These opinions had been hardly in place a year before another event arose of great importance in the family. Sir Thomas found it expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of his affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connexions at home, and from all further thoughts of the Brighton Duck (of which Tom still mused fondly). They left England with the probability of being nearly a twelvemonth absent.

This event was the momentous Ancient Sign that Lady Bertram—and indeed a certain ancient desiccated pharaoh—was waiting for.

But first—the necessity of this remote travel and its effect upon his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to quitting the rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris’s watchful attention, and in Edmund’s judgment, he had sufficient confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct.

Little did Sir Thomas know that Egypt will take his absence to manifest full force in Mansfield Park. . . .

Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her, on some fundamental affectionate level of her psyche. But, being the Conduit—at long last—for Ancient Egyptian Deity, she was beyond thrilled; she was enraptured.

She was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous, or difficult, or fatiguing to anybody but themselves. And she reveled in the new freedom to finally Act.

And here it can be said, at last:—those crates, those endless shipments from the East, those exotic boxes that arrived on a daily basis for so many years, that were greeted with such obsessive delight by Lady Bertram—these were not merely artifacts, cat and crocodile-headed statues, tablets, jars, trinkets, and rolls of papyrus.

They were mummies.

Boxes and boxes upon crates of whole embalmed, mummified long-dead Egyptians, of all ranks and excavations; whole bodies and pieces and organ parts in some cases bound in linen, dried with salt and natron, soaked in perfumed oils, and always, a shadow of the hot wind blowing sand and a brilliant sun-lit sky of the land of Amen-Ra. . . .

The mummies, packed firmly in their crates, were stored everywhere on the property, filling the attics to overflowing, in spare rooms, in corridors, stairwells, in the cellars, in the sheds, kitchens, everywhere.

And there were enough of them to form a regiment, a series of squadrons; nay, a whole army.

An army of mummies.

You might ask, gentle Reader, how this firecracker-barrel of a disaster-waiting-to-happen came about? how a proper high-ranking British aristocrat family and respectable grand estate got embroiled in such a peculiar Cursed, dreadful, and dangerous situation?