CHAPTER VIII.
ROOTED IN DISHONOUR.
YES, Petros knew where she and Janni were, and the recollection caused grievous anxiety to Danaë. She could not believe that he would sit down meekly under the defeat she had inflicted on him, and his continued silence, as time went on, became ominous. How he could have accounted to Prince Romanos for the complete disappearance of his son and the nurse-girl was a mystery, and so was the Prince’s acquiescence in it. Even if Janni was not to be acknowledged as heir, his father would surely wish to have him brought up under his own eye, and in this case Petros would presumably be sent to fetch him away without unnecessary publicity.
“Lady”—desperation drove Danaë at last to appeal to her mistress—“if the thrice accursed Petros came hither and demanded my little lord and me, would you give us up to him?”
Zoe looked at her searchingly. “Why should he, Kalliopé? What right has he over you?”
“None, my lady; none whatever. His fathers were the dirt beneath the feet of ours.”
Zoe frowned, but the fear of embarking the girl upon a fresh venture of falsehood kept her from asking further questions. “If he has no authority over you, Kalliopé, and is not sent by anyone who has, the Prince would certainly not give you up to him.”
For the present Danaë’s anxiety was relieved. Her brother’s interest in Janni could not be admitted unless he had decided to acknowledge him publicly, and her own father was the only other person whose authority she owned. But Prince Christodoridi was not in the least likely to leave his island fastnesses for the sake of anything so unimportant as a daughter, and if Petros should have the hardihood to produce a letter from him—well, Danaë would deny its authenticity and everything he alleged, let him assert it as much as he liked. From which it is evident that her views of truth had not yet reached a very high standard.
Confiding in the moral support of her hosts, and in the material protection of the guards who, under Wylie’s orders, patrolled the approaches to the Konak night and day, Danaë permitted herself to regard her position as practically a permanency, and to plan how she might best take advantage of it. She looked back with something like contempt on the little savage who had left Strio on a barbaric mission of vengeance, and was inclined to plume herself on having deliberately made use of her father’s plottings to overthrow his own schemes with regard to her. How keen had been her insight into human nature when she sought help from Prince Theophanis and Glafko, how shrewd her cunning in hiding her identity and taking a humble place on the outskirts of their circle! For already she was in a fair way to realise the ambitions which her father had crushed down with such a heavy hand, and Strio had no place—or at best a very minor one, in her dreams for the future. She was almost inclined to regret the promise, in strict accordance with local etiquette, which she had obtained from Prince Christodoridi, that in no case should Angeliké be married before her. The regret was not due to any pity for poor Angeliké, who had none of the consolations of change of scene she herself was enjoying, but to the conviction that if Angeliké was permanently sundered, not only from Narkissos Smaragdopoulos but from all possible suitors, she would make things so unpleasant at home that her father would be driven in self-defence to recall his elder daughter and provide both with husbands forthwith. But there would be considerable difficulty in the way of his finding her, and in the meantime things might happen that would prevent her returning to Strio at all—save as a “European” lady with no intention of remaining there.
In Danaë’s own opinion, she was now well on the way to becoming “European.” Was she not learning to read, and making valiant efforts at reproducing deltas and epsilons whenever she could find a blank wall and a piece of blackened stick? Then in manners she was conscientiously modelling herself upon Zoe, much assisted by Linton, who had formed the habit, after hearing of her connection with the islands, of alluding to her as a “fisher-girl,” and excusing her lapses from strict propriety for that reason. In Danaë’s former world, great ladies as well as fisher-girls had stormed when they were angry, over-eaten themselves on feast-days, and spent long hours of leisure in gossiping and eating sweets, but things were different here. Some effort towards self-restraint began to show itself, and was warmly encouraged by Zoe, without any idea of the motives which were actuating the girl, and with a disconcerting blindness towards her “European” aspirations. When Danaë received her first month’s wages, and her mistress suggested that a little attention to her wardrobe was advisable, two whole days of sulks followed the prompt thwarting of her desire to buy European clothes. Zoe’s horror at the suggestion she could not understand, not realising in the least what a picture she made in her Greek dress, with her splendid hair hanging down almost to her knees in the two thick plaits which now replaced the multitude of tiny braids which had taken hours to do. But Linton, who was a Philistine of the Philistines, and disapproved of national costumes as theatrical, used to allow her to put on one of her gowns when her mistress was out, and Danaë would sweep about in it, admiring the trailing folds over her shoulder, and bitterly resentful of her own short skirts. Otherwise she was submissive enough, embroidering herself an apron in the characteristic Strio pattern, and adding what coins remained over to the store that decorated her cap.
It was not often that the girl’s self-complacency over the improvement in herself was disturbed, but however resolutely she might put it behind her, it was not possible entirely to forget the tragedy in which she had borne a part. Assure herself as she might that Janni was perfectly happy, and far healthier than he had been at Therma, she could not escape occasional rude reminders that his present position of dependence on his father’s enemies was due to her. On Sunday afternoons it was Zoe’s habit to come into the nursery and read aloud to Linton, whose eyes were not as good as they had been, but who did not like to be reminded of the fact. True to her desire for Danaë’s moral advancement, the good woman herself suggested that the reading should be in Greek, and Danaë listened with more or less edification. One day, however, she rose suddenly from fanning the children as they slept on the divan, and knelt down beside Zoe.
“Lady, is it true what that book says—that what is done can never be undone?”
“A thing done can never be as though it had not been, Kalliopé. But what sort of thing——?”
“But not if one goes on pilgrimage, my lady—to Jerusalem, even? to bathe in the Jordan? If one gives crowns and jewels to the icons——?”
“Nothing can undo a wrong once committed, Kalliopé. We may repent of it, and it may be forgiven, but not even God Himself can take away the consequences.”
“But if it was atoned for, lady mine, and—and forgotten? Can one never say, ‘That is done with’? May it rise up at any time to torment one?”
“That is our punishment. But, Kalliopé—” Zoe looked into the girl’s face and took the hands which were clasping her knees—“you can have no such terrible thing in your life, my dear child. But if you are planning anything of the kind, then stop. It is as you say, one can never get away from it.”
“It is so; it is so.” Danaë rose and wrung her hands. “It returns, and one cannot escape it. The Furies pursue even those who had least——” She checked herself hastily, but the tears rolled down her face as she went slowly out of the room. Before her eyes, as vividly as though it lay before her feet, she saw the rigid form of Janni’s mother prone upon the grass in her red gown, with the deeper red spreading beneath her.
But when Zoe and Linton saw her again, the fit of remorse had gone by. She was as unconcerned and impenetrable as if she had not a care in the world—as different as possible from the girl whose mental agony had impressed them both with the misgiving that there might after all be a dark shadow in her past. They watched her with lynx-eyes for a time, jealous lest the faintest contamination should approach Harold, and the next time Zoe found that Danaë had told her an untruth—now a less frequent occurrence than at first—she spoke sharply and without reflection.
“Take care, Kalliopé. I cannot keep you in the nursery unless you tell the truth.”
“Why, my lady? What will you do with me?” asked Danaë, with much interest.
“Send you to help in the kitchen, I suppose,” said Zoe reluctantly, thinking how unsuitable such a fate would be for the brilliant creature before her. The girl’s face darkened with passion.
“You would send my little lord to the kitchen?” she cried.
“Of course not. He stays here.”
“He stays nowhere without me, my lady. If you try to separate us, I shall take him in my arms and run away again as I did before. I will never give him up.”
“This is absurd, Kalliopé. He is no relation of yours, as you have often told me, and you have no rights over him. Until his own parents claim him, we are his guardians, and must do our best for him.”
Danaë was trembling with anger. “He is mine,” she controlled her lips sufficiently to say. “I saved him when his mother was killed——”
“His mother? Oh, Kalliopé, you said she was abroad!”
“I am mad! I know not what I say!” cried Danaë furiously. “If you take away my little lord, you take away my heart, my soul. But he shall not be taken away!”
“I don’t want to take him away. I should be miserable if I had to separate you. But if it was necessary for his good and Harold’s? How could I leave them in charge of a person who didn’t tell the truth?”
“But I always tell the truth unless I can’t help it.” In her anxiety Danaë condescended to excuse herself.
“Which means unless it is inconvenient, or dangerous, or humiliating. But that’s just it, Kalliopé. You must learn to tell the truth without fear of consequences. You would like to see Janni grow up brave and truthful, like an English boy—like what I hope Harold will be?”
“I should not like to see him grow up a fool,” said Danaë smartly. Then she was frightened by what she had said. “O, my lady, you are right, and I am very ungrateful. Make my little lord what you please; it can only be good. And I will try to mould myself as you wish, but do not talk of separating me from him, for he is my very life.”
The instinctive suppleness of the Greek nature revolted Zoe, but she said no more, hoping that the girl felt more than she would allow. As a matter of fact, Danaë was consoling herself with the reflection that once Janni had received a general education suitable to his birth—such as he would gain in Harold’s company—it would be quite easy to add any little extra polish in which he might be deficient. Nothing could be farther from her wishes than that he should grow up with the conscientious scruples which beset these extraordinary English. She felt herself wasted as a spy upon them, and nothing but the conviction that they could not possibly be so open and sincere as they seemed kept her from boredom. Sooner or later she would discover that the Princess Eirene, at any rate, was engaged in some intrigue against Prince Romanos, involving her husband and his family, and this would justify her watch. Then would come that magnificent moment, the goal of her aspirations, when, in gorgeous European clothes provided by her own exertions, Danaë would appear at her brother’s palace, leading Janni, a noble stripling, by the hand, and it would burst upon the astonished Prince Romanos that he possessed not only a promising heir, but also a sister eminently qualified to preside over his court. Few people would have considered that very second-rate and rather Bohemian assemblage as an abode to be desired, but to Danaë the dream of leading it, intriguing in it, and initiating Janni into its devious ways, was perfect bliss. As for the English, it might be convenient to have them for enemies, and she did not object to them as private friends, but as allies they were emphatically not to be desired.
About this time her acquaintance with the despised race was extended by the arrival of a visitor at the Konak. As she was helping Linton to prepare the guest-rooms in the old part of the building on the ground-floor, she gleaned some interesting information about him beforehand. He was Lord Armitage, little Harold’s godfather, and—so she learned with extreme interest—a former suitor of the Lady Zoe’s.
“But why did she not marry him?” she demanded. “You say he was a Milordo, and rich, with a whole ship of his own, and the Lord Glafko is poor.”
“Because he wasn’t the man for her,” returned Linton sharply. “She could turn him round her little finger.”
“Then he has not cruel eyes, that seem to pierce you through, and a mouth that shuts like a trap?” inquired Danaë curiously.
“That he hasn’t. But”—as Linton realised suddenly what the question implied—“if you mean that the Colonel has, it strikes me you are forgetting your place, my girl. The Colonel is a real gentleman, and it’s not for you to pass remarks on him. Lord Armitage is pleasant and well-spoken, with a kind word for everybody, but a sort of boy that will never grow up.”
“Oh, holy Antony!” groaned Danaë despairingly, “these English! They are all children—all that I have seen. And now here is one coming whom the English themselves call a child! Does he bring a nurse with him, to put on his pinafores and feed him as you do the Lord Harold?”
“I suppose you think that’s funny?” demanded the irate Linton. “You take my advice, Kalliopé, and curb that tongue of yours, or it will get you into trouble, and serve you right too. His lordship brings his secretary and his body-servant, as any nobleman would, and very likely some armed guards, as he comes by land. Though what he wants a secretary for is beyond me, for I should say he doesn’t write many more letters in the year than I do.”
“Perhaps he is like me, and can’t write on paper, but only on walls or the ground,” suggested Danaë, and was much pleased when Linton merely muttered angrily and would not deign a reply.
Two days later she was playing on the verandah with the children, when a young man came up the steps with a light springy step. Seeing her, he took off his hat hastily, and she saw to her surprise that he was not as young as she had thought. There was even gray in his hair. She rose politely and faced him.
“Good-day, lady,” he stammered, and Danaë was wickedly delighted to detect that he blushed.
“Good-day, lord,” she responded, hoping fervently that Linton was not within earshot, to come forward and point out that she had no right to be called ‘lady.’
“Colonel Wylie—the Lord Glafko—told me to come up here—that I should find Princess Zoe——” he said confusedly.
“The Lady Zoe was here just now, but she has been called away,” said Danaë, with great composure. “I think you will find her downstairs, lord.”
“Perhaps she will come back,” he said—evidently gaining courage, she thought. “I must speak to the little chap now I am here. I say, I didn’t know there were two! How awfully queer not to have let me know!”
“The little lord here is ward to the Lord Glafko,” explained Danaë. “This is the Lord Harold.”
The newcomer took Harold into his arms in a dazed kind of way, said he supposed he had grown, and really his eyes were exactly like Wylie’s. Then, apparently growing desperate under Danaë’s solemn gaze, he murmured something about some sweets which were in his luggage, and went down the steps again.
“Who is the island-princess you have got up there?” he demanded eagerly when he met Zoe downstairs.
“The nurse-girl, I suppose you mean—Kalliopé?”
“A nurse-girl? Nonsense! But all the islanders are kings and queens, of course.”
“What makes you say she is an islander? Has she told you anything?”
“Not about herself. Is she given to lavishing confidences on strangers? She hardly said a word to me.”
“She is particularly gifted in the matter of supplying information,” said Wylie, who had joined his wife. “Unfortunately it varies with time and circumstances.”
“No, no; we must not prejudice him against her,” said Zoe. “But do tell me why you decided that she must come from the islands?” she asked eagerly of Armitage.
“Her face! What more could one want? That blue-black hair and marble complexion, and the peculiarly pure profile—it is the very finest island-type. You get it nowhere else, and it degenerates horribly easily, even in individuals, under the influence of city life. Think of our friend Romanos. As a youth he must have been a perfect example of the type. Now he might stand for a rather battered Athenian of the rackety sort.”
“Prince Romanos! Why, that is the person Kalliopé is like, and little Janni too—I see it now!” cried Zoe.
“That is the type, of course. They may even come from the same island. I noticed a suggestion of dialect in her speech which I have caught much more faintly in his.”
“You have made good use of your opportunity for studying her, old man,” said Wylie jokingly.
“Who could help it? Considered purely as a picture, she is the most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life.”
“Now why do you say ‘purely as a picture’?” asked Zoe quickly.
Armitage rather looked embarrassed. “The soul is not there yet, you know. But when it comes it must be a beautiful one, to look out through those glorious eyes.”
“That’s just what I feel about her,” said Zoe—“that she has no soul, I mean. But she is such a fine creature, I long to see the soul appear. Perhaps she is really a sea-nymph, not a girl at all.”
“But the nymphs could gain souls,” said Armitage.
“By taking them from other people?” said Wylie meaningly. “Don’t build up too much of a romance about the girl, old man, for whatever may be the truth about her soul, it’s absolutely certain that she has no conscience. We’ll tell you all about her—‘ways that are dark and tricks that are vain’—after dinner, and how she foisted herself and the child upon us.”
“I have an old man of the sea too,” said Armitage, “and much less attractive to look at than yours. It is old Lacroix, as he chooses to call himself, my secretary. Poor old chap, he has a sad story—at least, I can’t help fearing it will turn out to be sad—but he shall tell it to you himself. He wants your advice, and I shall be glad to know what you think. I’ve taken an awful fancy to the old fellow, and it really is rough on him——”
* * * * * * * *
“As much of a boy as ever!” said Zoe to her husband when they were alone together.
“Every bit as much. I suppose you are prepared for his falling in love with Kalliopé, Zoe?”
“Do you think it’s very complimentary to me to suggest that he will fall in love with a nurse-maid—with my nurse-maid?”
“Nonsense! here he is with an empty place in his heart, and you throw him into the society of ‘the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.’ Ah, the thought has occurred to you, I see! What do you propose to do—get rid of the girl?”
“How can we cast her adrift? No, what I should like to do, if he really cared for her, would be to educate her—train her for him.”
“My dear Zoe, isn’t that idea just a little high-flown? Do you recollect that Armitage is a peer of the realm, with a certain amount of position to keep up—even in these degenerate days—when you calmly propose to promote his marriage with a young lady of unknown parentage and confused views of right and wrong? Do you even think it would be fair to him?”
“Most unfair, unless he could awaken the soul in her. If he could——”
“If he could, then all the worldly objections might go hang? Well, I am not the person to object, since Princess Zoe stooped to marry me.”
Zoe put her hand over his mouth. “You were never to say that!” she cried.
“But it is a fact. Well, then, we are to further this preposterous affair, are we? I suppose we shall know if Armitage is really smitten, because he will want to paint her portrait.”