Chapter Thirteen
THE MEDITERRANEAN
The waves crest white against the blue-black depths of the Mediterranean Sea. The ship seesaws in time with the motion of the water, yet the constant roll doesn’t bother me. How could anything bother me? I am on my way to Egypt.
“My God, the smell.” Mama stands next to me, clutching the railing, inhaling deeply.
“Isn’t it glorious?” I say, closing my eyes and breathing in the salty air. My hand, stuffed deep into my warm pocket, plays with the scarab I’ve brought with me from England. Brought back, more like.
“How on earth can you say that, Eve? The stench coming out of the crews’ quarters nearly made me gag. This lack of hygiene would have never happened under my watch.” She holds a scented linen handkerchief to her nose.
Ah, I think, more complaints about the ship.
More than once, I’d watched my mother tend a gangrenous stump of an arm—the smell of which is lodged forever in my nostrils—and it’s hard to believe that nurse is the same woman standing before me.
It’s as if there are two very different Almina Herberts—that caring, self-sacrificing nurse and my mother, the Countess of Carnarvon.
Since the war ended, only the latter is in evidence, but I much prefer the former.
“I hadn’t noticed, Mama,” I lie, sliding my hand out of my pockets and placing it on the railing alongside Mama’s. Of course, the smell had registered, but what good would it do to complain? It isn’t as if we could disembark mid-sea. And I would endure anything to finally reach the land of legend.
Papa joins us at the railing, declaring, “Nothing like the brace of ocean air, is there?”
Mama shoots him a scathing look, but he is unmoved. Finding no purchase for her grievances, she walks off in a huff, mumbling something about “unnecessary journey.”
Papa glances over at me, one eyebrow raised. “Was it something I said?”
I smile, benignly adding, “Rather I think it was something neither of us said about the state of the ship.”
He chuckles, understanding well that my mother’s misery enjoys company.
But Papa feels the same excitement as I do about this long-awaited journey and cannot offer it to her.
Not to mention, the destination will bestow upon him the added gift of the dry air so necessary for the health of his lungs, the condition that first prompted his travels to Egypt years ago.
He never complains, but I see how easily he tires and how prone he is to fits of coughing.
Not that Mama is wrong in her criticism.
The travel to the ship was arduous in itself: ferrying from England to Boulogne, taking the train from there to Paris, where we briefly visited Papa’s half brother Aubrey, then boarding another train from Paris to Marseille, where we finally got on this ship to Alexandria, via Tunisia.
But the Great War devastation we witnessed along the way—to buildings, bridges, countryside, people—quashed any objections I may have had to this hastily converted warship, which had, only months ago, been utilized to transport injured soldiers.
Even if, as Mama suspects, it had not been cleaned properly before the ship admitted regular travelers, causing infections in several of our fellow passengers.
I try not to think about the poor men, bleeding and sick on the very deck where I now stand.
Unlike most girls I know, I saw bloodshed, wounds, and illness aplenty during wartime, in the halls of Highclere and our London home, which Mama also used for the injured and dying.
And I’m longing to experience a very different sort of history now, one that predates the war by millennia.
Papa’s gloved hand covers mine. “Are you excited, Eve?”
I turn toward my father, the daylight making apparent the lines on his face and the gray hairs on his head.
His gaze is kind and expectant, and I am grateful that he acquiesced to my repeated requests to accompany him to Egypt.
He even fought off Mama’s objections that I should be completing the London Season instead of taking off for the Middle East, that the ongoing protests for independence, the striking, and the general disruption make Egypt inappropriate for a young woman such as myself.
How soft he can be with me, I think. What a very different father he is to Porchey, hard and unyielding.
“It’s been my dream for as long as I can remember, Papa. And you made it come alive,” I say, speaking the first full truth of the day. “It’s the best present I could have ever received.”
Squeezing my hand in a burst of affection, he says, “Oh, Evie, wait until we arrive. The ancient history is alive everywhere in Egypt, not just in the most famous landmarks like the pyramids. You’ll see the history in the faces of the people, the wares offered in the souks, the music played on the streets, and—”
I interrupt him gently. “And in the excavations most of all, I imagine.”
“Most of all. Nothing like the Egyptian sun beating down on you, and getting your hands sandy as you dig out an object once owned by a pharaoh,” Papa says with a shake of his head, although I very much doubt that his hands ever get dirty.
He and Mr. Carter employ teams of Egyptians to do the hard work of excavating.
“Nothing like the thrill of the chase either,” he adds, his eyes bright in the same way I’ve seen time and again at the racetrack.
“I cannot wait to get my hands sandy,” I say, then ask a question that’s been niggling at me since Paris. “Do you think Uncle Aubrey’s concerns about the safety of Egypt are valid?”
We’d stopped in Paris for a night to visit Papa’s half brother, his sibling by his father’s second wife.
Uncle Aubrey is a gifted linguist who works in foreign policy with the Arab Bureau.
Dinner conversation focused on the revolution last year in Egypt, during which former governmental official Saad Zaghloul created the Wafd Party to advocate for independence from Great Britain, with some success.
How did this happen? Well, our country had had a de facto protectorate over Egypt since the 1880s—even though Egypt was ostensibly still a province of the Ottoman Empire during that time—but became an official protectorate in 1914 when the Ottoman Empire sided with Great Britain’s enemies in the Great War.
During the war, British forces used Egypt as a staging ground for battle—conscripting Egyptian men into the military in the process, even though Egypt wasn’t actually in the war.
When the war finally ended, the Egyptians wanted to have a say in the peace talks.
Demonstrations and riots ensued when British authorities refused to allow Mr. Zaghloul to participate in the Peace Conference on behalf of the Egyptian people, and Mr. Zaghloul was exiled to Malta.
Despite these measures, Uncle Aubrey maintains that the uprising is not over: “Even the women and peasants are marching against the British because they believe we put our interests above theirs, which—to be fair—is true. It’s not over. ”
“Ah, Aubrey has always been overly worrisome about rising Arab nationalism,” Papa replies, casting aside his half brother’s concerns.
“Spent too much time with his chum T. E. Lawrence over the years, I think. I know several of the men involved in the uprising last year—including that Zaghloul—and they aren’t bad fellows.
I can even see their point about wanting to govern themselves, as long as our assets in the Suez Canal and in the Valley of the Kings are protected.
But I think High Commissioner Allenby has any danger well in hand.
” Papa puts significant faith in the British representative in charge of Egypt, former Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, who, together with his wife, are close family friends of my parents.
“Good, I don’t want anything to stand in the way of the dig,” I say.
“The only thing that may impede your sandy hands is your mother. Do I understand that you two struck a deal about this trip? She put up quite the fight.”
“Yes, I am to spend equal time at the Valley of the Kings site as in Cairo at social events,” I answer, not bothering to hide my dread. The battle to spend equal time at the dig had been unpleasant and hard-won. “That’s the promise.”
How will I manage to feign interest in dances and teas and gossip and dresses when Papa’s archaeological dig is right around the corner? I’ve learned to playact the part my mother wants for me, but this particular role will be challenging. Perhaps impossible.
“Good girl,” Papa says, even though I don’t think he means it. I know he’s beholden to Mama as well. He has the title and the castle and the connections, but she has the fortune that makes his life possible—including his excavations. “But perhaps we should strike a deal of our own?”
I glance over at him, game for anything at the moment.
“I’d like that.” Reaching my hand back in my pocket, I run my fingers along the scarab like an ancient good-luck charm, the sort I dislike Papa having.
As I smooth its surface and trace the hieroglyphics with my fingernail, I think that I might have become as superstitious as Papa.
“If you keep your end of the bargain with Mama, I’ll keep my end of the bargain with you. I’ll do my level best to deliver the most astonishing excavation of ancient Egypt the world has ever seen.”