There were crowds here, too, but these were broken knots of people, moving purposefully in search of transport home, or the midday meal. Nobody paid any attention to us.
Adoni, who apparently knew the car, shouldered his way purposefully through the groups of people, and held out a hand to me for the keys.
Almost as meekly as Miranda (who hadn’t yet spoken a word) I handed them over, and our escort unlocked the doors and ushered her into the back seat. She got in with bent head, and sat well back in a corner. I wondered, with some amusement, if this masterful young man intended to drive us both home – and whether Phyl would mind – but he made no such attempt. He shut the driver’s door on me and then got in beside me.
‘You are used to our traffic now?’
‘Oh, yes.’ If he meant was I used to driving on the right-hand side, I was. As for traffic, there was none in Corfu worth mentioning; if I met one lorry and half a dozen donkeys on an average afternoon’s excursion it was the most I had had to contend with. But today there was the packed and teeming harbour boulevard, and possibly because of this, Adoni said nothing more as we weaved our way through the people and out on to the road north. We climbed a steep, badly cambered turn, and then the road was clear between high hedges of judas trees and asphodel. The surface was in places badly pitted by the winter’s rain, so I had to drive slowly, and the third gear was noisy. Under cover of its noise I said quietly to Adoni:
‘Will Miranda and her mother be able to keep themselves, now that Spiro has gone?’
‘They will be cared for.’ It was said flatly, and with complete confidence.
I was surprised, and also curious. If Godfrey Manning had made an offer, he would surely have told Phyllida so; and besides, whatever he chose to give Maria now, he would hardly feel that he owed this kind of conscience-money. But if it was Julian Gale who was providing for the family, as Phyllida had alleged, it might mean that her story of the twins’ parentage was true. I would have been less than human if I hadn’t madly wanted to know.
I put out a cautious feeler. ‘I’m glad to hear that. I didn’t realise there was some other relative.’
‘Well,’ said Adoni, ‘there is Sir Gale, in a way, but I didn’t mean him or Max. I meant that I would look after them myself.’
‘You?’
He nodded, and I saw him throw a half-glance over his shoulder at Miranda. I could see her in the driving-mirror; she was taking no notice of our soft conversation in English, which in any case may have been too rapid for her to follow, but was staring dully out of the window, obviously miles away. Adoni leaned forward and put a finger on the radio button, a gadget without which no Greek or Italian car ever seems to take the road. ‘You permit?’
‘Of course.’
Some pop singer from Athens Radio mooed from under the dash. Adoni said quietly: ‘I shall marry her. There is no dowry, but that’s no matter, Spiro was my friend, and one has obligations. He had saved to provide for her, but now that he is dead her mother must keep it; I can’t take it.’
I knew that in the old Greek marriage contract, the girl brought goods and land, the boy nothing but his virility, and this was considered good exchange; but families with a crop of daughters to marry off had been beggared before now, and Miranda, circumstanced as she was, would hardly have had a hope of marriage. Now here was this handsome boy calmly offering her a contract which any family would have been glad to accept, and one in which, moreover, he was providing all the capital; of the virility there could certainly be no doubt, and besides, he had a good job in a country where jobs are scarce, and, if I was any judge of character, he would keep it. The handsome Adoni would have been a bargain at any reckoning. He knew this, of course, he’d have been a fool not to; but it seemed that he felt a duty to his dead friend, and from what I had seen of him, he would fulfil it completely, efficiently, and to everyone’s satisfaction – not least Miranda’s. And besides (I thought, prosaically), Leo would probably come through with a handsome wedding present.
‘Of course,’ added Adoni, ‘Sir Gale may give her a dowry, I don’t know. But it would make no difference; I shall take her. I haven’t told her so yet, but later, when it’s more fitting, I shall tell Sir Gale, and he will arrange it.’
‘I – yes, of course. I hope you’ll both be very happy.’
‘Thank you.’
I said: ‘Sir Julian is … he makes himself responsible for them, then?’
‘He was godfather to the twins.’ He glanced at me. ‘I think you have this in England, don’t you, but it is not quite the same? Here in Greece, the godfather, the koumbàros, is very important in the child’s life, often as important as the real father, and it is he who arranges the marriage contract.’
‘I see.’ As simple as that. ‘I did know Sir Julian had known the family for years, and had christened the twins, but I didn’t know he – well, had a responsibility. The accident must have been a dreadful shock to him, too.’ I added, awkwardly: ‘How is he?’
‘He is well. Have you met him yet, Miss Waring?’
‘No. I understood he didn’t see anyone.’
‘He doesn’t go out much, it’s true, but since the summer he has had visitors. You’ve met Max, though, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’ There had been nothing in Adoni’s voice to show what he knew about that meeting, but since he called him ‘Max’, without prefix, one might assume a relationship informal enough for Max to have told him just what had passed. Anyway, this was the faithful watch-dog who threw the callers over the cliff. No doubt he had heard all about it – and might even have had orders regarding further encroachments by Miss Lucy Waring …
I added, woodenly: ‘I understood he didn’t see anyone, either.’
‘Well, it depends,’ said Adoni cheerfully. He pulled a duster out from somewhere under the dashboard, and began to polish the inside of the screen. ‘Not that this helps much, it’s all the insects that get squashed on the outside. We’re nearly there, or you could stop and I’d do it for you.’
‘It doesn’t matter, thanks.’
So that was as far as I’d get. In any case, Miranda seemed to be coming back to life. The back seat creaked as she moved, and in the mirror I could see that she had put back her kerchief, and was watching the back of Adoni’s head. Something in her expression, still blurred though it was with tears, indicated that I had been right about the probable success of the marriage.
I said, in the brisk tone of one who changes the subject to neutral ground: ‘Do you ever go out shooting, Adoni?’
He laughed, undeceived. ‘Are you still looking for your criminal? I think you must have been mistaken – there’s no Greek would shoot a dolphin. I am a sailor, too – all Corfiotes are sailors – and the dolphin is the beast of fair weather. We even call it “dolphin weather” – the summer time, when the dolphins go with the boats. No, me, I only shoot people.’
‘People?’
‘That was a joke,’ explained Adoni. ‘Here we are. Thank you very much for bringing us. I’ll take Miranda to her mother now, then I’ve promised to go back to the Castello. Max wants to go out this afternoon. Perhaps I shall see you there soon?’
‘Thank you, but I – no, I doubt if you will.’
‘That would be a pity. While you are here, you should see the orange orchards; they are something quite special. You have heard of the koùm koyàts – the miniature trees? They are very attractive.’ That quick, enchanting smile. ‘I should like to show them to you.’
‘Perhaps some time.’
‘I hope so. Come, Miranda.’
As I put the car into gear, I saw him usher the silent girl through her mother’s door as if he already owned the place. Suppressing a sharp – and surely primitive – envy for a woman who could have her problems simply taken out of her hands and solved for her, willy-nilly, I put down my own independent and emancipated foot, and sent the little Fiat bucketing over the ruts of the drive, and down the turning to the Villa Forli.
&n
bsp; At least, if Max Gale was to be out, I could have my afternoon swim in peace.
* * *
I went down after tea, when the heat was slackening off, and the cliff cast a crescent of shade at the edge of the sand.
Afterwards I dressed, picked up my towel, and began slowly to climb the path back to the villa.
When I reached the little clearing where the pool lay, I paused to get my breath. The trickle of the falling stream was cool and lovely, and light spangled down golden through the young oak leaves. A bird sang somewhere, but only one. The woods were silent, stretching away dim-shadowed in the heat of the late afternoon. Bee orchises swarmed by the water, over a bank of daisies. A blue tit flew across the clearing, obviously in a great hurry, its beak stuffed with insects for the waiting family.
A moment later the shriek came, a bird’s cry of terror, then the rapid, machine-gun swearing of the parent tit. Some other small birds joined the clamour. The shrieks of terror jagged through the peaceful wood. I dropped my towel on the grass, and ran towards the noise.
The blue tits met me, the two parent birds, fluttering and shrieking, their wings almost brushing me as I ran up a twisting path, and out into the open stretch of thin grass and irises where the tragedy was taking place.
This couldn’t have been easier to locate. The first thing I saw as I burst from the bushes was a magnificent white Persian cat, crouched picturesquely to spring, tail jerking to and fro in the scanty grass. Two yards from his nose, crying wildly, and unable to move an inch, was the baby blue tit. The parents, with anguished cries, darted repeatedly and ineffectually at the cat, which took not the slightest notice.
I did the only possible thing. I dived on the cat in a flying tackle, took him gently by the body, and held him fast. The tits swept past me, their wings brushing my hands. The little one sat corpse-still now, not even squeaking.
I suppose I could have been badly scratched, but the white cat had strong nerves, and excellent manners. He spat furiously, which was only to be expected, and wriggled to be free, but he neither scratched nor bit. I held him down, talking soothingly till he was quiet, then lifted him and turned away, while behind me the parent birds swooped down to chivvy their baby out of sight.
I hurried my captive out of the clearing before he got a chance to see where the birds were making for, and away at random through the bushes. Far from objecting to this, the cat seemed now rather pleased at the attention than otherwise; having had to surrender to force majeure he managed – in the way of his species – to let me know that he did in fact prefer to be carried … And when, presently, I found myself toiling up a ferny bank which grew steeper, and steeper yet, he even began to purr.
This was too much. I stopped.
‘I’ll tell you something,’ I said to him, ‘you weigh a ton. You can darned well walk, Butch, as from now! And I hope you know your way home from here, because I’m not letting you go back to those birds!’
I put him down. Still purring, he stropped himself against me a couple of times, then strolled ahead of me up the bank, tail high, to where at the top the bushes thinned to show bright sunlight. There he paused, glancing back and down at me, before stalking forward out of view.
He knew his way, no doubt of that. Hoping there was a path there that would take me back clear of the tangled bushes, I clambered up in his wake, to find myself in a big clearing, full of sunshine, the hum of bees, and a blaze of flowers that pulled me up short, gaping.
After the dappled dimness of the wood, it took some moments before one could do more than blink at the dazzle of colour. Straight ahead of me an arras of wistaria hung fully fifteen feet, and below it there were roses. Somewhere to one side was a thicket of purple judas-trees, and apple blossom glinting with the wings of working bees. Arum lilies grew in a damp corner, and some other lily with petals like gold parchment, transparent in the light. And everywhere, roses. Great bushes of them rampaged up the trees; a blue spruce was half smothered with sprays of vivid Persian pink, and one dense bush of frilled white roses must have been ten feet high. There were moss roses, musk roses, damask roses, roses pied and streaked, and one old pink rose straight from a mediæval manuscript, hemispherical, as if a knife had sliced it across, its hundred petals as tightly whorled and packed as the layers of an onion. There must have been twenty or thirty varieties there, all in full bloom; old roses, planted years ago and left to run wild, as if in some secret garden whose key is lost. The place seemed hardly real.
I must have stood stock still for some minutes, looking about me, dizzied with the scent and the sunlight. I had forgotten roses could smell like that. A spray of speckled carmine brushed my hand, and I broke it off and held it to my face. Deep among the leaves, in the gap I had made, I saw the edge of an old metal label, and reached gingerly for it among the thorns. It was thick with lichen, but the stamped name showed clearly: Belle de Crécy.
I knew where I was now. Roses: they had been another hobby of Leo’s grandfather’s. Phyl had some of his books up at the Villa, and I had turned them over idly the other night, enjoying the plates and the old names which evoked, like poetry, the old gardens of France, of Persia, of Provence … Belle de Crécy, Belle Isis, Deuil du Roi de Rome, Rosamunde, Camäieux, Ispahan …
The names were all there, hidden deep in the rampant leaves where some predecessor of Adoni’s had lovingly attached them a century ago. The white cat, posing in front of an elegant background of dark fern, watched benevolently as I hunted for them, my hands filling with plundered roses. The scent was heavy as a drug. The air zoomed with bees. The general effect was of having strayed out of the dark wood into some fairy-tale. One almost expected the cat to speak.
When the voice did come, suddenly, from somewhere above, it nearly startled me out of my wits. It was a beautiful voice, and it enhanced, rather than broke, the spell. It spoke, moreover, in poetry, as deliberately elegant as the white cat:
‘Most sure, the goddess
On whom these airs attend: vouchsafe my prayer
May know if you remain upon his Island?’
I peered upwards, at first seeing no one. Then a man’s head appeared at the top of the wistaria – and only then did I realise that the curtain of blossom hung in fact down some kind of high retaining wall, which it had hidden. I saw, between the thick trusses of flowers, sections of the stone balustrading. The terrace of the Castello. The rose garden had been planted right up beside it.
I wanted to turn and run, but the voice held me. Needless to say it was not Max Gale’s; this was a voice I had heard many times before, spinning just such a toil of grace as this in the stuffy darkness of London theatres.
‘My prime request,’ added Sir Julian Gale, ‘Which I do last pronounce, and which in fact you may think impertinent, Is, O you wonder, If you be maid, or no?’
I suppose if I had met him normally, on our common ground of the theatre, I might have been too overawed to do more than stutter. But here at least the answer was laid down in the text, and had, besides, the advantage of being the truth. I narrowed my eyes against the sun, and smiled up at the head.
‘No wonder, sir,
But certainly a maid.’
‘My language! Heavens!’ The actor abruptly abandoned the Bard, and looked delighted. ‘I was right! You’re Max’s trespasser!’
I felt myself flushing. ‘I’m afraid I am, and I seem to be trespassing again. I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t realise the terrace was quite so near. I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming so far up, but I was rescuing a bird from Butch there.’
‘From whom?’
‘The cat. Is he yours? I suppose he’s called something terribly aristocratic, like Florizel, or Cosimo dei Fiori?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Julian Gale, ‘I call him Nit. I’m sorry, but it’s short for Nitwit, and when you get to know him, you’ll see why. He’s a gentleman, but he has very little brain. Now you’re here, won’t you come up?’
‘Oh, no!’ I spoke hastily, backing a
little. ‘Thanks all the same, but I’ve got to get back.’
‘I can’t believe there’s all that hurry. Won’t you please take pity on me and break the deadly Sabbath peace up a little? Ah!’ He leaned further over. ‘Not only trespass, I see, but theft as well! You’ve been stealing my roses!’
This statement, uttered in the voice whose least whisper was clearly audible in the back row of the gallery, had all the force of an accusation made before the High Praesidium. I started guiltily, glanced down at the forgotten blooms in my hands, and stammered:
‘Well, yes, I – I have. Oh, murder … I never thought … I mean, I took it they were sort of wild. You know, planted ages ago and just left…’ My voice faltered, as I looked round me and saw what I hadn’t noticed before, that the bushes, in spite of their riotous appearance, were well shaped, and that the edges of the mossed paths were tidily clipped. ‘I – I suppose this is your garden now, or something? I’m most terribly sorry!’
‘“Or something?” By heaven, she picks an armful of my beloved Gallicas, and then thinks they come out of my garden “or something”! That settles it, young woman! By all the rules you have to pay a forfeit. If Beauty strays into the Beast’s garden, literally loaded with his roses, she’s asking for trouble, isn’t she? Come along, now, and no arguments! There are the steps. Nit’ll bring you up. Nitwit! Show the lady the way!’
The white cat rose, blinked at me, then swarmed in an elaborately careless manner up the wistaria, straight into Julian Gale’s arms. The latter straightened, smiling.
‘Did I say he hadn’t much brain? I traduced him. Do you think you could manage something similar?’