Eye of Thoth Chapter 1 Abby

Abbigail Woolcott wants to be an adventuress

         

The Eye of Thoth

Chapter One

Abigail Woolcott

         

Abigail (Abby) Woolcott stood looking at herself in the full length mirror in her room. Her heart shaped face was carefully made up accenting her large green eyes and was wearing her auburn hair up, held by a pair of long pins ending with gold Celtic knots set with small emeralds. Her nearly floor length green silk dress was embroidered with gold and had slits on each side above the knee.

It would be the flashes of her upper legs which would be remembered and discussed by what she thought of as the old guard, the arbiters of what was correct.

She had been born among the scions of the Gilded Age. There were always Important Parties or Events every year to which one must go. Position was more important than just money. It was much more doing all these things and behaving as one of one's station was expected in fashion as well as refined manners.

It was that which was where Abby's problems came in of course.

Abby had been born in New York in 1902. She had been a precocious and adventurous child almost as soon as she could walk.

It had amused her father but not her mother.

"She needs to be more ladylike," was her mother's most consistent complaint.

Her father almost always managed to hide his smile, usually behind the Wall Street Journal.

Her teachers found her difficult until she really learned to read. From then on her curiosity carried her through almost anything she could find to read. Her teachers were amazed by the rate with which her reading comprehension grew. The private school adjusted her class work to a grade level higher and she maintained that work as well as she had at the lower grade.

That school also taught the young ladies French in which she also excelled. She seemed to have a gift for languages.

Mother was very pleased by those developments because now Abby had come to really like school more than the hi-jinx which had tried her maternal patience. Her great interest in history seemed to her mother an odd thing for a girl but she did well in such classes.

When she was twelve the school tried her in a Latin class. There she also managed as well as maintaining her French classes.

Her father had observed that Abby seemed to be a great deal like her Uncle Jerome. He too had excelled in languages and read almost anything. He had always been more interested in academics rather than business. As a second son of the family it had seemed a good occupation.

Mother seemed to think that Jerome was a bit too Bohemian with his odd behavior. He would disappear some times for months and often he insisted on living in that old family house in rural Massachusetts. Really, she thought, like a recluse. He almost never came to New York except when researching his strange interests in obscure history or esoteric art.

Jerome had always been Abby's favorite family member. He had broad shoulders a lean handsome face, dark red hair and alert blue eyes. At times he had a small, mischievous, and conspiratorial smile. He never talked down to her. He spoke French with her and Latin once she'd started that.

She had always loved his tales of what he had seen his travels. She was eager to travel as he did but she never mentioned that to her mother. She was sure that Mother would not approve.

Then Jerome had gone to France in 1917 and joined the Lafayette Escadrille. It had been very brave of him Abby had thought. The stories about that war in the papers were horrible.

He wrote Father every few weeks. The letters never seemed to show any of his usual humor.

He was shot down at the beginning of 1918 and had lost his left hand.

Father arranged for his trip home and had him stay with the family as he convalesced.

Then later in 1918 the Spanish Influenza came to the US. It took first Abby's maid then her father and mother within six weeks.

Abby at sixteen found herself in an agony of loss or bleak numbness.

It was then that she had become the ward of her Uncle Jerome. That fact had quickly become her lifeline.

The war and Influenza had changed Jerome. He was more circumspect but he loved Abby. He became more openly affectionate on occasion. He hugged her whenever he saw tears and at times they both cried.

He hired a lady's maid/companion for Abby. Mrs. Elizabeth Hudson, was an English woman, a widow of the Great War. Her husband and son had been officers in the army who were both lost in the Battle of the Somme. An educated woman she had come to the US to stay with American relatives and looking for a position.

Jerome had heard of her situation and had offered her the job which she accepted after meeting the two of them.

Mrs. Hudson was in her mid-fifties, she had dark hair with gray streaks, intelligent brown eyes, broad lined face and a plump five foot frame. Her father had been a professor of the classics at Oxford and she had the educated oxford accent.

They had quickly become Liz and Abby partly due to her sense of humor and had quickly become close friends partly because of the losses each of them had suffered. They quickly became confidants.

Jerome had then gone off on one of his travels, this time to Hong Kong in December of 1920. He wrote once a week mostly to reassure her that he was well and having a successful trip.

He fell ill there in late April and came home with a servant.

His name was Ho. He was Chinese man with an unreadable lean face and dark eyes framed by black hair drawn tight behind his head. It was impossible to tell his age. He was taciturn and always stiffly formal. He rarely spoke at first except 'Yes sir' or 'No, sir.'

Jerome explained that Ho had been trained as a servant for the European diplomats or other westerners in China.

"We met in Macau," Jerome explained in answer to Abby's questions, "After I hired him there was trouble with a Tong there. A few friends of mine and I were involved in getting the issue resolved." he shrugged, "afterward we financed the move of a few of his relatives to Hong Kong.

"Ho insisted that he owed me a great debt and could pay it back only by staying with me and serving me."

When they had been together for just three months Jerome had become ill and Ho had nursed him back on the ship which had come back to New York by way of the Panama Canal.

She was fascinated by Jerome's description of the scale of the canal. Such important events she thought of as if historic amazed her.. Jerome's description of the passage through it added to her impression. She had read a bit about it when it had opened in 1914 but his description of it made her want to travel through it. Her uncle had smiled and shown her photographs in a small book about its construction. She read the book in a day and asked even more questions.



Abby stared at the mirror and shook off her reverie. She was twenty one now and was going to this party tonight at the Metropolitan Museum with Jerome. It was about the Egyptian Exhibit. Ever since Howard Carter's discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb there was a bit of a mania in the public eye. Naturally all the right people were going to be there.

She and Jerome were going there to meet a certain Professor Everett Calhoun. He was the owner of the Calhoun and Stuart Auctions, one of the two or three top such in New York and one that at times sold exotic and arcane items.

It was rumored in certain circles that there was a private auction coming up there and Jerome was definitely interested.

According to his source it was to be an Egyptian Amulet called the Eye of Thoth. It was supposed to be a heavy golden pin set with an eye shaped piece of amber in which was encased strange a tiny ebony colored something which no one could explain.

Thoth was an ancient god of learning and the beginnings of science one of his priest was Imhotep was believed to have been the great priest and architect of the Great Pyramid. Some ancient texts imbued him supernatural and occult abilities. According to these texts the black stone of the eye was a token of one of the Old Gods who ruled the world before the rise of man.

Jerome needed to be invited to that private auction.

Calhoun, according to his source, had an eye for young women.

Abby was extremely excited to take part in the attempt to help Jerome with this project.

Liz draped Abby's wrap around her shoulders.

"Good luck, dear," she said quietly, "and be careful."