The Sacred River

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Harriet Heron's life is almost over before it has even begun. At just twenty-three years of age, she is an invalid, over-protected and reclusive. Before it is too late, she must escape the fog of Victorian London for a place where she can breathe.

Together with her devoted mother, Louisa, her god-fearing aunt, Yael, and a book of her own spells inspired by the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Harriet travels to a land where the air is tinged with rose and gold and for the first time begins to experience what it is to live. But a chance meeting on the voyage to Alexandria results in a dangerous friendship as Louisa's long-buried past returns, in the form of someone determined to destroy her by preying upon her daughter.

As Harriet journeys towards a destiny no one could have foreseen, her aunt Yael is caught up in an Egypt on the brink of revolt and her mother must confront the spectres of her own youth.

Award-winning journalist and writer Wendy Wallace spins a tale of three women caught between propriety and love on a journey of cultural awakening through an exquisitely drawn Egypt. In prose both sumptuous and mesmeric, she conjures a sensibility akin to that of E M Forster and Merchant Ivory.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

The Sacred River ONE "Oh, Lord, what is that?" Louisa, out in the fog with a pair of scissors, explored the soft obstruction with the toe of her shoe. A rag, she decided. A cloth dropped by Rosina from a window, back in the summer. Stooping to pick it up, feeling for it on the brick path, she gasped. The thing was warm under her fingertips. She crouched down and peered through the vapor at a yellow beak, jet plumage around a glassy eye. It was a blackbird. Newly, beautifully dead. The fog was sour on her tongue. It tasted of iron and smoke mixed with a primeval dampness, made her eyes water and her cheeks sting. Enveloped in the yellow cloud, Louisa could make out nothing. Her own garden might have been a limitless place stretching to eternity in all directions or it might have shrunk to the very spot where she stood. All over London, birds had been dropping from the sky---thudding onto the leather roofs of carriages, falling down chimneys, and splashing into lakes in the great parks under the gaze of statues. Everyone said that they were an omen, although there was no agreement on its meaning. Louisa wouldn't allow this one to be an omen. She would rid them of it. Pulling on a glove from her pocket, she made herself pick up the bird. It was light for its size, all feather and quill and claw. Balancing it on her palm, she made her way along the path to the wall at the end of the garden and stretched out her arm to toss the corpse into the stables. As she did so, she felt a scrabble of claws, sudden and intimate against her wrist. The creature lurched, unfurled its wings like a black umbrella, and vanished into the morning. Louisa stared after the soft sound of wing beats. "Fly away home," she said. It wasn't until she was indoors, her cloak off, standing at the stone sink in the scullery and running the tap over her fingers, that she remembered her purpose. She'd gone into the garden to cut a sprig of buds for Harriet's breakfast tray. Drying her hands on a dishcloth, she felt in her pocket for the scissors and returned them to the dresser drawer. She wouldn't go out again. It was she who cherished the tiny shoots of quince and viburnum. She, not Harriet, who loved to inhale the intense, vanishing scent of wintersweet. •  •  • "I suggest that you take her for a change of air, Mrs. Heron." "We intend to, Doctor, when summer comes." Standing in front of Dr. Grammaticas on the top-floor landing, outside Harriet's door, Louisa smiled at him through closed lips and touched the round complications of hair on the back of her head. "We shall go to Boscombe in July, as we always do." Dr. Grammaticas shook his head. He'd put on his gauntlets, was stretching the fingers wide and interlocking them with the other hand. "Harriet needs to go somewhere warm. Dry. The climate in Egypt is said to be beneficial." Feeling herself gaping, Louisa closed her mouth. "I couldn't." "Travel? Why not?" She crossed her arms over her chest, raised her eyes to the gas lamp suspended from the ceiling above the doctor's head. It seemed to give him a yellow halo, a small dirty sun set against the months of darkness. "I . . . I shouldn't like to go so far from home," she said. Dr. Grammaticas frowned. "Her breathing is accelerated, the post-respiratory rest almost lost. And there's something else." He glanced at the closed door and lowered his voice. "Something I cannot measure." Straightening his muffler, he stepped past Louisa and began his descent of the stairs. They were uncarpeted at the top of the house and too narrow for a man of his build, scaled for the hips of maids and children, the struts of the banister wobbling like loose teeth under his hand, the treads creaking underfoot. Louisa hurried behind him as he took the lower flights of stairs, reached the dim hall, the fanlight obscured by a red blind that cast a warm glow over the pattern of tile. He brushed past the fern case and accepted his coat from the maid who'd hastened forward with it. The girl was new, one of a succession to have passed through the house in recent months; Louisa couldn't for a minute remember her name. The doctor was still shrugging on the coat as he swung open the front door, admitting a gust of foul air. "Talk to your husband," he said, descending the stone steps to the street. "See what he considers best." "Should I get in more tincture?" Louisa called after him. "A new bottle of friar's balsam?" Silence. A boy loomed out of the fog, walking along the pavement in front of the house, and for the second time that morning, Louisa almost screamed. She shut the door and rebolted it, top and bottom, pulled across the heavy tapestry curtain, then stood, leaning her back against it. Harriet thought the world of the doctor, although Louisa couldn't help asking herself why that should be, when in all the years he'd been attending her, he had been unable to cure her. Louisa would not break the habit of a lifetime and go away. She dared not. "Impossible," she said aloud. "Unthinkable." Hearing the maid's step on the stair, she tried to compose herself, pulling her cuffs down over her wrists, smoothing her skirts over her hips, before she looked up. It wasn't the maid. It was Harriet. She stood on the landing, her feet bare under the hem of a plain white nightdress, her auburn hair loose on her shoulders, crinkled from nighttime plaits, the old pink pashmina shawl she insisted upon thrown around her narrow shoulders. She looked as if she'd stepped out of a painting on the walls of the National Gallery. "Why is it impossible?" she said. "Where are your slippers?" "I wish it, Mother. More than anything." "We're not going to Africa, Harriet. It's too far away." "Too far away from what?" "Home, of course. Home." Louisa kept her voice low. Dr. Grammaticas always warned against excitement, unnecessary dramatics, tears, or laughter. Besides, she and Harriet had--after the passions of her teen years--arrived at a form of speaking with each other that was cautious and careful, exhibited in each syllable their mutual wariness. On Louisa's part, it held too the certain knowledge that many years of enforced companionship lay ahead, yet to be navigated. "Did the girl bring up your breakfast?" Louisa asked, her voice softened. Harriet had descended to the hall and was standing in front of her. Her pale face displayed the oddly adult look it had assumed when she first became ill at not more than seven or eight years old, and that she had never quite grown into. "I'll die here, then. If that's what you wish." Louisa flinched. "How can you say such a terrible thing, Harriet? All I want is your health. Your happiness. That's all I've ever wanted, since the moment you were born." "What's best for me is to go away from here, Mother. To a place where I can breathe." •  •  • Sitting on the unmade bed, Louisa poured a glass of water from the jug. She couldn't be sure whether she heard or imagined the muffled strains of carols rising from the street below. May nothing you dismay. The fog made everything so quiet, as if all of life was being lived secretly. It was the most injurious kind--sulfurous, yellow as mustard powder. The death rates were exceptional, according to the reports in the newspaper, and there were fears of an epidemic of Russian influenza. Harriet couldn't leave the house without suffering fits of coughing that racked her narrow body, turned her lips and the tips of her fingers mauve, risked bringing on a full attack. Louisa had done all she could. She and Rosina had sealed the gaps along the edges of the sash window frames with folded strips of newsprint. They stuffed rags into the keyholes of the outside doors each night, fitted the plugs in the drains of the basins, and drew the winter curtains at mid-afternoon. It made no difference. The fog crept down the chimneys, stole in between the floorboards, penetrated the very bricks and mortar. Insinuated itself into Harriet's chest. The previous night, she'd had an attack as bad as any she'd ever suffered. Louisa pictured Harriet's shoulders lifted high, her mouth open and gasping, the room filled with the smoke from a burning niter paper. In the small hours of the morning, Louisa had begged Harriet to let her send for Dr. Grammaticas. Harriet had shaken her head. "It's o--ver, Mother," she'd said, in the halting cadence produced by her shortness of breath. "The wor--st is over." Minutes later, the dog had jumped up on the bed. After an hour, Harriet said she was hungry, would like a cup of tea, a slice of toast. Louisa had fetched the loaf from the kitchen with a toasting fork and a kettle. Harriet insisted on making the toast herself, over the bedroom fire. She ate it spread with butter, at four o'clock in the morning, saying what was the point in being alive if you couldn't ever do as you pleased. Let peace and health and happiness . . . As the ghostly strains continued to rise from the street, Louisa began to pace the old silk rug that lay on the floor at the end of the bed. It was a week before Christmas and she had other worries. Her elder sister Lavinia, next in age to herself, was due to arrive in two days' time with her husband. Letters came by every post, detailing Lavinia's requirements. She needed a daily dose of liver salts, must sleep with the window open despite what she read of the foul fog in their filthy city. Lavinia lived in Northumberland beside a gray, slapping sea, breathing air that had never been breathed before. Stopping in front of one of the two long bedroom windows, Louisa drew up the slats of the venetian blind. The houses on the other side of the street had disappeared, and below, the gas lamp still burned at ten in the morning, illuminating nothing more than itself. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass. Harriet knew nothing of the circumstances that had caused Louisa all her life to shun travel, to avoid society beyond their own small community of family and friends. Staring sightlessly into the street, Louisa could think of only one course of action. She would seek advice from her own mother. Excerpted from The Sacred River by Wendy Wallace All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

At 23, Harriet Heron has spent her life as a reclusive invalid, unable to breathe the toxic fog of Victorian London. A journey to Egypt for cleaner air will also bring her to places she has studied for years. Accompanying Harriet are her mother, Louisa, and her aunt, Yael. The trip changes the lives of the three women in unexpected ways. Secrets from Louisa's past slowly surface as readers follow plans concocted by Eyre Soane, an artist determined to seduce and abandon Harriet as revenge for Louisa's injury to his family. A devout Christian, Yael comes into her own by setting up a clinic for poor children and soliciting food for their families. She stays in Alexandria to work with the locals while Harriet and Louisa travel south to Luxor. There Harriet gains not only physical strength but intellectual stimulation as she copies wall drawings and inscriptions at the excavations of German Egyptologist Eberhardt Woolfe. VERDICT Although minor characters and subplots sometimes seem sketchy, the trials and transformations of the Herons will engage historical fiction readers. In fact, they may hope that Wallace (The Painted Bridge) will continue some of the relationships set in motion here in a future novel. [For another historical novel about Englishwomen making their way to Egypt, see Sally Beauman's The Visitors.-Ed.]-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Wallace (The Painted Bridge) captures the essence of Victorian-era Egypt in this charming tale of three women, all searching for their freedom. At 23, asthmatic Harriet Heron has long been considered an invalid in her native London. When her breathing problem worsens, she; her mother, Louisa; and her aunt Yael head for Egypt, where they believe the air will be better. Harriet is enchanted to finally see for herself the tombs and other ancient ruins. But during the journey, Louisa's past and present merge with the arrival of the mysterious Eyre Soane, who is bent on revenge and threatens to reveal Louisa's deepest, most shameful secret. But he won't stop there-he also threatens to court the fragile Harriet as part of the price for Louisa's earlier decisions. And deeply spiritual Yael, upon seeing the terrible poverty in Egypt, makes it her mission to feed the hungry natives and teach them basic childcare skills-but how will the budding revolution affect those plans? Wallace skillfully weaves all three subplots into a lush, original, and page-turning narrative-a lovely armchair journey to an Egypt of long ago. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

A young Victorian woman who is ailing. A proper but worried mother. A spinster aunt sent to chaperone. These three leave London in 1882 aboard the Star of the East, in the hopes that the dry Egyptian air will help 23-year-old Harriet survive her worsening asthma. Harriet has spent her youth as an invalid, her only joy the study of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and, she is determined to see Egypt before she dies. Her mother prefers to stay in the comfort and safety of London but is desperate to keep Harriet alive. Her worries are compounded when the ship turns up a figure from her past, a man who threatens to expose long-buried secrets and bends his malevolent attention toward Harriet. Once in Egypt, Harriet's improved health allows her to assist a German archaeologist who is excavating the tomb of an Egyptian queen, and Aunt Yael discovers a newfound independence, along with a calling to help the poor of Alexandria. This classic tale of a journey that leads to self-discovery is a lovely journey for the reader as well.--Weber, Lynn Copyright 2014 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A trio of Victorian women travel to Egypt and encounter dangerschief among them a taste for independencein an engaging new novel from the British author of The Painted Bridge (2012). Though just a young woman, Harriet lives the life of an invalid in her parents' elegant home. She suffers from asthma, a condition intensified by the venomous air of London in 1882. Fascinated by Egypt, she persuades her doctor to prescribe a visit. Her mother, Louisa, agrees (after consultation with her spiritualist), and so mother, daughter and spinster Aunt Yael make the journey; there are delicious shades of Forster herenave imperialists en route to an unknowable land. On ship they meet Herr Professor Eberhardt Woolfe, who is transporting a grand piano, and Eyre Soane, a painter who recognizes Louisa from a shared (and infamous) past. Soane intends to capitalize on his secrets. Alexandria offers clean air for Harriet and a rebirth for Yael, who has spent her life doting on her father; while opening a clinic for children, she discovers her own considerable abilities. But all Louisa wants is a return to London, to be rid of Soane and the memories he stirs. As a girl, Louisa was discovered by the great portrait painter Augustus Soane, Eyre's father. Hoping for a way to advance the family, Louisas mother insisted she sit for him; little did she know her daughter posed nude and was victim to the great mans advances. When Alexandrias windstorms begin, Harriet and Louisa travel to Luxor, where they again meet professor Woolfe, an Egyptologist taken by Harriets knowledge. In her he has found a kindred spirit: Harriet makes copies of the hieroglyphics he unearths, helping him decode their meanings. Meanwhile, Soane has followed them to Luxor, and a rebellion is brewing among the Egyptians, making a return to England seem increasingly impossible. Whereas Wallace's first novel was marred by overreaching, this one is marked by a fine subtlety, making her a writer to watch. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.