‘Greek? They won’t understand a word of it.’
‘No. Might as well spout Beowulf in the local on Saturday night. But it will sound like something. That’s all that matters. Question is: What? I doubt if the heroic lay would suit your Uncle Freddie. What about one of the Bucolic …’
‘I shall do nothing of the sort.’
They jogged on, past a couple of homesteads whence more people ran out, with boisterous cries, to join them. The torrent formed itself, imperceptibly, into a ritual procession of the whole community. It took on a simple, innate dignity. The old men went first. The young men followed with the donkeys in their midst. Then came the girls. Women and children brought up the rear.
They had a knack for it, reflected Selwyn. Processions were in their blood. Whereas, amongst many tax collectors, the most solemn occasions are often celebrated by nothing more impressive than a self-conscious straggle of people, walking slowly one after another.
The pilgrimage ended at a little plateau carpeted with anemones, and commanding a fine view of Zagros sprawling on the peacock sea. They were assisted from their donkeys and conducted to a tall stone set up to face that view. Upon it was carved, with considerable grace, an inscription in English:
HERE LIES
EDITH CHALLONER OF KERITHA
Born 1898. Died 1959
also
HER BOTHER
ALFRED CHALLONER
Born 1897. Died 1960
The bright day is done and we are for the dark.
Their nephew was surprised and bewildered by his own dismay. This stupid blunder, the mis-spelling of a single word, was cruelly typical of that unhappy pair. Despite their patient efforts to conform, to behave like rational people, they had always contrived to be figures of fun. Their lifelong failure was now perpetuated in their monument. The site was exquisite, the stone a good shape, the lettering graceful, and the whole effect ridiculous.
He had always resented their uncanny faculty for making fools of themselves and of everybody connected with them. Now, standing by their grave, he could have desired to think of them without resentment. In this place, at this moment, the dignity of death should be acknowledged. He wished vaguely that he had brought a wreath. Potter had been right in suggesting that ceremony of some kind should be observed. He looked round sharply, afraid that the fellow might be laughing.
Selwyn was not laughing. Having studied the monument gravely, he crossed himself. Keritha followed suit, and so a few seconds later, did Dr Challoner in a couple of brusque jerks. The assembly became quite silent, waiting for something to be said. After a short pause Selwyn lifted his voice and launched upon the Greek of a former day:
‘Ah me! When the mallows wither in the garden,
And the green parsley,
And the curved tendrils of the anise….’
He paused and waited. If Challoner would not play ball he would finish it himself, but the old boy ought to have it pat enough since he was always yakking about the Ausonian Song.
The old boy took it up in a gentler voice than usual:
‘On a later day they live again,
And spring in another year.’
A sigh went over the listeners as though they understood. Selwyn turned and flung the lament away over the seas to Zagros.
‘But we men,
We the great, or mighty, or wise,
When once we have died
In hollow earth we sleep.’
Again he waited and again Challoner took it up:
‘Gone down into silence.
A long and endless and unawakened sleep.’
A moment of stillness followed, so profound that the sea and the sky, the earth and the stones and the trees might have been listening too. They were both not a little astonished at the resonance and authority of their own voices; it was as though the assembly on the plateau had become a single creature which had found utterance through them.
That creature was satisfied. So much was apparent in the atmosphere. They had declaimed some obviously pious words in a strange tongue which still had power to awaken echoes in the nerves, if not the minds, of their companions. Keritha took its leave, not with more handshakes but with grave bows, and trooped downhill. The mourners were left with the donkeys and one little boy, who explained that he would now show them the way to the house. They mounted again and set off on a track through the pine trees.
Challoner felt as though he were emerging from a dream. Selwyn was excited at perceiving a cow tethered a little way below the path. It seemed to him that the island must be unusually well watered if it afforded grazing for cows as well as goats. He questioned the boy, who told him proudly that Keritha had three cows, all the property of Milorthos Frethi who was so very rich that he ate butter every day.
‘Her Bother Alfred!’ exploded Dr Challoner. ‘That must be put right.’
‘How?’ asked Selwyn. ‘Unless you put up another stone.’
‘I shall. It can’t be left like that. I won’t have my uncle made a laughing stock.’
‘Nobody here thinks that.’
‘Any civilized person coming here will.’
‘Cost you a packet to have another one put up,’ said Selwyn unkindly.
This was probable. Dr Challoner’s thoughts turned uneasily to the mysterious foreigner in his house, the possible disappearance of the jewellery, and doubt as to whether this wild-goose chase might not leave him out of pocket.
The trees were intermittent, giving frequent glimpses of the sea below. The track ran straight eastward round the mountain. Selwyn remembered the deep ravine and the waterfall which they had seen from the boat, and wondered how they were going to cross it. This problem was solved when they came to a plank bridge with no railings, just wide enough to admit the passage of a loaded donkey. Since neither of them had a good head for heights they alighted, preferring to walk across while the boy led the donkeys over after them. But before they could set foot on the planks he barred their way, demanding sugar, nor would he budge when they told him that they had no sugar. The offer of money moved him not at all. If they had no sugar, he declared, they must take a path which plunged down beside the ravine almost to sea level and came up again on the other side.
‘I don’t suppose he’s particular,’ said Selwyn. ‘Give him one of those tablets you sucked on the boat.’
‘Those? They’re bicarbonate of soda.’
‘Try him with one, anyway. We don’t want to go down that path if we can help it.’
A tablet was offered to the boy, who took it rather dubiously but moved aside to let them cross the bridge. The chatter of the falling water grew much louder for a moment and sank again. When they had got safely across Selwyn peered over to watch the thin thread drifting down. Nobody there? he thought dreamily.
The boy joined them with the donkeys. They mounted again. In a few minutes the track, rounding a huge boulder, brought them to the house amidst its blazing flowers.
They were expected.
Upon the terrace, waiting for them stood a tall, grey-haired woman. She looked like the mistress of an English country house welcoming week-end visitors. Her voice was a voice from home – well bred, a little abrupt, but pleasant.
‘Dr Challoner? I’m so glad you’ve come. They’ve brought up your suitcases.’
She then turned to Selwyn, who was gaping at her in astonished recognition. A flicker of uncertainty crossed her handsome rosy features.
‘Mrs Benson!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t you remember me? Selwyn Potter. I’m Judith’s friend. Your daughter Judith. We were up together. I came to a party at your house once. In Edwardes Square.’
‘Oh yes. Of course,’ she said hastily. ‘I remember. But it was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Just after Judith came down.’
‘Ten years ago. I broke something or other. I forget what.’
‘I don’t,’ she said with the forthright candour of her type. ‘It was a Louis-Quinze table. Come in, both of you, and have some tea.’
3
Half an hour with Mrs Benson put Dr Challoner into a much easier frame of mind. She gave him tea and excellent buttered scones. She told him all that he wanted to know and much which he lacked the wit to ask, including a short account of his uncle’s death. She suggested solutions for all his problems. He could not believe that she had purloined his jewellery or that she had given anyone else a chance to do so.
Keritha had been her home, she told him, for more than two years. She had been installed there as friend and companion to Edith, who had needed some such solace, had died slowly, half blind and in great pain. Alfred had followed her, six weeks later, dying of a coronary thrombosis. The three of them were old friends. Kate Benson, in the days when she was Kate Mortimer, had lived next door to the Challoners in the Addison Road. She and Edith had been very fond of one another as children although they lost touch later, for many years, before this final reunion on Keritha.
‘My own children,’ explained Mrs Benson, ‘are all grown up now and out in the world. They don’t need me, and Edith did.’
So Mr Benson must be dead, concluded Selwyn, wolfing buttered scones. Ten years ago there had assuredly been a Mr Benson in the background, although he had not, perhaps, shown up on the inauspicious occasion when Selwyn, vehemently discussing some point, had crashed his fist down upon a valuable little table. Mr Benson evoked no memories. All the rest of them did. This lady had presided over an excellent buffet supper for young people. She was not so grey then; had once obviously been a redhead bleached to a nondescript sandy hue. The younger daughter, a schoolgirl, had beautiful dark red hair. A son, busy opening beer bottles, had been sallow and dark. Judith had been dark too – a pale incisive brunette. He had made her acquaintance during their undergraduate days and believed her to be his friend, although he never received any token of regard from her save this one invitation to her home in Edwardes Square, soon after they both came down. The invitation was not repeated nor was she available when he tried to ring her up. That the damaged table might have something to do with this never occurred to him at the time.
That one visit had made a considerable impression on him. It was an unusual experience. His friends, having perhaps a regard for their furniture, did not invite him to their homes. He had little idea of family life or of what went on in it. In Edwardes Square he got a glimpse of something which he found astonishing and attractive. In retrospect he came to idealize it. They all appeared to be nourished and sustained by some dish which they had in common, which they took for granted, and which was supplied by Mrs Benson in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way.
She had reshaped his notion of a mother, whom he had always supposed to be a tender, slightly sentimental, creature ordained to preside over the lives of infants. He could remember nothing of his own. By the time that he was four years old he knew that most children in Isleworth, where he lived, had got one but that he had Aunty Madge instead. She was not really his aunt. Her husband was a man called Blackett to whom Selwyn’s father had foolishly lent a thousand pounds without security. When Selwyn was flung upon the world, a penniless orphan, Sydney Blackett squared his conscience by making himself responsible for the child’s upbringing. This decision was a permanent grievance with Mrs Blackett. According to her calculations it would have been cheaper to give Selwyn a thousand pounds, which was probably true but beside the point, since a thousand shillings would have been more than Sydney Blackett could ever have got together. Selwyn was a bad bargain and he ate enormously. Having a conscience of sorts she put up with him as best she might; if he fell down and cut his knee she did not ‘kiss the place to make it well’, but she produced lint and plaster. The Blacketts were neither kind nor unkind to the child. He was neither grateful nor ungrateful to them. He grew up unacquainted with warmth or affection and never missed them.
A mother’s function remained vague to him until he got a glimpse of Mrs Benson surrounded by her lively family, adult and semi-adult. She bound them together, preserving them as a group whilst speeding them off on their separate paths. He thought her wonderful. She seemed to foresee what everybody would want.
She did so still. As soon as she could, without tasteless precipitation, she put Dr Challoner out of his pain. The jewellery, she told them, was all in a wall safe. She had a key and a list. Another key and a duplicate list were lodged in a bank at Athens, a precaution which she had herself suggested to Edith some time ago. Things of that sort, she said, should not be left to chance. There were also duplicate lists of other valuable objects – books, coins, ceramics, and curios, which had come originally from the Addison Road. Some of the furniture, moreover, was worth a good deal. An expert should be got in to value it. As for packing and crating, she could recommend a good firm in Athens.
Dr Challoner looked doubtful. He had no use or space for these objects in his bachelor’s burrow in college. The idea of so much bulky and valuable property daunted him. It could be sold, but that might involve a lot of trouble, unless this useful creature could be persuaded to do all the work for him. It seemed that she had stayed on at the house, after Alfred’s death, in order to keep an eye on things until somebody should turn up to claim the inheritance. Hoping to enlist her further aid, he thanked her with unwonted civility for all the trouble that she had taken.
‘Oh, but I’m afraid I’ve let you down over one thing,’ she protested. ‘The grave! That stone! Yorgos, who brought up the baggage, said you’d gone at once to see it. I’m afraid it must have given you rather a shock. I printed it all out for Lakis – he’s our stone-mason – just what was to be put under the inscription for Edith. Of course he knows no English. But I ought to have gone and stood over him while he did it. I would have, if I’d known he’d do it so quickly. They aren’t generally so prompt. I was horrified when I saw it. I fear you must have been.’
‘It can’t be left as it is.’
‘I suppose not. And they’re so proud of it. Did they all escort you to look at it?’
‘Quite a crowd came.’
‘It would be a great occasion for them, and they do love occasions. I expect they hoped you’d be delighted.’
She paused and looked at him uneasily, adding:
‘I shall hear from them how they thought it went off.’
He perceived that his antics at the grave, of which he now felt rather ashamed, could not be concealed for long. In that case he had better make a clean breast of it.
‘I … we … we thought they obviously expected some kind of ceremony. All that we could think of was to recite some …’ he blushed and his voice sank almost to a whisper, ‘… some poetry. They seemed to like it.’
‘Oh? What a good idea! Greek poetry?’
‘Er … yes. Just a short pastoral passage.’
‘Freddie would have liked that. Theocritus?’
This got her a suspicious glance. Dr Challoner did not approve of women who talked glibly about Theocritus, but was mollified when she said:
‘Freddie was so fond of him.’
‘You’re very near the mark, Mrs Benson. Moschus. The lament for Bion.’
‘What? Not that bit about how the plants die and come up again next year, but we don’t?’
‘Yes. Ai! Ai! Tai malachai men hotan kata kepon olontai. It seemed suitable.’
Selwyn jumped up, nearly upsetting the tea table, and strode out through the open window into the garden.
‘You couldn’t have chosen better. Such a favourite poem of Freddie’s. Every autumn he used to come in and quote: “Oh dear! The parsley is all dead in the garden.”’
‘Quite! Quite! Mallows, not parsley. And Oh dear! is hardly a suitable rendering of Ai! Ai! Alas! perhaps.’
‘That’s how Freddie translated it,’ she retorted, looking a little put out. ‘But was it you or Mr Potter who thought of … oh yes, and why is he here? I was never so surprised in my life.’
Dr Challoner explained Selwyn’s presence and added:
‘I doubt if I’ll need him any more. He’d bett
er get himself a boat over to Zagros.’
‘He won’t get one tonight. He must stay here till tomorrow.’
‘That’s quite unnecessary. I never invited him.’
‘But his bag has been taken to a guest room. I expect the maids have unpacked it by now. Yorgos said there were two of you.’
‘In that case I suppose he’d better … I’m sorry to inflict him on you.’
‘Tell me – what has happened to him? I’ve not seen him for a good many years and, today, I was quite shocked. He looks so different. So gone to pieces somehow. He was always odd looking. Uncouth. But such a brilliant, lively creature.’
‘He was my pupil at one time, but I’ve not seen him since he went down. I’ve no idea what he’s been doing with himself. He looks as if he’d come a cropper of some kind.’
‘I’ve always had him a little on my mind. I rather liked him, although he broke my table. I felt he’d never had anyone to take an interest in him or tell him how not to be a lout. But my children didn’t want to ask him again. They thought him a bore.’
‘Have you indoor plumbing here?’ asked Dr Challoner, who also thought Potter a bore.
She explained the sanitary arrangements, which were less primitive than he had feared, and took him up to his room.
In College he slept on an iron bed in a bleak little box looking out on a row of dustbins. A scout brought him tepid shaving water in the mornings and he had to take a very long walk if he wanted a bath. Here he was provided with a stately bed of cedar wood. There were many chests and cupboards for his few possessions, comfortable chairs, a large writing desk, and an incomparable view from the window. In the adjoining bathroom water was heated by a log stove. The smoke from this he had already seen, curling up amongst the trees. It was all a deal too foreign for his taste.
Having explained that these were formerly his uncle’s quarters, Mrs Benson went down to find her other charge. Selwyn was lounging on a bench a little way down the garden slope. He learnt that he was to stay the night but it was tactfully indicated that tomorrow he must get a boat over to Zagros. This hint he ignored. He meant to stay as long as he could in a house where butter was eaten every day.
The Forgotten Smile Page 3