DANAË was not to be allowed any mitigation of her hard fate; even the alleviations devised for her by her friends were forbidden. When her brother saw her in the European dress, he sent her promptly back to change it, and she travelled in his train not as his sister, but as Janni’s nurse. For her own purposes she had chosen to leave Strio as a nurse-girl, and as a nurse-girl she should return thither. Her brother refused to own her. Petros, who was discovered at Therma, hanging about the Palace in a state of considerable embarrassment not unmixed with apprehension, since he did not know what his master had heard or what he would do, found himself treated as the person responsible for her misdoings. The very morning after her arrival, as soon as a respectable elderly woman had been installed to look after Janni, Danaë was summoned to the Prince’s private room, and confronted with her alleged uncle, who was evidently extremely uncomfortable, and rather inclined to bluster. Some coins lay on the table.
“I won’t take them!” Petros was asseverating. “You will accuse me of stealing next. I know you, my Prince.”
“Take your wages, girl,” said Prince Romanos coldly to his sister. “You will be expected to bring back something to add to your proïka [dowry] when you return from your situation. You had better take your niece back to Strio at once,” he added to Petros. “Your passages are taken, and her luggage will be sent on board.”
“But am I to go at once, lord?” Danaë ventured to ask.
“You will go straight from this room to the quay. And tell the girl’s father from me,” again he addressed Petros, “that he will do well to find her a husband at once, before she brings further disgrace on his house. And you may warn the husband to look well after her.”
Flame flashed from Danaë’s eyes at the words and the obvious glee with which Petros received them—for was not his master ranging him with himself against the Despot and the Lady Danaë?—but it was quenched by a sudden rush of tears. “O my Prince, you will let me bid farewell to the little lord?” she faltered.
“No,” said Prince Romanos curtly. “I wish you had never come near him. I wish I had never set eyes on you!” he cried passionately. “I wish Strio and all upon it had been sunk in the depths of the sea a year ago, before you were inspired by the devil—” Danaë shivered at this plain speaking instead of the usual periphrasis—“to come and turn my life into a wilderness! To see you touch the child whose mother you murdered is an abomination; I will not hear of it. Go back to your accursed island, and may the fates repay to you and your accomplices the measure you meted out to the innocent! As for you, dog—” he turned suddenly on Petros, whose discomfiture on finding himself the object of his master’s attention was very marked—“you cozened me out of a pardon, I believe?”
“I had your promise, my Prince,” responded the delinquent, with an involuntary grin, partly due to nervousness.
“And you tried to place me under an obligation to you by stealing the Lord Glafko’s son?”
“Why, lord, you were always lamenting that you had no way of bending the Lord Theophanis to your will, and when the chance offered I thought I would give you one.”
“Unless your Pannonian friends held out the hope of better terms, I suppose. Well, you are returning to Strio, and my advice to you is—stay there. Many years to you!”
“My Prince would soon want me back again. I make my bow to you, lord,” said Petros smilingly, but when he found himself outside the room with Danaë, his assurance wavered. “I have the promise, but I wonder whether the Lord Romanos is to be trusted to keep it? What do you think, lady?”
“You are pardoned for killing Despina, not the Lady,” said Danaë impatiently. “If I were you I would take the advice given me. If you return to Therma, the Lord Romanos may hold himself quit of his promise.”
“Why, then, it will be a case of who strikes first,” said Petros, his swagger returning. “On the whole, I think I have got off pretty lightly, considering you were foolish enough to let everything out, Eurynomé my girl. I don’t quite know what I thought would be the end of it all, but I certainly never expected to be taking you back to Strio in this way, like damaged goods. And the message to the Despot! Well, you will bear me out that I was charged to deliver it.”
Danaë made no answer as she followed him gloomily through the Palace gate. It seemed as though all the odium due to the other conspirators, who were so placed that they could not be touched, had heaped itself on her. In the softened state of mind which had been the result of her last conversation with Zoe, she had hoped her brother would allow her to attend, as a sort of expiation, the imposing religious ceremony of the translation of Donna Olimpia’s remains from their temporary resting-place to the principal church in Therma. But no, whatever favour might perforce be shown to Petros, she was to receive none. Nothing proved this more clearly than the prohibition to say good-bye to Janni, who would now be wailing his little heart out for his Nono. And the cruel message to her father! What could be the outcome but such a marriage as would justify ten times the dread with which she had looked forward to her return home?
The sea was no kinder to Danaë than the land, and the unpleasant experiences of her voyage to Therma were even intensified on her return—the sole comfort being the greater deference which infused itself gradually into the manner of Petros. From Tortolana onwards he took his proper place as the confidential servant who had been entrusted with the duty of bringing his young mistress home from school, and Danaë’s European luggage aroused much interest, though she disappointed all observers by not wearing Frank clothes. Reluctantly she set foot on the soil of Strio, and climbed the steep street between the white houses. To the islanders she seemed a stranger, and they seemed strangers to her. It was less than a year since she had left home, and yet most of the pretty girls who had roamed over the roofs with her seemed to be already transformed into blowzy matrons. The people looked after her curiously as she passed, noting the atmosphere of detachment which appeared to surround her, and wondering how the Despot would like the result of his experiment. It was the same when she reached the fortress, to find her mother, hastily awakened, regarding her with apprehensive, faintly hostile eyes, and Angeliké frankly of opinion that if she must come back at all, she need not have timed her arrival precisely at this juncture.
For the desire of Angeliké’s heart was in sight, and her betrothal to Narkissos Smaragdopoulos, the son of the chief man of Tortolana, within measurable distance. The old woman who was the recognised intermediary in such affairs among the aristocratic families of the group had voyaged from Strio to Tortolana, and informed Kyrios Smaragdopoulos that Prince Christodoridi might be brought to look favourably upon his son as his daughter’s bridegroom. The prudent father, after polite disparagement of the honour done him, made the regulation inquiry as to the amount of the bride’s dowry, and since then old Aristomaché had travelled backwards and forwards, on haggling intent. Over the last thousand drachmæ in dispute the projected match nearly came to shipwreck, but the contending parties had consented to split the difference, and the stalwart Narkissos was now a recognised suitor. Under his father’s wing, he had paid two or three state calls on Prince Christodoridi, in which the subject of the marriage was never mentioned, and Angeliké, demurely handing round the coffee, never addressed, but it was understood that everything was going on most propitiously.
“It really is very unfortunate that you should have come back just now,” lamented Angeliké as she and her sister knelt at their window that evening, with their arms upon the broad stone sill.
“I shouldn’t have come if I could have helped it,” snapped Danaë.
“Well, I wish you had managed better. I have had such trouble with our father about settling the betrothal, and all because of you. First he said that he would be disgraced if his younger daughter was married first, and then when I said that our brother was sure to find a husband for you, or if he didn’t, at any rate we could say he had, he said he had promised you not to let me be married before you. Of course I pointed out to him that we might be betrothed for ages before being married, and I do wish you could have kept away until the rings had been blessed. When we had exchanged them, I should have felt safe.”
“I believe,” said Danaë slowly, “that you are afraid of my stealing your dear Narkissos. You needn’t be.”
“I’m not,” said Angeliké sharply. “I know what he thinks of you. Oh, not that time long ago, when you spilt the coffee over him. He saw you in Tortolana yesterday, and he thinks you look quite old.”
“How do you know what he thinks? Does he write to you?”
“Do you imagine I’m going to tell you? Of course he doesn’t write. What good would a letter be to me? But we have ways of knowing about each other, and a good thing too. So don’t flatter yourself——”
“I tell you I don’t want him. I wouldn’t marry him if he would take me without a drachma. I don’t want to marry anybody. I should like to die.”
“That’s because you have nobody to marry you,” said Angeliké smartly. “I have felt like that myself towards the end of the Great Fast. But not now—any more than at Easter. Danaë, what did you do?”
“Do—at Easter?” Danaë was puzzled.
“No, at Therma. Petros told our father that there was an English lord who would have married you, but when he heard all about you he drew back.”
“It is not true! There was never anything of the sort!” cried Danaë hotly. “How did you hear?”
“Oh, I listened,” said Angeliké, as calmly as Danaë herself would have made the same confession a year ago. “You were to have a husband found for you soon, lest you should disgrace the family.”
“It is the family that disgraces me!” cried Danaë furiously. “Since Milordo heard that I was of the Christodoridi, he has spoken no word to me.”
“Then there was something in it?” asked Angeliké greedily. “Tell me about Milordo, and I will tell you what Petros said about him.” For Petros had learnt from the comrade who had attended Prince Romanos to Klaustra some things that had happened, and a good many that had not, and had superimposed his own interpretation upon both. But Danaë knew the worth of Angeliké’s sympathy of old, and was not to be drawn.
“Milordo is rich and great, and will marry some beautiful European lady of wealth and high birth,” she said drearily. “He made a picture of me, that was all.”
“In European dress?” asked Angeliké eagerly.
“No, just these old things. He did not know who I was.”
Angeliké was puzzled. Danaë did not seem even to care to know how Petros had calumniated her to her father—a recital from which she had promised herself a pleasant excitement. Already her shrewd mind had discovered various discrepancies in the published accounts of her sister’s sojourn on the mainland. Contrary to his declared intention, Prince Christodoridi had sent his elder daughter to school, but coaxing and questioning alike had failed to draw from him the name of the school or its teacher. She had continued to wear her native costume, when everyone knew that all schools that were worth anything insisted upon European dress, and she had in some way come into contact with the English impostors who called themselves Theophanis. Moreover, she had incurred the wrath of Prince Romanos, and had been sent home by him with a message that was positively insulting to his father, and she was spiritless and miserable, and seemed to shrink from all her old associations. Angeliké felt herself challenged to discover the truth, the means of learning which, so she decided, must be contained in the large trunk Danaë had brought back with her. She did not offer to unpack it, never went to it when anyone else was by, never left it unlocked, and produced nothing from it but such clothes as she had worn before she went away. For days Angeliké watched and pried, until she discovered that the key was concealed in her sister’s hair, a tress of which secured the handle. That night the tress was dexterously snipped off, and the key removed.
When Danaë woke in the morning, and discovered her loss, her anxious misery would have moved any heart less hard than her sister’s. She said little, after Angeliké had, with a brazen face, disclaimed all knowledge of the key, for she durst not show the importance she attached to her box and its contents, but she went about searching unavailingly. Angeliké’s favourite hiding-places, known of old, were all visited, for Danaë had not the slightest faith in her denial, but it was clear that the key could only be wrested from her by a personal struggle, such as Danaë had learnt to detest. It was indeed the irony of fate that had transformed the unruly barbarian of Klaustra into the unappreciated reformer of Strio, but the surroundings of her present life had taken on quite a new appearance to her. She experienced now something of the same despair that her own untruthfulness had caused in Zoe; she could trust no one, there was not a creature whose word could be accepted.
Wearily Danaë mounted the stairs to the room she shared with her sister, and stood transfixed as she opened the door. There was Angeliké peacocking about in Zoe’s myrtle-green gown. The skirt was put on back in front, and the coat cruelly strained to make it meet over her plump chest, but she was trailing hither and thither and admiring herself just as Danaë had done in Linton’s clothes. The recollection did not occur at the moment, however, nor would the effect have been a softening one if it had. Training and recent sorrowful musings were alike forgotten, and Danaë rushed at her sister and fairly tore the green gown from her. Her face was so white with rage, and she seemed endued with such irresistible strength, that Angeliké, not usually a coward, made no attempt to protest, and only whimpered feebly when a final push sent her violently against the wall. Half-awed, half-angry, she watched while Danaë gathered up tenderly the desecrated garment, and laying it on the bed, began to smooth it out and fold it as Linton had taught her. A hot tear dropped on the cloth, and she wiped it carefully away, then fetched a needle and cotton, and in the same furious silence sewed on a button or two which had been loosened by Angeliké’s rough handling.
Angeliké’s versatile mind did not retain impressions very long, and her anger was soon succeeded by an overpowering curiosity. Approaching her sister meekly, with a wary eye open for possibilities of danger, she addressed her in a conciliatory voice.
“When do you mean to wear the Frank dress, Danaë?”
There was no answer, but Danaë’s brows were drawn together in a more pronounced frown. Angeliké tried again, becoming bolder.
“It is good thick cloth, like a man’s coat, but not so fine as our silks. Are you going to put it on now?”
“No!” burst explosively from Danaë.
“On Sunday, then? Not? But when?”
“Never!”
“But what a waste! If you are afraid of what our father will say, let us each put on half of it. You can choose whether you will wear the coat or the skirt, and I will have the other.”
“Are you mad? If any Europeans saw us they would die of laughing. The whole thing must be worn together.”
“But why don’t you wear it, then? Or if you won’t, you might let me. Oh, sister mine, do! You would show me how to put it on properly, and our father might beat me black and blue afterwards, if only I got to church in it first.”
“I would sooner tear it to pieces!” cried Danaë wrathfully. “No one shall wear it. It belongs to the Lady Zoe, to my Princess, and she herself helped me to put it on. Then I had to take it off, and I vowed that neither I nor anyone else should wear it until I saw her again. As for you—why, I would let one of the girls from the kitchen wear it rather than you.”
“Oh, very well, my lady! I’ll pay you out for that!” said Angeliké venomously, and slipped out of the room. A moment later, a wild tumult of shrieks and screams proclaimed to Danaë that her sister was in one of her fits of passion—which were credibly supposed in the household to be due to temporary demoniacal possession. In them Angeliké would tear her clothes, knock herself vehemently against the wall, and otherwise do as much damage as was compatible with avoiding obvious disfigurement. Danaë herself had been subject to similar attacks, of a somewhat less violent character, in the past, but now she went on calmly with her work of straightening the contents of her box, which Angeliké had disarranged, and laying the green gown carefully at the top. Suddenly the door burst open, and two stalwart women-servants paused rather sheepishly on the threshold. A stentorian shout pursued them up the stairs, however, “Hurry, children!” and ended their hesitation, and they marched across the room, banged down the lid of the box, and seizing it by the handles, carried it off.
“What are you doing with my box?” demanded Danaë angrily.
“The Despot’s orders, my lady!” was the reply, and the two together bumped and banged the box down the stairs, at the foot of which stood Prince Christodoridi. When he saw his daughter, he shouted to her to come down too, in a voice that rose triumphant above Angeliké’s wails and screams. In the courtyard two of the men who hung about the place were arranging armfuls of withered olive-branches, and another came up with a jar of oil. Angeliké’s shrieks were growing fainter. It almost seemed as though the course of events had not fallen out precisely as she intended. As Danaë came down the stairs, her father seized her wrist in an iron grip. She made no attempt at resistance, but he held her fast while, with set face, she watched her treasures, Zoe’s gown, the photographs of the Klaustra party, books, writing and sewing materials—all the relics of her life on the mainland—ruthlessly saturated with oil and piled into a bonfire. Angeliké was weeping now, unrestrainedly, but Danaë did not utter a sound. When the flames died down, her father suddenly pulled her round to face him.
“Now, Lady Danaë, I have a word to say to you. You bring back a European dress, intending to wear it at the next panegyris [Saint’s day rejoicings] and steal your sister’s bridegroom from her, do you? Well, you see the end of that. We will have no vile Frankish clothes or any other evil inventions in Strio, and any that are brought here will be treated as yours have been—” the voice was raised to reach the listening servants. “What you want, Lady Danaë, is a strict husband, and you shall have one, sooner than you expect. As for you, weeper!” he cast a scathing glance at the cowering Angeliké—“it will do you no harm to wait a little. You are in too great a hurry.”
Danaë, released with two black bruises on her wrist where he had gripped her, walked upstairs again with admirable steadiness, and was seen no more until the evening. What brought her out then was the voice of Angeliké, a frightened and miserable voice, at the door.
“Danaë, come down. Come down at once—to our mother. Something terrible—oh, I cannot utter it——”
The tone seemed genuine, and after a decent pause, for the sake of her own dignity, Danaë pulled back the bed with which she had blocked the door, and came out, following Angeliké down to their mother’s room. At first she thought that the obvious disturbance afflicting Princess Christodoridi was due to the destruction of the box and its contents, which she had promised herself much entertainment in examining, but she soon saw that it must be something worse. Her mother was sitting upright, and was clearly much excited.
“I cannot bear these sudden changes. They are so upsetting!” lamented the poor lady. “Why you should have chosen to come home just now, Danaë——”
“But what has happened?” asked Danaë breathlessly.
“I always said evil would come of sending you to be educated,” her mother went on. “Your father had always declared he would never hear of such a thing, and I agreed with him. Then he changes his mind suddenly, and expects mine to be changed even before I knew that he had changed his. But I never changed. ‘You will do what you like, of course,’ I said; ‘but mark my words, no good will come of it.’”
“Then I am sure you said it to yourself, and not to the Despot, my mother,” said Angeliké impatiently. “No one would have minded Danaë’s going away, if only she had not come back.”
“But what is it?” urged Danaë, in despair.
“Oh, it is your fault too, Angeliké,” said Princess Christodoridi, almost with energy. “What I have done to have two such daughters I don’t know. And when everything was so nicely settled, and even the rings ordered—I am sure your finger is thinner than your sister’s, Danaë. Oh yes, of course, that is what your father has done. He says it is you who are to marry Kyrios Narkissos, not Angeliké.”
“I won’t!” cried Danaë furiously.
“You shan’t!” muttered Angeliké, with determination.
“Now, what is the good of talking like that?” inquired their mother plaintively. “It is what the Despot says that is done, not what you or I say.”
“But Narkissos himself—and his father—” gasped Danaë.
“Kyrios Smaragdopoulos will be very pleased, for your father will give you the extra five hundred drachmæ they quarrelled about, because you are his elder daughter. And the young man will do as his father tells him, of course. And you will do as you are told, though really it is very awkward, with Angeliké’s dress nearly finished embroidering for the betrothal——”
“I will never marry him!” cried Danaë.
“Oh, don’t be foolish,” said her mother wearily. “If you had not come back just now, we should not have had all this trouble. Once they were betrothed, nothing could have been altered. And you too, Angeliké; if you had not been so jealous about your sister’s things, making your father destroy all that beautiful cloth and those pretty pictures, you would not have lost your bridegroom——”
And so on, and so on. Princess Christodoridi’s Christian name was a rank libel on her, for she could not scold. But she could complain, in a feeble but persistent stream of lamentation, calculated to wear down the hardest rock if uninterrupted, and at present both her daughters were too much crushed to attempt a diversion.