Some few days later a letter arrived for Margaret from Hadassah Ireton.
It contained interesting and surprising news. Michael Ireton had been
thrown in close contact with one of the excavators who had formed the
camp in the hills behind Tel-el-Amarna--they were now both employed in
the same Government office in Assiut.
From the excavator Michael Ireton had learned that the secret police
had traced the movements of the native who had given the Government the
information about the chambers in the hills, and had discovered him.
But, as bad luck would have it, he was ill with smallpox and incapable
of giving any information. The man had died without recovering
consciousness. The excavators had become more and more convinced that
he had stolen the treasure, and that it was now resting in its second
hiding-place, awaiting, it was to be hoped, its final discovery.
If the man had recovered, his information could no doubt have been
bought. To an Eastern a guinea in the hand is worth twenty in the bank.
The reason, Hadassah explained, for the excavators' belief that there
had been a hidden treasure, of jewels if not of gold, was the fact that
half a mile or more beyond the site of the excavation three uncut
jewels of considerable value had been found in the open desert. They
had been covered and hidden from sight by the drifting sand, and there
they would have lain perhaps for ever but for the stumbling of a tired
donkey, which was carrying a native and a huge load of forage to a
subterranean village, not very far from the site of the excavation.
The disturbing of the sand had exposed the jewels, which caught the
sunlight and the sharp eyes of the desert traveller.
He was an old man, exceedingly honest, uncontaminated with the ways of
city dwellers, so he took the jewels to the _Omdeh's_ house and asked
him if he thought that they were valuable, and if they were, what he
should do with them.
The _Omdeh_ (it was the same _Omdeh_ who had so little credited the
story of the hidden treasure when he had spoken of it to Michael) was
as surprised as he was suspicious. His interest was aroused. Could
these fine jewels have been dropped by the thief who had burgled the
tomb? These were his thoughts, although Hadassah did not know it.
He at once carried them off to the Government camp in the hills. The
excavators pronounced them to be ancient stones of great value.
The other reason for their belief that the treasure had been stolen was
the fact that the inner chamber, in which they had found absolutely
nothing, had obviously been built with a view to holding objects of
great value. It had all the qualities of a royal treasury. The
inscription on the wall spoke of it as "the treasure-house of Aton."
That no ancient plunderer had entered this chamber, which the heretic
King had cut out of the rook under the hills behind his city, was
obvious. There had been practically no excavating to be done, in the
sense in which Margaret thought of excavating, because the chambers
were all in a state of perfect preservation; none of them were blocked
up with rubbish. Once the entrance had been opened up--and this had
been done by the native who had discovered the site--they met with
little difficulty.
The entrance had been so skilfully hidden, that the excavators wondered
how it had happened that the ignorant native who gave the information
had discovered it (this Hadassah considered extremely interesting and
convincing from Michael's point of view) and what had put him on the
track of the hidden treasure.
These questions, Hadassah said, her husband had refrained from
answering. He considered that the treasure, in its second
hiding-place, belonged to Michael, that it must remain there until he
found it. Michael Ireton had listened to all that the excavator had to
tell and had held his tongue on the subject of Mr. Amory's expedition;
the psychical part of it would probably have called forth much derision
and scoffing.
Hadassah ended her letter by congratulating Margaret on the fact that
the treasure, whether it was great or small, did exist, that it was an
actual fact. The finding of the jewels proved that Michael's theories
and occult beliefs were justified. "And after the war you will be able
to go with him on his second pilgrimage, for certainly the spirit of
Akhnaton has saved the treasure for him. What the world calls chance
has preserved the King's legacy from profane hands."
* * * * * *
The letter was written from the Fayyum, where Hadassah was staying with
her boy. Her constant visits to this beautiful oasis had wrought great
changes in the house in which her cousin Girgis had spent the greater
part of his life. Her aunt and cousin had, with native quickness,
learned to speak English quite fluently, and Hadassah had, by her tact
and sympathy, helped to develop their lives and intellects. The
household was scarcely recognizable as the one in which, only a few
years ago, she and Nancy had endured a terrible half-hour at
afternoon-tea.
Hadassah often wished that Girgis could have seen the development and
change which the widening influence of Western ideas had brought about
in his old semi-native, semi-European home.
In all things relating to the war it was an ardently pro-English
household, which, ever since its outbreak, had become a veritable
institution for Coptic war-workers. Veiled figures hurried to it,
carrying their knitting, proud and pleased to be imitating the efforts
of the European ladies in Egypt, and knit they did from morning until
night, with the patience and endurance of the uncomplaining East.
Hadassah's letter greatly disturbed Margaret. If it had only come
before Freddy was killed, how she would have gloried in it, how
delightful it would have been to tell him that even a scientific body
of excavators had come to the conclusion that a treasure had been laid
up by the religious fanatic--for that was Freddy's summing-up of
Akhnaton--that the seer's vision had again proved true!
But now she had no one to rejoice with. Freddy had been taken from
her, and Michael was lost, and there was not a creature in all her
world who would care one brass farthing about the strange materializing
of Michael's spiritualistic theories. All that she cared most about
she had to subdue and crush back. Probably Freddy, in his new life,
was understanding and sympathizing, for she knew now with a nervous
certainty that the veil is very thin.
Hadassah had said in her letter, when referring to the death of the
native, "This sounds as if Millicent's servants had played her false.
The police report that she never reached the hills, so whether her
dragoman deliberately took her off the track, and allowed one of her
servants to go to the hills and secure the treasure, remains a mystery
which may never be solved. But one thing is pretty clear--that her
cavalcade was never seen in that part of the desert, for, as you know,
the drifting sand in Egypt carries information; it conceals and reveals
many things undreamed of in our Western philosophy."
As Margaret read these lines she cursed her own stupidity with a bitter
curse. If she had used a little more tact and shown less jealous rage,
she could have learnt from Millicent all which now so baffled them.
She could easily have discovered if she had ever reached the hills.
Margaret was rereading the letter in her off-hours. Her first reading
of it had been very hurried, for it had arrived by the first post, and
she had only found time to devour it with eager eyes, eyes which
searched its pages for one precious item of news. She was scarcely
conscious of her desire for news of Michael's whereabouts. There was
always the hope, unexpressed even to herself, that he had written to
the Iretons. If he really was at the Front, surely he would have told
them? But the letter contained no such information.
Her disappointment was, however, drowned in surprise and pride. With
one fell swoop the letter had obliterated the passion and obsession of
war which had held her in its clutches. It made her forget, for a
little time, at least, that such a country as Germany existed. Her
mind was again vivified with visions of the desert and the various
scenes which Hadassah's letter suggested. Flashing before her eyes was
the open desert, the unbroken light, and the stumbling donkey,
heavily-laden and meekly submissive, with the gleaming gems, betrayed
by the rays of Aton. She could visualize the astonished native
fingering them and holding them up to the light; the sunlight,
Akhnaton's symbol of divinity, was to bear testimony to the fact that
the bright objects which had caught the Arab's eyes were beautiful and
rich-hued gems, that they were indeed a portion of the treasure which
he had hidden from the avarice of the priests of Amon, who set up
graven images and worshipped false gods.
For the first time since she had been doing the work of a pantry-maid,
Margaret set out the tea-trays and washed up the cups in an automatic,
aloof manner. Her material body was busy in the hospital-pantry, while
spiritually she was far away. Visions rose and faded before her eyes
in rapid succession, but the one which she saw oftenest was the look of
surprise and smiling incredulity on Freddy's face. The cry in her
heart was for his sympathy, for his knowing, for his congratulations on
the wonderful piece of news. Why could he not have been allowed to
know it while he was still alive on this earth and able to talk to her?
She wanted to be personally and materially close to him while he read
the letter.
She longed for that more ardently and whole-heartedly than anything
else; she hungered for it even more fiercely than the coming back of
Michael, whose return into her life she was convinced would eventually
happen. Whether it would be for her happiness or otherwise she was
ignorant.
When she thought of his coming and of her first meeting with him, her
pride rose up in arms, her mind was devastated with embarrassment. The
meeting would open up old wounds, which she had imagined were healed.
There she had been mistaken; they were like the wounds of a patient
which appear to be healed while he lies at rest in the hospital, but
which break out again when he resumes his normal life. The war had
drugged Margaret's senses.
She had curiously little fear for Michael as a soldier, for whenever
she thought of him as one, as fighting at the Front, she saw the bright
light surrounding him, and disarming his amazed opponents.
During the short time which Freddy was at the Front, how different her
thoughts had been! His beauty and ability seemed to say to her, as she
watched him on that memorable afternoon at the station, "Whom the gods
love die young." He seemed to typify to her England's brave and
beautiful young whom the war chose for its victims. The wages of the
war were England's youth and devotion. She knew that much as Freddy
loved his work and enjoyed his life, he would be the last to grudge his
death. It was she herself who so ardently wished that he had died in
action; that his brains and ability had been given a chance; that he
could have done as he would have wished to do, taken a life for a life;
that he could avenge in honest warfare the hideous death of his
comrades.
This letter from Hadassah made Margaret realize the awful fact that
Freddy was dead as nothing else had done, that his death meant that she
could never, never again consult him, or speak to him, or hope to hear
from him. It was not only a case of patience and the distance of half
the world between them; it was a case of never, never again on this
earth. She had scarcely known the meaning of death until this
starvation for his sympathy revealed itself to her. The awful
difference between mere distance and death had escaped her. Hundreds
of men were dying, but death was talked of unconvincingly,
superficially.
Now, by some strange means, she suddenly saw the years of doing without
Freddy stretching out before her. The Valley where his work lay would
never see him again. His brains and extraordinary energy were lost to
the world; his archaeological work would be taken over by others.
The pent-up tears which Margaret had not shed when she received the
news of his death, or during all the busy days which followed it,
mingled themselves with the unrestrained weeping which Nature sent to
save her overwrought system. She cried uninterruptedly, until the
urgency of tears subsided. She dried her eyes and braced herself up.
Her weeping had stopped suddenly; it had exhausted itself.
It seemed to her that she could almost hear a voice repeating to her a
sentence out of Hadassah's letter. It was strikingly like Hadassah's
own voice. "Try to remember that your wonderful brother is still doing
his bit. He is working hard, wherever he is--be sure of this, for it
is what he would wish."
* * * * * *
Margaret carried this thought in her mind as she returned to her
pantry. Hadassah was right. Freddy was working; wherever he was, he
was busy, for he could not be happy if he was not working and helping
on the cause of the Allies. Freddy had been one of the few enthusiasts
in the early days of the war who had never pretended, even to himself,
that England's primary object in declaring war against Germany was to
avenge the devastation of Belgium. He knew that England had to enter
it to save herself and France from a similar devastation.
When she was busy at work again, Margaret said to herself, "Of all the
strange things which have happened during the last six months, perhaps
the strangest of all is the fact that in all the wide world, the only
human being to whom I should dream of applying for help or for sympathy
in the things that matter is Hadassah Ireton, Hadassah the Syrian,
whose marriage with an Englishman of good family would have so shocked
and horrified me not so very long ago!"
A smile of amusement changed the expression of her face. She was
thinking of Hadassah as she really was, and of the outcast Hadassah as
she would have pictured her. The smile lost itself in the shame with
which the memory of her ignorance and prejudice filled her. How well
Hadassah and her husband could afford to forget the narrow-mindedness
and the conceit of it all!