Lady Jane showed Evelyn the house but was soon summoned from the kitchen to mediate over some domestic crisis.

"This is your room, dear, the St. Ives Room, " she said before leaving. "Do settle in and freshen up. We'll be having lunch in half an hour and you can meet the other guests. Evelyn realized that thanks to the speed of the trains, a journey she had thought might take all day had been accomplished in a matter of a few hours. It was a few minutes before noon according to the imposing grandfather clock in the main hall.

The St. Ives Room was very comfortable, decorated in a modern style with electric lamps, a sitting area, a warm fire burning and plenty of light. Her luggage had already been laid out and her clothes hung up in the wardrobe. The bathroom was across the hallway and she obviously shared it with the other guest rooms at this end of the house. Somewhere not too distant she could hear Julian Prospero thanking a servant for something. She noted there was a connecting door between her room and the next, but it was securely locked and bolted on her side of the door.

Honestly, since the help had already put away her things, there wasn't all that much for Evelyn to do. She chuckled, amused at the slight irritation that that brought. She had grown so used to putting away her own clothes when on the road that she had gotten used to it as part of her routine. Oh, certainly, the orchestra had help to move items. But, they generally took care of things that were more important to the show as a whole rather individual musician's belongings. At best, her bags were delivered to her room and that was it.

She laughed softly at herself and shook her head. It would take a little adjusting to get used to being in a house like this, again. She had been on the road far too long! Evelyn found her bag of personal accoutrements and pulled out a wood-handled brush. She then set to work on tidying up her hair where it had started to slip from the cleverly placed pins that held it place. She carefully tucked auburn curls back into place, making sure that she would be presentable before lunch.

As she worked on her hair, she glanced curiously at the door. She wondered who was in the next room. However, she did not move to unbolt the door and see. She would most likely learn that over the course of her stay. It would be nearly impossible to not run into her neighbor, at some point!

Once her hair was done, Evelyn stood and exited the room, intent upon making a quick stop at the bathroom before relief and hand washing before lunch.

A gong sounded downstairs as Evelyn finished her toilet to announce lunch. In the hallway, she ran into Propsero coming out of the room next to hers, the one connected by the locked door. He smiled warmly at her and offered his arm as they descended the Picture Stairs to the ground floor. Many generations of very stern looking Leatherby men glared down at them from the portraits on the walls. Prosper made faces at them and addressed them with silly remarks. He seemed intent on making her laugh, and he did have an easy charm and ready wit about him.

The dining room was splendid, fully decorated for the season as she had seen on her whirlwind tour not that long ago, and tastefully furnished in a more modern style than she was sure it had been before Jane arrived and became the mistress of the house. Some of the rooms she had peeked into had been filled with the grim heavy wood furniture of a forgotten age. Here Chippendale and Wedgewood presided in all their glory. Two men in earnest conversation rose as she and Prospero entered.

“Propsero!” cried the younger of the two. “So glad you could make it, old man.”

As an afterthought, he greeted Evelyn properly as well.

“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Northwood. I am Lord Leatherby, but I do hope we can avoid formality over the holiday and you must call me Brian. This gentleman is Major Angus McGregor. He has quite a tale to tell us, but I not before professor Thorn joins us this afternoon, I think.

“Ah, here’s Jame, and our lunch. Wonderful. Miss Northwood, if you will sit here on my left and you, Prospero beyond her, and then Jane can tuck in next to McGregor. Jolly good.”

The meal was an excellent cold salad with sliced ham and cheeses followed by a hot mince pie. The butler served a chilled rose wine. Prospero and Lord Leatherby chatted easily about school days and their lives. Lady Jane chatted with Evelyn, but she was distracted and left the dining room several times to deal with questions from the servant’s hall. On these occasions she found Major McGregor eying her speculatively.

He was older by perhaps ten years than Prospero and Leatherby, in his mid to late forties with a trim beard over sun tanned skin that spoke of many years under foreign skies. He looked lean and very fit and when he spoke his voice had a slight tinge of a Scottish burr. He sat erect and seemed at ease among the gentry. And his rank would indicate that he had established himself in the military.

At one point, as Jane bustled away for the third or fourth time, he leaned forward and spoke to her.

“Lady Jane is a very busy lady,” he smiled. “She would have done well in the army, I think. And what are we to make of you, Miss Northwood. Are you also a gentlewoman? A lady of means? Have you no other family with which to spend the holiday?”

She noticed that Propsero’s brow creased as the Major spoke to her.


Lord Leatherby


Major McGregor

Evelyn blinked once in mild surprise, a bit taken aback by the questioning. Was it so very odd for a person to wish to celebrate with an old friend? Surely not! And, it wasn't like there was no time for her to go home and see her own family before returning to work.

She turned to McGregor, an eyebrow raised, and gave him an arch smile, "Well, I had planned on going home after the celebration here. Unless, of course, the Leatherbys decide to abscond with me... for which, I couldn't blame them. I am, after all, delightful!" Her voice was light and filled with humor as she spoke. Turning her head slightly, she gave Prospero a subtle wink before carrying on the conversation.

The young musician sighed and smoothed the skirts in her lap as she continued, her tone turning more serious, "It's good to see Jane, again. It's been far too long since the two of us visited one another. And, it will be good go home again, too. Traveling with the orchestra does keep me away for rather long periods. While I have good friends among the other musicians, it's not quite the same as the bonds that one has with family and childhood comrades."

"What of you, sir? I imagine that you have traveled quite far. What lands have you visited?" she turned the conversation back to McGregor.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:12, Wed 30 Dec 2020.

McGregor seems a very straight forward and blunt sort of fellow. He is asking questions because he's not really sure how to speak to an attractive woman he doesn't know, and someone told him a long time ago that girls like to talk about themselves, and not listen to him talk about himself. But when she asks him where he's been, he relaxes and launches into a short biography of his military career. Evelyn learns in short order that Angus came to fame -- at least promotion to the rank of officer -- during the Sudan Campaign during the 1880s. From there he journeyed to South Africa and fought in the Second Boer War. And when that was done, he was pitted against the Somali's in the Dervish War campaigns in the Horn of Africa.

It seems he's spent most of his adult life in service to Queen and country, now king and country.

"I mustered out after twenty years and ended up in Cairo. That's how I . . ." he stops as Lord Leatherby shushes him.

"Let's wait from Professor Thorn, Major," their host smiles at them. "I want him to hear the story in full."

Prospero meanwhile is making sympathetic faces at her and trying to get her to laugh at the Major while remaining undiscovered by the others. It is quite a game between them.

Evelyn enjoys the little game between herself and Prospero, lightly tapping his shin under the table with her foot when he almost gets her to break her composure and giggle aloud. It would be quite rude to laugh at the Major. He does seem like a decent sort and she wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. Plus, truth be told, she's content to let the Major carry on about himself. It's interesting to hear about his exploits! And, now... oh, now she is quite intrigued to learn exactly what is so important that Lord Leatherby keeps hinting at. But, she must be patient...

"Ah! You have certainly traveled far more extensively than I have. The orchestra mostly tours here in the Britain, but there have been a few special venues that we have played abroad. Mostly in France and Spain. They are lovely countries filled with beautiful music," Evelyn smiled. "One of these days, I am determined to drag my brother out of his dingy, little office and out to explore with me. I think it would do him good to sit on a sandy, Spanish beach and eat paella."

Prospero enjoys the game of touching under the table and makes a point of asking their hostess if she has hung any mistletoe over any doorways in the Hall. Lady Jane laughs and takes them both in as she mentions sprigs over the fireplace in the drawing-room and in the library over the window seat.

As lunch seemed at an end, Lady Jane is called away and quickly bustled back in with a distinguished-looking man in his mid-fifties in tow.

“Professor Thorne,” she announced. Then she turned to her husband and asked in an exasperated tone.

“Can we now finally hear what it is that Major McGregor has brought to our home?”

Lord Leatherby delayed the telling a few minutes to welcome his old college professor, who remembers Prospero as well, and then relented.

“Go ahead, McGregor,” he laughed at his wife. “Tell your story, if you would be so kind.”

McGregor lit a cigarette and launched into his tale, standing up as he spoke. His style of presentation was abrupt and accompanied with chopping gestures of his hands to punctuate his sentences.

“I met Lord Laetherby three years back when we both attended a lecture in London at the Explorer’s Club. One of the speakers was a chap by the name of Howard Carter. He had plans for an expedition in Egypt to look for lost tombs of the pharaohs. He convinced a wealthy man at that lecture, one Lord Carnarvon, to fund the expedition, and I happened to overhear Lord Leatherby say to a friend of his that he’d happily pay a thousand pounds to the man who could bring him him back the contents of an ancient tomb.

“I remembered that offer this summer when I stumbled across an old friend in Cairo who told me that he had learned of just such a hidden tomb, out in the desert. Max and I had served in the Boer War together. I had been promoted and made a career for myself. He had lost a leg and fallen down hard. All the way to an opium den in Egypt.

“We drank too much whisky that night and as we pondered how we might make easy money, I mentioned Lord Leartherby’s offer. A thousand pounds. Enough money to change a man’s life.

“For a hidden tomb. A secret, unheard of tomb that had never been plundered.

“In the morning, Max threw a bucket of water on me and dragged me out into the desert.

“‘I know of a hidden tomb,’ he laughed maniacally. ‘If you’ll pay me a hundred pounds I’ll help you smuggle it out of Egypt this very week.’

“And so we did. We hired some sappers. We bought some wagons and Max took us out to a dry wadi in the desert and told us where to dig. I don’t know how he knew it was there, but there it was. A shaft stairwell beneath the sand leading down to a three room complex. In the course of six days we dug the shaft out and loaded the contents of all three rooms on to our wagons. Within the week I was in Alexandria. Within a month, I was on a tramp steamer headed for Lisbon.

“It took me three months altogether, but a week ago I arrived here at Leatherby Hall with the contents of that tomb, and I reminded Lord Leatherby of his offer. For a thousand pounds.”

At this point, Leatherby jumped up, unable to contain his elation.

“It’s all there, Thorne! In the crypt beneath our old chapel. The find of a lifetime! We’ll be famous. Well worth the thousand, Major, Well worth is indeed.

“If Professor Thorne can validate that these artifacts are indeed from an ancient Egyptian burial site, I will gladly pay you your finder’s fee.”

Evelyn listened to the Major's story, pondering quietly upon exactly what this meant. It certainly was an exciting tale, that was for certain. And, it did hold promise of fame for Lord Leatherby, if the artifacts could, indeed, be validated as genuine. The musician glances towards Jane, subtly watching her reaction to this announcement. She is well aware of her friend's unhappiness with the current state things and she's not sure exactly how Jane will react to this news. She may well be displeased with the idea of this bit of news upstaging her efforts at a holiday celebration. Honestly, she's far more concerned for her old friend than she is about some musty old artifacts.

Still, she can't help but be intrigued by it all! What sort of things, exactly, did McGregor bring back? Are there canopic jars or a mummy? Gold and hieroglyphs? She's fairly certain that Lord Leatherby will want to show off everything, but... if not? Well. The chapel isn't all that far away and she's no stranger to sneaking off in the dead of night. It may be worth braving the cold to get a peek.

Evelyn could ask questions, at this point. However, she is fairly certain that Professor Thorne will have plenty of his own. And, his questions will be far more educated than hers would be. She is only passing familiar with Egyptian culture, having studied a bit at school and visited exhibits at the London Museum. But, she retained little of what she had seen and heard. It was not her chosen field of interest.

Thus, she sits comfortably at Prospero's side, monitoring his reaction along with Jane's. Such things seem like just the sort of inspiration a writer like he would grasp onto and build a story around. She makes a note to herself to ask him a bit about his own interests in Egyptology later. For now, she turns her attention to Professor Thorne and Lord Leatherby...

There is a moment of almost stunned silence in the drawing-room when McGregor finishes his tale. He bounces on his toes, lighting another cigarette and clearly feeling pretty pleased with himself.

Professor Thorne finally splutters something about “Outrageous! Illegal! The loss to science!” But as he calms down he is very eager to learn all the details that the Major can provide. The location of the wadi, the condition of the seals on the doors buried under the sand, the layout of the tomb, and so on. Here it seemed the major had at least had some forethought of a proper expedition. He had taken photographs of various objects in situ and sketched out the details of the rooms that made up the underground complex.

Soon all thoughts of impropriety were forgotten as the Professor and Leatherby poured over the documents and photos. Prospero was practically dancing from one foot to another as he reminded them, “Gentlemen, the actual artifacts are only a few hundred yards from here. I for one am as keen as mustard to see them for myself.”

Lord Leatherby beamed as his surprise was so well received. There might be a lingering doubt about legal provenance, but Professor Thorne was clearly eager to view the artifacts, and from the photos alone it was likely they were the real deal. McGregor stroked his beard with satisfaction.

Lady Jane laughed and sat down next to Evelyn.

“Well, that’s them absorbed for the rest of the day. All through Christmas, I wouldn’t wonder. Let’s let them have their fun for the afternoon, shall we? I don’t have anything planned until this evening anyway.

“Will you walk into the village with me? Just a couple of last-minute bits of shopping and a few Christmas baskets to give out.

“Or would you rather go and see the surprise?”