At once he stepped inside. How extraordinarily cool it felt; and the smell, what was it, a curious perfume after all these long centuries!
His heart beat too fast. The blood rushed to his face, and he had to cough again, as the press of reporters raised the dust in the passage.
'Keep back!'' he shouted crossly. The flashes were going off all around him again. He could barely see the painted ceiling overhead with its tiny stars.
And there, a long table laden with alabaster jars and boxes. Heaps of rolled papyri. Dear God, all this alone confirmed a momentous discovery.
"But this is no tomb!" he whispered.
There was a writing table, covered with a thin film of dust, looking for all the world as if the scholar had only just left it. An open papyrus lay there, with sharpened pens, an ink bottle. And a goblet.
But the bust, the marble bust-it was unmistakably Graeco-Roman. A woman with her tight wavy hair drawn back beneath a metal band, her drowsy half-lidded eyes seemingly blind, and the name cut into the base:
CLEOPATRA
"Not possible," he heard Samir say. "But look, Lawrence, the mummy case!"
Lawrence had already seen it. He was staring speechless at the thing which lay serenely in the very middle of (his puzzling room, this study, this library, with its stacks of scrolls and its dust-covered writing table.
Once again, Samir ordered the photographers back. The smoking flashes were maddening Lawrence.
"Get out, all of you, get out!" Lawrence said. Grumbling, they retreated out of sight of the door, leaving the two men standing there in stunned silence.
It was Samir who spoke first:
"This is Roman furniture. This is Cleopatra. Look at the coins, Lawrence, on the desk. With her image, and newly minted. Those alone are worth-"
"I know. But there lies an ancient Pharaoh, my friend. Every detail of the case-it's as fine as any ever found in the Valley of the Kings."
"But without a sarcophagus," Samir said. "Why?"
"This is no tomb," Lawrence answered.
"And so the King chose to be buried here!" Samir approached the mummy case, lifting the torch high above the beautifully painted face, with its darkly lined eyes and exquisitely modeled lips.
"I could swear this is the Roman period," he said.
"But the style ..."
"Lawrence, it's too lifelike. It's a Roman artist who has imitated the nineteenth-dynastic style to perfection."
"And how could such a thing happen, my friend?"
"Curses," Samir whispered, as if he had not heard the question. He was staring at the rows of hieroglyphs that circled the painted figure. The Greek lettering appeared lower down, and finally came the Latin.
"Touch not the remains of Ramses the Great" Samir read. "It's the same in all three tongues. Enough to give a sensible man pause."
"Not this sensible man," Lawrence replied. "Get those workers in here to lift this lid at once."
* * *
The dust had settled somewhat. The torches, in the old iron sconces on the wall, were sending far too much smoke onto the ceiling, but that he would worry about later.
The thing now was to cut open the bundled human shape, which had been propped against the wall, the thin wooden lid of the mummy case carefully laid upright beside it.
He no longer saw the men and women packed at the entrance, who peered at him and his find in silence.
Slowly, he raised the knife and sliced through the brittle husk of dried linen, which fell open immediately to reveal the tightly wrapped figure beneath.
There was a collective gasp from the reporters. Again and again the flashes popped. Lawrence could feel Samir's silence. Both men stared at the gaunt face beneath its yellowed linen bandages, at the withered arms so serenely laid across the breast.
It seemed one of the photographers was begging to be allowed into the chamber. Samir angrily demanded silence. But of these distractions, Lawrence was only dimly aware.
He gazed calmly at the emaciated form before him, its wrappings the color of darkened desert sand. It seemed he could detect an expression in the shrouded features; he could detect something eloquent of tranquillity in the set of the thin lips.
Every mummy was a mystery. Every desiccated yet preserved form a ghastly image of life in death. It never failed to chill him, to look upon these ancient Egyptian dead. But he felt a strange longing as he looked at this one-this mysterious being who called himself Ramses the Damned, Ramses the Great.
Something warm touched him inside. He drew closer, slashing again at the outer wrapping. Behind him, Samir ordered the photographers out of the passage. There was danger of contamination. Yes, go, all of you, please.
He reached out and touched the mummy suddenly; he touched it reverently with the very tips of his fingers. So curiously resilient! Surely the thick layer of bandages had become soft with time.
Again, he gazed at the narrow face before him, at the rounded lids, and the sombre mouth.
"Julie," he whispered. "Oh, my darling, if only you could see ..."
* * *
The Embassy Ball. Same old faces; same old orchestra, same old sweet yet droning waltz. The lights were a glare to Elliott Savarelclass="underline" the champagne left a sour taste in his mouth. Nevertheless he drained the glass rather gracelessly and caught the eye of a passing waiter. Yes, anodier. And another. Would that it were good brandy or whisky.
But they wanted him here, didn't they? Wouldn't be the same without the Earl of Rutherford. The Earl of Rutherford was an essential ingredient, as were the lavish flower arrangements, the thousands upon thousands of candles; the caviar, and the silver; and the old musicians sawing wearily at their violins while the younger generation danced.
Everyone had a greeting for the Earl of Rutherford. Everyone wanted the Earl of Rutherford to attend a daughter's wedding, or an afternoon tea, or another ball such as this. Never mind that Elliott and his wife rarely entertained anymore in either their London town house or the country estate in Yorkshire-that Edith spent much of her time in Paris now with a widowed sister. The seventeenth Earl of Rutherford was the genuine article. The titles in his family went back-one way or another-to Henry VIII.
Why hadn't he ruined everything long ago? Elliott wondered. How had he ever managed to charm so many people in whom he had no more than a passing interest, at best?
But no, that wasn't the entire truth. He loved some of these people, whether he cared to admit it or not. He loved his old friend Randolph Stratford, just as he loved Randolph's brother, Lawrence. And surely he loved Julie Stratford, and he loved watching her dance with his son. Elliott was here on account of his son. Of course Julie wasn't really going to marry Alex. At least not any time soon. But it was the only clear hope on the horizon that Alex might acquire the money he needed to maintain the landed estates he would inherit, the wealth that was supposed to go along with an old title, and seldom did anymore.
The sad part was that Alex loved Julie. The money meant nothing to either of them, really. It was the older generation that did the scheming, and the planning, as they have always done.
Elliott leaned against the gilded railing, gazing down at the soft drift of young couples turning beneath him, and for a moment, he tried to shut out the din of voices, and hear only the sweet strains of the waltz.
But Randolph Stratford was talking again. Randolph was assuring Elliott that Julie needed only a little prodding. If only Lawrence would say the word, his daughter would give in.
"Give Henry a chance," Randolph said again. "He's only been in Egypt a week. If Lawrence will take the initiative ..."
"But why," Elliott asked, "should Lawrence do mat?"
Silence.
Elliott knew Lawrence better than Randolph knew him. Elliott and Lawrence. No one really knew the whole story, except the two men themselves. At Oxford years ago, in a carefree world, they had been lovers, and the year after they'd finished, they had spent a winter together south of Cairo in a houseboat on the Nile. Inevitably the world had separated them. Elliott had married Edith Christian, an American heiress. Lawrence had built Stratford Shipping into an empire.
But their friendship had never faltered. They had spent countless holidays in Egypt together. They could still argue all night long about history, ruins, archaeological discoveries, poetry, what have you. Elliott had been the only one who really understood when Lawrence retired and went to Egypt. Elliott had envied Lawrence. And there had been the first bitterness between them. In the small hours, when die wine flowed, Lawrence had called Elliott a coward, for spending his remaining years in London in a world he did not value; a world which gave him no joy. Elliott had criticized Lawrence for being blind and stupid. After all, Lawrence was rich beyond Elliott's wildest dreams; and Lawrence was a widower with a clever and independent daughter. Elliott had a wife and son who needed him day in and day out to regulate the successes of their wholly respectable and conventional lives.
"All I mean to say," Randolph pressed, "is that if Lawrence would express his wish about this marriage ..."
"And the small matter of the twenty thousand pounds?" Elliott asked suddenly. The tone was soft, polite, but the question was unforgivably rude. Nevertheless he persisted. "Edith will be back from France in a week and she's certain to notice that the necklace is missing. You know, she always does."
Randolph didn't answer.
Elliott laughed softly, but not at Randolph, not even at himself. And certainly not at Edith, who had only a little more money now than Elliott did and most of it in plate and jewels.
Perhaps Elliott laughed because the music made him giddy; or something about the vision of Julie Stratford, dancing down there with Alex, touched his heart. Or perhaps because of late he had lost the ability to speak any longer in euphemisms and half-truths. It was gone along with his physical stamina, and the sense of well-being he had enjoyed throughout his youth.
Now his joints hurt more and more with every passing winter; and he could not walk half a mile any longer in the country without suffering a severe pain in his chest. He did not mind having white hair at fifty-five, perhaps because he knew he looked rather good with it. But it bruised him secretly and deeply to have to use a cane wherever he went. These were all mere shadows, however, of what was yet to come.
Old age, weakness, dependence. Pray that Alex was happily married to the Stratford millions, and not before too long!
He felt restless, suddenly; dissatisfied. The soft swooshing music annoyed him; sick to death of Strauss, actually. But it was something keener.
He wanted to explain it suddenly to Randolph, that he, Elliott, had made some crucial mistake a long time ago. Something to do with those long nights in Egypt, when he and Lawrence would walk through the black streets of Cairo together, or rail at each other drunkenly in the little saloon of the boat. Lawrence had somehow managed to live his life along heroic proportions; he had accomplished things of which others were simply incapable. Elliott had moved with the current. Lawrence had escaped to Egypt, back to the desert, the temples, to those clear star-filled nights.
God, how he missed Lawrence. In the last three years they had exchanged only a handful of letters, but the old understanding would never grow dim.
"Henry took some papers with him," Randolph said, "small matter of family stock." He glanced about warily, too warily. Elliott was going to laugh again.
"If it goes as I hope," Randolph continued, "I'll pay you everything I owe you, and the marriage will take place within six months, I give you my word." Elliott smiled.
"Randolph, the marriage may or may not happen; it may or may not solve things for both of us-" "Don't say mat, old boy."
"But I must have that twenty thousand pounds before Edith comes home,"
"Precisely, Elliott, precisely."
"You know, you might say no to your son once hi a while." A deep sigh came from Randolph. Elliott didn't press it. He knew as well as anyone did that Henry's deterioration was no joke any longer; it had nothing to do with sowing wild oats, or going through a rough period. There was something thoroughly rotten in Henry Stratford and there always'had been. There was very little that was rotten in Randolph. And so it was a tragedy; and Elliott, who loved his own son, Alex, excessively, had only sympathy for Randolph on that score.
More assurances; a positive din of assurance. You'll get your twenty thousand pounds. But Elliott wasn't listening. He was watching the dancers again-his good and gentle son whispering passionately to Julie, whose face wore that look of determination that flattered her for reasons that Elliott could never fully understand.
Some women must smile to be beautiful. Some women must weep. But with Julie, the real radiance shone only when she was serious-perhaps because her eyes were too softly brown otherwise, her mouth too guileless, her porcelain cheeks too smooth.
Fired with determination, she was a vision. And Alex, for all his breeding, and all his proffered passion, seemed no more than **a partner" for her; one of a thousand elegant young men who might have guided her across the marble floor.
* * *