Phroso: A Romance

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘He told me what she said.’

‘That I told him he was his uncle’s murderer?’

‘Did you tell her to say that?’ she asked, with a sudden inclination of her body towards me.

‘I did. Did he give you the message?’

She made no answer. I pressed my advantage.

‘On my honour, I saw what I have told you at the cottage,’ I said. ‘I know what it means no more than you do. But before I came here I saw Constantine in London. And there I heard a lady say she would come with him. Did any lady come with him?’

‘Are you mad?’ she asked; but I could hear her breathing quickly, and I knew that her scorn was assumed. I drew suddenly away from her, and put my hands behind my back.

‘Go to the cottage if you like,’ said I. ‘But I won’t answer for what you’ll find there.’

‘You set me free?’ she cried with eagerness.

‘Free to go to the cottage; you must promise to come back. Or I’ll go to the cottage, if you’ll promise to go back to your room and wait till I return.’

She hesitated, looking towards where the cottage was; but I had stirred suspicion and disquietude in her. She dared not face what she might find in the cottage.

‘I’ll go back and wait for you,’ she said. ‘If I went to the cottage and – and all was well, I’m afraid I shouldn’t come back.’

The tone sounded softer. I would have sworn that a smile or a half-smile accompanied the words, but it was too dark to be sure, and when I leant forward to look, Euphrosyne drew back.

‘Then you mustn’t go,’ said I decisively; ‘I can’t afford to lose you.’

‘But if you let me go I could let you go,’ she cried.

‘Could you? Without asking Constantine? Besides, it’s my island you see.’

‘It’s not,’ she cried, with a stamp of her foot. And without more she walked straight by me and disappeared over the ledge of rock. Two minutes later I saw her figure defined against the sky, a black shadow on a deep grey ground; then she disappeared. I set my face straight for the cottage under the summit of the hill. I knew that I had only to go straight and I must come to the little plateau scooped out of the hillside, on which the cottage stood. I found, not a path, but a sort of rough track that led in the desired direction, and along this I made my way very cautiously. At one point it was joined at right angles by another track, from the side of the hill where the main road across the island lay. This, of course, afforded an approach to the cottage without passing by my house. In twenty minutes the cottage loomed, a blurred mass, before me. I fell on my knees and peered at it.

There was a light in one of the windows. I crawled nearer. Now I was on the plateau, a moment later I was under the wooden verandah and beneath the window where the light glowed. My hand was on my revolver; if Constantine or Vlacho caught me here, neither side would be able to stand on trifles; even my desire for legality would fail under the strain. But for the minute everything was quiet, and I began to fear that I should have to return empty-handed; for it would be growing light in another hour or so, and I must be gone before the day began to appear. Ah, there was a sound, a sound that appealed to me after my climb, the sound of wine poured into a glass; then came a voice I knew.

‘Probably they have caught her,’ said Vlacho the innkeeper. ‘What of that? They will not hurt her, and she’ll be kept safe.’

‘You mean she can’t come spying about here?’

‘Exactly. And that, my lord, is an advantage. If she came here – ’

‘Oh, the deuce!’ laughed Constantine. ‘But won’t the men want me to free her by letting that infernal crew go?’

‘Not if they think Wheatley will go to Rhodes and get soldiers and return. They love the island more than her. It will all go well, my lord. And this other here?’

I strained my ears to listen. No answer came, yet Vlacho went on as though he had received an answer.

‘These cursed fellows make that difficult too,’ he said. ‘It would be an epidemic.’ He laughed, seeming to see wit in his own remark.

‘Curse them, yes. We must move cautiously,’ said Constantine. ‘What a nuisance women are, Vlacho.’

‘Ay, too many of them,’ laughed Vlacho.

‘I had to swear my life out that no one was here, and then, “If no one’s there, why mayn’t I come?” You know the sort of thing.’

‘Indeed, no, my lord. You wrong me,’ protested Vlacho humorously, and Constantine joined in his laugh.

‘You’ve made up your mind which, I gather?’ asked Vlacho.

‘Oh, this one, beyond doubt,’ answered his master.

Now I thought that I understood most of this conversation, and I was very sorry that Euphrosyne was not by my side to listen to it. But I had heard about enough for my purposes, and I had turned to crawl away stealthily – it is not well to try fortune too far – when I heard the sound of a door opening in the house. Constantine’s voice followed directly on the sound.

‘Ah, my darling, my sweet wife,’ he cried, ‘not sleeping yet? Where will your beauty be? Vlacho and I must work and plan for your sake, but you need not spoil your eyes with sleeplessness.’

Constantine did it uncommonly well. His manner was a pattern for husbands. I was guilty of a quiet laugh all to myself in the verandah.

‘For me? You’re sure it’s for me?’ came in that Greek with a strange accent, which had first fallen on my ears in the Optimum Restaurant.

‘She’s jealous, she’s most charmingly jealous!’ cried Constantine in playful rapture. ‘Does your wife pay you such compliments, Vlacho?’

‘She has no cause, my lord. But my lady Francesca thinks she has cause to be jealous of the Lady Euphrosyne.’

Constantine laughed scornfully at the suggestion.

‘Where is she now?’ came swift and sharp from the woman. ‘Where is Euphrosyne?’

‘Why, she’s a prisoner to that Englishman,’ answered Constantine.

I suppose explanations passed at this point, for the voices fell to a lower level, as is apt to happen in the telling of a long story, and I could not catch what was said till Constantine’s tones rose again as he remarked:

‘Oh, yes; we must have a try at getting her out, just to satisfy the people. For me, she might stay there as long as she likes, for I care for her just as little as, between ourselves, I believe she cares for me.’

Really this fellow was a very tidy villain; as a pair, Vlacho and he would be hard to beat – in England, at all events. About Neopalia I had learned to reserve my opinion. Such were my reflections as I turned to resume my interrupted crawl to safety. But in an instant I was still again – still, and crouching close under the wall, motionless as an insect that feigns death, holding my breath, my hand on the trigger. For the door of the cottage was flung open, and Constantine and Vlacho appeared on the threshold.

‘Ah,’ said Vlacho, ‘dawn is near. See, it grows lighter on the horizon.’

A more serious matter was that, owing to the open door and the lamp inside, it had grown lighter on the verandah, so light that I saw the three figures – for the woman had come also – in the doorway, so light that my huddled shape would be seen if any of the three turned an eye towards it. I could have picked off both men before they could move; but a civilised education has drawbacks; it makes a man scrupulous; I did not fire. I lay still, hoping that I should not be noticed. And I should not have been noticed but for one thing. Acting up to his part in the ghastly farce which these two ruffians were playing with the wife of one of them, Constantine turned to bestow kisses on the woman before he parted from her. Vlacho, in a mockery that was horrible to me who knew his heart, must needs be facetious. With a laugh he drew back; he drew back farther still; he was but a couple of feet from the wall of the house; and that couple of feet I filled. In a moment, with one step backwards, he would be upon me. Perhaps he would not have made that step; perhaps I should have gone, by grace of that narrow interval, undetected. But the temptation was too strong for me. The thought of the thing threatened to make me laugh. I had a pen-knife in my pocket. I opened it, and dug it hard into that portion of Vlacho’s frame which came most conveniently and prominently to my hand. Then, leaving the pen-knife where it was, I leapt up, gave the howling ruffian a mighty shove, and with a loud laugh of triumph bolted for my life down the hill. But when I had gone twenty yards I dropped on my knees, for bullet after bullet whistled over my head. Constantine, the outraged Vlacho too, perhaps, carried a revolver! Their barrels were being emptied after me. I rose and turned one hasty glance behind me. Yes, I saw their dim shapes like moving trees. I fired once, twice, thrice, in my turn, and then went crashing and rushing down the path that I had ascended so cautiously. I cannoned against the tree trunks; I tripped over trailing branches; I stumbled over stones. Once I paused and fired the rest of my barrels. A yell told me I had hit – but Vlacho, alas, not Constantine; I knew the voice. At the same instant my fire was returned, and a bullet went through my hat. I was defenceless now, save for my heels, and to them I took again with all speed. But as I crashed along, one at least of them came crashing after me. Yes, it was only one! I had checked Vlacho’s career. It was Constantine alone. I suppose one of your heroes of romance would have stopped and faced him, for with them it is not etiquette to run away from one man. Ah, well, I ran away. For all I knew, Constantine might still have a shot in the locker; I had none. And if Constantine killed me, he would kill the only man who knew all his secrets. So I ran. And just as I got within ten yards of the drop into my own territory, I heard a wild cry, ‘Charley! Charley! Where the devil are you, Charley?’

‘Why, here, of course,’ said I, coming to the top of the bank and dropping over.

I have no doubt that it was the cry uttered by Denny which gave pause to Constantine’s pursuit. He would not desire to face all four of us. At any rate the sound of his pursuing feet died away and ceased. I suppose he went back to look after Vlacho, and show himself safe and sound to that most unhappy woman, his wife. As for me, when I found myself safe and sound in the compound, I said, ‘Thank God!’ And I meant it too. Then I looked round. Certainly the sight that met my eyes had a touch of comedy in it.

Denny, Hogvardt and Watkins stood in the compound. Their backs were towards me, and they were all staring up at the roof of the kitchen, with expressions which the cold light of morning revealed in all their puzzled foolishness. And on the top of the roof, unassailable and out of reach – for no ladder ran from roof to ground now – stood Euphrosyne, in her usual attitude of easy grace. Euphrosyne was not taking the smallest notice of the helpless three below, but stood quite still with unmoved face, gazing up towards the cottage. The whole thing reminded me of nothing so much as of a pretty composed cat in a tree, with three infuriated helpless terriers barking round the trunk. I began to laugh.

‘What’s all the shindy?’ called out Denny. ‘Who’s doing revolver-practice in the wood? And how the dickens did she get there, Charley?’

But when the still figure on the roof saw me, the impassivity of it vanished. Euphrosyne leant forward, clasping her hands, and said to me:

‘Have you killed him?’

The question vexed me. It would have been civil to accompany it, at all events, with an inquiry as to my own health.

‘Killed him?’ I answered gruffly. ‘No, he’s sound enough.’

‘And – ’ she began; but now she glanced, seemingly for the first time, at my friends below. ‘You must come and tell me,’ she said, and with that she turned and disappeared from our gaze behind the battlements. I listened intently. No sound came from the wood that rose grey in the new light behind us.

‘What have you been doing?’ demanded Denny surlily; he had not enjoyed Euphrosyne’s scornful attitude.

‘I have been running for my life,’ said I, ‘from the biggest scoundrels unhanged. Denny, make a guess who lives in that cottage.’

‘Constantine?’

‘I don’t mean him.’

‘Not Vlacho – he’s at the inn.’

‘No, I don’t mean Vlacho.’

‘Who then, man?’

‘Someone you’ve seen.’

‘Oh, I give it up. It’s not the time of day for riddles.’

‘The lady who dined at the next table to ours at the Optimum,’ said I.

Denny jumped back in amazement, with a long low whistle.

‘What, the one who was with Constantine?’ he cried.

‘Yes,’ said I, ‘the one who was with Constantine.’

They were all three round me now; and thinking that it would be better that they should know what I knew, and four lives instead of one stand between a ruffian and the impunity he hoped for, I raised my voice and went on in an emphatic tone,

‘Yes. She’s there, and she’s his wife.’

A moment’s astonished silence greeted my announcement. It was broken by none of our party. But there came from the battlemented roof above us a low, long, mournful moan that made its way straight to the heart, armed with its dart of outraged pride and trust betrayed. It was not thus, boldly and abruptly, that I should have told my news. But I did not know that Euphrosyne was still above us, hidden by the battlements. We all looked up. The moan was not repeated. Presently we heard slow steps retreating, with a faltering tread, across the roof; and we also went into the house in silence and sorrow. For a thing like that gets hold of a man; and when he has heard it, it is hard for him to sit down and be merry, until the fellow that caused it has paid his reckoning. I swore then and there that Constantine Stefanopoulos should pay his.

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.