As Ursula entered the Mena House gardens and made her way along the magnolia-lined path, she looked up to see Peter Vilensky approaching. His skin looked pallid in the harsh sunlight, a bleak contrast to his dark, neatly trimmed beard, black mourning suit, and wide-brimmed hat. According to Jewish custom, Peter Vilensky had been in near seclusion, refusing all social engagements until his initial seven days of sitting shivah were over. Ursula hesitated for a moment, knowing that their paths would cross and wondering whether she should broach the subject that had been on her mind.
Peter Vilensky saw Ursula and waited as she drew near, regarding her with guarded dark eyes.
“Miss Marlow,” he said tersely.
“Mr. Vilensky, it is good to see you.”
Peter Vilensky eyed her suspiciously, and Ursula felt her face flush. Nevertheless, she plowed ahead.
“I was speaking with Mr. Whittaker, and he told me that Chief Inspector Harrison was helping with the investigation. That must be a great relief to you—he is a fine, capable detective. You see, I have dealt with him before—” If she had expected this would draw him out, she was mistaken.
“Really,” was all Vilensky replied.
There was an awkward pause, but Ursula was determined to continue.
“I know this must sound terribly impertinent,” she began with feigned embarrassment. “But I was just wondering, have all of Katya’s belongings been packed up and sent away?” She fiddled with the edge of one of her cotton gloves.
“Why do you ask?” Vilensky demanded.
“It’s nothing really, only Katya and I exchanged some books, and I wanted to make sure I returned hers, and also—I hope this doesn’t sound too rude—but I’d like to retrieve my books as well. There are some lovely books of poetry that were a gift to me. . . .” Ursula’s voice trailed off awkwardly.
Peter Vilensky scowled, his face even harsher than before.
“All our books are being packed into the trunks. . . . Some of Katya’s may still be out, but I haven’t the time to arrange for anyone to go through them. I hardly think Katya’s maid, who cannot speak or read English, would be able to—”
“Oh, I’d be quite happy to sort through them myself,” Ursula interrupted. “With your approval, of course.”
Peter Vilensky’s face did not alter.
“It really would be no bother at all,” Ursula continued brightly, noting how he was clenching and unclenching his hands.
“I suppose that will be . . . yes . . . all right,” Vilensky said. “Just arrange it with the hotel staff, and they can also deal with Katya’s maid. I have more important things to concern myself with than some trifling books lent to my wife.” He said the word
wife
with bitterness.
“I’ll arrange it for this afternoon then, thank you,” Ursula replied.
Vilensky’s curt nod was both an acquiescence and a dismissal.
Ursula was escorted to the Vilenskys’ suite by the hotel manager, Baron de Radowkasky, who held the keys aloft with disdain. With the end of the Egyptian “season,” he was busy making arrangements for a Cook & Sons tour group that was departing for Alexandria the following morning, and was unimpressed by the interruption to his day.
“Please tell Mr. Vilensky how very grateful I am for this opportunity. I won’t be more than a few minutes, I assure you, and then I will return the keys immediately.”
The hotel manager bowed. “Mr. Vilensky has graciously made his late wife’s maid available to assist you, should you require it. He told me all of the books are in the bedroom.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I will be able to manage.”
The hotel manager waved her into the room and left with another bow. Katya’s maid, a timorous girl of eighteen, stood meekly beside one of the divans that graced the suite’s living room.
“Nadia,” Ursula said kindly, “I’m sure you must have a lot of packing to finish. Please don’t worry about assisting me. It will take me no time at all to find the books I need.”
Nadia, with a blank face that suggested she had only understood part of what Ursula was saying, scurried off and soon left the suite with a pile of laundry in her arms.
Ursula walked into the bedroom, which was a replica of her own. The curtains were open, and a slight breeze filtered in through the filigree latticework surrounding the open window, filling the room with the scent of jasmine from the garden below. Above the bed was a lavish mural with inlaid mother-of-pearl.
On the bed, Katya’s clothes had been folded and stacked, ready to be packed, with great care and obvious tenderness. Ursula ran her fingers across the blue shawl she had seen Katya wear many mornings. The sensation was like running her hands across a shallow pond, the silk was so soft and cool. Ursula walked over to the bureau, which was piled high with books and magazines. On the chair there was also a series of portfolios, photographs, and large bound books. Buried amid the stack of books by the bed were the books she had loaned Katya—Rupert Brooke’s
Poems
, which had been published the previous year, a volume of
Selected Poems
by Matthew Arnold that Lord Wrotham had given her for Christmas, and a translation of Baudelaire’s poetry.
Ursula carefully placed the books Katya had lent her on top of those piled high on the chair. Katya had been excited to introduce Ursula to a recent translation of Pushkin’s poetry as well as a novel by Tolstoy translated into English by Constance Garrett.
Ursula scanned the room, wondering if she could find anything to suggest an explanation for Katya’s unease in the days before her death. Everything, however, apart from her books and clothes, had been removed. Reluctant to leave, Ursula picked up her books and slowly made her way past the closed double doors that led into Peter Vilensky’s adjoining suite.
Once upstairs in her own suite, she threw the books onto her bed and sat down heavily in the rattan armchair beneath the window.
“Oh, Miss—I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.” Julia was sitting on the bed, mending one of Ursula’s shirts. She spoke while still holding the pins in her mouth. “Would you like me to help you change for afternoon tea?” At teatime, the terraces of Mena House were always crowded with guests and tourists.
“No, that’s all right,” Ursula answered distractedly. “Let me just sit for a while.”
“The trunks are nearly all packed. Would you like me to set out the mauve day dress for tomorrow?”
“Hmm?” Ursula looked at Julia blankly. “Oh, sorry, yes, the mauve will be fine.”
“Do you want me to take these, Miss?” Julia pointed to the books that lay scattered on the bed.
“What? No, leave them for the moment. They can be stowed in the top of my trunk. But you can certainly pack the rest of my books. All the arrangements are finalized. We leave on the afternoon train Wednesday. That should give us enough time to finish packing. Oh, and here, can you return these keys to the hotel manager?”
“Yes, Miss.” Julia bobbed a curtsy. “And Miss, the post arrived—I’ve popped the letters on the top of the bureau for you.”
“Thank you, Julia,” Ursula replied as Julia withdrew.
Ursula rose and crossed over to the bureau beside the bed. There were two letters waiting for her—one from Gerard Anderson, her financial adviser, and one from Winifred, whom Ursula expected was back in London after a lengthy lecture tour around Ireland on the topic of “socialism and the working woman.” Ursula glanced at Anderson’s letter quickly. He expressed relief that Ursula had secured contracts for next year’s cotton supply but remained concerned as a recent strike at the Victoria and Rochdale mills had already caused the loss of two major contracts. Anderson urged Ursula to return home as soon as possible to discuss what he termed “the increasingly precarious” financial situation of some of the factories and mills in Lancashire. Ursula folded his letter up carefully, feeling the burden of living up to her father’s expectations more acutely than ever.
She took some comfort in reading Winifred’s letter, a six-page missive in her distinctively bold handwriting. After providing a hilarious account of the travails of traveling in Ireland, she turned to more serious matters—the arrest of more than one hundred of their “sisters” following the attacks on Regent Street.
I returned, having missed out on all of the adventure, to discover that Christabel has fled the country. Mrs. P and the Pethick-Lawrences are due to stand trial on conspiracy charges no less. No chance of persuading Lord W to intercede on their behalf I’m sure. Imagine the scene in the Criminal Court if that ever happened!
I know. I know . . . you don’t want to hear any more about him, but I have to say I read about his recent performance in the House of Lords on the subject of home rule for Ireland and I had to admire his oratorical skill (if not his sentiments!).
So, when are you coming home, my dear?
London’s a frightful bore without you. We all miss you at Clements Inn—although half of our local committee are enjoying
a little holiday in Holloway Prison at the moment—the rest of us are holding tight!
All my love,
Freddie
Ursula put down Winifred’s letter with a smile. Although her breezy epistle bolstered her, it was not enough to raise her spirits entirely. For that she needed a few quiet moments to sit and immerse herself in poetry. She held up the green cloth pocket-sized book of Matthew Arnold poems she had lent Katya and, propping up the pillows on the bed, cushioned herself against them and started to read. She immediately saw that Katya had marked her place in the book with a postcard from Palestine. Ursula turned to the page and ran her fingers along the outside of the postcard. It was a poignant reminder of a friend.
Katya had been reading Matthew Arnold’s poem “Dover Beach,” and Ursula read it slowly, feeling a growing despondency. So much for lifting the spirits, she thought ruefully. But then she looked at the postcard more closely, turning it over and over again in her hands. Apart from the printed description, “Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem,” there was only one handwritten word:
Hartuv.
Something stirred inside Ursula, but she couldn’t place the feeling. She leaned back on the pillows and closed her eyes. Did this postcard offer any clue about Katya’s death? Or was it nothing more than a bookmark?
An hour later Ursula was downstairs in the small hotel library seated at a wooden desk beneath one of the many decorative wooden window grilles, or
mashrabiyyah
, that graced the hotel. A small pile of guidebooks were stacked on the table beside her. Ursula felt confident that the reference to Hartuv was most likely a person or a place, and had started with the most obvious resource—the hotel’s collection of Baedeker guides. Head bent, she was sifting her way through the Baedeker guide to Palestine and Syria when, in the section that detailed the route from Jaffa to Jerusalem, she found a brief reference to a place called Hartuv. The entry read: “A colony of Bulgarians (pop. 95) founded in 1896 a little below
Sara
(ancient
Zoreah
).
Sara
and
Hartuv
can be seen on a hill to the left. This is where the mountains now begin.” Ursula leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes, pondering the possible significance to Katya of this small Jewish colony.
It was nearly midnight, and Ursula sank deep into the warm water of her bath. The hotel was silent, Julia asleep, and through the latticework shutters a pale moonlight filtered in, leaving soft folds of light across the silk dressing gown she had thrown carelessly over the wicker chair beneath the window. Ursula lay in the bath, gazing at the ceiling fan whirring away noisily above her head. She felt melancholic, and strangely forsaken. The water lapped over the side of the bath as she moved her leg. Ursula closed her eyes and slid her face under the water. She thought of her father and his unfulfilled dreams, of Lord Wrotham and his dashed expectations. She ached for the past. Why did she feel as though nothing she had achieved mattered anymore—that she had failed all those around her? Ursula blinked back her tears. Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” always had a similar effect on her. She felt as though she too was standing on the shore, gazing across the straits, watching the certitude of peace, of happiness, retreat with the tide.
Seven
Alexandria, Egypt
APRIL 1912
Ursula left Julia at Le Metropole hotel and made her way down to Alexandria’s inner harbor to watch the steamers leaving the quays that lined the western side of the bay to the Arsenal. After her business at the Cotton Exchange, she had come to see Peter Vilensky, who was returning to London via Marseilles on the French steamer
Caledonien
. Something inside her impelled her to watch him depart. In some small way perhaps she was bidding Katya a final good-bye—the haste with which her body had been taken for burial had prevented her from doing so until now.
The quays were bustling with people, carriages, motorcars, and trams. There were fishing trawlers unloading their catch, yachts attempting to moor, and the sleek, tall-funneled ocean liners that plied the Mediterranean port with tourists, sounding their horns. In her navy-and-white-striped suit and wide-brimmed white straw hat, Ursula was hardly inconspicuous, but whether out of prudence or merely a fit of pique, she held back from the quay, watching at a distance the passengers’ embarkation via the gangway.
The steamer was due to leave at three o’clock, and Peter Vilensky was one of the last passengers to board. Despite Ursula’s many requests, he had refused to meet with her to answer any questions regarding his wife or settlements such as Hartuv. He arrived in a Renault motorcar and took his time boarding as an entourage of butlers and maids handled arrangements for the luggage to be taken on board. Ursula noticed that Katya’s lady’s maid, Nadia, was crying, and that in her hand she held a small leather suitcase, which she was clinging to as if her life depended upon it. She expected that once the ship reached Europe, Nadia, now that her mistress was dead, would have to fend for herself.