Lament for Leto (Mrs. Bradley) Read online

  “I am going to play today,” said her aunt, “so come along. We must be absolutely ready to take the court over before those other two arrive to claim it.”

  As it happened, when they arrived they found the court in possession of the young couple who made up the number at their dining-table and these, under Chloe’s impatient and authoritative eye, surrendered the court a good five minutes before they were due to do so; therefore, when Julian and Hero turned up, it was to find an unskilful game going on on a pitch and at a time which Julian knew he had booked.

  His reconciliation with Hero was more or less complete and he had been so pleased when she consented to the game that he turned it into a challenge match which he was determined to allow her to win. His annoyance, therefore, when he found the court was in use, changed to wrath when he looked at the board and realised what had happened. He walked on to the court and said,

  “I think there’s some mistake, Mrs. Cowie. This court is booked.”

  “Yes,” said Chloe, “you are quite right, Mr. Suffolk. It was booked by me. If you look, you will see my initials on the board.”

  “Well, I assure you they were not there when I signed up directly after breakfast this morning.”

  “I was with him,” said Hero, realising what had happened and having not the slightest objection to lying in a good cause. “I certainly saw him put the initials there.”

  “Oh, but you do not think signatures matter, any more than I do,” said Chloe, with great sweetness, “so you can scarcely complain, can you?”

  “Well, you’ll have to get off the court,” said Julian firmly. “I signed and this is a challenge match and we’ve brought Dame Beatrice along to umpire for us.”

  Dame Beatrice, who had been standing in the doorway of the engine-room casing which led to a companionway in the interior of the ship, came forward at the sound of her name.

  “And did Dame Beatrice also see you sign the board, as you claim you did?” asked Chloe.

  “No, I did not,” said Dame Beatrice. “Has a question of prior right arisen? Why not toss a coin?”

  “Because my initials are on the board, and Mr. Suffolk’s are not,” said Chloe. “Perhaps you would care to ask the deck steward to intervene, Mr. Suffolk.”

  “By Jove!” said Julian, grinning, and calling her bluff by lying in his turn. “I was talking to him when I put our initials on the board. He’s sure to remember. I’ll tackle him at once.”

  “Oh, well, in that case . . .” said Chloe, conceding defeat . . . “here you are! You’ve lost half your time, anyway.” She hurled the deck tennis quoit from her and it struck Hero sharply and painfully on the ear. “I’m sorry,” she added perfunctorily. “That was not intentional.”

  “No?” said Hero. “All the same, I kill you for it one of these days. You do not strike a Greek and go unpunished.”

  Dick and Simon were at Piraeus to meet the ship’s party, but Henry Owen and Edmund had gone off on a botanising expedition to find specimens of spring-flowering cyclamens. Henry had read that persicum could be found on the Largarda Pass in the region of Sparta, although it was commoner on Crete and Rhodes. He was also in search of the smaller mindleri which had only one habitat and that was on Aegina. While he was in the Peloponnese he also intended to look for repandum, which, like the other specimens, flowered in the spring. He had ascertained that it grew in quantities in the Parori Gorge, near Mistra.

  “I doubt, in fact,” said Dick, who was sharing a taxi to their Athens hotel with Dame Beatrice, Chloe Cowie, and Mary, “whether we shall see very much of Henry and the two boys at any time while we are in Greece. He has no particular interest in archaeology, and certainly none in Apollo, but has great ideas of exploring the most inaccessible places in quest of these wild flowers and plants of his. He tells me that Greece has no fewer than six thousand species, and that one plant in every ten, or thereabouts, is endemic and grows nowhere else in the world.”

  “It will be very disappointing for you, Ronald dear, if all three of them leave the party,” said Chloe. “You thought we were to be one carefree, happy family. Still, it may be more peaceful without the two boys. Boys, I find, are apt to be noisy young animals with a very rudimentary sense of humour. If you will believe me, that wretched child Roger told me a cock-and-bull story of a plot to kidnap Dame Beatrice when we leave Athens for Delos. He talked about holding her to ransom—not he himself, of course, but the kidnappers.”

  “And who is to do the kidnapping?” enquired Dame Beatrice, interested in this second and even more unlikely flight of fancy on Roger’s part.

  “He did not say. I was rather short with him and did not allow him to finish his ridiculous story.”

  “What a pity,” said Mary, “although I should be sorry for anyone who attempted to kidnap Dame Beatrice and hold her to ransom. Still, I do agree that we should be better off without those two boys. Edmund is loutish and Roger is a pest.”

  “I shall miss Henry’s company, if they do go off on their own,” said Dick. “It will not be at once, however. He wants to go to Delos with us because it seems that a particularly beautiful convolvulus grows there on the ruins. I think we may also look to have him with us at Corinth and at Delphi, from what he has told me, so there will be no need to break up the party altogether. By the way, I have taken the liberty of booking hotel rooms for you all, unless you have made other arrangements. We shall be in Athens for a week, and then the yacht will be available to take us to the islands.”

  “The yacht?” said Mary. “Do you mean a private yacht?”

  “Yes. A friend is lending it to me. It is powered and carries a crew of two who will manage it with a little help at times from Simon and myself, and it will sleep six of us in comfort.”

  “Six?” said Mary, on a note there was no mistaking.

  “Simon, myself, and Hero, of course, and you three ladies. Naturally Suffolk will wish to travel with Owen and the boys,” explained Ronald Dick. “It seemed the obvious division to make.”

  “Oh, yes, I see,” said Mary. “Yes, of course.” It was impossible to tell from her tone whether she found the arrangement satisfactory or not. Her aunt, however, was delighted.

  “What is the tonnage of the yacht?” she enquired.

  “I don’t know,” replied Dick, “but I am sure we shall be comfortable on board, and the crew, both Greeks, have an excellent knowledge of the coastline and the islands, and the younger of them, I am told, is a very good cook.”

  The party had been fortunate enough to arrive in Athens when the moon was at the full, and at dinner Chloe Cowie announced her intention of visiting the Acropolis by moonlight. She, Dame Beatrice, Mary, and Dick were seated at the same table. The others were at an adjacent one, towards which, hearing laughter, Mary often cast an envious eye. She was looking forward to the return of Henry Owen, for then she thought there might be a chance for her to join Julian’s table while Henry took her place with the older members.

  “I don’t think I’ll bother with the Acropolis,” she said. “I think I’ll have a long night and catch up with some of my lost sleep. We had some very late nights on board ship.”

  “Yes, you were a little selfish, I thought,” said her aunt, “considering that you shared my cabin, and often came in during the small hours. Still,” she added magnanimously (for the benefit of the rest of the table), “I suppose you enjoyed the dancing. Is anyone else of a mind to accompany me this evening?” She looked brightly around at the others.

  Dame Beatrice, who had no intention of visiting the Acropolis in such uncongenial company—for nothing, so far, had caused her to revise her first impression of Chloe Cowie as a talkative and self-opinionated bore—said nothing. Ronald Dick, catching Chloe’s speculative eye, said apologetically that he had a great deal of paper-work to get through, but that he was sure some of the young people would wish to join her. He added that the Acropolis by moonlight was not a sight to be missed, and that he only wished he were free to accompany her. Dame
Beatrice wondered whether he had already changed his mind about making Chloe an offer of marriage, or whether the excuse of pressure of work was genuine.

  It transpired that Simon could borrow a large American car in which Chloe was offered the front seat beside the driver, while Julian, Hero and Roger sat at the back. No sooner had they left the dining-table to go off on their expedition than Dick answered Dame Beatrice’s mental query and seemed anxious indeed, to do so.

  “Now we’re alone,” he said to her, “I wonder whether you would allow me to talk to you?”

  “By all means,” she replied, wondering what was coming.

  “What I have to say must be said in confidence.”

  “I shall be honoured.”

  “The hotel has a pleasant, glassed-in adjunct to the lounge. We can obtain a view of the Acropolis from it. Besides, according to my knowledge, it will be almost deserted at this hour. Shall we take our coffee there?”

  Seated opposite him at a small table, Dame Beatrice sipped her coffee and again wondered what Dick could have to say to her which could not be said except in private. He did not begin at once but, having asked her permission to smoke, he lit a thin black cheroot, leaned back and gave her time to look to where, on their airy hilltop, stood the moonlit monuments to the genius of the ancient Athenians.

  When Dick spoke, he spoke abruptly.

  “Do you believe in omens, Dame Beatrice?”

  She turned towards him.

  “That depends upon what you mean by omens,” she said.

  “Perhaps I should tell you the whole story.”

  “Do. And then perhaps I shall have something to tell you.”

  “You have not changed your mind about coming with us on our expedition?”

  “Oh, no—at any rate, not yet.”

  “I’m glad of that, although there seems to be a lurking threat in your amendment.”

  “No, that is not what I intended to convey. But let us exchange confidences. Will you begin?”

  “Twice, since I have been in Athens, I have been given warnings that our proposed expedition may be unwise.”

  “The country, of course, is full of unrest.”

  “Oh, this has nothing to do with politics. I never discuss the government or express any opinion about the régime, and I have always found the Greek savants most courteous and helpful. I used the word ‘omens’ a while ago, and really I can think of no other which would convey what I mean.”

  “Omens, of course, can be re-oriented.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “By the exercise of ready wit, they may be made to indicate the opposite of what popular superstition attributes to them.”

  “Oh, you are thinking of the landing of William of Normandy at Bulverhythe. He fell as he leapt ashore, and this was regarded as unfortunate, but he exclaimed that he had taken seizin of the country with both hands.”

  “And it turned out that he was right. Equally quick of thought was Leotychidas of Sparta, who was told by the soothsayers that a proposed expedition was doomed to failure because a viper had become entangled with the key to the city he proposed to take. He replied that the opposite meaning should be read into the omen: not that the viper dominated the key, but that the key had caught the viper.”

  “Well, I will rehearse to you my experiences and we will hope that you will be able to give me an optimistic interpretation of them. The first began with a note which was passed to me in the museum here.”

  “A note? That sounds more like a threat than an omen.”

  “Call it what you will. I found it extremely disturbing, not so much in itself as in what happened when I followed its instructions.”

  “This sounds the most ingenuous cloak-and-dagger story I ever heard!”

  “I know,” said Dick, “but when you have heard all you may see why I am worried. I admit to being an extremely superstitious man. Long association with Sir Rudri contributed to this, no doubt, for I have always been highly suggestible and his beliefs impressed me. Besides this, from my early childhood I have believed in signs, omens, and portents. Faced with the fact that the soothsayers, according to Shakespeare, could find no heart within the beast they sacrificed for Caesar, had I been he I am sure that nothing on earth would have persuaded me to go to the Capitol on the Ides of March.” He laughed. Two people, a man and a girl at the other end of the viewing-lounge, looked round and then linked arms and stole away, so that Dame Beatrice and Dick had the place to themselves. “Before I go on,” he said, “I ought perhaps to tell you that both Henry Owen and I are in a mutually difficult position. This is beginning to sour a previously happy relationship.”

  “Mrs. Cowie, I presume.”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Let us call it woman’s intuition.”

  “You are sparing my feelings. I suppose I was rather obviously enamoured of her when you met her at my flat.”

  “Oh, no, not at all, but I could not help noticing Mr. Owen’s proprietory attitude. Apart from that, you had told me that you proposed to make her an offer of marriage.”

  “Oh, so I did. Yes, well, when Henry came on the scene, I realised that my plan was liable to meet with opposition. We all dined with him at his hotel in Bournemouth when he first came into my neighbourhood to discuss the plans for our pilgrimage, and after that I found that he was constantly visiting Mrs. Cowie at her flat. It was most disquieting. You see, I cannot help realising that he has some notable advantages over me. He has good looks, vast physical strength, personal magnetism, and imagination. I lack all of these attributes.”

  “He also has two sons who will be living with him for some years yet, one supposes. I know nothing of Edmund’s feelings, but, judging from their attitude towards one another on board ship, I would not say that Mrs. Cowie and Roger are exactly compatible.”

  “I doubt whether that would weigh with Henry. The boys have their tutor and their own quarters in Henry’s large house in Wales, and later on they will be at College. There would be no need for Mrs. Cowie to see very much of them. Besides, I myself have Hero and Simon, so I have no advantage there.”

  “I would have supposed you had. Your ward and your adopted son are twenty years old, I believe. They will surely be off your hands reasonably soon.”

  “Hero dislikes Mrs. Cowie and Simon laughs at her. Well, Henry, having visited her at her flat a number of times, began to escort Mrs. Cowie to entertainments and to take her out in his car. As you may imagine, this nonplussed me and before we came away I asked him point-blank to what extent he was interested in Mrs. Cowie.”

  “And his answer was evasive, I feel sure.”

  “I don’t know how you deduced that, but you are right. He said that Mrs. Cowie was a charming and well-informed woman and that surely there was no reason why he should not find her society congenial. I know, too, because she told me so herself, that he had done his utmost to persuade her to fly out with us instead of going by sea. However, she pleaded that she could not allow her niece to travel alone on the ship . . .”

  “She would not have been alone, as it happened, though, would she? Mrs. Cowie knew that I, too, was going by sea and could be trusted to look after the poor child during the cruise.”

  “Why do you call her that?—the poor child?”

  “For the best of reasons. She is poor, in the sense that she has no money of her own but is totally dependent on her aunt, and she is a child in the sense that she has no experience of the world—or so her aunt told me.”

  “I suppose,” said Dick, “that, if I marry Mrs. Cowie, Mary will not expect to live with us?”

  “There are less likely happenings, I’m afraid.”

  “But Hero detests Mary.”

  “Well, Hero is of marriageable age and is not likely to remain at home much longer, if I am any judge.”

  “Is not Mary Cowie of about the same age as Hero?”

  “She is a year or so older, perhaps, but there would not be much in it.”

 
“Then she must be marriageable, too, therefore I shall go ahead, and let Henry Owen make what he will of it! And now I have settled that in my mind, may I tell you my story?”

  “About the omens? Please do, I am all ears.”

  “The less alarming of my experiences took place in the museum here, and no later than this afternoon. I was looking at some of the sixth-century sculpture and had paused in front of the particularly fine bronze Apollo which was found at Piraeus only a dozen years ago, when the lad Roger who, with his tutor, was with me, said, ‘Why don’t you speak to it? Ask it to bless our pilgrimage.’ ”

  “I turned towards him, thinking that he was jesting and, as I did so, the statue appeared to speak.”

  “My dear Mr. Dick!”

  “Oh, I know. Either I am slightly mad—which I decline to believe—or else a ventriloquist or somebody with a tape-recorder was at hand.”

  “What did the statue appear to say?”

  “It said: By the bow they have taken from me—you will recollect, no doubt, that the statue, when it was made, must have been holding a bow—there is a reference to Apollo’s bow in one of the epigrams by Claudian, who addresses the god as ‘swift bowman’ and there is still a short bit of the bow to be seen in the left hand of the statue . . .”

  “The Apollo you mention has come to the museum since I was last in Athens, so I have not seen it.”

  “Be sure to go and look at it. Not only is it a remarkably fine thing in itself, but it is thought to be the earliest figure of any size—it stands just over six feet high—to be hollow-cast in metal.”

  “I will certainly go and admire it. But the rest of its remarks, what were they?”

  “Ah, yes. By the bow they have taken from me, let not the exquisite Clio take thee captive at thy midnight vigil, for, if she should die, thou shalt cross the Styx with her, but not until I have wreaked vengeance upon thy fellow-voyagers.”

  “The voice,” said Dame Beatrice, “is the voice of Jacob, but the hands, I am inclined to think, are the hands of Esau. Those are Greek phrases which any schoolboy might be expected to know. Were all three of you standing together?”