Читать книгу Sands of Time - Barbara Erskine - Страница 12

For the next few days the countryside could talk of nothing but the fire at Carstairs Castle. As far as could be ascertained no one was hurt in the catastrophe; no one had been found amongst the wreckage, but the collection itself, estimated to be worth countless thousands of pounds, had been totally destroyed. Urgent messages were despatched by telegraph and by letter to Lord Carstairs himself, but no one it appeared knew quite where he was. He had left New York in the late spring, travelling west, and no one had heard from him since. Mr Dunglass was interviewed by the police, as were his lordship’s two sons and their tutor. All denied ever having taken a lamp into the museum, never mind lighting it, and Louisa’s hastily drawn sketches were scanned as evidence of what had been there. She pointed out that she could hardly have bothered to paint such an everyday item as a lamp – but then before the police could question her and Lady Douglas further about their visits, news came that Mr Dunglass had packed his bags and fled. His panic confirmed his guilt in many eyes.

Louisa moved back to her original bedroom and continued to paint the gardens and the moors as the storms passed and the good weather returned. Her dreams remained untroubled. She had no nocturnal visitors. But the fear was still there. She had locked the ring and the string of beads away in her jewel case with the topaz brooch and tried not to think about what had happened. Until one morning she received a letter. It was from George Browning, her sons’ tutor. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but we seem to have had an intruder in the house. A very thorough, I would say almost professional, search has been made of every room. I cannot ascertain that anything is missing – certainly nothing obvious, but I am worried that a particular search was made of your studio and some sketches and paintings may be lost. Also there appears to be something there of which I have no recollection. I have checked with the boys and they do not recognise it either. A small paperweight of what looks like solid gold carved in the shape of a coiled snake was left on the table in your studio. Beneath it was a paper inscribed with hieroglyphics of some sort. The boys feel it is a message from some person you met on your Egyptian travels and are much excited by it. I should reassure you that they have not been in the least alarmed by these occurrences and are indeed very reluctant to return to their grandmother’s care next week …’

Louisa passed the letter to Sarah. ‘I have to go home. Today. He’s back. He’s left me a message.’

Sarah went with her. On Louisa’s urgent instructions George had removed the boys at once back to their grandmother’s house so it was to a depleted household that they made their way from the station in a hansom cab. Louisa’s cook housekeeper, Mrs Laidlaw, and one maid, Sally Anne, were there to greet them.

Louisa went straight to her studio. There on the table as George Browning had said sat the gold serpent. She had last seen it in the museum at Carstairs Castle.

‘Am I never to be rid of him?’ Louisa turned to Sarah in anguish.

They had taken off their hats and coats and settled into chairs in the pretty drawing room overlooking the small garden of Louisa’s terraced London house.

‘Has he taken anything?’

‘I don’t know.’ Louisa was staring round the room. ‘I haven’t noticed anything. There is only one thing he wants.’

‘And is it there?’

Louisa shrugged. Standing up she led the way back into her studio and stood in front of the davenport where she did her correspondence. The studio was very cold; there was a strange smell in there she couldn’t immediately identify – not paint. Not linseed oil, or charcoal. Something sweet and slightly exotic. She shivered. ‘I put it in there. In the secret drawer.’

‘See if it’s there.’

Louisa put her hand out to the polished wood of the desk lid. Then she shook her head. ‘Supposing he’s watching me.’

‘Watching?’ Sarah glanced over her shoulder uneasily. ‘How could he be watching?’

‘How could he do any of the things he does?’ Louisa replied crossly. She moved away from the desk. ‘He has been in this room. How else could the snake have got here? It is a message. A warning. Oh, Sarah what am I to do? Can’t you feel it? There is something here. Someone.’ She picked up the piece of paper with its strange illegible message and stared at it, then with it still in her hand she turned on her heels and swept out of the room with Sarah behind her.

In the drawing room where Mrs Laidlaw had brought them a tray of tea Louisa threw the piece of paper with its scrawled hieroglyphics down onto the table.

‘What does it say? Can you read it?’

Louisa shook her head. Bending over it she ran her finger lightly over the symbols which had been inscribed there, then drew her hand away sharply.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Sarah’s blue eyes were fixed on the paper.

‘Nothing. It felt hot. My imagination.’

Sarah glanced up sharply. ‘Are you sure?’

Louisa shrugged. ‘I’m sure of nothing. I don’t know why he’s left this. He must realise I can’t read it.’

‘He’s just trying to frighten you. Tear it up.’

Louisa shook her head. ‘Supposing it’s important. These symbols. They have power.’

‘Exactly.’ Sarah stood up. She reached for the paper. ‘If you won’t destroy it, I will.’ About to throw it into the fireplace she stopped with a gasp.

The figure in front of them was no more substantial than a wisp of mist but both women saw it. Both shrank back. The paper dropped from Sarah’s hand and she fell back into her chair, white-faced.

‘Dear God!’ Louisa’s whisper was barely audible. ‘The djinn. The evil djinn!’

Already the figure had gone. It had been no more than a shadow.

‘What was that?’ Sarah’s voice shook.

‘Hatsek. The priest of Sekhmet. Two priests follow my ampulla and fight over it.’ Louisa’s voice was dreamlike. ‘Hassan called them djinn. The paper that came with the bottle was inscribed with their names. I don’t read hieroglyphs but I suppose this is what is written here.’ She took a deep shaky breath.

She bent and picked up the piece of paper. ‘You were right. It must be destroyed.’ Without giving herself time for second thoughts she walked across to the fireplace and threw the paper down. Then she reached for the box of Vestas on the mantelpiece. In seconds the paper was a pile of ash.

She gave a deep sigh. ‘I hope that is the last we shall see of him!’ She shuddered.

Sarah gave a shrill laugh. ‘You hope! Louisa. Do you realise what happened just now? We saw a –!’ She paused, at a loss as to how to describe it. ‘A ghost? A spirit? An ancient Egyptian! And you hope it won’t come back!’

‘It was a warning.’ Louisa shrugged.

‘So, will the fire stop it coming again?’ Sarah stared down at the small heap of ashes.

Louisa nodded. ‘I think so.’ She gave a grim laugh. ‘Fire would appear to have a cleansing effect on most things.’

And so it seemed. In the days that followed the household settled into calm. Louisa unpacked. She forced herself to check the house minutely. There was no sign of anything missing. The only place she did not look was the davenport. There was no need.

News came from Scotland that Mr Dunglass had been arrested in Glasgow. He had, it appeared, been quietly salting away a fortune in cash and valuables from the castle and the authorities looked no further for a cause of the fire. The case was closed. The two Carstairs boys, they heard, had been sent to a distant relative in the far north of Scotland for the rest of the summer. There was still no news of the absent lord.

In October came a letter from Augusta Forrester. The Fieldings had returned home, it said, with the wonderful tidings that Venetia had met a widower in Edinburgh and agreed to marry him. He had both a title, although not one as exalted as that of Lord Carstairs, and a small fortune as well as a goodly estate and she was content. Reading the letter Louisa smiled. Poor Venetia. If only she knew the fate she had been spared had she won her noble lord.

With many hugs and kisses and promises that they would meet again in Scotland the following year Sarah said her farewells and left and Louisa’s two boys returned from their grandmother. Her eldest son David was beginning his second year at Eton; his brother John returned to the schoolroom with George Browning. The staff was completed by the return of Louisa’s man servant, Norton, from a holiday with his family in Hertfordshire.

The day after Sarah left, Louisa’s nightmares about Egypt returned. But this time she did not dream about Hassan. Instead she was standing on the banks of the River Nile, the scent bottle in her hand, about to throw it into the water, when she realised there was a man standing in front of her. A tall, swarthy man dressed in the skins of a lion. ‘Do not dare to throw it!’ His mouth did not move but she felt the strength of his thoughts as though he had screamed them at her. ‘Do not throw! What you hold is sacred.’

She woke up with a start and sat up, shaking. The priest of Sekhmet had returned in her dream. His face was stern and forbidding, his eyes piercing, as he stood over her. The following night she was not on the banks of the Nile; he was here, in her room, bending over her bed.

Her screams brought Mrs Laidlaw and Sally Anne running from their bedrooms, just above hers in the attic. Luckily John and George Browning had not heard her and were not disturbed.

The next morning she went into the studio and stared at the davenport. Why had he returned? What did he want her to do? The answer to that came very swiftly. Two nights later she was preparing for bed, standing dreamily in her room, brushing her hair by the light of a bedside candle, when she became aware of someone standing near her in the shadows. The brush fell from her hand as she turned.

‘Egypt. Take it back to Egypt.’ The voice rang in her ears. ‘The tears of Isis belong in her own land; the ampulla must return whence it came.’ She could see him in the shadows.

‘How can I? How can I take it back?’ she stammered, but already he had gone.

As the autumn nights drew in Louisa felt her strength waning. She found it hard to eat and coughed incessantly, but she returned to her painting. Day after day she retired to the studio and embarked upon a new series of pictures of Scotland. The magic of loch and mountain could not however drive her demons away and at last she found herself painting the priests of ancient Egypt, Hatsek and his one time colleague and eternal enemy, Anhotep, who haunted her dreams, as though by capturing them on canvas she could exorcise them from her brain.

It didn’t work. Still they returned, sometimes apart, sometimes together, arguing with each other, arguing with her, every time coming closer, appearing more threatening, more inexorable. In her misery she wrote to Sarah, to the Forresters, even to the Fieldings. Then one night as sleep failed yet again to come and she sat up in bed reading, the one person who had not haunted her dreams in London appeared once more. Carstairs came back.

She looked up from her book to see him standing at the end of the bed watching her. He was dressed in an open necked voluminous white shirt and baggy trousers with a broad sash into which was thrust a scimitar.

‘So, clever Mrs Shelley. So devious. So cunning. You have hidden the ampulla from me, set a priest to guard it and you have destroyed my life’s work into the bargain. But don’t think you can continue to outwit me. I shall have that bottle. I know it is here.’

Louisa clutched her wrap around her shoulders, shivering. ‘If you have not found it by now, my lord, I think it unlikely you ever will,’ she said defiantly. She held his gaze. ‘So, where have you been? Where are you now? Still in America? Or have you returned to Scotland? Or are you really here, in the flesh, having walked up the stairs like a mere mortal? Did you ring the bell and ask Norton to show you up? I must confess, I did not hear a knock at my door.’

‘A walker between the worlds does not knock.’ He folded his arms. ‘Anymore than does a priest of the old gods.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘When I leave here I shall set something to guard the sacred bottle from you and from the priest. Wherever it is my serpent will protect it. I cannot guarantee the safety of your household or your children, Mrs Shelley. Please do not sacrifice another life for the sake of something so trifling. You have no interest in my bottle save to thwart me. Is that not so?’

She shrugged. ‘You are probably right. It is just that I cannot rid myself of the notion that whatever power lies in that bottle should be used for good, if it is used at all. And you, my lord, intend to use it for your own evil purposes.’

‘So, you would risk your sons’ lives?’

‘There will be no risk.’ She continued to hold his gaze defiantly. ‘I can send John back to his grandparents at any time. He will be safe there –’

He shook his head. ‘Do you still underestimate me so grievously, Louisa?’

‘I don’t underestimate you. Far from it. But I have realised that I can fight you. Remember your priest of Sekhmet, my lord? Remember the lion goddess? The lioness is invincible in the protection of her children. You threaten my children and I will unleash more rage than you can ever contemplate.’

Without realising it she had risen to her knees on the bed. He took a step backwards. ‘If there is a snake in my studio I will banish it. If there is evil in this house I will destroy it and you with it.’ She paused. ‘Where are you, Lord Carstairs? Are you still in America with your Indian braves?’ And now she realised that she recognised the costume he was wearing. ‘No, of course, you are in Egypt.’ She smiled. ‘Is the call so strong?’

‘The priest of Sekhmet wants his ampulla returned. Tell me where it is and I will leave you in peace.’

‘No! Hassan gave me that ampulla. It was his gift. It contains all I have of his love. So, you will never set eyes on it. Never!’ Her voice had risen desperately almost to a shout and seconds later there was an urgent knock at her door. ‘Mrs Shelley? Is something wrong, madam?’ It was Norton’s voice. ‘Shall I call Mrs Laidlaw?’

‘Thank you, Norton. I am all right. I am sorry to have woken you. Please go back to bed,’ she called over her shoulder. When she turned back towards the room. Lord Carstairs had gone.

And so had the golden snake. The next morning when Louisa went downstairs into her studio the statuette had vanished from the shelf where she had put it above the table where she worked. She did not even bother to call the staff to enquire as to its whereabouts. She knew who had taken it.

She searched the studio from top to bottom, not for a golden snake, but for a live one, alert every second to the possibility of the sound of scales slithering on the floor or over the shelves. None came and slowly she settled down to her day’s painting, conscious of the sounds around the house – the servants going about their business, John and George working in the small morning room which had been set aside for their studies, the distant rattle of wheels and hooves upon the roadway outside and the rustle of wind in the golden leaves in the garden.

The figure of Lord Carstairs cast no shadow as he stood between her and the sunlight flooding through the window. ‘Where is it?’ His voice was a hiss of fury.

She did not make the mistake of glancing at the davenport. Slowly she stood up, the paintbrush still clutched in her hand. ‘Nowhere you will ever find it!’

She realised suddenly that they were not alone. Two other figures hovered in the room. Two priests. The guardians of the bottle. He spotted them almost as soon as she did and whirled to face them. ‘So, the moment of confrontation has come! I am sure, my lords of the ancient world, that you are as anxious as I to return the sacred ampulla to the place it rightfully belongs. I can take it there. I can transport it over time and space.’ He stepped closer to Louisa. ‘Only one person stands between us and our hearts’ desire, my lords.’

‘Do not touch her!’ The voice seemed so loud it appeared to fill the spaces of the room, the house, even the sky outside.

Carstairs shrank back. Then he put his hand to his belt and Louisa realised that a wickedly curved broad-bladed sword hung there. As he pulled it free she dropped her paintbrush and fled towards the door. Her shout for help died on her lips. Glancing round as she groped for the doorknob she saw the raised scimitar catch the sunlight in a blinding flash. There was a huge crash. It was not her he had attacked, but the two priests, spirits from another world, and as suddenly as they had come, all three men disappeared.

Shaking with fear she took a step forward. Then another. Nothing in the room appeared to have been touched. The only sign of the interruption was the small splash of bright colour on the thick watercolour paper, where her hand had smudged it, and the paintbrush lying on the floor.

She never saw Lord Carstairs again. Nor the priests, and if a snake appeared in her studio to guard the sacred ampulla she was never aware of it.

That wasn’t the end of the story of course, for the ampulla remained in her desk. She never forgot it, but neither did she think about it. If one day her sons or one of their descendants wanted to take it to Egypt that would be up to them. The portrait of the two priests she pushed into a dark corner. It was not shown in any of her exhibitions. It never occurred to her that someone, some day long after her time, might think the little bottle a pretty trinket suitable to give to a child.