Tutankhamun Uncovered (5 page)

“Hullo, George,” he says. “Is his lordship in?”

“Yes, sir. And m’lady is on the terrace playing ball games with the children.”

“Oh.” He has not come to play. But it is customary and polite for him to present himself first to the lady of the house. “Perhaps then I should go and join them. Thereafter maybe they will permit me some time in the library.”

“Of course, sir.”

“First, though, I have a picture for you.” Howard pulls out his sketchpad and tears off the drawing of the church. “I hope you will like it.”

“Sir. How kind.” The butler regards the drawing for a moment. “His lordship’s family church. A very faithful rendition, sir. You are very good, you know. I will get my wife to find a suitable frame for it. Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, George, it’s nothing. Certainly not worth a frame. A memory... for your scrapbook.”

“Thank you all the same, sir.”

Howard trots through the house and out through the tall French windows at the rear. Typical of such a home the garden is a designed affair, walled all about. The back of the house is laid out to an immaculately manicured grass terrace. This falls away to a large croquet lawn backed by formal flowerbeds enclosing an ornamental pond. A classical stone arbour, festooned with clematis, overlooks the pond.

Before he casts his eyes on the group playing below the terrace, he looks to his left. Spread evenly along the rear façade are seven elegant, serenely seated stone statues of Egyptian goddesses. They stare fixedly out over the alien estate toward the southeast and a distant land of contrasts, a land of barren sand and luxuriant greenery; their land, the land they had previously inhabited undisturbed for millennia. Their enigmatic expressions, their cold, bland, open eyes, give no hint of personality. But, for the young Howard Carter, the silent conversations he had held with them during previous visits to Didlington held more magic and delight than he could ever get from engaging the very English souls that now surround him.

He is jolted out of his preoccupation by a greeting from the lawn below.

Lady Amherst, the energetic young mother of the house, waves to him from beside the pond. Well aware of her station in life she gives the boy, whom both she and her husband have grown to like very much, a friendly but not overly familiar welcome.

Although his mind is not focused on garden and ball games, he converses in politely trivial pleasantries with the menagerie of ladies and children for as long as he can stand. When the conversation turns to the latest styles in haberdashery he finally spots his moment.

Howard asks if he might be excused and go to the library to talk with his lordship. “If he is not too busy with other things, ma’am.”

“Summon Amherst, George, if you would be so kind. And tell him Master Carter has need of his attention in the library.”

The boy politely takes his leave of the garden group and purposefully struts back into the house to seek out the library. At every visit he has felt stunned by the sheer multitude of objects it contains. He walks through the double doors directly to the piece he first wishes to examine. The small ushabti lies in its usual place on a table alongside a number of similar objects. He picks the figure up gently and with a light puff, blows off the dust. He regards it closely. The colours are paled by time. As it lies in his right palm he runs his left forefinger over its painted face, along the arms crossed over its chest, over the abdomen and legs covered with hieroglyphs. He tries to picture where it had originally lain, probably little more than twenty feet from the dead king for whom it was supposed to serve the Pharaoh whose needs it was commanded to satisfy throughout the tortuous labyrinth of the afterlife.

This is the reason he comes to this place the sight and touch of the Amhersts’ collection of Egyptian antiquities; their personal historical commentary and good counsel; their answers to his questions. Both husband and wife were much accomplished in the Egyptology of the time.

Lord Amherst is not long in coming. He is not a large man and is still relatively young. He has fair hair, straight combed on either side of his face to just over his ears, a well trimmed moustache, deep eyes, and the receding bottom lip attributed so often by commoners as an affliction symptomatic of the aristocracy. But he is a highly educated man with a natural sensitivity, the talent and the pocket for picking out the very best of ancient Egyptian artefacts. He very much enjoys talking with one so young and who takes such an active interest in the subject. Such encounters bring welcome relief to the business and social burdens of the office he holds.

“Howard, m’lad!” he exclaims, as if he has not seen the boy for ages. “I have a new acquisition which I have been anxiously waiting to show you. Put that down and come over here. Tell me first what you think. Then I will fill you in!”

Lord Amherst beckons the boy over to the darker, furthest corner of the room. Being distant from the small windows, the area is poorly illuminated; the dark stained, oak panelled walls absorb what little light falls on them.

“What do you think of that?” Amherst asks expectantly.

As he moves over to the area his lordship is pointing to, the boy’s eyes become more accustomed to the gloom. He begins to make out a large object, somewhat larger than life-size and upright, humanoid in shape. As he approaches within an arm’s length, the full, imposing majesty, beauty, reverence and sheer size of the wooden, mummiform coffin absorb all his senses. He is dumbstruck. He stares back at Amherst with his mouth agape.

His lordship is full of himself. He begins telling the lad how he came to acquire the piece from where, from whom, from what time and the name of the mummy it had once contained. Howard examines the painting on the coffin. In the midst of his excitement he barely hears Amherst’s lecturing. Nevertheless the grandee’s words become firmly fixed in the catalogue of his mind. He will have no trouble recalling them. The immediate registration and clear recollection of such facts are quite natural to the boy.

Now seventeen years of age, Howard Carter continued to spend much of his time at the Amhersts’, but, on the few days that he had sufficient money to take the train up to London, he would make his way to the British Museum. There he would squat amongst the Egyptian exhibits with a pad of cartridge paper across his knees, and a palette of watercolour paints on the stone floor beside him. He would pick out a sculpture, mix up a wash of colour similar to the hue of the stone and spread it across the page. Taking a pencil he would sketch the shape, faithfully reproducing the bold, smooth line of the ancient artist. He resisted the temptation to restore the original vividness of the colours. The mixtures of paint he used were subdued, very much on the pale side and true to today.

The public tapped across the paved floors from exhibit to exhibit, pausing now and then but for far too short a time to truly appreciate the presence of the piece before them. Over the years the lad had trained himself to become oblivious to the traffic around him. The work took concentration and a steady hand.

He was so focused on his work that he barely felt the gentle touch of a woman’s silk gloved hand on his shoulder. “Lady Amherst!” he exclaimed, startled and almost embarrassed at the interruption. He scrambled to his feet. “How nice to see you, m’lady.”

He held up the almost finished watercolour in his left hand. “Do you... Do you like it?”

She took it from him and studied it at arm’s length, glancing once or twice at the statue he had copied.

“You are so good at this, Howard,” she said. “You bring life to dead things. Look,” she continued hastily, “now I have interrupted you I must tell you why I am here. This meeting is no accident. Your brother William told me you would be here all day, so I came quickly up to town to bring you what I hope will be most agreeable news.... Howard, how would you like to go to Egypt... to the excavations taking place there... all expenses paid, plus a little very little I’m afraid pocket money besides?”

In his surprise Carter dropped his paintbrush on the floor. He quickly bent down to pick it up and replace it in his palette. He closed the lid carefully and pulled himself back up to his feet. “What...? What for? I mean... to do what, Lady Amhurst?”

“Why, just what you are doing here, of course. Doing what you do best. Mr Newberry is someone who needs a fellow to help him copy the wall paintings at Beni Hasan and I have told him of you and your skills and he has agreed to take you providing your work meets with the approval of Mr Griffith, of course...”

“Mr... Mr Griffith?”

“...And there are other projects there, besides, at least two of which his lordship is supporting. What do you think of that, now?”

The teenager couldn’t believe his ears. He was in shock and unable to grasp the sense of purpose in her words. All he could summon in response was, “When?”

“We start right now,” Lady Amherst said, “right here. I am to take you downstairs to Mr Griffith’s rooms. He is not expecting us but he will receive us. The BM has much to thank the Amhersts for.”

“But I... I don’t think I am ready for this...”

“Nonsense!” Lady Amherst tugged at his sleeve so hard he almost dropped his sketchpad. Stumbling to recover his composure, he kicked his watercolour paint box across the floor.

“Pick it up and follow me, Howard. No time to lose. I have come a long way just for this. I am not of a mind to return to the Hall without the satisfaction of knowing that you have been accepted.”

“But my parents... My aunts...” he wittered on.

With the single-minded determination and self-centredness that accompanies wealth, she ignored his pleading and led him down the marble staircase to a solid door emblazoned with gold lettering: ‘EGYPTOLOGY ARCHIVE’.

Francis Griffith, just twenty-eight years old, was a curator of the museum and a senior officer of the Egypt Exploration Fund, not unimportant in his field and well known to Howard Carter even though hitherto they had not met.

The curator was just inside the door and apparently in the act of leaving. Lady Amherst, being in the act of entering, came upon him face to face. Startled by their close encounter they each retreated a short distance. Her ladyship announced herself, quickly related her contact with Newberry, and introduced the stunned young man who was still hugging the unfinished illustration closely to his chest.

“That so, Lady Amherst? That so?” Griffith’s first words were said in a rather disinterested tone and reflected a preoccupation with other matters. However, the presence of aristocracy well respected for her support of the Fund and, for the time, aristocracy in possession of the most important private collection of Egyptian antiquities outside of the museum itself caused the curator smartly to compose himself.

“I am greatly indebted to you, ma’am, to have come all this way and to bring this young man to my attention. What you got there, sir? Something relevant to the future task at hand? May I see it?”

Howard was surprised to see such a young man in so important a position. But the way the gentleman carried himself reflected a maturity beyond his years. This, along with the seniority of the position held Carter in awe.

“May I?” Griffith reached for Carter’s sketchbook.

He had not meant to hold on to the book quite so firmly but his arms were folded tight about it in an almost terrified embrace and the curator had to let go for fear of tearing the pages.

“Show Mr Griffith, Howard, what you have just this minute been painting.”

Carter turned the pad around and faced the unfinished painting towards the curator. Griffith took it from him gently and held it more directly under the globe of a hanging paraffin lamp. With his forefinger he pushed his wire rimmed spectacles further up the bridge of his nose. “One can tell this is freehand... but most accurate in its detail. You are very good, sir.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Could you work here with me for a few weeks doing a bit more of this stuff, but on things that need copying, so I can get a better look at your abilities? If you turn out the way it looks you might, I’d like to send you to Egypt to work under Mr Newberry. What do you say to that?”

His answer was a silent nod, a smiling glance of gratitude to the lady who had brought him this good fortune, a feeling of trepidation and an almost uncontainable rush of excitement. Howard felt himself tremble.

Howard Carter began work at the museum the following week and took to his assignment with absolute commitment. He greatly appreciated the faith the Amhersts had placed in him and would do his utmost to build on that trust.

The aunts, and above all his parents, were very happy to see him get this work. For himself, although he would barely be able to make ends meet, so long as he could afford to eat and have a place to lay his head he would have no complaints. He would be working alongside published scientists. The work was truly creditable; honourable even. This kind of experience had no price.

Griffith was quick to bless the lad’s abilities. The curator, from their first meeting, had not doubted he would. Within three months of Howard Carter’s tenure at the British Museum, the young man had been summarily despatched to Egypt. He took the ferry across the English Channel to France and, after a lengthy rail trip, found himself aboard a sailing steamer bound from Marseilles to Alexandria. For the first time in his short life he was beyond familiar territory and on the initial leg of a journey that, unpredictable to the boy at this time, was before too long to become one of the lengthiest annual commutes in history.

As the ship eased out of port, the fresh sea breeze caught him full in the face and he turned to look back at the slowly receding coast. He reflected on his father who had accompanied him to Victoria Station. He had taken leave of Samuel Carter with a light and expectant heart. The moment of goodbye had been poignant parental confirmation of the graduate. Howard loved his father dearly and acknowledged that, like his brothers, he owed his talents to this man and this man alone.

Howard leaned out of the carriage door window. His father spoke loudly to make himself heard above the noise of hissing steam. “Take the greatest care of yourself, my boy. You are precious to us all.” As if in a sublime ceremony of coming of age, he pressed a small tin of tobacco and some packets of cigarette papers into his son’s hand. His father told Howard he was now permitted to smoke.