Kitabı oku: «Phroso: A Romance»

CHAPTER I
A LONG THING ENDING IN POULOS

‘Quot homines tot sententiæ;’ so many men, so many fancies. My fancy was for an island. Perhaps boyhood’s glamour hung yet round sea-girt rocks, and ‘faery lands forlorn,’ still beckoned me; perhaps I felt that London was too full, the Highlands rather fuller, the Swiss mountains most insufferably crowded of them all. Money can buy company, and it can buy retirement. The latter service I asked now of the moderate wealth with which my poor cousin Tom’s death had endowed me. Everybody was good enough to suppose that I rejoiced at Tom’s death, whereas I was particularly sorry for it, and was not consoled even by the prospect of the island. My friends understood this wish for an island as little as they appreciated my feelings about poor Tom. Beatrice was most emphatic in declaring that ‘a horrid little island’ had no charms for her, and that she would never set foot in it. This declaration was rather annoying, because I had imagined myself, spending my honeymoon with Beatrice on the island; but life is not all honeymoon, and I decided to have the island none the less. Besides I was not to be married for a year. Mrs Kennett Hipgrave had insisted on this delay in order that we might be sure that we knew our own hearts. And as I may say without unfairness that Mrs Hipgrave was to a considerable degree responsible for the engagement – she asserted the fact herself with much pride – I thought that she had a right to some voice in the date of the marriage. Moreover the postponement just gave me the time to go over and settle affairs in the island.

For I had bought it. It cost me seven thousand five hundred and fifty pounds, rather a fancy price but I could not haggle with the old lord – half to be paid to the lord’s bankers in London, and the second half to him in Neopalia, when he delivered possession to me. The Turkish Government had sanctioned the sale, and I had agreed to pay a hundred pounds yearly as tribute. This sum I was entitled, in my turn, to levy on the inhabitants.

‘In fact, my dear lord,’ said old Mason to me when I called on him in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, ‘the whole affair is settled. I congratulate you on having got just what was your whim. You are over a hundred miles from the nearest land – Rhodes, you see.’ (He laid a map before me.) ‘You are off the steamship tracks; the Austrian Lloyds to Alexandria leave you far to the northeast. You are equally remote from any submarine cable; here on the southwest, from Alexandria to Candia, is the nearest. You will have to fetch your letters.’

‘I shouldn’t think of doing such a thing,’ said I indignantly.

‘Then you’ll only get them once in three months. Neopalia is extremely rugged and picturesque. It is nine miles long and five broad. It grows cotton, wine, oil and a little corn. The people are quite unsophisticated, but very good-hearted.’

‘And,’ said I, ‘there are only three hundred and seventy of them, all told. I really think I shall do very well there.’

‘I’ve no doubt you will. By the way, treat the old gentleman kindly. He’s terribly cut up at having to sell. “My dear island,” he writes, “is second to my dead son’s honour, and to nothing else.” His son, you know, Lord Wheatley, was a bad lot, a very bad lot indeed.’

‘He left a heap of unpaid debts, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, gambling debts. He spent his time knocking about Paris and London with his cousin Constantine – by no means an improving companion, if report speaks truly. And your money is to pay the debts, you know.’

‘Poor old chap,’ said I. I sympathised with him in the loss of his island.

‘Here’s the house, you see,’ said Mason, turning to the map and dismissing the sorrows of the old lord of Neopalia. ‘About the middle of the island, nearly a thousand feet above the sea. I’m afraid it’s a tumble-down old place, and will swallow a lot of money without looking much better for the dose. To put it into repair for the reception of the future Lady Wheatley would cost – ’

‘The future Lady Wheatley says she won’t go there on any account,’ I interrupted.

‘But, my very dear lord,’ cried he, aghast, ‘if she won’t – ’

‘She won’t, and there’s an end of it, Mr Mason. Well, good day. I’m to have possession in a month?’

‘In a month to the very day – on the 7th of May.’

‘All right; I shall be there to take it.’

Escaping from the legal quarter, I made my way to my sister’s house in Cavendish Square. She had a party, and I was bound to go by brotherly duty. As luck would have it, however, I was rewarded for my virtue (and if that’s not luck in this huddle-muddle world I don’t know what is); the Turkish Ambassador dropped in, and presently James came and took me up to him. My brother-in-law, James Cardew, is always anxious that I should know the right people. The Pasha received me with great kindness.

‘You are the purchaser of Neopalia, aren’t you?’ he asked, after a little conversation. ‘The matter came before me officially.’

‘I’m much obliged,’ said I, ‘for your ready consent to the transfer.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing to us. In fact our tribute, such as it is, will be safer. Well, I’m sure I hope you’ll settle in comfortably.’

‘Oh, I shall be all right. I know the Greeks very well, you see – been there a lot, and, of course, I talk the tongue, because I spent two years hunting antiquities in the Morea and some of the islands.’

The Pasha stroked his beard, as he observed in a calm tone:

‘The last time a Stefanopoulos tried to sell Neopalia, the people killed him, and turned the purchaser – he was a Frenchman, a Baron d’Ezonville – adrift in an open boat, with nothing on but his shirt’.

‘Good heavens! Was that recently?’

‘No; two hundred years ago. But it’s a conservative part of the world, you know.’ And his Excellency smiled.

‘They were described to me as good-hearted folk,’ said I; ‘unsophisticated, of course, but good-hearted.’

‘They think that the island is theirs, you see,’ he explained, ‘and that the lord has no business to sell it. They may be good-hearted, Lord Wheatley, but they are tenacious of their rights.’

‘But they can’t have any rights,’ I expostulated.

‘None at all,’ he assented. ‘But a man is never so tenacious of his rights as when he hasn’t any. However, autres temps autres mœurs; I don’t suppose you’ll have any trouble of that kind. Certainly I hope not, my dear lord.’

‘Surely your Government will see to that?’ I suggested.

His Excellency looked at me; then, although by nature a grave man, he gave a low humorous chuckle and regarded me with visible amusement.

‘Oh, of course, you can rely on that, Lord Wheatley,’ said he.

‘That is a diplomatic assurance, your Excellency?’ I ventured to suggest, with a smile.

‘It is unofficial,’ said he, ‘but as binding as if it were official. Our Governor in that district of the empire is a very active man – yes, a decidedly active man.’

The only result of this conversation was that when I was buying my sporting guns in St James’s Street the next day I purchased a couple of pairs of revolvers at the same time. It is well to be on the safe side, and, although I attached little importance to the by-gone outrage of which the Ambassador spoke, I did not suppose that the police service would be very efficient. In fact I thought it prudent to be ready for any trouble that the old-world notions of the Neopalians might occasion. But in my heart I meant to be very popular with them. For I cherished the generous design of paying the whole tribute out of my own pocket, and of disestablishing in Neopalia what seems to be the only institution in no danger of such treatment here – the tax-gatherer. If they understood that intention of mine, they would hardly be so short short-sighted as to set me adrift in my shirt like a second Baron d’Ezonville, or so unjust as to kill poor old Stefanopoulos as they had killed his ancestor. Besides, as I comforted myself by repeating, they were a good-hearted race; unsophisticated, of course, but thoroughly good-hearted.

My cousin, young Denny Swinton, was to dine with me that evening at the Optimum. Denny (a familiar form of Dennis) was the only member of the family who sympathised thoroughly with me about Neopalia. He was wild with interest in the island, and I looked forward to telling him all I had heard about it. I knew he would listen, for he was to go with me and help me to take possession. The boy had almost wept on my neck when I asked him to come; he had just left Woolwich, and was not to join his battalion for six months; he was thus, as he put it, ‘at a loose end,’ and succeeded in persuading his parents that he ought to learn modern Greek. General Swinton was rather cold about the project; he said that Denny had spent ten years on ancient Greek, and knew nothing about it, and probably would not learn much of the newer sort in three months; but his wife thought it would be a nice trip for Denny. Well, it turned out to be a very nice trip for Denny; but if Mrs Swinton had known – however, if it comes to that, I might just as well exclaim, ‘If I had known myself!’

Denny had taken a table next but one to the west end of the room, and was drumming his fingers impatiently on the cloth when I entered. He wanted both his dinner and the latest news about Neopalia; so I sat down and made haste to satisfy him in both respects. Travelling with equal steps through the two matters, we had reached the first entrée and the fate of the murdered Stefanopoulos (which Denny, for some reason, declared was ‘a lark’), when two people came in and sat down at the table beyond ours and next to the wall, where two chairs had been tilted up in token of pre-engagement. The man – for the pair were man and woman – was tall and powerfully built; his complexion was dark, and he had good regular features; he looked also as if he had a bit of a temper somewhere about him. I was conscious of having seen him before, and suddenly recollected that by a curious chance I had run up against him twice in St James’s Street that very day. The lady was handsome; she had an Italian cast of face, and moved with much grace; her manner was rather elaborate, and, when she spoke to the waiter, I detected a pronounced foreign accent. Taken together, they were a remarkable couple and presented a distinguished appearance. I believe I am not a conceited man, but I could not help wondering whether their thoughts paid me a similar compliment. For I certainly detected both of them casting more than one curious glance towards our table; and when the man whispered once to a waiter, I was sure that I formed the subject of his question; perhaps he also remembered our two encounters.

‘I wonder if there’s any chance of a row!’ said Denny in a tone that sounded wistful. ‘Going to take anybody with you, Charley?’

‘Only Watkins; I must have him; he always knows where everything is; and I’ve told Hogvardt, my old dragoman, to meet us in Rhodes. He’ll talk their own language to the beggars, you know.’

‘But he’s a German, isn’t he?’

‘He thinks so,’ I answered. ‘He’s not certain, you know. Anyhow, he chatters Greek like a parrot. He’s a pretty good man in a row, too. But there won’t be a row, you know.’

‘I suppose there won’t,’ admitted Denny ruefully.

‘For my own part,’ said I meekly, ‘as I’m going for the sake of quiet, I hope there won’t.’

In the interest of conversation I had forgotten our neighbours; but now, a lull occurring in Denny’s questions and surmises, I heard the lady’s voice. She began a sentence – and began it in Greek! That was a little unexpected; but it was more strange that her companion cut her short, saying very peremptorily, ‘Don’t talk Greek: talk Italian.’ This he said in Italian, and I, though no great hand at that language, understood so much. Now why shouldn’t the lady talk Greek, if Greek were the language that came naturally to her tongue? It would be as good a shield against eavesdroppers as most languages; unless indeed I, who was known to be an amateur of Greece and Greek things, were looked upon as a possible listener. Recollecting the glances which I had detected, recollecting again those chance meetings, I ventured on a covert gaze at the lady. Her handsome face expressed a mixture of anger, alarm, and entreaty. The man was speaking to her now in low urgent tones; he raised his hand once, and brought it down on the table as though to emphasise some declaration – perhaps some promise – which he was making. She regarded him with half-angry distrustful eyes. He seemed to repeat his words and she flung at him in a tone that grew suddenly louder, and in words that I could translate:

‘Enough! I’ll see to that. I shall come too.’

Her heat stirred no answering fire in him. He dropped his emphatic manner, shrugged a tolerant ‘As you will,’ with eloquent shoulders, smiled at her, and, reaching across the table, patted her hand. She held it up before his eyes, and with the other hand pointed at a ring on her finger.

‘Yes, yes, my dearest,’ said he, and he was about to say more, when, glancing round, he caught my gaze retreating in hasty confusion to my plate. I dared not look up again, but I felt his scowl on me. I suppose that I deserved punishment for my eavesdropping.

‘And when can we get off, Charley?’ asked Denny in his clear young voice. My thoughts had wandered from him, and I paused for a moment as a man does when a question takes him unawares. There was silence at the next table also. The fancy seemed absurd, but it occurred to me that there too my answer was being waited for. Well, they could know if they liked; it was no secret.

‘In a fortnight,’ said I. ‘We’ll travel easily, and get there on the 7th of next month; – that’s the day on which I’m entitled to take over my kingdom. We shall go to Rhodes. Hogvardt will have got me a little yacht, and then – good-bye to all this!’ And a great longing for solitude and a natural life came over me as I looked round on the gilded cornices, the gilded mirrors, the gilded flower-vases, and the highly-gilded company of the Optimum.

I was roused from my pleasant dreams by a high vivacious voice, which I knew very well. Looking up, I saw Miss Hipgrave, her mother, and young Bennett Hamlyn standing before me. I disliked young Hamlyn, but he was always very civil to me.

‘Why, how early you two have dined!’ cried Beatrice. ‘You’re at the savoury, aren’t you? We’ve only just come.’

‘Are you going to dine?’ I asked, rising. ‘Take this table, we’re just off.’

‘Well, we may as well, mayn’t we?’ said my fiancée. ‘Sorry you’re going, though. Oh, yes, we’re going to dine with Mr Bennett Hamlyn. That’s what you’re for, isn’t it, Mr Hamlyn? Why, he’s not listening!’

He was not, strange to say, listening, although as a rule he listened to Beatrice with infinite attention and the most deferential of smiles. But just now he was engaged in returning a bow which our neighbour at the next table had bestowed on him. The lady there had risen already and was making for the door. The man lingered and looked at Hamlyn, seeming inclined to back up his bow with a few words of greeting. Hamlyn’s air was not, however, encouraging, and the stranger contented himself with a nod and a careless ‘How are you?’ and, with that, followed his companion. Hamlyn turned round, conscious that he had neglected Beatrice’s remark and full of penitence for his momentary rudeness.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said he, with an apologetic smile.

‘Oh,’ answered she, ‘I was only saying that men like you were invented to give dinners; you’re a sort of automatic feeding-machine. You ought to stand open all day. Really I often miss you at lunch time.’

‘My dear Beatrice!’ said Mrs Kennett Hipgrave, with that peculiar lift of her brows which meant, ‘How naughty the dear child is – oh, but how clever!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Hamlyn meekly. ‘I’m awfully happy to give you a dinner anyhow, Miss Beatrice.’

Now I had nothing to say on this subject, but I thought I would just make this remark:

‘Miss Hipgrave,’ said I, ‘is very fond of a dinner.’

Beatrice laughed. She understood my little correction.

‘He doesn’t know any better, do you?’ said she pleasantly to Hamlyn. ‘We shall civilise him in time, though; then I believe he’ll be nicer than you, Charley, I really do. You’re – ’

‘I shall be uncivilised by then,’ said I.

‘Oh, that wretched island!’ cried Beatrice. ‘You’re really going?’

‘Most undoubtedly. By the way, Hamlyn, who’s your friend?’

Surely this was an innocent enough question, but little Hamlyn went red from the edge of his clipped whisker on the right to the edge of his mathematically equal whisker on the left.

‘Friend!’ said he in an angry tone; ‘he’s not a friend of mine. I only met him on the Riviera.’

‘That,’ I admitted, ‘does not, happily, in itself constitute a friendship.’

‘And he won a hundred louis of me in the train between Cannes and Monte Carlo.’

‘Not bad going that,’ observed Denny in an approving tone.

‘Is he then un grec?’ asked Mrs Hipgrave, who loves a scrap of French.

‘In both senses, I believe,’ answered Hamlyn viciously.

‘And what’s his name?’ said I.

‘Really I don’t recollect,’ said Hamlyn rather petulantly.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ observed Beatrice, attacking her oysters which had now made their appearance.

‘My dear Beatrice,’ I remonstrated, ‘you’re the most charming creature in the world, but not the only one. You mean that it doesn’t matter to you.’

‘Oh, don’t be tiresome. It doesn’t matter to you either, you know. Do go away and leave me to dine in peace.’

‘Half a minute!’ said Hamlyn. ‘I thought I’d got it just now, but it’s gone again. Look here, though, I believe it’s one of those long things that end in poulos.’

‘Oh, it ends in poulos, does it?’ said I in a meditative tone.

‘My dear Charley,’ said Beatrice, ‘I shall end in Bedlam if you’re so very tedious. What in the world I shall do when I’m married, I don’t know.’

‘My dearest!’ said Mrs Hipgrave, and a stage direction might add, Business with brows as before.

‘Poulos,’ I repeated thoughtfully.

‘Could it be Constantinopoulos?’ asked Hamlyn, with a nervous deference to my Hellenic learning.

‘It might conceivably,’ I hazarded, ‘be Constantine Stefanopoulos.’

‘Then,’ said Hamlyn, ‘I shouldn’t wonder if it was. Anyhow, the less you see of him, Wheatley, the better. Take my word for that.’

‘But,’ I objected – and I must admit that I have a habit of assuming that everybody follows my train of thought – ‘it’s such a small place, that, if he goes, I shall be almost bound to meet him.’

‘What’s such a small place?’ cried Beatrice with emphasised despair.

‘Why, Neopalia, of course,’ said I.

‘Why should anybody, except you, be so insane as to go there?’ she asked.

‘If he’s the man I think, he comes from there,’ I explained, as I rose for the last time; for I had been getting up to go and sitting down again several times.

‘Then he’ll think twice before he goes back,’ pronounced Beatrice decisively; she was irreconcilable about my poor island.

Denny and I walked off together; as we went he observed:

‘I suppose that chap’s got no end of money?’

‘Stefan – ?’ I began.

‘No, no. Hang it, you’re as bad as Miss Hipgrave says. I mean Bennett Hamlyn.’

‘Oh, yes, absolutely no end to it, I believe.’

Denny looked sagacious.

‘He’s very free with his dinners,’ he observed.

‘Don’t let’s worry about it,’ I suggested, taking his arm. I was not worried about it myself. Indeed for the moment my island monopolised my mind, and my attachment to Beatrice was not of such a romantic character as to make me ready to be jealous on slight grounds. Mrs Hipgrave said the engagement was based on ‘general suitability.’ Now it is difficult to be very passionate over that.

‘If you don’t mind, I don’t,’ said Denny reasonably.

‘That’s right. It’s only a little way Beatrice – ’ I stopped abruptly. We were now on the steps outside the restaurant, and I had just perceived a scrap of paper lying on the mosaic pavement. I stooped down and picked it up. It proved to be a fragment torn from the menu card. I turned it over.

‘Hullo, what’s this?’ said I, searching for my eye-glass, which was (as usual) somewhere in the small of my back.

Denny gave me the glass, and I read what was written on the back. It was in Greek, and it ran thus:

‘By way of Rhodes – small yacht there – arrive seventh.’

I turned the piece of paper over in my hand. I drew a conclusion or two; one was that my tall neighbour was named Stefanopoulos; another that he had made good use of his ears – better than I had made of mine; for a third, I guessed that he would go to Neopalia; for a fourth, I fancied that Neopalia was the place to which the lady had declared she would accompany him. Then I fell to wondering why all these things should be so, why he wished to remember the route of my journey, the date of my arrival, and the fact that I meant to hire a yacht. Finally, those two chance encounters, taken with the rest, assumed a more interesting complexion.

‘When you’ve done with that bit of paper,’ observed Denny, in a tone expressive of exaggerated patience, ‘we might as well go on, old fellow.’

‘All right. I’ve done with it – for the present,’ said I. But I took the liberty of slipping Mr Constantine Stefanopoulos’s memorandum into my pocket.

The general result of the evening was to increase most distinctly my interest in Neopalia. I went to bed still thinking of my purchase, and I recollect that the last thing which came into my head before I went to sleep was, ‘What did she mean by pointing to the ring?’

Well, I found an answer to that later on.