The Women of the Real Downton Abbey by The Countess of Carnarvon

Author:The Countess of Carnarvon [Carnarvon, The Countess of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-4087-4
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2013-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

4

From Honeymoon to Highclere

On Christmas Day 1922, Porchey and Catherine sailed for India from Tilbury Docks, arriving in Bombay some ten days later. They had spent five months at Highclere after their wedding, but now Porchey was keen to return to his regiment, which had been posted back to Mhow. They left everyone at the castle in a state of tremendous nervous excitement. At the beginning of November, Lord Carnarvon had received a cable from Howard Carter, who was in Luxor, starting on what the men had reluctantly agreed would have to be the last season of excavations. They had spent years searching for a lost tomb, a royal burial site in the Valley of the Kings that had escaped the attentions of grave robbers and held all its secrets and treasures intact. But archaeology was expensive and the Earl was becoming worried about money. He could no longer afford to fund the works, hoping against hope that their efforts would pay off. On 6 November Carter cabled his friend and patron. ‘At last have made wonderful discovery in the Valley. A magnificent tomb with seals intact. Recovered same for your arrival. Congratulations.’

Highclere immediately erupted into a frenzy of activity as a jubilant Lord Carnarvon made hasty arrangements to travel to Egypt. He was almost beside himself. If this really was the untouched tomb of a pharaoh, it was the biggest discovery in the history of archaeology and the vindication of everything he had spent the last sixteen years working for. Almina had almost always joined him on his trips to Egypt, but this year she was suffering from chronic pain in her jaw and opted to stay at home. Eve was also an enthusiastic supporter of her father’s investigations, and decided to accompany him. Porchey, by contrast, had never shared his father’s passion for Egyptology, never been much interested in the artefacts or the endless poring over scholarly reference works. When the telegram announcing Carter’s breakthrough arrived, he was pleased for him and for his father but essentially unmoved.

The festivities in Luxor when Lord Carnarvon arrived were magnificent; he threw a lavish party at the Winter Hotel, open to everyone. The scale of the job was becoming apparent, though. Not only were there months’ worth of highly technical excavations to carry out, there was also a fund-raising and publicity drive to coordinate. Lord Carnarvon left Carter dealing with the archaeology and returned to England to deal with the press and promotion. He was summoned to Buckingham Palace to tell King George and Queen Mary in person about the implications of the find.

Christmas was spent quietly at Highclere; Porchey and Catherine’s departure was something of a sideshow. It seemed probable that the family wouldn’t all be together again for at least a couple of years. As it turned out, that was the last time Catherine ever saw her father-in-law. The next time she embraced Eve, both women were in mourning and Catherine had become Lady Carnarvon.

Porchey and Catherine, like the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.