Kitabı oku: «Phroso: A Romance», sayfa 6
CHAPTER VI
THE POEM OF ONE-EYED ALEXANDER
There is a matter on my conscience which I cannot excuse but may as well confess. To deceive a maiden is a very sore thing, so sore that it had made us all hot against Constantine; but it may be doubted by a cool mind whether it is worse, nay, whether it is not more venial than to contrive the murder of a lawful wife. Poets have paid more attention to the first offence – maybe they know more about it – the law finds greater employment, on the whole, in respect to the second. For me, I admit that it was not till I found myself stretched on a mattress in the kitchen, with the idea of getting a few hours’ sleep, that it struck me that Constantine’s wife deserved a share of my concern and care. Her grievance against him was at least as great as Euphrosyne’s; her peril was far greater. For Euphrosyne was his object; Francesca (for that appeared from Vlacho’s mode of address to be her name) was an obstacle which prevented him attaining that object. For myself I should have welcomed a cut throat if it came as an alternative to Constantine’s society; but probably his wife would not agree with me, and the conversation I had heard left me in little doubt that her life was not safe. They could not have an epidemic, Vlacho had prudently reminded his master; the island fever could not kill Constantine’s wife and our party all in a day or two. Men suspect such an obliging malady, and the old lord had died of it, pat to the happy moment, already. But if the thing could be done, if it could be so managed that London, Paris, and the Riviera would find nothing strange in the disappearance of one Madame Stefanopoulos and the appearance of another, why, to a certainty, done the thing would be, unless I could warn or save the woman in the cottage. But I did not see how to do either. So (as I set out to confess) I dropped the subject. And when I went to sleep I was thinking not how to save Francesca, but how to console Euphrosyne, a matter really of less urgency, as I should have seen had not the echo of that sad little cry still filled my ears.
The news which Hogvardt brought me when I rose in the morning, and was enjoying a slice of cow-steak, by no means cleared my way. An actual attack did not seem imminent – I fancy these fierce islanders were not too fond of our revolvers – but the house was, if I may use the term, carefully picketed, and that both before and behind. Along the road which approached it in front there stood sentries at intervals. They were stationed just out of range of our only effective long-distance weapon, but it was evident that egress on that side was barred. And the same was the case on the other; Hogvardt had seen men moving in the wood, and had heard their challenges to one another repeated at regular intervals. We were shut off from the sea; we were shut off from the cottage. A blockade would reduce us as surely as an attack. I had nothing to offer except the release of Euphrosyne. And to release Euphrosyne would, in all likelihood, not save us, while it would leave Constantine free to play out his relentless game to its appointed end.
I finished my breakfast in some perplexity of spirit. Then I went and sat in the hall, expecting that Euphrosyne would appear from her room before long. I was alone, for the rest were engaged in various occupations, Hogvardt being particularly busy over a large handful of hunting knives which he had gleaned from the walls; I did not understand what he wanted with them, unless he meant to arm himself in porcupine fashion.
Presently Euphrosyne came, but it was a transformed Euphrosyne. The kilt, knee-breeches, and gaiters were gone; in their place was the white linen garment with flowing sleeves and the loose jacket over it, the national dress of the Greek woman; but Euphrosyne’s was ornamented with a rare profusion of delicate embroidery, and of so fine a texture that it seemed rather some delicate, soft, yielding silk. The change of attire seemed reflected in her altered manner. Defiance was gone, and appeal glistened from her eyes as she stood before me. I sprang up, but she would not sit. She stood there, and, raising her glance to my face, asked simply:
‘Is it true?’
In a business-like way I told her the whole story, starting from the every-day scene at home in the restaurant, ending with the villainous conversation and the wild chase of the night before. When I related how Constantine had called Francesca his wife, Euphrosyne started. While I sketched lightly my encounter with him and Vlacho, she eyed me with a sort of grave curiosity; and at the end she said:
‘I’m glad you weren’t killed.’
It was not an emotional speech, nor delivered with any empressement, but I took it for thanks and made the best of it. Then at last she sat down and rested her head on her hand; her absent reverie allowed me to study her closely, and I was struck by a new beauty which the fantastic boy’s disguise had concealed. Moreover, with the doffing of that, she seemed to have put off her extreme hostility; but perhaps the revelation I had made to her, which showed her the victim of an unscrupulous schemer, had more to do with her softened air. Yet she had borne the story firmly, and a quivering lip was her extreme sign of grief or anger. And her first question was not of herself.
‘Do you mean that they will kill this woman?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid it’s not unlikely that something will happen to her, unless, of course – ’ I paused, but her quick wit supplied the omission.
‘Unless,’ she said, ‘he lets her live now, because I am out of his hands?’
‘Will you stay out of his hands?’ I asked. ‘I mean, as long as I can keep you out of them.’
She looked round with a troubled expression.
‘How can I stay here?’ she said in a low tone.
‘You will be as safe here now as you were in your uncle’s care,’ I answered.
She acknowledged my promise with a movement of her head; but a moment later she cried:
‘But I am not with you – I am with the people! The island is theirs and mine. It’s not yours. I’ll have no part in giving it to you.’
‘I wasn’t proposing to take pay for my hospitality,’ said I. ‘It’ll be hardly handsome enough for that, I’m afraid. But mightn’t we leave the question for the moment?’ And I described briefly to her our present position.
‘So that,’ I concluded, ‘while I maintain my claim to the island, I am at present more interested in keeping a whole skin on myself and my friends.’
‘If you will not give it up, I can do nothing,’ said she. ‘Though they knew Constantine to be all you say, yet they would follow him and not me if I yielded the island. Indeed they would most likely follow him in any case. For the Neopalians like a man to follow, and they like that man to be a Stefanopoulos; so they would shut their eyes to much, in order that Constantine might marry me and become lord.’
She stated all this in a matter-of-fact way, disclosing no great horror of her countrymen’s moral standard. The straightforward barbarousness of it perhaps appealed to her a little; she loathed the man who would rule on those terms, but had some toleration for the people who set the true dynasty above all else. And she spoke of her proposed marriage as though it were a natural arrangement.
‘I shall have to marry him, I expect, in spite of everything,’ she said.
I pushed my chair back violently. My English respectability was appalled.
‘Marry him?’ I cried. ‘Why, he murdered the old lord!’
‘That has happened before among the Stefanopouloi,’ said Euphrosyne, with a calmness dangerously near to pride.
‘And he proposes to murder his wife,’ I added.
‘Perhaps he will get rid of her without that.’ She paused; then came the anger I had looked for before. ‘Ah, but how dared he swear that he had thought of none but me, and loved me passionately? He shall pay for that!’ Again it was injured pride which rang in her voice, as in her first cry. It did not sound like love; and for that I was glad. The courtship probably had been an affair of state rather than of affection. I did not ask how Constantine was to be made to pay, whether before or after marriage. I was struggling between horror and amusement at my guest’s point of view. But I take leave to have a will of my own, even sometimes in matters which are not exactly my concern; and I said now, with a composure that rivalled Euphrosyne’s:
‘It’s out of the question that you should marry him. I’m going to get him hanged; and, anyhow, it would be atrocious.’
She smiled at that; but then she leant forward and asked:
‘How long have you provisions for?’
‘That’s a good retort,’ I admitted. ‘A few days, that’s all. And we can’t get out to procure any more; and we can’t go shooting, because the wood’s infested with these ruff – I beg pardon – with your countrymen.’
‘Then it seems to me,’ said Euphrosyne, ‘that you and your friends are more likely to be hanged.’
Well, on a dispassionate consideration, it did seem more likely; but she need not have said so. She went on with an equally discouraging good sense:
‘There will be a boat from Rhodes in about a month or six weeks. The officer will come then to take the tribute; perhaps the Governor will come. But till then nobody will visit the island, unless it be a few fishermen from Cyprus.’
‘Fishermen? Where do they land? At the harbour?’
‘No; my people do not like them; but the Governor threatens to send troops if we do not let them land. So they come to a little creek at the opposite end of the island, on the other side of the mountain. Ah, what are you thinking of?’
As Euphrosyne perceived, her words had put a new idea in my mind. If I could reach that creek and find the fishermen and persuade them to help me or to carry my party off, that hanging might happen to the right man after all.
‘You’re thinking you can reach them?’ she cried.
‘You don’t seem sure that you want me to,’ I observed.
‘Oh, how can I tell what I want? If I help you I am betraying the island. If I do not – ’
‘You’ll have a death or two at your door, and you’ll marry the biggest scoundrel in Europe,’ said I.
She hung her head and plucked fretfully at the embroidery on the front of her gown.
‘But anyhow you couldn’t reach them,’ she said. ‘You are close prisoners here.’
That, again, seemed true, so that it put me in a very bad temper. Therefore I rose and, leaving her without much ceremony, strolled into the kitchen. Here I found Watkins dressing the cow’s head, Hogvardt surrounded by knives, and Denny lying on a rug on the floor with a small book which he seemed to be reading. He looked up with a smile that he considered knowing.
‘Well, what does the Captive Queen say?’ he asked with levity.
‘She proposes to marry Constantine,’ I answered, and added quickly to Hogvardt:
‘What’s the game with those knives, Hog?’
‘Well, my lord,’ said Hogvardt, surveying his dozen murderous instruments, ‘I thought there was no harm in putting an edge on them, in case we should find a use for them,’ and he fell to grinding one with great energy.
‘I say, Charley, I wonder what this yarn’s about. I can’t construe half of it. It’s in Greek, and it’s something about Neopalia; and there’s a lot about a Stefanopoulos.’
‘Is there? Let’s see,’ and, taking the book, I sat down to look at it. It was a slim old book, bound in calf-skin. The Greek was written in an old-fashioned style; it was verse. I turned to the title page. ‘Hullo, this is rather interesting,’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s about the death of old Stefanopoulos – the thing they sing that song about, you know.’
In fact I had got hold of the poem which One-Eyed Alexander composed. Its length was about three hundred lines, exclusive of the refrain which the islanders had chanted, and which was inserted six times, occurring at the end of each fifty lines. The rest was written in rather barbarous iambics; and the sentiments were quite as barbarous as the verse. It told the whole story, and I ran rapidly over it, translating here and there for the benefit of my companions. The arrival of the Baron d’Ezonville recalled our own with curious exactness, except that he came with one servant only. He had been taken to the inn as I had, but he had never escaped from there, and had been turned adrift the morning after his arrival. I took more interest in Stefan, and followed eagerly the story of how the islanders had come to his house and demanded that he should revoke the sale. Stefan, however, was obstinate; it cost the lives of four of his assailants before his door was forced. Thus far I read, and expected to find next an account of a mêlée in the hall. But here the story took a turn unexpected by me, one that might make the reading of the old poem more than a mere pastime.
‘But when they had broken in,’ sang One-Eyed Alexander, ‘behold the hall was empty, and the house empty! And they stood amazed. But the two cousins of the Lord, who had been the hottest in seeking his death, put all the rest to the door, and were themselves alone in the house; for the secret was known to them who were of the blood of the Stefanopouloi. Unto me, the Bard, it is not known. Yet men say they went beneath the earth, and there in the earth found the lord. And certain it is they slew him, for in a space they came forth to the door, bearing his head; this they showed to the people, who answered with a great shout. But the cousins went back, barring the door again; and again, when but a few minutes had passed, they came forth, opening the door, and the elder of them, being now by the traitor’s death become lord, bade the people in, and made a great feast for them. But the head of Stefan none saw again, nor did any see his body; but body and head were gone whither none know, saving the noble blood of the Stefanopouloi; for utterly they disappeared, and the secret was securely kept.’
I read this passage aloud, translating as I went. At the end Denny drew a breath.
‘Well, if there aren’t ghosts in this house there ought to be,’ he remarked. ‘What the deuce did those rascals do with the old gentleman, Charley?’
‘It says they went beneath the earth.’
‘The cellar,’ suggested Hogvardt, who had a prosaic mind.
‘But they wouldn’t leave the body in the cellar,’ I objected; ‘and if, as this fellow says, they were only away a few minutes, they couldn’t have dug a grave for it. And then it says that they “there in the earth found the lord.”’
‘It would have been more interesting,’ said Denny, ‘if they’d told Alexander a bit more about it. However I suppose he consoles himself with his chant again?’
‘He does. It follows immediately on what I’ve read, and so the thing ends.’ And I sat looking at the little yellow volume. ‘Where did you find it, Denny?’ I asked.
‘Oh, on a shelf in the corner of the hall, between the Iliad and a Life of Byron. There’s precious little to read in this house.’
I got up and walked back to the hall. I looked round. Euphrosyne was not there. I inspected the hall door; it was still locked on the inside. I mounted the stairs and called at the door of her room; when no answer came, I pushed it open and took the liberty of glancing round; she was not there. I called again, for I thought she might have passed along the way over the hall and reached the roof, as she had before. This time I called loudly. Silence followed for a moment. Then came an answer, in a hurried, rather apologetic tone, ‘Here I am.’ But then – the answer came not from the direction that I had expected, but from the hall! And, looking over the balustrade, I saw Euphrosyne sitting in the armchair.
‘This,’ said I, going downstairs, ‘taken in conjunction with this’ – and I patted One-Eyed Alexander’s book, which I held in my hand – ‘is certainly curious and suggestive.’
‘Here I am,’ said Euphrosyne, with an air that added, ‘I’ve not moved. What are you shouting for?’
‘Yes, but you weren’t there a minute ago,’ I observed, reaching the hall and walking across to her.
She looked disturbed and embarrassed.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked.
‘Must I give an account of every movement?’ said she, trying to cover her confusion with a show of haughty offence.
The coincidence was really a remarkable one; it was as hard to account for Euphrosyne’s disappearance and reappearance as for the vanished head and body of old Stefan. I had a conviction, based on a sudden intuition, that one explanation must lie at the root of both these curious things, that the secret of which Alexander spoke was a secret still hidden – hidden from my eyes, but known to the girl before me, the daughter of the Stefanopouloi.
‘I won’t ask you where you’ve been, if you don’t wish to tell me,’ said I carelessly.
She bowed her head in recognition of my indulgence.
‘But there is one question I should like to ask you,’ I pursued, ‘if you’ll be so kind as to answer it.’
‘Well, what is it?’ She was still on the defensive.
‘Where was Stefan Stefanopoulos killed, and what became of his body?’
As I put the question I flung One-Eyed Alexander’s book open on the table beside her.
She started visibly, crying, ‘Where did you get that?’
I told her how Denny had found it, and I added:
‘Now, what does “beneath the earth” mean? You’re one of the house and you must know.’
‘Yes, I know, but I must not tell you. We are all bound by the most sacred oath to tell no one.’
‘Who told you?’
‘My uncle. The boys of our house are told when they are fifteen, the girls when they are sixteen. No one else knows.’
‘Why is that?’
She hesitated, fearing, perhaps, that her answer itself would tend to betray the secret.
‘I dare tell you nothing,’ she said. ‘The oath binds me; and it binds every one of my kindred to kill me if I break it.’
‘But you’ve no kindred left except Constantine,’ I objected.
‘He is enough. He would kill me.’
‘Sooner than marry you?’ I suggested rather maliciously.
‘Yes, if I broke the oath.’
‘Hang the oath!’ said I impatiently. ‘The thing might help us. Did they bury Stefan somewhere under the house?’
‘No, he was not buried,’ she answered.
‘Then they brought him up and got rid of his body when the islanders had gone?’
‘You must think what you will.’
‘I’ll find it out,’ said I. ‘If I pull the house down, I’ll find it. Is it a secret door or – ?
She had coloured at the question. I put the latter part in a low eager voice, for hope had come to me.
‘Is it a way out?’ I asked, leaning over to her.
She sat mute, but irresolute, embarrassed and fretful.
‘Heavens,’ I cried impatiently, ‘it may mean life or death to all of us, and you boggle over your oath!’
My rude impatience met with a rebuke that it perhaps deserved. With a glance of the utmost scorn, Euphrosyne asked coldly,
‘What are the lives of all of you to me?’
‘True, I forgot,’ said I, with a bitter politeness. ‘I beg your pardon. I did you all the service I could last night, and now – I and my friends may as well die as live! But, by God, I’ll pull this place to ruins, but I’ll find your secret.’
I was walking up and down now in a state of some excitement. My brain was fired with the thought of stealing a march on Constantine through the discovery of his own family secret.
Suddenly Euphrosyne gave a little soft clap with her hands. It was over in a minute, and she sat blushing, confused, trying to look as if she had not moved at all.
‘What did you do that for?’ I asked, stopping in front of her.
‘Nothing,’ said Euphrosyne.
‘Oh, I don’t believe that,’ said I.
She looked at me. ‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ she said. ‘But can’t you guess why?’
‘There’s too much guessing to be done here,’ said I impatiently; and I started walking again. But presently I heard a voice say softly, and in a tone that seemed to address nobody in particular – me least of all:
‘We Neopalians like a man who can be angry, and I began to think you never would.’
‘I am not the least angry,’ said I with great indignation. I hate being told that I am angry when I am merely showing firmness.
Now at this protest of mine Euphrosyne saw fit to laugh – the most hearty laugh she had given since I had known her. The mirthfulness of it undermined my wrath. I stood still opposite her, biting the end of my moustache.
‘You may laugh,’ said I, ‘but I’m not angry; and I shall pull this house down, or dig it up, in cold blood, in perfectly cold blood.’
‘You are angry,’ said Euphrosyne, ‘and you say you’re not. You are like my father. He would stamp his foot furiously like that, and say, “I am not angry, I am not angry, Phroso.”’
Phroso! I had forgotten that diminutive of my guest’s classical name. It rather pleased me, and I repeated gently after her, ‘Phroso, Phroso!’ and I’m afraid I eyed the little foot that had stamped so bravely.
‘He always called me Phroso. Oh, I wish he were alive! Then Constantine – ’
‘Since he isn’t,’ said I, sitting on the table by Phroso (I must write it, it’s a deal shorter), – by Phroso’s elbow – ‘since he isn’t, I’ll look after Constantine. It would be a pity to spoil the house, wouldn’t it?’
‘I’ve sworn,’ said Phroso.
‘Circumstances alter oaths,’ said I, bending till I was very near Phroso’s ear.
‘Ah,’ said Phroso reproachfully, ‘that’s what lovers say when they find another more beautiful than their old love.’
I shot away from Phroso’s ear with a sudden backward start. Her remark somehow came home to me with a very remarkable force. I got off the table, and stood opposite to her in an awkward and stiff attitude.
‘I am compelled to ask you, for the last time, if you will tell me the secret?’ said I, in the coldest of tones.
She looked up with surprise; my altered manner may well have amazed her. She did not know the reason of it.
‘You asked me kindly and – and pleasantly, and I would not. Now you ask me as if you threatened,’ she said. ‘Is it likely I should tell you now?’
Well, I was angry with myself and with her because she had made me angry with myself; and, the next minute, I became furiously angry with Denny, whom I found standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen with a smile of intense amusement on his face.
‘What are you grinning at?’ I demanded fiercely.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Denny, and his face strove to assume a prudent gravity.
‘Bring a pickaxe,’ said I.
Denny’s eyes wandered towards Phroso. ‘Is she as annoying as that?’ he seemed to ask. ‘A pickaxe?’ he repeated in surprised tones.
‘Yes, two pickaxes. I’m going to have this floor up, and see if I can find out the great Stefanopoulos secret.’ I spoke with an accent of intense scorn.
Again Phroso laughed; her hands beat very softly against one another. Heavens, what did she do that for, when Denny was there, watching everything with those shrewd eyes of his?
‘The pickaxes!’ I roared.
Denny turned and fled; a moment elapsed. I did not know what to do, how to look at Phroso, or how not to look at her. I took refuge in flight. I rushed into the kitchen, on pretence of aiding or hastening Denny’s search. I found him taking up an old pick that stood near the door leading to the compound. I seized it from his hand.
‘Confound you!’ I cried, for Denny laughed openly at me; and I rushed back to the hall. But on the threshold I paused, and said what I will not write.
For, though there came from somewhere the ripple of a mirthful laugh, the hall was empty! Phroso was gone! I flung the pickaxe down with a clatter on the boards, and exclaimed in my haste:
‘I wish to heaven I’d never bought the island!’
But I did not really mean that.
