Phroso: A Romance

There was no opportunity of explaining matters to him, the captain was too near.

‘I shall be very glad if you will,’ I said, ‘and if Hogvardt will also.’

Hogvardt shrugged his shoulders, raised his brows, smiled and observed:

‘I trust you’re acting for the best, my lord.’

Denny made no answer at all. He kicked the ground with his foot. I knew very well what was in Denny’s mind. Denny was of my family on his mother’s side, and Denny’s eye asked, ‘Where is the word of a Wheatley?’ All this I realised fully. I read his mind then more clearly than I could read my own; for had we been alone, and had he put to me the plain question, ‘Do you mean to make her your wife, or are you playing another trick?’ by heaven, I should not have known what to answer! I had begun a trick; the plan was to persuade the islanders into dispersing peacefully by my pretence, and then to slip away quietly by myself, trusting to their good sense – although a broken reed, yet the only resource – to make them accept an accomplished fact. But was that my mind now, since I had held Phroso in my arms, and her lips had met mine in the kiss which the islanders hailed as the pledge of our union?

I do not know. I saw Phroso turn and go into the house again. The captain spoke to Denny; I saw him point up to the window of the room which Mouraki had occupied. He went in. Denny motioned Hogvardt to his side, and they two also went into the house without asking me to accompany them. Gradually the throng of islanders dispersed. Orestes flung off in sullen disappointment; the men, those who had knives carefully hiding them, walked down the road like peaceful citizens; the women strolled away, laughing, chattering, gossiping, delighted, as women always are, with the love affair. Thus I was left alone in front of the house. It was late afternoon, and clouds had gathered over the sea. The air was very still; no sound struck my ear except the wash of the waves on the shore.

There I stood fighting the battle, for how long I do not know. The struggle within me was very sore. On either side seemed now to lie a path that it soiled my feet to tread: on the one was a broken pledge, on the other a piece of trickery and knavishness. The joy of a love that could be mine only through dishonour was imperfect joy; yet, if that love could not be mine, life seemed too empty a thing to live. The voices of the two sounded in my ear – the light merry prattle and the calmer sweeter voice. Ah, this island of mine, what things it put on a man!

At last I felt a hand laid on my shoulder. I turned, and in the quick-gathering dusk of the evening I saw Kortes’s sister; she looked long and earnestly into my face.

‘Well?’ said I. ‘What is it now?’

‘She must see you, my lord,’ answered the woman. ‘She must see you now, at once.’

I looked again at the harbour and the sea, trying to quell the tumult of my thoughts and to resolve what I would do. I could find no course and settle on no resolution.

‘Yes, she must see me,’ said I at last. I could say nothing else.

The woman moved away, a strange bewilderment shewing itself in her kind eyes. Again I was left alone in my restless self-communings. I heard people moving to and fro in the house. I heard the window of Mouraki’s room, where the captain was, closed with a decisive hand; and then I became aware of some one approaching me. I turned and saw Phroso’s white dress gleaming through the gloom, and her face nearly as white above it.

Yes, the time had come; but I was not ready.

CHAPTER XXI

A WORD OF VARIOUS MEANINGS

She came up to me swiftly and without hesitation. I had looked for some embarrassment, but there was none in her face. She met my eyes full and square, and began to speak to me at once.

‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I must ask one thing of you. I must lay one more burden on you. After to-day I dare not be here when my countrymen learn how they are deluded. I should be ashamed to face them, and I dare not trust myself to the Turks, for I don’t know what they would do with me. Will you take me with you to Athens, or to some other port from which I can reach Athens? I can elude the guards here. I shall be no trouble: you need only tell me when your boat will start, and give me a corner to live in on board. Indeed I grieve to ask more of you, for you have done so much for me; but my trouble is great and – What is it, my lord?’

I had moved my hand to stop her. She had acted in the one way in which, had it been to save my life, I could not have. She put what had passed utterly out of the way, treating it as the merest trick. My part in it was to her the merest trick; of hers she said nothing. Had hers then been a trick also? My blood grew hot at the thought. I could not endure it.

‘When your countrymen learn how they are deluded?’ said I, repeating her words. ‘Deluded in what?’

‘In the trick we played on them, my lord, to – to persuade them to disperse.’

I took a step towards her, and my voice shook as I said:

‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ For at this moment I set above everything else in the world a fresh assurance of her love. I would force it from her sooner than not have it.

She answered me with questioning eyes and a sad little smile.

‘Are we then betrothed?’ she said, in mournful mockery.

I was close by her now. I did not touch her, but I bent a little, and my face was near hers.

‘Was it a trick to-day, and a trick on St Tryphon’s day also?’ I asked.

She gave one startled glance at my face, and then her eyes dropped to the ground. She made no answer to my question.

‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ I asked in entreaty, in urgency, in the wild longing to hear her love declared once, here, to me alone, where nobody could hear, nobody impair its sweet secrecy.

Phroso’s answer came now, set to the accompaniment of the saddest, softest, murmuring laugh.

‘Ah, my lord, must you hear it again? Am I not twice shamed already?’

‘Be shamed yet once again,’ I whispered; then I saw the light of gladness master the misty sorrow in her eyes as I had seen once before; and I greeted it, whispering:

‘Yes, a thousand times, a thousand times!’

‘My dear lord!’ she said; but then she sprang back, and the brightness was clouded again as she stood aloof, regarding me in speechless, distressed puzzle.

‘But, my lord!’ she murmured, so low that I scarcely heard. Then she took refuge in a return to her request. ‘You won’t leave me here, will you? You’ll take me somewhere where I can be safe. I – I’m afraid of these men, even though the Pasha is dead.’

I took no notice of the request she repeated. I seemed unable to speak or to do anything else but look into her eyes; and I said, a touch of awe in my voice:

‘You have the most wonderful eyes in all the world, Phroso.’

‘My lord!’ murmured Phroso, dropping envious lids. But I knew she would open them soon again, and so she did.

‘Yes, in all the wide world,’ said I. ‘And I want to hear it again.’

As we talked we had moved little by little; now we were at the side of the house, in the deep dull shadow of it. Yet the eyes I praised pierced the gloom and shone in the darkness; and suddenly I felt arms about my neck, clasping me tightly; her breath was on my cheek, coming quick and uneven, and she whispered:

‘Yes, you shall hear it again and again and again, for I am not ashamed now; for I know, yes, I know. I love you, I love you – ah, how I love you!’ Her whispers found answer in mine. I held her as though against all the world: all the world was in that moment, and there was nothing else than that moment in all the world. Had a man told me then that I had felt love before, I would have laughed in his face – the fool!

But then Phroso drew back again; the brief rapture, free from all past or future, all thought or doubt, left her, and, in leaving her, forsook me also. She stood over against me murmuring:

‘But, my lord – !’

I knew well what she would say, and for an instant I stood silent. The world hung for us on the cast of my next words.

‘But, my lord, the lady who waits for you over the sea?’ There sounded a note of fear in the softly breathed whisper that the night carried to my ear. In an instant, before I could answer, Phroso came near to me and laid one hand on my arm, speaking gently and quickly. ‘Yes, I know, I see, I understand,’ she said, ‘and I thank you, my lord, and I thank God, my dear lord, that you told me and did not leave me without shewing me your love; for though I must be very unhappy, yet I shall be proud; and in the long nights I shall think of this dear island and of you, though you will both be far away. Yes, I thank heaven you told me, my dear lord.’ She bent her head, that should have bent to no man, and kissed my hand.

But I snatched my hand hastily away, and I sprang to her and caught her again in my arms, and again kissed her lips; for my resolve was made. I would not let her go. Those who would might ask the rights of it; I could not let her go. Yet I spoke no word, and she did not understand, but thought that I kissed her in farewell; for the tears were on her face and wetted my lips, and she clung to me as though something were tearing her from me and must soon sunder us apart, so greedy was her grasp on me. But then I opened my mouth to whisper in her ear the words which would bid defiance to the thing that was rending her away and rivet her life to mine.

But hark! There was a cry, a startled exclamation, and the sound of footsteps. My name was shouted loud and eagerly. I knew Denny’s voice. Phroso slid from my relaxed arms, and drew back into the deepest shadow.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ I whispered, and with a last pressure of her hand, which was warm now and answered to my grasp, I stepped out of the shelter of the wall and stood in front of the house.

Denny was on the doorstep. The door was open. The light from the lamp in the hall flooded the night and fell full on my face as I walked up to him. On sight of me he seemed to forget his own errand and his own eagerness, for he caught me by the shoulder, and stared at me, crying:

‘Heavens, man, you’re as white as a sheet! Have you seen a ghost? Does Constantine walk – or Mouraki?’