Phroso: A Romance

CHAPTER XIII

THE SMILES OF MOURAKI PASHA

At the dinner-table Mouraki proved a charming companion. His official reserve and pride vanished; he called me by my name simply, and extorted a like mode of address from my modesty. He professed rapture at meeting a civilised and pleasant companion in such an out-of-the-way place; he postponed the troubles and problems of Neopalia in favour of a profusion of amusing reminiscences and pointed anecdotes. He gave me a delightful evening, and bade me the most cordial of good-nights. I did not know whether his purpose had been to captivate or merely to analyse me; he had gone near to the former, and I did not doubt that he had succeeded entirely in the latter. Well, there was nothing I wanted to conceal – unless it might be something which I was still striving to conceal even from myself.

I rose very early the next morning. The Pasha was not expected to appear for two or three hours, and he had not requested my presence till ten o’clock breakfast. I hastened off to the harbour, boarded the yacht, enjoyed a merry cup of coffee and a glorious bathe with Denny. Denny was anxious to know my plans – whether I meant to return or to stay. The idea of departure was odious to me. I enlarged on the beauties of the island, but Denny’s shrug insinuated a doubt of my candour. I declared that I saw no reason for going, but must be guided by the Pasha.

‘Where’s the girl?’ asked Denny abruptly.

‘She’s up at the house,’ I answered carelessly.

‘Hum. Heard anything about Constantine being hanged?’

‘Not a word; Mouraki has not touched on business.’

Denny had projected a sail, and was not turned from his purpose by my unwillingness to accompany him. Promising to meet him again in the evening, I took my way back up the street, where a day or two ago my life would have paid for my venturing, where now I was as safe as in Hyde Park. Women gave me civil greetings; the men did the like, or, at worst, ignored me. I saw the soldiers on guard at Constantine’s prison, and pursued my path to the house with a complacent smile. My island was beautiful that morning, and the blood flowed merrily in my veins. I thought of Phroso. Where was the remorse which I vainly summoned?

Suddenly I saw Kortes before me, walking along slowly. He was relieved of his duty then, and Constantine was no longer in his hands. Overtaking him, I began to talk. He listened for a little, and then raised his calm honest eyes to mine.

‘And the Lady Phroso?’ he said gently. ‘What of her?’

I told him what I knew, softening the story of Mouraki’s harshness.

‘You have not spoken to her yet?’ he asked. Then, coming a step nearer, he said, ‘She shuns you perhaps?’

‘I don’t know,’ said I, feeling embarrassed under the man’s direct gaze.

‘It is natural, but it will last only till she has seen you once. I pray you not to linger, my lord. For she suffers shame at having told her love, even though it was to save you. It is hard for a maiden to speak unasked.’

I leaned my back against the rocky bank by the road.

‘Lose no time in telling her your love, my lord,’ he urged. ‘It may be that she guesses, but her shame will trouble her till she hears it from your lips. Seek her, seek her without delay.’

I had forgotten my triumph over Constantine and the beauty of the island. I felt my eyes drop before Kortes’s look; but I shrugged my shoulders, saying carelessly:

‘It was only a friendly device the Lady Phroso played to save me. She doesn’t really love me. It was a trick. But I’ll thank her for it heartily; it was of great help to me, and a hard thing for her to do.’

‘It was no trick. You know it was none. Wasn’t the love in every tone of her voice? Isn’t it in every glance of her eyes when she is with you – and most when she won’t look at you?’

‘How come you to read her looks so well?’ I asked.

‘From studying them deeply,’ said he simply. ‘I do not know if I love her, my lord; she is so much above me that my thoughts have not dared to fly to the height. But I would die for her, and I love no other. To me, you, my lord, should be the happiest, proudest man alive. Pray speak to her soon, my lord. My sister, whom you saw hold her in her arms, would have made me sure if I had doubted. The lady murmurs your name in her sleep.’

A sudden irresistible exultation took hold of me. I think it turned my face red, for Kortes smiled, saying, ‘Ah, you believe now, my lord!’

‘Believe!’ I cried. ‘No, I don’t believe. A thousand times, no! I don’t believe!’ For I was crushing that exultation now as a man crushes the foulest temptings.

A puzzled look invaded Kortes’s eyes. There was silence between us for some moments.

‘It’s absurd,’ said I, in weak protest. ‘She has known me only a few days – only a few hours rather – and there were other things to think of then than love-making.’

‘Love,’ said he, ‘is made most readily when a man does not think of it, and a stout arm serves a suitor better than soft words. You fought against her and for her; you proved yourself a man before her eyes. Fear not, my lord; she loves you.’

‘Fear not!’ I exclaimed in a low bitter whisper.

‘She said it herself,’ continued Kortes. ‘As her life, and more.’

‘Hold your tongue, man!’ I cried fiercely. ‘In the devil’s name, what has it to do with you?’

A great wonder showed on his face, then a doubting fear; he came closer to me and whispered so low that I hardly heard:

‘What ails you? Is it not well that she should love you?’

‘Let me alone,’ I cried; ‘I’ll not answer your questions.’ Why was the fellow to cross-examine me? Ah, there’s the guilty man’s old question; he loves a fine mock indignation, and hugs it to his heart.

Kortes drew back a pace and bowed, as though in apology; but there was no apology in the glance he fixed on me. I would not look him in the face. I drew myself up as tall as I could, and put on my haughtiest air. If he could have seen how small I felt inside!

‘Enough, Kortes,’ said I, with a lordly air. ‘No doubt your intentions are good, but you forget what is becoming from you to me.’

He was not awed; and I think he perceived some of the truth – not all; for he said, ‘You made her love you; that does not happen unless a man’s own acts help it.’

‘Do girls never rush uninvited on love, then?’ I sneered.

‘Some perhaps, but she would not,’ he answered steadily.

He said no more. I nodded to him and set forward on my way. He bowed again slightly, and stood still where he was, watching me. I felt his eyes on me after we had parted. I was in a very tumult of discomfort. The man had humiliated me to the ground. I hoped against hope that he was wrong; and again, in helpless self-contradiction, my heart cried out insisting on its shameful joy because he was right. Right or wrong, wrong or right, what did it matter? Either way now lay misery, either way now lay a struggle that I shrank from and abhorred.

I was somewhat delayed by this interview, and when I arrived at the house I found Mouraki already at breakfast. He apologised for not having awaited my coming, saying, ‘I have transacted much business. Oh, I’ve not been in bed all the time! And I grew hungry. I have been receiving some reports on the state of the island.’

‘It’s quiet enough now. Your arrival has had a most calming effect.’

‘Yes, they know me. They are very much afraid, for they think I shall be hard on them. They remember my last visit.’

He made no reference to Constantine, and although I wondered rather at his silence I did not venture again to question him. I wished that I knew what had happened on his last visit. A man with a mouth like Mouraki’s might cause anything to happen.

‘I shall keep them in suspense a little while,‘ he pursued, smiling. ‘It’s good for them. Oh, by the way, Wheatley, you may as well take this; or shall I tear it up?’ And suddenly he held out to me the document which I had written and given to Phroso when I restored the island to her.

‘She gave you this?’ I cried.

‘She?’ asked Mouraki, with a smile of mockery. ‘Is there, then, only one woman in the world?’ he seemed to ask sneeringly.

‘The Lady Euphrosyne, to whom I gave it,’ I explained with what dignity I could.

‘The Lady Phroso, yes,’ said he, (‘Hang his Phroso!’ thought I.) ‘I had her before me this morning and made her give it up.’

‘I can only give it back to her, you know.’

‘My dear Wheatley, if you like to amuse yourself in that way I can have no possible objection. Until you obtain a firman, however, you will continue to be Lord of Neopalia and this Phroso no more than a very rebellious young lady. But you’ll enjoy a pleasant interview and no harm will be done. Give it back by all means.’ He smiled again, shrugging his shoulders, and lit a cigarette. His manner was the perfection of polite, patient, gentlemanly contempt.

‘It seems easier to get an island than to get rid of one,’ said I, trying to carry off my annoyance with a laugh.

‘It is the case with so many things,’ agreed Mouraki: ‘debts, diseases, enemies, wives, lovers.’

There was a little pause before the last word, so slight that I could not tell whether it were intentional or not; and I had learnt to expect no enlightenment from Mouraki’s face or eyes. But he chose himself to solve the mystery this time.

‘Do I touch delicate ground?’ he asked. ‘Ah, my dear lord, I find from my reports that in the account you gave me of your experiences you let modesty stand in the way of candour. It was natural perhaps. I don’t blame you, since I have found out elsewhere what you omitted to tell me. Yet it was hardly a secret, since everybody in Neopalia knew it.’

I smoked my cigarette, feeling highly embarrassed and very uncomfortable.

‘And I am told,’ pursued Mouraki, with his malicious smile, ‘that the idea of a Wheatley-Stefanopoulos dynasty is by no means unpopular. Constantine’s little tricks have disgusted them with him.’

‘What are you going to do with him?’ I asked, risking any offence now in order to turn the topic.

‘Do you really like jumping from subject to subject?’ asked Mouraki plaintively. ‘I am, I suppose, a slow-minded Oriental, and it fatigues me horribly.’

I could have thrown the cigarette I was smoking in his face with keen pleasure.

‘It is for your Excellency to choose the topic,’ said I, restraining my fury.

‘Oh, don’t let us have “Excellencies” when we’re alone together! Indeed I congratulate you on your conquest. She is magnificent; and it was charming of her to make her declaration. That’s what has pleased the islanders: they’re romantic savages, after all, and the chivalry of it touches them.’

‘It must touch anybody,’ said I.

‘Ah, I suppose so,’ said Mouraki, flicking away his ash. ‘I questioned her a little about it this morning.’

‘You questioned her?’ For all I could do there was a quiver of anger in my voice. I heard it myself, and it did not escape my companion’s notice. His smile grew broader.

‘Precisely. I have to consider everything,’ said he. ‘I assure you, my dear Wheatley, that I did it in the most delicate manner possible.’

‘It couldn’t be done in a delicate manner.’

‘I struggled,’ said Mouraki, assuming his plaintive tone again, and spreading out deprecatory hands.

Was Mouraki merely amusing himself with a little ‘chaff,’ or had he a purpose? He seemed like a man who would have a purpose. I grew cool on the thought of it.

‘And did the lady answer your questions?’ I asked carelessly.

‘Wouldn’t it be a treachery in me to tell you what she said?’ countered Mouraki.

‘I think not; because there’s no doubt that the whole thing was only a good-natured device of hers.’

‘Ah! A very good-natured device indeed! She must be an amiable girl,’ smiled the Pasha. ‘Precisely the sort of girl to make a man’s home happy.’

‘She hasn’t much chance of marriage in Neopalia,’ said I.

‘Heaven makes a way,’ observed Mouraki piously. ‘By-the-by, the device seems to have imposed on our acquaintance Kortes.’

‘Oh, perhaps,’ I shrugged. ‘He’s a little smitten himself, I think, and so very ready to be jealous.’

‘How discriminating!’ murmured Mouraki admiringly. ‘As a fact, my dear Wheatley, the lady said nothing. She chose to take offence.’

‘You surprise me!’ I exclaimed with elaborate sarcasm.

‘And wouldn’t speak. But her blushes were most lovely – yes, most lovely. I envied you, upon my word I did.’

‘Since it’s not true – ’

‘Oh, a thing may be very pleasant to hear, even if it’s not true. Sincerity in love is an added charm, but not, my dear fellow, a necessity.’

A pause followed this reflection of the Pasha’s. Then he remarked:

‘After all, we mustn’t judge these people as we should judge ourselves. If Constantine hadn’t already a wife – ’

‘What?’ I cried, leaping up.

‘And perhaps that difficulty is not insuperable.’

‘He deserves nothing but hanging.’

‘A reluctant wife is hardly better.’

‘Of course you don’t mean it?’

‘It seems to disturb you so much.’

‘It’s a monstrous idea.’

Mouraki laughed in quiet enjoyment of my excitement.

‘Then Kortes?’ he suggested.

‘He’s infinitely her inferior. Besides – forgive me – why is it your concern to marry her to any one?’

‘In a single state she is evidently a danger to the peace of the island,’ he answered with assumed gravity. ‘Now your young friend – ’

‘Oh, Denny’s a boy.’

‘You reject everyone,’ he said pathetically, and his eyes dwelt on me in amused scrutiny.

‘Your suggestions, my dear Pasha, seem hardly serious,’ said I in a huff. He was too many for me, and I struggled in vain against betraying my ruffled temper.

‘Well then, I will make two serious suggestions; that is a handsome amende. And for the first – yourself!’

I waved my hand and gave an embarrassed laugh.

‘You say nothing to that?’

‘Oughtn’t I to hear the alternative first?’

‘Indeed it is only reasonable. Well, then, the alternative – ’ He paused, laughed, lit another cigarette. ‘The alternative is – myself,’ said he.

‘Still not serious!’ I exclaimed, forcing a smile.

‘Absolutely serious,’ he asserted. ‘I have the misfortune to be a widower, and for the second time; so unkind is heaven. She is most charming. I have, perhaps, a position which would atone for some want of youth and romantic attractions.’

‘Of course, if she likes – ’

‘I don’t think she would persist in refusing,’ said Mouraki with a thoughtful smile; and he went on, ‘Three years ago, when I came here, she struck me as a beautiful child, one likely to become a beautiful woman. You see for yourself that I am not disappointed. My wife was alive at that time, but in bad health. Still I hardly thought seriously of it then, and the idea did not recur to me till I saw Phroso again. You look surprised.’

‘Well, I am surprised.’

‘You don’t think her attractive, then?’

‘Frankly, that is not the reason for my surprise.’

‘Shall I go on? You think me old? It is a young man’s delusion, my dear Wheatley.’

Bear-baiting may have been excellent sport – its defenders so declare – but I do not remember that it was ever considered pleasant for the bear. I felt now much as the bear must have felt. I rose abruptly from the table.

‘All these things require thought,’ said Mouraki gently. ‘We will talk of them again this afternoon. I have a little business to do now.’

Saying this, he rose and leisurely took his way upstairs. I was left alone in the hall so familiar to me; and my first thought was a regret that I was not again a prisoner there, with Constantine seeking my life, Phroso depending on my protection, and Mouraki administering some other portion of his district. That condition of things had been, no doubt, rather too exciting to be pleasant; but it had not made me harassed, wretched, humiliated, exasperated almost beyond endurance: and such was the mood in which the two conversations of the morning left me.

A light step sounded on the stair: the figure that of all figures I least wished to see then, that I rejoiced to see more than any in the world besides, appeared before me. Phroso came down. She reached the floor of the hall and saw me. For a long moment we each rested as we were. Then she stepped towards me, and I rose with a bow. She was very pale, but a smile came on her lips as she murmured a greeting to me and passed on. I should have done better to let her go. I rose and followed. On the marble pavement by the threshold I overtook her; there we stood again looking on the twinkling sea in the distance, as we had looked before. I was seeking what to say.

‘I must thank you,’ I said; ‘yet I can’t. It was magnificent.’

The colour suddenly flooded her face.

‘You understood?’ she murmured. ‘You understood why? It seemed the only way; and I think it did help a little.’

I bent down and kissed her hand.

‘I don’t care whether it helped,’ I said. ‘It was the thing itself.’

‘I didn’t care for them – the people – but when I thought what you would think – ’ She could not go on, but drew her hand, which she had left an instant in mine as though forgetful of it, suddenly away.

‘I – I knew, of course, that it was only a – a stratagem,’ said I. ‘Oh, yes, I knew that directly.’

‘Yes,’ whispered she, looking over the sea.

‘Yes,’ said I, also looking over the sea.

‘You forgive it?’

‘Forgive!’ My voice came low and husky. I did not see why such things should be laid on a man; I did not know if I could endure them. Yet I would not have left her then for an angel’s crown.

‘And you will forget it? I mean, you – ’ The whisper died into silence.

‘So long as I live I will not forget it,’ said I.

Then, by a seemingly irresistible impulse that came upon both of us, we looked in one another’s eyes, a long look that lingered and was loth to end. As I looked, I saw, in joy that struggled with shame, a new light in the glowing depths of Phroso’s eyes, a greeting of an undreamt happiness, a terrified delight. Then her lids dropped and she began to speak quietly and low.

‘It came on me that I might help if I said it, because the islanders love me, and so, perhaps, they wouldn’t hurt you. But I couldn’t look at you. I only prayed you would understand, that you wouldn’t think – oh, that you wouldn’t think – that – of me, my lord. And I didn’t know how to meet you to-day, but I had to.’

I stood silent beside her, curiously conscious of every detail of Nature’s picture before me; for I had turned from her again, and my eyes roamed over sea and island. But at that moment there came from one of the narrow windows of the old house, directly above our heads, the sound of a low, amused, luxurious chuckle. A look of dread and shrinking spread over Phroso’s face.

‘Ah, that man!’ she exclaimed in an agitated whisper.

‘What of him?’

‘He has been here before. I have seen him smile and heard him laugh like that when he sent men to death and looked on while they died. Yes, men of our own island, men who had served us and were our friends. Ah, he frightens me, that man!’ She shuddered, stretching out her hand in an unconscious gesture, as though she would ward off some horrible thing. ‘I have heard him laugh like that when a woman asked her son’s life of him and a girl her lover’s. It kills me to be near him. He has no pity. My lord, intercede with him for the islanders. They are ignorant men: they did not know.’

‘Not one shall be hurt if I can help it,’ said I earnestly. ‘But – ’ I stopped; yet I would go on, and I added, ‘Have you no fear of him yourself?’

‘What can he do to me?’ she asked. ‘He talked to me this morning about – about you. I hate to talk with him. But what can he do to me?’

I was silent. Mouraki had not hinted to her the idea which he had suggested, in puzzling ambiguity between jest and earnest, to me. Her eyes questioned me; then suddenly she laid her hand on my arm and said:

‘And you would protect me, my lord. While you were here, I should be safe.’

‘While!’ The little word struck cold on my heart: my eyes showed her the blow; in a minute she understood. She raised her hand from where it lay and pointed out towards the sea. I saw the pretty trim little yacht running home for the harbour after her morning cruise.

‘Yes, while you are here, my lord,’ she said, with the most pitiful of brave smiles.

‘As long as you want me, I shall be here,’ I assured her.

She raised her eyes to mine, the colour came again to her face.

‘As long as you are in any danger,’ I added in explanation.

‘Ah, yes!’ said she, with a sigh and drooping eyelids; and she went on in a moment, as though recollecting a civility due and not paid, ‘You are very good to me, my lord; for your island has treated you unkindly, and you will be glad to sail away from it to your home.’

‘It is,’ said I, bending towards her, ‘the most beautiful island in the world, and I would love to stay in it all my life.’

Again the pleased contented chuckle sounded from the window over our heads. It seemed to strike Phroso with a new fit of sudden fear. With a faint cry she darted out her hand and seized mine.

‘Don’t be afraid. He sha’n’t hurt you,’ said I.

A moment later we heard steps descending the stairs inside the house. Mouraki appeared on the threshold. Phroso had sprung away from me and stood a few paces off. Yet Mouraki knew that we had not stood thus distantly before his steps were heard. He looked at Phroso and then at me: a blush from her, a scowl from me, filled any gaps in his knowledge. He stood there smiling – I began to hate the Pasha’s smiles – for a moment, and then came forward. He bowed slightly, but civilly enough, to Phroso; then to my astonishment he took my hand and began to shake it with a great appearance of cordiality.

‘Really I beg your pardon,’ said I. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The matter?’ he cried in high good humour, or what seemed such. ‘The matter? Why, the matter, my dear Wheatley, is that you appear to be both a very discreet fellow and a very fortunate one.’

‘I don’t understand yet,’ said I, trying to hide my growing irritation.

‘Surely it’s no secret?’ he asked. ‘It is generally known, isn’t it?’

‘What’s generally known?’ I fairly roared in an exasperation that mastered all self-control.

The Pasha was not in the very least disturbed. He held a bundle of letters in his left hand and he began now to sort them. He ended by choosing one, which he held up before me, with a malicious humour twinkling from under his heavy brows.