Page 11 of The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby
Just like Juliette Willoughby, my mother had spent her last days immersed in her art and looking to the future, with no idea of the brutal suddenness of the fate that awaited her.
Sam asked me which box the diary was in and brought it down from the shelf. “My gosh,” he said as we opened it. The envelope was tucked upright, exactly as I had left it. Gently, I slipped the pendant out and held it up to the light.
“Ah, well, this, you see, is a wedjat eye.” He crossed the room, pulled a leather case from the shelf, placed it on a table, and unclipped the lid. Inside were stones of varying sizes and colors, pinned onto a pale blue velvet pad, all identical in shape to the locket from the envelope.
“Cyril had rather a lot of these, as it happens,” Sam said.
“What were they for?” I asked.
“They symbolize the healing eye of the god Horus and were mounted in amulets worn to project the wearer from harm.”
My first thought was that it did not seem to have worked in Juliette’s case.
Next, I passed him the diary. He opened it very slightly, just wide enough to see the initials on the first page. I showed him the passport.
“There are two things I don’t understand,” I said. “First of all, how these things could have survived the fire.”
He scratched his head, thought for a moment. “They’re all items of value—perhaps they were stored in something that helped shield them from the flames.”
This sounded plausible.
“The other thing I don’t understand,” I continued, “is how they all ended up here.”
Sam was checking the outside of the box for any clue. He found none. “If I had to guess,” he said eventually, “perhaps these were all the identifiable personal items that survived that blaze, and the authorities sent them back to England, to the family. And they ended up in her father’s study, and got bundled in with the rest of his papers when they were given to the university. Something I would note about the bequest: it does not appear that any care was taken sifting through it, before it was donated. It was just thrown into boxes like they couldn’t get it out of the house quick enough.”
As he was walking me back to the entrance of the building, one more question occurred to me.
“The wedjat eye,” I said. “It isn’t just on Juliette’s necklace I have seen it recently. Have you ever heard of the Osiris Society? They have the exact same symbol on the signet rings they wear.”
He nodded. “They’re a dining society, which basically—as I’m sure you know—means a drinking society. All male. All public school. A bunch of posh guys dressing up in white tie, eating roast beef and getting absolutely”—he shifted into an attempt at a British accent here—“hammered.”
He smiled and pretended to shudder. It did sound awful, I thought. A roomful of braying Freddies.
“But why is it named after an Egyptian god? And why do they wear wedjat eyes?”
“Because like a lot of these societies, it has evolved over time. When it was first founded, it was a club for undergraduates with an interest in Egyptology to read each other scholarly papers and play show-and-tell with their latest ancient acquisition. I guess the only things that have stayed the same are the name, the building, and the fact that the president of the society has always been a Willoughby, when one happens to be studying at Cambridge.”
“A Willoughby?”
Now I was really confused. Sam and I were standing back in the lobby of the building now. He smiled again. “Oh yes. That’s how I happen to know so much about it. The Osiris Society was founded in 1901 by Cyril Willoughby.”
PATRICK, CAMBRIDGE, 1991
Freddie sauntered around the corner half an hour later than we’d arranged to meet, five minutes before we were due at the Osiris clubhouse. I was loitering in front of the Round Church, smoking my seventh cigarette in a row, in a vain attempt to steady my nerves. He handed over a black sports bag and watched as I reluctantly removed five crisp tens from my wallet.
“We agreed to a hundred, didn’t we?” he said.
“No, Freddie, we agreed to fifty,” I corrected him.
With impressive speed and a licked thumb, he double-checked my counting and stuffed the cash into his pocket. I told myself I should be grateful. When I had woken up that morning, I still had no clue how I was going to procure an animal for tonight’s investiture, uncertain whether I was really going to go through with this. In my dream I had just been telling the whole Osiris Society to go fuck themselves.
It was a sharp rat-tat-tat on the door that woke me. I expected it to be one of the college cleaners, come to empty my wastepaper basket. Instead, I found Freddie leaning against the banister, arms folded, looking even more pleased with himself than usual. He raised one amused eyebrow at my paisley silk dressing gown, another gift from my father. “Morning, Patrick. Just wanted to check if you’re ready for tonight.”
“What do you mean, ready?” I asked him.
“You know exactly what I mean,” he said. “Because I’m going to the vet school today, so if you’re not I can help.”
“That’s very generous of you, Freddie.”
