highclere. I suspect we might discover that others are tied to Hatshepsut. Would you be willing to examine them with me?”
“Of course,” I answer immediately. Never mind that it will require significant maneuvering to sidestep Mama and her summer schemes for me.
For all the years that Mr. Carter has surreptitiously shared his expertise in ancient Egypt and archaeology with me, he’s never invited me to work on a project with him.
I’d never believed I could be so fortunate.
“We have much to do if we’re going to pursue this path.” He pauses, then asks, “Do you know where following this trail of artifacts might lead us?”
I take a deep breath and speak aloud the words I never believed I’d be fortunate enough to say: “To the tomb of Hatshepsut.”