CHAPTER XI.
THE RETURN OF PETROS.
WHATEVER course Armitage might take with regard to his picture, Danaë was conscious that her outbreak of passion had set a barrier between her and the rest of the household. Even the children shrank from her in her black moods, and now Linton gathered them ostentatiously under her wing, requesting Danaë not to come near them until there was no danger of her doing them a mischief. This was the nearest approach to scolding that she received, for Zoe, without even alluding to the cause of the disfigurement, helped her to rearrange her hair in two smaller plaits so that it was as far as possible disguised. Armitage’s bandaged wrist was a perpetual reproach to her, but she met with no reproof in words, though when she plucked up courage to apply to Wylie, who had found and confiscated her dagger, for its restoration, he refused without vouchsafing a reason. But though no word was said, and no punishment inflicted, she was surprised, and even irritated, to find that she felt her guilt much more keenly than on a memorable occasion when she had pushed Angeliké, then a child of four, off the fortress wall. Angeliké happily fell into a rubbish heap, and beyond being half-choked with dust, suffered no harm; but the incident roused Princess Christodoridi from her usual placidity, and she insisted that her husband should inflict a suitable punishment on his elder daughter, towards whom she suspected him of undue partiality. Struggling and screaming, Danaë was held fast by the women-servants while her hair was cut off by her father’s dagger, and thereafter, a miserable little shorn object, she had been held up to every visitor as a model of juvenile depravity until her mother grew tired of the subject—the injured Angeliké meanwhile basking on the softest cushions, and enjoying the first taste of every dainty dish. The girl could recall even now the fierce thrill of resentment of the injustice that seized her when, just as her hair had almost grown again, her mother had rehearsed the whole story to a stray cousin from another island, though perhaps it was her father’s injudicious sympathy that brought her at last to feel as if she was the injured party and Angeliké the aggressor. But now, assure herself as she would that Zoe and Armitage had mocked her cruelly and intentionally humiliated her, she could not bring herself to believe it, and the unaccustomed sense of guilt made her increasingly miserable. To use Linton’s phrase, she “moped,” and the household seemed to have lost sensibly in light and colour while she hung about in secluded corners. It was a relief when, after three days of morose inactivity, she asked sullenly for stuff and needles and thread, though she still sat solitary, making herself a new apron in place of the one she had torn up.
The end of the verandah, whither she betook herself, was quite remote from the usual living rooms, and she worked as if for a wager, undisturbed by either Zoe or Linton, who thought that a period of reflection would do her no harm. Hearing steps in the court below her, she set them down to one of the servants passing on an errand, until a low hiss and the word “Kalliopé!” reached her ears. Looking over the railing, she saw the guard Logofet, who had never forgiven her for the reprimand he had received on the occasion of their first meeting, standing below.
“Your uncle’s here, Kalliopé,” he said with a grin.
“I have no uncle,” she cried angrily.
“Oh, that’s all very fine. He told me to tell you that your uncle Petros was here, waiting to speak to you, and that it would be the worse for you if you didn’t go.”
“It’s a lie. I have nothing to do with him.”
“Oh, come now!” Logofet assumed an air of virtuous reproof. “Didn’t I hear him myself ask the Prince to find you a place, and the Prince wouldn’t have you without his leave? You take my advice, and don’t tell any more lies, which no one believes, but just go and speak to him, for he won’t go away without seeing you.”
“But how can I speak to him? They won’t let me pass through the gate at this hour.”
Logofet winked. Danaë had already suspected the source of his excessive geniality, and now she was certain of it. “They may not, my dear, but I will,” he said, “and I go on guard at the small door in a few minutes. Just cough three times when you come round the corner, and I’ll turn my back. If the Lord Glafko expects me to see in the dusk like a cat, why, he’ll be disappointed! So be a sensible girl, and do as you’re told.”
He stalked away with exaggerated steadiness, and Danaë wondered for a moment whether she durst claim the protection her employers had promised her against Petros. But after what had happened, her pride rebelled. And after all, he might only have come to assure himself that she and Janni were in safe keeping, and not to take them away. When the dusk had quite fallen, therefore, she slipped down the nearest staircase, which led into a smaller courtyard at the back of the main block, and seeing Logofet’s figure dimly as he stood on guard, gave the signal coughs. The bulky form at the gate became intensely interested in a gleam of light from an upper window, and she turned the well-oiled key and slipped out. Under the wall was waiting a man wrapped in a thick dark overcoat or kapota, and as Danaë approached him he struck a match, revealing the face which had been the terror of her dreams for months. When he saw her, he chuckled irrepressibly.
“So it’s true that you cut off half your hair!” he said. “I wondered whether I should find you tamed, my lady, with the Lady Zoe making such a pet of you, and the English lord putting you into a picture, but I see you’re the Despot’s true daughter still.”
“I suppose you have been drinking with your friend Logofet,” said Danaë icily. “Say what you have to say, and go.”
“That’s easily done, my lady. I want the little lord.”
“What do you mean to do with him?”
“To restore him to his anxious father, of course,” with a chuckle.
“I don’t believe it. You want to kill him, as you did his mother. I won’t give him up.”
“Oh yes, you will, my lady, and without making any fuss about it, because if you don’t, I shall simply go to Prince Theophanis and tell him the truth about both of you. Then the Lord Janni will go back to his father, and you to yours. Of course, if you are longing to get back to Strio, I have no objection, but it’s for you to say.”
Danaë shivered. Strio was bad enough to look forward to, but what she shrank from more was the prospect of her story becoming known. That the nature of all the lies and evasions and subterfuges she had employed should be publicly exposed, that she should stand forth as an impostor, the accomplice in a murder, the deceiver of her own brother and her kindest friends! She pressed her hands together in agony, and Petros spoke again, insinuatingly this time.
“It’s not my business, lady, I know, and the Despot would kill me if he guessed what I am saying, but there’s no need to go back to Strio if you don’t wish it. The Lady Zoe will surely find you a husband if she has taken such a fancy to you, and you won’t catch me letting out anything. I’m only asking you to do what will benefit us all. The Lord Romanos is mad to get his son back, I see my way to something handsome for myself if I take him back, and you will be able to stay on here. Isn’t that fair?”
“My brother wants Janni back?” Danaë spoke in a dazed tone. “But then how is it you have not come for him before?”
Petros laughed with some little confusion. “Must I keep you here in the cold while I explain everything, my lady? Isn’t it enough for you to know that the little lord is badly wanted, and to hand him over?”
“I will do nothing unless I know why you want him, and why you have waited so long.”
“Holy Nicholas, lady! you are your father over again. Well, then, the first thing the Lord Romanos thought of on the Lady’s death was to keep everything quite secret. If he had lost his love, he need not lose his people’s good opinion as well; you see?”
“You are insolent!” flashed out Danaë. “The Lord Romanos acts as a wise man acts.”
“Then surely, my lady, there can be no harm in his servant following in his footsteps? At any rate, that is what he has tried to do. For when the Lord Romanos remembered the little lord, and found that he had disappeared, he was torn between his paternal affection and his fear of discovery. He longed to trace his son, but he durst not bring the police into the matter, lest they should find out too much, and therefore he entrusted the matter to me. Now, lady, knowing that you and the little lord were safe where I could put my finger upon you at any moment, could I really be expected to bring the search to an end before it had begun? That is not a wise man’s way.”
“You allowed the Lord Romanos to believe that his son was dead?”
“Lady, although I am not a father, I can enter into a father’s feelings. I watched my lord carefully, and brought him the news of a wretched woman—a Roumi whose husband had taken another wife—who had drowned herself and her child in the harbour. If the Lord Romanos had accepted the tale as a convenient ending to the matter, it should have ended there, but he displayed so much grief in thus losing the child as well as the mother that I gave him a little hope. The bodies had not been found, and there was no proof that they were yours and the little lord’s. And that hope, my lady, I have cherished cunningly ever since, bringing my lord news of clue after clue, and investigating them at his command until they have turned out false. I must have sampled the mastika of every wineshop in Therma since I saw you—‘gathering information,’ the police call it.”
“And I suppose my brother is tired of false clues, or you would have visited the wineshops all over again?”
“You don’t think so poorly of me, lady, as to imagine I would let his Highness learn that he had been deceived? No, I could have gone on as long again, as you say. I had even satisfied my lord your father by sending him word that after everything had fallen out exactly according to his wishes, it had been necessary for you to take a situation in the country, to avert suspicion, and I had several new and very fine clues ready to go on with. But we were interrupted. The Lady’s father came to Therma.”
“What! had he heard what had happened?” cried Danaë.
“I know not, my lady, but I think he had made up his mind that the Lord Romanos had had her removed because her presence was become dangerous. I know only that my lord called me, and said, ‘Friend Petraki, I am ruined for ever unless we can find the little lord at once. If I have been a good master to you all these years, stand by me now.’ Could I think any longer of my own advantage then, lady? No, I did not hesitate to renounce my pleasant task of investigation, and naming only the reward I desired, I set forth to follow up the clue that led hither.”
“And what was the reward?” asked Danaë, unmoved by the devotion so pathetically displayed. Again Petros appeared a little confused.
“Why, lady, you must see that I have felt myself in considerable danger these last few months. A man can never be quite certain that he has covered all his tracks. At any moment my lord might discover that I had some connection with the Lady’s removal, and I know him well enough to be sure that, without any chance of telling tales, I should pay the forfeit, though I followed him when he left Strio twenty years ago. My price is a full pardon, therefore, and so I told my lord, confessing that I had killed an old woman in a quarrel. He swore by the All-Holy Mother that if I brought him back his son I might kill every old woman in Therma—provided I did it in decent seclusion—and I started at once.”
Danaë laughed in the darkness. “Every old woman in Therma, do you say, friend Petraki? There is pardon for that, but not for killing one Kyria Olimpia.”
“Lady, it is you who mistake.” Petros spoke slowly and meaningly. “In that deed I had no part, and can invoke without fear the most awful of all curses upon the villains who took part in it. You yourself heard the orders the Despot gave me, that the Lady who was leading his son astray was to be brought alive to Strio, there to be imprisoned where she could do no more harm. Those orders I did my best to fulfil, and I laid no hand on her. It was those with me—strangers whom I hired to help me carry out the Despot’s behest, and who I now think must have been also in the pay of some one whose interest it was to get rid of the Lady—who slew her. That I struck down old Mariora I have confessed—she had often given me the rough side of her tongue, and she was going to raise the alarm, and I was afraid she would call me by name.”
“I see,” said Danaë. “Far be it from me to destroy your confidence in the Lord Romanos.”
“Lady, I am not one to tempt my lord to break his promise. When I quit this place with the little lord, you will not find me going straight to Therma. I shall leave the Lord Janni in a safe place, while I go forward and acquaint my lord of his recovery. I know a wise man—a lawyer whose father was a priest—and he has drawn me up a paper for the Lord Romanos to sign, calling down upon himself if he breaks his promise such curses as no man living would dare to face.”
Danaë’s attention had wandered. “Friend Petros” she said quickly, “how can the little lord save his father from ruin?”
“I cannot tell, my lady. It seemed to me that perhaps the old man, the Lady’s father, desired to have the child and bring him up. Then he would promise to leave my lord undisturbed, and keep the story secret, taking the Lord Janni away with him, so that it might never be known whose son he was.”
“If that is it——” she paused a moment. “You must have him, Petros, if it is to save his father, but I shall come too.”
The reply was not flattering. “Holy George! you will ruin everything, my lady. Why should you come?”
“Because I cannot stay here without him. The grandfather will only know that I am his nurse, and I shall beg him on my knees to take me with him. Then I can bring up the little lord in the right ways, as befits the son of John Theophanis. If he will not take me, perhaps I can manage to follow them somehow, and if not, I can but go back to Strio. That would be better than staying here and telling fresh lies——”
“It is for you to command, my lady, but I knew not you loved the island-life so much.”
“It is not for you to judge my doings. See, friend Petros,” desperation made her conciliatory, “you will be glad to have me to take care of the little lord on the journey and when you leave him. And I can support you, as you said, if it is necessary to swear that you had no part in the Lady’s death.”
“That’s true,” said Petros doubtfully; “but I meant to take the child under my arm and ride the first stage to-night. Now I shall have to see about another pony or a mule, and it’s too late to do anything. I shall have to waste another bottle of good raki on that beauty Logofet, too, to get him to let you pass to-morrow evening. But it’s quite likely I shall bring in the Lord Janni in better condition with you than without you, so I’ll make the arrangements, and send you word by Logofet where to meet me. But mind, my lady, no playing me false, or you will be sorry you tried it.”
“I wish you had said that in Strio!” burst from Danaë. “The Despot would have sent you to feed the fishes.”
Petros caught her wrist. “You may be as high and mighty as you please, my lady, but I warn you once more not to trifle with me. I have too much at stake, and I swear by the All-Holy Mother and all the saints——”
She tore her hand away. “You forget yourself, dog! If I choose to make use of your escort on my journey, it should not lead you to presume. I shall be ready when you send me word.”
She coughed three times outside the door, and it opened with a suddenness which suggested that Logofet must have been straining his ear at the keyhole. He tried to kiss her as she slipped in, and only his unsteady condition enabled her to escape. She hurried up the staircase quivering with rage and shame—not even able to account for the feeling which bade her choose an ignominious return to Strio rather than a fresh campaign of falsehood to enable her to remain at Klaustra. Everything was gone now, the new friends whom she had liked in her own curious way, the European culture she had been acquiring at such pains, the hope of a wider and freer life than Strio and a future Striote husband could offer, the half-acknowledged pleasure she had begun to take in Armitage’s gentle manner and frank boyish face. With a return of her old vehemence, she ran frantically along the verandah and burst into the nursery, where Linton was much embarrassed by the difficulty of giving both the children their supper at once. The spoon which was approaching Harold’s open mouth landed a dose of bread and milk on his pinafore instead, as Danaë rushed in and threw herself on the floor, burying her face in the folds of Linton’s gown.
“Oh, Sofia, I am the most wicked and miserable girl that ever lived. I am worse than a beast!”
“There, there!” said Linton with creditable sympathy, “don’t take it to heart so much as all that, Kalliopé. It’s well that you should see it for yourself, but there’s no use making a fuss about it. Show your repentance by doing, not by talking, is my motto. And you may as well help me with these precious lambs, for I can’t so much as hear myself speak with Master Johnny screeching fit to take your head off.”
Janni was loudly demanding food of Nono, and Harold was dissolved in tears over the untoward fate of Nin-nin’s last spoonful, so that the needs of the moment were pressing, and when the meal was over Danaë helped to put the children to bed as usual. She seemed to have slipped back into her ordinary place after her three days’ exile, and Linton was too much relieved by her docility to do more than lecture her in general terms as she put on her spectacles to hem the sides of the new apron. Zoe glanced at them with delight as she stole in for a look at the babies after dinner, and laid a kind hand on Danaë’s shoulder in token of renewed confidence. To her surprise, there were depths of tragedy in the eyes the girl lifted to her face. Danaë saw, not the cheerful nursery, with its red curtains and its brazier and lamp, but the chill autumn evening and rough roads for which Janni and she must to-morrow exchange all this comfort and safety. But as no words followed, Zoe interpreted the glance as one of penitence, and felt nothing but pleasure in recalling it.
The next day everything seemed to conspire to make it easy for Danaë to fulfil her compact with Petros. Linton trusted her with the children as though she had never expressed a doubt as to her treatment of them, and Harold and Janni found their dear Nono at their service for uproarious games all day long. The games kept Danaë from thinking, and they made the children tired, so that Linton swept them off to bed half an hour before the usual time. They both went to sleep “like angels,” as she observed, and then, leaving Danaë to watch over them, she hurried off to help Zoe in dressing for dinner. She never forgot that her real and original status in the household was that of ladies’-maid, but it was not often that her nursery labours allowed her to return to its duties. As soon as her mistress’s door had closed behind Linton, Danaë knew that the moment was come. She took Janni out of bed, and dressed him without his even waking, then put on her own outdoor coat, twisted a shawl round her head, and went out on the verandah. The tipsy voice of Logofet greeted her immediately.
“Kalliopé, pretty little Kalliopé, I thought you were never coming. Your dear uncle is waiting for you and your brat round the third turning on the left—no, the right—no, it was the left, I’m sure of it—opposite the small door. You won’t find me there, because I’m just going to sit down quietly and rest a bit, but you can let yourself out and in—no, you won’t want to get in again this time, ha, ha! Take care not to run across the Princess. She hasn’t come in from the hospital yet.”
Hugging affectionately a large bottle, Logofet lurched away, and Danaë, with a sick feeling at her heart, went back into the room and fetched Janni and the bundle of clothes she had put ready. She felt as if she did not care whom she met, but she instinctively shrank into the corner of the staircase as the back-door opened and Princess Theophanis came in, attended by a servant with a lantern. Danaë could not tell whether she had been seen or not. It seemed to her for a moment that she caught the glance of cold dislike with which Princess Eirene always regarded her, but there were other things to think of.
“Where is the sentry?” asked the Princess sharply. “He must have left his post. Light me to the door, and then go and report his absence to the Lord Glafko.”
She passed in at the house-door, and Danaë seized the opportunity to slip out. Once outside, she hurried in the direction of the third turning on the left, expecting to find Petros there, fuming and swearing. But he was not there, and though she waited some time, in deadly terror of passers-by, he did not come. Then there occurred to her, with a fearful shock, Logofet’s maudlin uncertainty as to the turning, and she ran back into the main street, panting over the cruel cobbles until she had passed the Konak and reached the third turning on the right. There was no one there either. For a moment she waited, hardly able to believe in her good fortune. Petros had repented, or changed his mind, and was not waiting for her at all. Then with swift reaction came the thought that the summons might be a trick of Logofet’s to get her shut out, and she ran back to the door in fresh terror. But the handle turned easily, and she burst in, to the intense astonishment of the man now on guard, who seemed disposed to detain her for explanations. But she was the Lady Zoe’s favourite, and therefore not to be roughly handled, and muttering something about an errand, she brushed hastily past him while he was locking the door. She was almost at the end of her strength, but she staggered up the stairs with Janni and the bundle, along the verandah, and into the nursery. Could it be possible she had been gone so short a time that Linton had not yet returned from her chat with her mistress? Quickly, in the dim light of the shaded lamp, she took off Janni’s wraps and laid him in his cot, careful not to wake Harold, sleeping close by. Something strange about his crib attracted her attention as she turned from tucking Janni up, and she lifted the clothes. The bed was empty. Harold was not there.