Whispers in the Sand (24 page)

It appeared that the Fieldings, who, Louisa discovered, had known the Forresters some years before in Brighton, had rented their boat in Luxor two months before. It did not take Louisa long to work out that a combination of his wife’s ill health and his sister’s ill temper had proved too much for David Fielding, who was an easy-going, good-natured man, ill equipped to act as a referee between two singularly spiteful women. It also became obvious that the reason for their protracted stay was their meeting with Roger Carstairs, whose own boat had been tied up north of Luxor at Denderah. He was wealthy, titled, and recently widowed. Any family with an unmarried lady in her late twenties or early thirties would agree that he could not be allowed to escape. When both boats turned south to cruise towards Aswan, they did so in convoy, and Carstairs did not appear to have discouraged the obviously predatory plans of Venetia and Katherine Fielding.

“I don’t think I should have risked staying out here in your condition,” Augusta Forrester commented a little tartly to Katherine during a moment’s lull in the conversation.

Katherine blushed scarlet. Her husband came to her aid. “It was not our intention to stay out here so long, dear Lady Forrester, I assure you. I had hoped we would have returned to London long before this. Now we shall have to remain in Egypt for Katherine’s confinement.” He sent a baleful glare in his sister’s direction. “It is far too late for Kate to travel.”

“Lord Carstairs has two delightful children, Augusta,” Katherine put in amiably, in an obvious attempt to change the subject. “Alas, now motherless, poor little dears.” She smiled archly at Venetia.

“There is nothing delightful about them,” Carstairs put in, his attention suddenly caught by the sound of his own name. “They are a couple of small heathens. I have lost three nursemaids and a tutor already, and I’m thinking of sending them off to a cage in the Zoological Gardens!”

Louisa suppressed a smile. “Are they really so dreadful? May I ask how old they are?”

“Six and eight, Mrs. Shelley. Old enough to be totally unmanageable.”

Louisa laughed. “My two boys are the same age exactly,” she exclaimed. She shook her head sadly. “I miss them so much. Are your boys out in Egypt with you, Lord Carstairs?”

“Indeed they are not! I left them in Scotland. I hope not to see them again until they have learnt some manners.” He leant back in his chair, and suddenly he smiled at her. “I suspect with your experience of children, Mrs. Shelley, you do not see them with the naïve eye of the childless!” The remark was designed to cut, and it did. She saw Katherine flinch visibly whilst the other two ladies looked crestfallen and indignant in turn.

“That is a little harsh, my lord. Some children are delightful,” she returned with some asperity. “Mine are, for instance.”

He had been paying her particular attention since she had returned to the saloon, but not once, to her relief, had he mentioned the scent bottle. Instead, he had gone out of his way to entertain her. He bowed affably now. “Your children, dear lady, could be nothing but delightful, I am sure. Perhaps I shall need to ask you for some guaranteed training methods.” To her relief, he turned back to the Fieldings and with some skill proceeded to soothe Katherine’s ruffled feelings. To Venetia, she noticed, he paid no particular attention at all.

It was not until the guests were on the point of leaving that Lord Carstairs dropped his bombshell. “Mrs. Shelley, may I suggest that tomorrow you might care to accompany us to the quarries to see the unfinished obelisk? It is a fascinating excursion, and I have promised to escort David and Venetia.”

How could she refuse? How could she say, But I want to go there with Hassan, in my soft, cool gown?

Sir John sealed her fate. “Excellent plan.” he boomed. “She was intending to go there anyway. I heard the dragoman giving instructions to the cook to put up a picnic. Now there will be no need for him to go. He can stay here and help me with a few errands I have to perform in Aswan.”

Anna shook her head. How unfair. Poor Louisa. That was truly sod’s law. Or was she going to fall for the suave Carstairs and forget her burgeoning love for the gentle dragoman? Her head was aching with tiredness, but she could not resist flipping over a few pages to see what happened next. A roughly scribbled passage under a pencil sketch of a woman veiled in black caught her eye, and she frowned.

“And so, I have ridden a camel and seen the fallen obelisk, and dear God! but I am so afraid. When I returned to my cabin yesterday evening, the lock to my dressing case had been forced and the bottle was gone. The Forresters were furious and Roger distraught. The boat’s crew have been cross-questioned—even Hassan. Then I saw him. The tall man with the white robe. He was here in my cabin, not six feet from me, and he held the bottle in his hand. And he had the strangest eyes, like quick silver, without pupils. I screamed and screamed, and the
reis
came and then Hassan and then Sir John and they found the bottle lying under my bed. They think it was a river pirate and are giving thanks for my safety. He would have had a knife, they say, and they think he had returned for what poor jewellery I have brought with me. But if so, why did he not take it before? What I could not tell them was that I reached out to ward him off, and my hand passed through him as though he were mist.

Dressed in a pair of white cotton jeans and a navy shirt, Anna let herself out of the lounge door and climbed up onto the top deck. The river was silent, but it was growing slowly less dark. Leaning on the rail, she put her head in her hands. Near her, the flowerpot with the bottle nestled between the roots of the plants was just a darker shadow amongst the other shadows. The cool air was soothing to her face, and she found herself relaxing slowly, distancing herself from the horror of Louisa’s last description. She could just see the opposite bank now and, high up on the hillside, the silhouette of what looked like a little temple. Across the water a muezzin began to call the faithful to prayer, the dawn cry echoing in the silence.

“So, can’t you sleep either?” She spun round in shock to see Toby standing near her.

“I didn’t hear you coming!”

“I’m sorry. My cabin was very hot. I thought I’d get up and watch the sunrise.” He came over and leant on the rail next to her. “It’s so beautiful here.” His voice was dreamy, softened by the silence around them. Took!” He pointed out across the water. Three egrets were flying towards them, white shadows above the layer of mist. They watched in silence until the birds had disappeared.

“Did you hear about the snake last night?” She glanced at him. His expression was rapt. At her words, however, he snapped out of whatever reverie he had been in and turned towards her.

“Did you say a snake?”

“In Charley’s cabin. It was hiding in a drawer.”

“Dear God! How on earth did it get there?”

She shrugged. Magic. Ancient curses. The spell of the djinn. Not suggestions she could make to this man, certainly. “Omar thinks it must have crept on board somehow. It turns out that Ibrahim who waits on us at table is actually a snake charmer! He was completely sure the snake had gone, so we all went back to bed.”

“Except that you couldn’t sleep.”

She shrugged ruefully. “No, I couldn’t sleep.”

“I’m not surprised.” He continued looking out across the river in a silence which was somehow extremely companionable. They could see the ripples on the water now, close to the boat, and in the distance the silhouettes of the palms were beginning to emerge against the hillside.

“I used to love snakes when I was a child. I had a grass snake called Sam,” Toby said suddenly. He gave a half-smile. “Not quite in the same league, I suspect, as an Egyptian snake, but he could still make my great-aunts scream.” There was another long silence. Anna glanced at him sideways. He seemed to have returned to his deep reverie as slowly it grew lighter. “It won’t be long before the sun disc appears.” He turned and leant on the rail to face east. “And of course the moment it does, life will return to the land.” He changed the subject adroitly. “We’re going to be moved up to a mooring alongside one of the big pleasure cruisers later, and then we’ve got a busy three days here.” He yawned and straightened up. “There it is. The sun.”

Almost on cue, they heard the pad of feet, and two of the crew appeared. They were taking in the lines to the bank as the engines began to throb gently somewhere down inside the heart of the boat. Toby glanced at his watch. He gave her a conspiratorial grin. “Well. If I recall correctly, they start breakfast early today, and everyone should be getting up by now. By the time we’ve eaten, we’ll be in place and ready to go on our adventures. Do you want to come down with me?”

To her own surprise she agreed with alacrity. For once, he was relaxed, unchallenging, and that sudden sense of companionship had lingered.

Anna did not have the chance to talk to Serena again until they were on their way to see, in their turn, the unfinished obelisk that Louisa had dismissed in two short lines. They sat side by side at the back of the tour bus—no camels for them—as it bucketed over the potholed streets of Aswan.

Charley and Andy, she noticed, were sitting several rows apart. Toby, having collected his sketchbook and camera, had two seats to himself immediately in front of them.

“Louisa saw him again. The man in white. In her cabin! Exactly as you described in your trance,” she said as soon as the bus pulled away from the quay. “And he tried to take the bottle. I read the passage last night. She had met someone called Lord Carstairs who wanted to buy it off her—”

“Roger Carstairs?” Serena glanced at her. “But he’s famous, or I should say infamous. He was an antiquarian, but also a rather Aleister Crowley type figure. He dabbled in black magic and things.” Her eyes widened. “Obviously Louisa didn’t give it to him?”

“No, she was adamant.”

“But he saw something in it.”

“Oh yes. He saw something, although it might have been the Arabic inscription which intrigued him. I’ll read some more this afternoon.”

“Did you give the scent bottle to Omar to lock away?”

Anna shook her head. “There were only a few minutes after breakfast, and I didn’t have time. And there were too many people about.” When she had been there on her own, in the dark, before Toby appeared, the last thing she had wanted to do was dig up the bottle. She shivered. “I reckoned it would be safe where it is. I am sure no one will touch the flowers.” She was silent for a moment. It would have been nearer the truth to say that she hadn’t wanted to touch it.

Leaving the bus, they trooped dutifully across the quarry and climbed the path to stand looking down at the great obelisk as it lay where it had been first conceived in the heart of the pharaohs’ quarry more than three thousand years before. Almost completed, it lay like a vast fallen warrior, still half embedded in the living granite, almost free when a flaw had been found in it which caused it to be abandoned. Anna brought out her camera, strangely moved by the sight.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it.” Toby was suddenly beside them. He had his small sketchbook in his hand and was busy transferring the image of the obelisk onto the page with bold, sure strokes of his pencil. He glanced at her. “You can feel the anguish, can’t you? The utter frustration they must have felt when they realised they had to give up on it.”