CHAPTER XXII.
IN FORMÂ PAUPERIS.
PARTHENIOS CHALKIADI and the two Smaragdopouloi were sitting in the loggia with Prince Christodoridi in the dusk. Kyrios Loukas and his son had come over from Tortolana to bring the silk gown and other presents to the bride that were demanded by custom from the father of the bridegroom, but Kyrios Parthenios had puffed up the hill uninvited, in a state of much perturbation. He had received a secret visit from Petros, who confided to him that he believed the Despot had seized the English lord, and was keeping him confined in one of his dungeons. As to the reason for this treatment, Petros professed ignorance so discreetly that his hearer was at no loss to divine the real cause; all he knew was that he had heard a voice, which he felt certain was Milordo’s, issuing from the very foundations of the fortress, and gathered that the owner was imprisoned underground. With a view to making repentance on his friend’s part as easy as possible, Kyrios Parthenios sent Petros off at once to the yacht, to request the captain to send a boat on shore for his owner at nine o’clock that evening, while he himself trudged up to the fortress, and breaking in on Prince Christodoridi and his friends, demanded boldly where the English lord was. In reply the Despot recounted his wrongs, which seemed to affect his hearers less deeply than the method he had taken to right them. Narkissos displayed little interest in either, for he was watching for Angeliké, with whom he hoped for a word or two in the shadows. Once he thought he saw her steal in and take down something from the wall, but she waved him back imperiously when he half-rose to follow her, and he sat gloomy, with his eyes fixed on the shadowy door. But his father took the news very much amiss.
“Holy Vasili! you can’t do that sort of thing nowadays, lord,” he observed sourly. “We shall be having a warship sent here.”
“It won’t interfere with you,” snapped Prince Christodoridi. “But if you prefer to be out of the business altogether, you have only to pay back that dowry.”
This was the last thing that Kyrios Smaragdopoulos wished to do, and he subsided grumbling. “I suppose a man may feel a little interest in the fate of a family about to be connected with his own, not to speak of the unpleasantness of such reports as will get about.”
“Yes, friend Agesilaos,” urged Parthenios Chalkiadi. “Think what will be said when it is known that the young man preferred imprisonment to marrying my goddaughter.”
“He won’t!” cried Prince Christodoridi furiously. “He will soon give in; you will see.”
“Don’t count upon it,” said his friend sadly. “There is such obstinacy in these English that they will die rather than yield. And after all, if he has erred in following here the barbarous customs of his own place, we should pity rather than hold him guilty.”
“Then is it such a deadly punishment to marry him to my daughter? You are too flattering, friend Parthenios! But it is more than a mere case of bad manners. My daughter Angeliké says——”
“The Lady Angeliké is anxious for her marriage, and knows that her sister must be married first,” said Parthenios shrewdly. “Friend, give me leave to visit the young man on your behalf. He has a pleasing face, and the English always tell the truth. If he is not already betrothed to some maiden of his own nation—” Prince Christodoridi’s face fell at the suggestion of this possibility—“let me see if we cannot find some way of getting out of the difficulty with honour to both of you and happiness to my goddaughter.”
“You will let him escape, thick-headed one,” growled Prince Christodoridi; “or at least he will knock you down and run away while you are rubbing your head and picking yourself up. Plague take you, girl! What are you standing there staring about for?” Narkissos had again made a motion to rise as Angeliké appeared in the doorway, but she waved him back and stood looking keenly round, trying to pierce the shadows with her eyes.
“Forgive me, lord,” she answered meekly. “My mother was asking for Danaë, and sent me to seek her. I have looked for her everywhere, and I thought she must be here.”
“Well, she is not here,” said Parthenios hastily, rising with unwonted agility. “You will let me speak with the youth, friend Agesilaos? A boat from his ship is to fetch him at nine o’clock, so there is no time to lose.”
“Give Kyrios Parthenios the key of the rock dungeon, Angeliké,” said the Prince, and Angeliké went to where the keys hung on the wall. A frightened exclamation came from her, and the whole bunch fell to the floor. She picked it up and brought it to her father.
“I—I am not sure which is the key, lord,” she faltered.
“Why, it is not here!” cried Prince Christodoridi. “What have you done with it, girl?”
“I, lord? I have not left my mother all the evening. Why should I take the key?” sobbed Angeliké, with ready tears.
“The Lady Danaë came in and took it away about a quarter of an hour ago,” said Narkissos with conviction, coming to the help of his betrothed. Prince Christodoridi rose, and put back Parthenios Chalkiadi with a powerful hand.
“Come all of you, friends, if you will—or rather, I request it as a favour. You will justify me, if such a thing is needed, for the girl must be shameless. If the man still refuses to marry her, she has brought her death upon herself.”
Angeliké’s whole frame tingled with delicious excitement. Her lover thought she was shivering with fear, and since the elder members of the party were too much occupied to heed the breach of etiquette, he drew close to her and they followed hand in hand, through a rough door which had been left ajar, and down a rude flight of stone steps, the disturbed dust on which showed that some one in trailing clothes had passed down them not long before. Poor Danaë, feeling her way fearfully in the dark, with a bundle of clothes under her arm and the huge purloined key in her hand!
Armitage had spent many hours, so he believed, in his dungeon, before the prospect of escape offered itself. Very soon after his incarceration, while he was still trying to attract by shouting the notice of possible passers-by, a distant voice coming through the airhole informed him that Petros had heard him, and was going for help at once. Thereupon the prisoner ceased his efforts and sat down, lest if he made any more noise he should be transferred to some even less accessible prison before the arrival of the armed party which he confidently expected his captain to send off at once to rescue him. He was in a towering rage—a very unusual frame of mind for him—and felt positive pleasure in the thought of fighting his way down to the harbour at the head of his men; but the hours went by, and the opportunity was not afforded him. No one came near him. It was evident that his obstinacy was to be subdued by hunger, and also by cold, for as it grew darker the chill of the dungeon became extreme. No sounds penetrated to him, and now that no light came through the airhole, he felt as if he was buried alive. Very early he decided to make a fight for it if anyone came to bring him food. He would leap upon him and knock him down, and he only hoped it might be Prince Christodoridi himself!
At last, when he had fallen into an uneasy sleep, with his back against the rough rock wall, he was roused by the sound of a key in the lock. There was a good deal of groping for the keyhole first, and then the key turned slowly, as though held by hands not strong enough to deal with it properly, and Armitage renounced his murderous intention in haste. Whoever this visitor might be, it was certainly not Prince Christodoridi, and he rather thought he knew who it was.
“Lord?” said a faltering voice, when the door creaked slowly open at last.
“I am here, Lady Danaë,” said an answering voice, so unexpectedly close to her that she gave a little shriek. But there was urgent need for haste, and she spoke rapidly.
“Here, lord, here are some garments. Put on the kilt over your own clothes, and the coat instead of yours, and pull the cap down well over your face. Then you will be able to pass through the servants without being perceived.”
“Sotīri’s clothes?” asked Armitage, taking the bundle from her hands, and she answered with a little laugh of shy pleasure.
“Yes, lord, Sotīri’s clothes. He is a useful boy.”
“Most useful. You must forgive me for slighting your warning, Lady Danaë. I did not know how completely you were still in the Middle Ages here.”
“Ah, lord, be thankful that you don’t live here! But hasten, for they may find out that the key is gone.”
Armitage wrestled vigorously with the jacket, which refused to accommodate itself to his broad shoulders. Happily it was not needful to fasten it, and he pulled on the cap, and announced himself as ready.
“I thought I would lock the door, and slip back and hang up the key again in its place,” said Danaë, pulling at it.
“Allow me,” said Armitage, and their hands met on the great rusty key as they both tugged at the door. As they pulled, he felt Danaë’s hands grow suddenly cold beneath his.
“Some one is coming! They have found out!” she gasped.
A distant light was glimmering round the turn of the passage by which she had come. There was no time to be lost. Armitage tore off the kilt and jacket and hurried into his own coat, flung the clothes into the cell, and dragged Danaë behind the door.
“I will go forward and meet them, and you must try to slip past when they are talking to me,” he said. “Don’t get locked up here, in any case. I’ll get you through if I can, but if not you must trust to me to do the best for you. Do you understand? Promise.”
“I promise,” she whispered, and crouched behind the door, at the foot of the slope, while Armitage went forward to the turn of the passage, calculating possibilities. There were three or four people coming down the steps, so that a general scrimmage, in which they would all join to thrust him back into the dungeon, would offer the best chance for Danaë to slip out from her hiding-place and run up the stairs. But they paused upon the steps and looked at him, the reproachful face of Kyrios Parthenios peering over Prince Christodoridi’s shoulder, and Angeliké’s wide eyes glaring above him.
“Who let you out, Milordo?” demanded Prince Christodoridi.
Armitage laughed. “If you are kind enough to leave my door open, friend Despot, you can hardly wonder if I walk out.”
“Who brought you the key, lord?” asked Kyrios Loukas curiously.
“If you don’t accept my explanation, I can only invite you to come down and look for yourselves,” replied the prisoner, with a shrug of his shoulders. Too late he remembered the Greek clothes he had thrown on the floor of the cell, but the lamp did not shed a very clear light, and he might be able to stand in front of them while Danaë escaped. His visitors followed him down through the doorway, and Prince Christodoridi swept the lamp round the place.
“We know some one must have——” he said angrily. “What are you making such faces for, girl?” for Angeliké was raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips with intense meaning.
“Oh, nothing, lord, nothing!” she stammered. “Do go; now; quick!” the words were a quite audible whisper. Armitage knew what was coming. From where her sister stood, Danaë was quite visible, penned into her hiding-place in all unconsciousness by Kyrios Smaragdopoulos.
“No escape for her or me!” he said to himself. “Well, let us do the only possible thing with the best grace at our command.” He stepped across to the door, just as Prince Christodoridi swept the light savagely in that direction, and led Danaë forward. “Lord and friends, I have the honour to ask the hand of the Lady Danaë in marriage. It was contrary to our customs to make the request of her father this morning, since I was not assured of her consent, but since I have had the happiness of seeing her again, I need hesitate no longer.”
“Such doings!” came in highly scandalised tones from Kyrios Loukas, while Narkissos giggled nervously in the background.
“I won’t——” burst from Danaë, but Armitage pressed her hand sharply, and her father turned on her in a fury.
“Go back to your mother, girl, this instant! And you too, Angeliké; what are you doing here?” The two girls vanished up the steps. “Friends, you are witnesses that the English lord has asked my elder daughter in marriage?”
“And I could ask nothing better for her!” said Kyrios Chalkiadi heartily. “And when am I to have the pleasure of bringing your bride to you, friend Milordo?”
“The sooner the better,” said Armitage gaily. “I must return to Therma next week. Why not take my bride with me?”
Narkissos was nudging his father, and Kyrios Loukas spoke. “Let us make a double wedding of it,” he said, with a vain attempt to emulate the joviality of the other two. “The Lady Danaë and her bridegroom can be betrothed and married first, and the contract between my son and her sister completed afterwards.”
“There is the dowry to settle,” interposed Parthenios.
“The girl gets no dowry from me,” said Prince Christodoridi laconically.
“Quite so,” said Armitage. “I marry the Lady Danaë without dowry. That is decided. I absolutely refuse to accept anything with her.”
“But why? There is no reason for it, lord, and among us such a thing——”
“Milordo has said that he is willing to take her without a dowry,” said Danaë’s father roughly.
“Certainly no one could expect you to force a dowry upon the bridegroom, lord,” said Kyrios Loukas. “Here we are all poor men, but we know how rich the English are, and if he does not require it, why, let us commend his moderation.”
“I refuse to take even a lepta,” said Armitage. “May I walk down the hill with you, friend godfather?” he asked of Parthenios. “You will have to instruct me in all my duties.”
“Yes, come, lord,” said the old man hastily. “Your boat will be at the quay at nine o’clock, but you will take a little supper with me first.”
“My daughter’s bridegroom will sup here,” said Prince Christodoridi, but Armitage shook his head.
“I take no food under this roof until my wedding-feast, lord,” he replied, and for once Prince Christodoridi’s fierce eyes sank abashed. His hospitality had been slighted, and he could not resent it. Armitage bade good-night to him and to his friends with marked formality, and took the arm of Kyrios Parthenios as they went out of the gate. “There are some things that are too much for flesh and blood,” he said. “The Despot has treated that poor girl and me infamously, and I won’t break bread in his house until I can do it with her.”
“You have indeed been hardly used, friend, yet for my goddaughter’s sake I could wish you had taken the cue I gave you. I would most heartily have supported you in standing out for a dowry, for when it is known that she was married without one, it will give grievous occasion to evil tongues to——”
“But it mustn’t become known!” cried Armitage. “Oh, hang it! this will never do. You must put me up to every possible mark of honour I can show her, so that no one may ever guess.”
The peacemaker’s brow cleared. “Indeed, friend Milordo, I should have known that your heart was as noble as your name. If the usual presents are given——”
“Yes, of course. There is a silk gown for the wedding, isn’t there?”
“That is very important. And if you were disposed to be munificent, I know of a piece of silk the like of which I have rarely seen in all my voyages. The man who owns it fears to offer it for sale, lest the Despot should force him to accept a price lower than what he gave for it, but I can settle the matter with him in secret.”
“Secure it for me to-night if you can. And the bride’s mother ought to have something handsome, I believe?”
“Ah, lord, Kyria Xantippe would kiss your feet if you gave her a gold watch! The young man Narkissos brought her a chain, but she has nothing to wear at the end of it.”
“She shall have the best that can be got at such short notice. And if there is anything else you think of—presents for Danaë’s nurse, or the servants, or anyone—get it, and send the bill to me. Now, in return, will you find me a chance of seeing my bride alone?”
“Before the wedding? It is impossible, lord!”
“It may be, theoretically, but I am certain that the other sister and her betrothed don’t find it so in practice.”
“Oh, one knows that the rules are not always strictly kept,” confessed Parthenios unwillingly. “But you and Lady Danaë are not even betrothed, lord! For the sake of the unfortunate girl herself, make no further attempt to see her at present. Have you not done harm enough yet—though I trust we may manage to avert a scandal?”
This appeal put things in a new light to Armitage, but it must be confessed that it did not keep him from trying to effect his object by enlisting Narkissos on his side. Influenced by fellow-feeling, Narkissos accepted the office of sounding Angeliké as to the possibility of bringing Danaë to speak to her suitor for five minutes, and did his part faithfully. Angeliké received the suggestion dubiously, but promised to lay it before her sister, and returned to announce with great severity of manner that Danaë was shocked by the request, and could not dream of acceding to it. Armitage was perplexed at first, but the scene in the dungeon had implanted a certain doubt of Angeliké in his mind, and he reflected sagely that it was quite possible his entreaty had never gone beyond her.
Great was the excitement in Strio on the wedding-day of the Despot’s two daughters. It detracted a little from the interest of the occasion that both the bridegrooms should be foreigners, for to the stern local patriotism of the islanders Tortolana seemed little nearer than England, but the alliances were so infinitely superior to any the island itself could have offered that regret was stifled. Narkissos, sniffing delicately at a bunch of basil, followed by his train of gaily dressed friends, would naturally have been the favourite, but Armitage, determined to do all possible honour to his bride, brought with him an escort of armed sailors from the yacht, whose smart appearance worked havoc with the hearts of the female population. So, too, Danaë easily carried off the honours as the better behaved of the brides. Custom demanded that she should appear absolutely miserable in the prospect of leaving her childhood’s home, and she embodied the ideal so faithfully that Armitage started when he saw her.
“At this rate I shall never need to hire a model for Tragedy,” he said dolefully to himself, having caught Princess Christodoridi’s proud whisper to a newly arrived matron that Danaë had eaten nothing either that day or the day before. Her hand was cold and listless when the rings were exchanged in the betrothal ceremony, and when she retired to put on the gown he had sent her in preparation for the actual marriage service, there was not a sign of triumph in her face, though she returned wearing a silk which turned every woman in the room pale with envy. Angeliké was wearing the coveted blue and citron stripes, but Danaë’s gown was crimson shot with gold, with fleeting glimpses of blue and straw-colour, green and purple, as she moved. It was the richest silk that had ever been seen in Strio, and Angeliké’s looked poor and colourless beside it. But Angeliké and her bridegroom took their part in the service with the utmost zest, going through the crowning and the feeding with bread dipped in wine, the running round the altar and the pelting with sweets, as if it was a highly enjoyable game, which was entirely contrary to etiquette, but awoke a sympathetic chord in the bystanders. While she and Narkissos were being kissed, generally on the artificial flowers of their wreaths, by as many friends as could get near them, and the younger members of the congregation were scrambling for the sweets, Danaë, finding herself and her bridegroom for the moment unobserved, turned to him and addressed him in a tragic whisper.
“Lord, you know I would not have married you if I could have helped it?”
“I was afraid I couldn’t flatter myself it was otherwise,” he replied drily. “I hope I don’t look as if I disliked it quite as much as you do?”
To his delight Danaë lifted her eyes from the floor for the first time, and looked up at him wonderingly. “Is it possible to appear happy when the heart is oppressed with misery, lord?”
“I can’t see myself, you know. Don’t you think I am doing it rather well? entirely for your sake, of course.”
“Will you do something else for me, lord?” She declined to respond to his opening, and he wondered uneasily whether she thought he had spoken in earnest.
“To the half of my kingdom, lady.”
“Well, then, let us leave Strio this evening, as soon as they have brought us to your ship.”
“That’s exactly what I was hoping to do, but I have not been able to get at you to find out whether you would like it or not,” he replied, rather puzzled.
“Whatever pleases you, lord, must now please me,” replied Danaë with great meekness, as Parthenios Chalkiadi came up and seized a hand of each to conduct them to the bridal feast. It was his duty also to remain and watch over them, to prevent their feeling shy, as he kindly explained to Armitage, and also to add to the hilarity of the occasion by exchanging jokes with Angeliké’s godfather, who was chaperoning her and Narkissos on the next divan. Inexorable custom demanded that the brides should eat nothing on this, the only public occasion at which they would sit at meat with their husbands instead of serving them and the men generally, and they were also forbidden to utter a word, or even to answer if they were addressed. A demeanour indicative of extreme woe, and gestures expressing crushed subservience to the dominion of man, were the correct thing. Having once transgressed, Danaë refused to do so again by paying the slightest heed to any remark of Armitage’s, but Kyrios Parthenios was happily able to act as his mouthpiece, conveying to her not only his commands, but such viands as she could decorously conceal under her veil, and eat when no one was looking.
After the feast came the procession down to the harbour, attended by music and singing, and youths and maidens waving boughs of myrtle. For the purposes of this wedding the houses of the bridegrooms, to which their brides ought to have been escorted, were represented by their respective boats. Danaë, as the elder sister, must of course start first, and Angeliké, who had eyed her sourly through her veil at the feast, embraced her affectionately in farewell.
“Your gown is lovely,” she whispered. “With a silk like that, I should think you hardly mind being married without a dowry, do you?”