CHAPTER XVIII.
EXPELLED FROM PARADISE.
THERE was a moment’s astonished silence as the listeners gazed at the two handsome faces confronting one another, so much alike in their rage. Then Prince Romanos sprang at his sister like a tiger.
“You killed her? You and my father killed my wife?”
Wylie stepped between them just in time. “In Europe we do not strike women, Prince,” he said.
Held back by the strong hand, Prince Romanos stood panting, his hands twitching and his face working convulsively. With an effort, he regained the mask of civilisation, which had fallen from him for a moment and revealed the fierce islander under the cosmopolitan exterior. With a gesture of the deepest contrition he turned to his father-in-law.
“Cavaliere, I can say no more. Do what you will; say what you will. Denounce me throughout Europe as the murderer of the woman I would have given my life to save. I will offer no defence; none is possible. I am her murderer—by the hands of my merciless father and of this fury who calls herself my sister.”
“But is she your sister really?” gasped Zoe.
“I suppose so,” he replied indifferently. “I know nothing of my father’s present family, except that he has two daughters. Second marriages are held in low esteem among us, as you know. But from what I know of my father I imagine the story must be true.”
Professor Panagiotis, unmoved by the storm raging around him, had been making notes on his papers. Now he looked up and spoke calmly.
“Your Highnesses, it seems to me that this revelation has come at a most opportune moment. I can hardly believe that either the Cavaliere Pazzi or Prince Theophanis will wish to take advantage of this surrender on the part of my master. His natural horror on finding himself betrayed by his nearest relations has made him forgetful of the interests alike of his son and of Emathia. Monsieur,” he turned to the Cavaliere, “I imagine you are now convinced of the Prince’s innocence?”
“I see a possibility of it,” was the reluctant reply, “but his defence is very nearly incredible.”
“Not if you were better acquainted with our people, monsieur. If the Lady Danaë will be so good as to tell us her story in detail, I think you will be forced to believe it.”
He turned deferentially to Danaë, who looked at Zoe.
“My lady, shall I speak?” she asked.
“Certainly. The best thing you can possibly do now is to tell the whole truth,” said Zoe bitterly. The girl ignored the bitterness, and addressed herself exclusively to her.
“Lady mine, I have deceived you in calling myself Kalliopé, as I deceived the Lady in calling myself Eurynomé. That I deceived you, I am sorry, but as for deceiving her, it was a good deed, and I do not regret it. I am the elder daughter of my father, who is called the Despot of Strio, and I dwelt there in his house until the early part of this year. Then there came to the island the man Petros, who had been summoned by my father on account of certain things he had heard, on which he desired Petros to assure him. But Petros could only confirm to him the truth of the rumours that had reached him concerning my brother, namely, that he was held in the toils of an evil woman, a schismatic by race, who had bewitched him so deeply that he scorned the daughters of all the kings of Europe for her sake. In the old days, my father would have commanded his son to repair to Strio, and would have taken from him this woman who called herself his wife, and put her to death before his eyes, after forcing her to release him from her spells, not permitting him to depart until an Orthodox marriage had been made for him—but those days are no longer with us. So my father gave Petros orders to bring the woman to Strio, where she should be safely kept, and made to set my brother free. Once she herself had released him, there would be no more danger. But it was necessary, since my brother guarded her so carefully, for one to be inside her house who should help Petros to enter, and I offered to be that one. Lady, why do you look at me as though I had done ill? I sought only to deliver my brother from the toils of a witch.”
“How can I help it?” cried Zoe. “That you—you, who have been with us all these months, who seemed really fond of the children, should have helped to commit a cold-blooded murder, to kill your own sister-in-law—oh, it is too horrible!”
“She was not my sister-in-law, lady,” with extreme horror. “She was a witch—even, perhaps,” Danaë dropped her voice, “a vampire.”
“She was the best and loveliest of women!” cried Prince Romanos; “and you, with your vile superstitions, are not fit to carry her shoes!”
“I thought she was a vampire!” said Danaë, with a certain gloomy satisfaction. “It is not enough to kill them; they retain their power when they seem to be dead, as you would know well, lord, if her spell was not over you.”
“Kalliopé, be quiet; you make my heart sick,” cried Zoe. “Don’t—don’t say you helped to do this awful thing!”
“You will not understand, my lady,” said Danaë patiently; “I did not want her killed, for then the effect of her spells would remain, as it does now. She must be made to remove them of her own free will. You are too kind, lady. If you lived among us, you would know that it is wrong and foolish to be gentle with witches and vampires. You must make your heart hard, thinking of the victims who have to be delivered from them. That is what my father would have done, but his plans went wrong through the men whom Petros engaged to help him carry off the Lady.”
“We shall get no sense out of this girl,” said the Cavaliere gloomily. “Can’t she speak the plain truth?”
“Look here, Kalliopé,” said Maurice abruptly. “Were these men, whom Petros got to help him, intended to be members of the Prince’s guard, or not?”
Danaë reflected a little. “Nothing was said about it, lord,” she replied; “and I think Petros would have feared to broach the matter to them. He is servant first of the Despot, and then of my brother, but they are servants altogether to the Lord Romanos, and might have betrayed the plan to him. Surely they were dressed like the guard that they might be admitted to the villa without the sentry’s suspecting anything?”
“That is possible. And you admitted them?”
“I put a little piece of iron, which Petros gave me, into the lock, lord, so that the key would not quite turn.”
“And why did you hide yourself and the child, if you were sure no harm would be done to him?”
“The Lady bade me hide, lord, and I was frightened—old Mariora cried out. There was a panic upon me.”
“Oh, Kalliopé, were you not sorry—not the least sorry—when you saw what you had done?” cried Zoe.
“I was a little sorry for Janni’s mother, my lady—but not for the woman who had bewitched my brother.”
Prince Romanos rose decisively from his chair. “Cavaliere, if you are not convinced, I am. Henceforth I live for vengeance. As for this wretched girl, I suppose she must enjoy the consideration she has denied to others. After all, perhaps her fittest punishment will be to send her back to Strio. I left it so young that I did not fully realise what an undesirable place it was to live in. I think—” he spoke in Greek, with intense meaning—“that we will send you back to Strio as a suspected witch, girl.”
Danaë turned so deadly white that Zoe stepped forward to catch her. “Why—why should you say that, lord?” she murmured.
“You made your way into two households—mine first and then the Lady Zoe’s—with false tales. Why should we have believed them if you had not cast a spell upon us? Through you my two servants lost their lives, I my wife, and Janni his mother. What harm you have wrought here I have not heard yet—but no doubt you have begun your evil work. You are discovered now, Lady Danaë, and you shall carry your fame home with you.”
“Oh, lady, lady mine! You won’t let them—” the words came brokenly as Danaë swayed and caught at Zoe. “You don’t believe—— Am I really a witch?”
“Prince, how can you?” began Zoe, but Armitage took the shaking form from her arms, and turned upon Prince Romanos with honest indignation.
“You miserable hound! let the unfortunate girl alone.”
“What! she has bewitched you too?” asked Prince Romanos, and with a shriek which rang in the ears of those present, Danaë swooned away.
“Oh, go out, go out and leave her with us!” cried Zoe distractedly to the men. “It has been too much—all this long strain—and this last thing, she thinks we believe it. Poor girl! she had no idea what she was doing.”
“If I may trespass on your kindness to shelter her for one night more, Princess?” said Prince Romanos smoothly, as he went out. “To-morrow I will relieve you of such an unpleasant charge.”
“Go, go!” said Zoe impatiently. Eirene had laid aside her recovered girdle for a moment, but there was a far-away look in her eyes as she brought water and restoratives and helped Zoe to lay Danaë on the floor. The moment the girl opened her eyes she left her and took up the girdle again, as though she feared being deprived of it.
“Better, Kalliopé?” asked Zoe kindly.
“Oh, lady, lady!” Danaë hid her face upon her mistress’s breast, and clung to her trembling and shivering. “Is it true? Am I a witch?”
“No, nonsense! There are no such things. Lie down, or you will faint again.” To Zoe’s intense astonishment, the girl had pushed her away, and was trying to raise herself by a chair.
“Lady, it is true. I have bewitched you, and you don’t know it. Let me go away, before I do you more harm. If I give myself freely to death, that will remove the spell.”
“Lie still, and don’t be silly. There are no witches now.”
“There was one in Strio, lady—a girl only as old as I am—I knew her. She had no wish to do harm, but evil befell all those on whom she looked, and her lover fell ill and wasted away. Even the priest could do nothing, and when they took her to the festival of a very holy relic in another island, the roof of the church fell in, and killed several people. The day after she came back to Strio she was found dead at the foot of the cliff, and all said that she had thrown herself over so as to break the effect of her spells. And it was through me that the Lord Harold was lost.”
“It was through you he was recovered. Now, Kalliopé, let us go back quietly, and you shall lie down in my room. I am not excusing you at all. You have done very wrong—worse than I could ever have believed—but instead of being sorry for that, you accuse yourself of being a witch, which is absurd.”
“But you can be a witch without knowing it, my lady,” the girl objected feebly, as they passed along the verandah. Zoe shrugged her shoulders deliberately, and made no answer until she had her patient established on the sofa.
“Now I am going to talk to you, Kalliopé—I can’t call you Danaë yet. Why do you say your sister-in-law was a witch?”
“The schismatic woman? Because she was a witch, lady.”
“I never saw anything like your obstinacy, Kalliopé. She was your sister-in-law, and she was not a witch.”
“But, lady mine, she bewitched my brother!”
“There was no witchcraft about it. I knew her well. She was very beautiful and very loving, and I should have been surprised if your brother, being what he is, had not fallen in love with her.”
“But to marry her, lady—forgetting all he owed to his house and to his faith!”
“That also was inevitable, unless he had deliberately cut himself off from her at once. But I should say rather that it was he who bewitched her to her undoing. It was madness in her to consent to a secret marriage, and so I told her.”
Danaë’s eyes were still obstinate, and Zoe spoke impressively.
“Well, I can’t hope to convince you against your will. But your brother has far more reason to believe you a witch, and a malevolent one, than you had to think his wife one.”
Again the trembling came upon the girl. “Oh, lady, why?”
“Because his wife brought him nothing but good—except what was due to his own concealment of the marriage—and you have done him the most dreadful harm.”
Zoe turned away, and taking up a book, pretended to read, leaving Danaë to sob and shiver among the cushions. At last an inarticulate murmur called her back, and the girl seized her hand convulsively. “Lady mine, I am sorry; I wish I had not done it. But she was a schismatic, and they said she was a witch, and I believed it.”
“Then don’t believe anything so silly in future.”
“But my brother, lady. He believes that I——”
“No, he doesn’t. He only said it to frighten you.”
“Oh, lady, then he will not send me back to Strio with that terrible message? You will make him have pity on me, so that I can stay here with you?”
“I should not let him send that message, certainly, but I am afraid he won’t leave you here, Kalliopé. He means to take you away with him to-morrow.”
“To be Janni’s nurse at Therma?” hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t do. I am sure he means to send you home. But you love your island; you will be glad to get back.”
For answer, Danaë flung herself off the sofa, and clasped her mistress’s knees tightly. “Oh, lady mine, let me stay here! If you will not have me in the nursery, let me go to the kitchen again. Anything rather than go back to Strio!”
“But, Kalliopé, you must see that your brother could not leave you here as a servant. I should be very glad if he would let you stay, but you will be wanted at home. You are a great lady there.”
“Oh, lady, if you knew what it was like! But you can’t dream of it. Why, if you had been my father’s wife when the Lord Harold was lost, do you think he would have taken you by the hand and spoken compassionately to you, as the Lord Glafko did? No, he would have beaten you till the blood came, for your carelessness in allowing the child to be lost.”
Zoe sat aghast. “Well, it would certainly have been a warning against carelessness in future,” she said, trying to laugh.
“There, my lady! you see what it is like. And I have seen now what it is like in Europe, where ‘men do not strike women,’ as the Lord Glafko said. How can I go back to it? Before I left Strio I knew of nothing better, but now that I have seen the Prince, and the Lord Glafko, and—and Milordo, and know how they treat women——”
“My poor girl, I see how hard it is for you, and I will do what I can. But I am afraid your brother is determined. Now go, and—and Linton had better help you to pack, in case——”
Zoe felt herself perfectly inhuman as Danaë turned great eyes of reproach upon her, but she durst make no promises. When her husband came in, she turned to him eagerly.
“Graham, you won’t mind if I try to persuade Prince Romanos to leave that poor girl with us? It is a miserable prospect for her to be sent back to Strio.”
“I shan’t object, but I doubt if you’ll get him to do it. And what have you in view for her exactly? Armitage doesn’t seem to come up to the scratch.”
“No, how could he? It must be a dreadful shock to find that a girl you have admired so much is practically a murderess. But I wish he would! It would be all right then. He could go away for a year’s cruise, and I would take her thoroughly in hand. He wouldn’t know her when he came back, and it would be so splendid introducing them!”
“But you don’t think he might prefer to do the training and watch the transformation for himself?”
“Of course he might, but it’s the dramatic effect I am thinking of. But I am afraid he has received too great a shock to want to have anything to do with her. And the Christodoridi are not a family that one would exactly choose to be connected with.”
“That depends on your moral character. If you prefer a family that’s bound to come up on top every time, you couldn’t do better. Witness Romanos retiring triumphant from here with his attendant Professor!”
“Oh, you went on with your business, then. What has he got?”
“Freedom from pressure for the moment, and the prospect of establishing his dynasty permanently, which is what he cares about. His railway muddle he conveniently shoves off on our shoulders. Maurice consents to finance the proposed line between here and Therma, as the only way of keeping the port free, and retains the right of constructing a future extension from here through Illyria to the Adriatic, which may become very important. But Pannonia must be given the chance of continuing her line through the Debatable Land as far as this place, and we must square Scythia by letting her build one from Przlepka to Karajevo in Thracia.”
Zoe was silent a moment, making mental maps of the proposed changes. “Perhaps they’ll refuse,” she said.
“I only wish they might, but they are too keen. They’ll both trust to getting control of our part of the line in time. And it will be one unceasing fight on our part to keep them out. Romanos doesn’t care, having secured his heir and avoided a European scandal, and found a way of slipping out of the partial promises he made to both Scythia and Pannonia.”
“And he does nothing in return?”
“Oh yes; he makes us guardians to little Janni.”
“I should have thought that was only another obligation. Do you mean regents in case anything happens to him?”
“No, he has sense enough to perceive that the child would never be accepted as High Commissioner either by the Powers or the people. It would be a case of Maurice or a return into the Young Roumi fold. But it is a handsome acknowledgment beforehand that if he comes to a violent end he believes we had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, if that’s all, I think he ought to be in a superlatively good temper this evening. I begin to have hopes.”
But when Zoe seized an opportunity after dinner of pressing her wishes upon Prince Romanos, she was disappointed. He was firm in his resolution to send his sister back to Strio.
“But not with that accusation hanging over her?” said Zoe. “If it was so, I should refuse to let her go.”
“No,” he said reluctantly; “she well deserves it, but the result would probably be to disgrace the family still further. The best thing for her will be to retire into her original obscurity, and be forgotten here.”
“But if you would only let me have her to train! She has such fine qualities, and she is so beautiful——”
“She is a beautiful savage, Princess, like all our women in Strio. They are no more fitted for freedom than an Arabian or Persian woman suddenly taken from the harem. Am I to let loose on Europe a being with the morals of the Dark Ages and the face and form of a goddess? Who could cope with her? In Strio we know what to do.”
“She dreads it so much,” urged Zoe; but as his face showed pleasure rather than sympathy, she tried another argument, which it ashamed her to have to use. “I really think she would be sure to marry well if she stayed here. Lord Armitage was very much struck——”
“I have too much kindness for my old comrade Lord Armitage, or any other civilised man, to inflict her upon him,” he said, after a pause of consideration. “One of her own people, with old-fashioned views and a heavy hand, is the appropriate husband for her, and I shall make it my business to see that she is married quickly.”
“It sounded to me as though he would have liked Lord Armitage, with his money and his beautiful new yacht, very much as a brother-in-law,” said Zoe, when she was reporting her failure to her husband afterwards, “but he liked revenge better. I couldn’t help wondering whether part of his anger came from the way she gave him away about the Girdle of Isidora.”
“Princess Eirene is certainly not going the way to help him to forget his loss. Was it really necessary to wear it so conspicuously the very first night?”
“I believe she can’t bear to lay it down. And didn’t she look happy—quite young and blooming? I saw poor Maurice stealing puzzled glances at her every now and then. You know, she really thinks to-day is going to be the turning-point, that Prince Romanos will decrease and we shall increase. She is almost as superstitious in her way as Kalliopé in hers.”
“Ah, that unfortunate girl! So Armitage didn’t rise to the occasion?”
“No,” very dolefully. “Oh, I quite see how much wiser and more prudent he is to remain silent, what a mistake it would be for him to fetter himself with a totally unsuitable wife, but I wish—oh, I wish that he had come forward! It would have been so chivalrous.”
“So utterly foolish. Well, we can hardly——”
“No, he has sighed as a lover—perhaps not even that—sighed as an admirer and submitted as a peer of the realm,” said Zoe flippantly. “I am just going to peep at the babies before I go to bed.”
In the nursery Linton, with spectacles on nose, was busily engaged upon a cloth gown of Zoe’s, which she had evidently been renovating and altering.
“I couldn’t bear to let that poor girl go without some little thing to show there was no ill-feeling, ma’am,” she whispered hoarsely. “She has been crying in bed fit to break your heart, and I thought it might comfort her a bit if we let her go off in European clothes. There’s this dress of yours that the Master can’t bear the colour of, as good as new, and she’ll look a real lady in it, now that I’ve altered it to fit her.”
“Thank you, Linton; it’s very good of you to think of it,” said Zoe, in a depressed voice. “How we shall miss her and Janni, shan’t we? Poor things! how I wish the Prince would leave them with us.”
“I’m sure I never thought to be sorry when they went—” Linton took off her spectacles and wiped them resentfully—“but there! you never know, as they say.”
Zoe looked in at the two children in their cribs, bade Linton good-night, and went out. At the door a white figure with long black hair was waiting for her.
“Lady—oh, lady mine, will he let me stay?”
“I am so sorry, Kalliopé. I tried all I could, but he would not listen.”
The girl wrung her hands wildly. “And last night—only last night, lady—I was so happy!”