The Weight of Your Heart by Juliet MacLeod

Author:Juliet MacLeod
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Egypt, 1920s, Widow, Strong female protagonist, Archaeology
Publisher: Casa Cielo Press
Published: 2020-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Shepheard Hotel, Cairo, Egypt

November 1919

DESPITE HER FEARS, Charlie slipped into the role of being a wife with ease. It wasn't a difficult part to play: their house in the Kensington area of London was beautiful and came equipped with a cook, a butler, a gardener, a maid, and a chauffeur. The servants did most of the work, leaving Charlie very little to do domestically, so she threw herself into learning more about hieroglyphics, hieratic, Akkadian, and modern Arabic. Jack was shocked at how quickly she learned the complex languages and soon was bringing work home, asking for Charlie's help with translations. Not long after that, she was accompanying him into the offices at the Egyptian Exploration Society, where he introduced her to George Herbert, Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, the financial backer for the massive digs in the Valley of the Kings, and Gaston Maspero, Director of the Antiquities Department at the Bulak Museum in Cairo, and of course Jack's boss, Howard Carter.

Jack and Charlie impressed Carter greatly, reminding him of himself some ten years ago, when he'd first joined the EES. Carter immediately asked Jack and Charlie to accompany him to Egypt to assist in the as-yet unsuccessful excavations in the Valley of the Kings. Work had been continuing on and off in the area for nearly five years, and Carnarvon was getting impatient. Carter hoped that by injecting new blood would help shake things up a bit and lead to the find of the century.

The Taylors didn't need even an entire day of the week Carter gave them to come to their decision. It was a dream come true for both of them and they quickly sold their house, put their affairs in order, including updated wills reflecting their newly married status, and hopped on a ship that would take them to Calais on the northern coast of France, and then from there a train took them down to the tip of the Italian peninsula, before they boarded another ship that took them across the Mediterranean to Port Said, Egypt, where finally another train delivered them straight into the heart of Cairo.

The long trip ran together in Charlie's mind; one train station looked much like another when one didn't actually leave one's sleeper car. But when she climbed down out of the train into the station in Cairo, she knew immediately that she was in Egypt. The mélange of languages that assaulted her ears—French, Greek, Arabic, even German—and the scents of dry, dusty air combined with foreign spices, frankincense, myrrh, and sandalwood made her giddy. She turned to Jack and grinned up at him. “I can't believe I'm here,” she said in a hushed, awed voice.

Jack chuckled and leaned over to kiss the crown of her head. “You're here. And next week, we'll be in the Valley of the Kings, with shovels and pick-axes in our hands.” He flagged down a horse-drawn carriage, loaded first his wife, then their luggage into it, and asked to be taken to the Shepheard Hotel.

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