As Papa pivots and marches out of the room, I think how wrong I’d been in my earlier reflections that he’s accepted me in his archaeological work. He may encourage my interest—may even ask me to take a peek at his plans—but he’s only humoring me. My place remains in the shadows.
Chapter Eleven
SEPTEMBER 23, 1919
HAMPSHIRE,ENGLAND
“Don’t you worry, Lady Evelyn. All is not lost,” Mr. Carter says, after my father storms out of the room.
“Oh, I think one is quite lost, Mr. Carter. Utterly adrift, in fact. Certainly in terms of my presence in Egypt and surely as far as Hatshepsut’s tomb goes.” I try to keep my voice steady, but I am quite miffed by Papa’s treatment. I thought I’d been brought into the fold, but it’s clear my father simply doesn’t see me that way. To him, I’m still that girl, sitting in the corner with a book in her hand, an observer in her own life. Waiting for a marriage to animate me and provide me with purpose. One that I do not want.
Mr. Carter pats my arm and says, “I am going to share something private with you, something that may make you feel better, if that’s quite all right?”
The thought of being taken into Mr. Carter’s confidence astonishes me so much that it softens the blow of Papa’s dismissal. “Of course,” I rush to say.
“I am beholden to your father for being my patron these past years, and my goal is always the same—to secure for him the very best archaeological artifacts and historical discoveries. We have had great success, but we have also had great battles, far worse than you’ve seen today. Occasionally, as part of my effort to achieve his goals and further archaeology in general, I do what I must, even if it’s not what he wishes. Not that he ever needs know this.”
Mr. Carter gives me a pointed stare, which I take as a question. Can I keep this private? And if so, can he trust me with more?
“He will not hear of this from me,” I assure him.
“Excellent,” he says, then hesitates. “It isn’t that I want you to keep secrets from your father. But sometimes, in order to be certain that he doesn’t get in his own way, we must advance his interests obliquely, quietly, differently than he might envision. Sometimes it’s the only way of fulfilling his goals and a larger mission. Let me give you an example of what I mean and how determined I can be.”
We settle in the chairs across from his table. “During the war, while you were helping your mother with Highclere hospital and your father was assisting the British military, I was still in Egypt, as you know. When the formal excavations halted as the governmental manpower and resources were redirected to the war effort, I helped out at the British foreign office. This work left me with time on my hands, until the digs slowly began again.”
I nod. All this I learned from Mr. Carter’s letters during the war and dinner table conversation.
“What you may not know is that the war left archaeological sites unguarded. Plundering by locals and professional tomb robbers alike was rampant. I tapped into my network to ensure that I kept abreast of the thieves’ findings and that our concession in the Valley of the Kings was protected. One afternoon in 1916, I got a tip that a vicious fight had broken out over a tomb in the Wadi Sikkat Taqat Zayid to the west of the Valley of the Kings.”
“Isn’t that the remote area where some of the New Kingdom queens are buried? In cliffside tombs?”
“Precisely,” he answers with a pleased nod. “Even though it was the middle of the night, I raced out to the scene. I discovered a rope dangling down the sheer face of a cliff, and somewhere below me I could hear the tense voices of men who were digging.”
“You could hear them in a tomb cut into the side of a cliff?” I ask, trying to get a sense of the scene.
“Yes, the voices really carry in that sort of setting,” he answers.
“What did you do?” I am rapt.
“I cut the robbers’ rope, so they had no means of escape. Then, I secured a long, long rope of my own, knotted it around myself, and lowered myself down the side of the cliff, while my men stood by at the top, holding tight. When I was about two hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor, I reached the tomb. The original builders had used a water-worn cleft in the side of the cliff and tunneled in from there.”
“Was the opening evident immediately?”
“Yes, but when I peered inside, I could see that debris filled the interior as the tunnel went deeper,” he explains.
“Debris? From the robbers digging?”
“No, it looked like detritus that had accumulated in the tomb naturally over the centuries. The robbers had dug a hole through the solid pile of rubble, only big enough to wriggle through on your stomach. I called to them, and one by one, they crawled through the tunnel and reentered the cave, armed and ready to fight for their tomb. Once I explained that I’d cut their line and the only way out was onmyrope—which would be pulled back up by my men if I didn’t signal to them in five minutes—they relented and left the tomb via my rope.”
“My goodness, that was risky,” I say, a little breathless at the thought of Mr. Carter’s endeavor. “You could have been killed.”
“Yes, but they would have been stranded and died themselves.”
“True enough. What happened next?”
“My men and I set to work. Over the next three weeks, working day and night, we cleared the tomb, installing a wooden structure inside to support the interior as we dug. It was then that we found it,” he says, his eyes shining at the memory.
“What? What did you find?” I ask, leaning as far forward as possible in my chair. I thought I knew all his stories, but I’d been wrong.
