There was nothing for it, however, but to linger another three days while a gang of hired workmen dug up the floor of the ‘palace’ and a space the size of a cricket pitch all around it, stopping every ten minutes to regale me with their finds of broken crockery and discarded worn out household items, some of them as many as a year or two old, while Morland himself took to potting plants and gathering seeds.
In the middle of the fifth day, I was woken from the doze which I had found to be the best way to pass the time, by cries from the diggings, and then by Spiro shaking me and calling,
“Come, Lorde, come quick. We find eikona. We find graven image.”
Some six feet from the entrance to the apse, and half as far beneath the ‘palace’s’ dirt floor, could be seen, picked out in yellow stones, the Khi Rho shape of the labarum. My theory that the construction was originally an early Christian church was thus borne out, and my being right in this conjecture was the only satisfaction I could take from the entire expedition.
Further work was now impossible, the labour force being set on congratulating each other on their achievements. The congratulations involved copious supplies of wine, an unlikely amount of dancing, the men arm in arm with each other, and a great deal of singing.
“They sing the Thourios,” Spiro told me. “The Thourios of the immortal Rigas. We may sing it here, where his Majesty King George, God bless him, protects us, but over there, in the Roumeli, and the Morea, to sing such a song is to risk the bastinado and the strangler’s noose. But soon the Turk will hear all Romans singing it. Very soon now. The pallikaria are all waiting, Kolokotronis, Mavromichalis, Makriyiannis, all waiting. Your Lordos Vyronos too. They not wait much more long. Κάλλιο είναι μιας ώρας ελεύθερη ζωή, παρά σαράντα χρόνους, σκλαβιά και φυλακή. Zito Hellas!”
And with that he ran off to make sure of his share of the wine.
Nothing more was done that day, of course, and when none of the workmen turned up the following morning Morland at last conceded that we could do no more here.
“”You were right and I was wrong,” he said. “I should not have meddled in your field for the sake of a few weeds which may be of no real use.”
“We are both men of learning,” I replied, “both consumed by a thirst for more knowledge. Let us say no more. I reserve the right to instruct you in what to prescribe for your next patient, however.”
Boats had been sailing between Ithaca and Corfu almost daily for the past week. Now, however, when we were in need of a passage, we found that one was not to be had.
Not today, at any rate. The answer was always the inevitable ‘avrio’. The winds were in the wrong direction, today was unlucky, today was a saint’s day, the paint was drying on the only boat fit for the voyage – the excuses were endless.
It was Spiro who put us right in the end.
“No-one take you away,” he said. “Boats good, wind good, weather good, still no-one take you, Lords. You have not given feast to the village to celebrate finding treasure in old palace.”
“But it wasn’t a palace and there was no treasure.”
“You very wise, very clever, Lorde Mpennete, but you not know villagers. They know you find treasure in palace of old king. Why else you come here? They, how you say, disappointed, shamed, you not share your good fortune with them. Some say is insult must be avenged. Best give big party, very quick, then everybody happy, all go home.”
“You mean that there will never be a passage for us until we feast the entire village to celebrate the discovery of the treasure we did not find?”
“Sure. Big party, everybody happy, we take treasure away with us. No party, everybody sad, treasure stay here.”
“But there is no treasure! We found no treasure!”
“Is good. Still, you not take away treasure you not find until big party for village. Headman has honour to think of.”
“But how am I supposed to arrange such a thing?”
“No problem! Spiro see to it. Very cheap, too, two, maybe three your beautiful English gold guineas.”
There was obviously nothing to be done but to comply, and I handed over the three guineas with as good grace as I could manage, although I could not help commenting,
“I thought your name was Spiro, not Barabbas.”
He returned the blank stare common to all servants all over the world.
“Oriste?” he said.
“Be off with you,” I replied.
‘Oriste’ is one of the two words of Demotic Greek that I had so far managed to pick up, probably because it has undergone comparatively little transformation since ancient times. It literally means ‘define’, or ‘explain’, in the imperative, and they use it whenever they want to pretend that they do not understand what you have just said to them.
The other is ‘avrio’, which they tell me means ‘tomorrow’. It is the invariable response to any enquiry as to when something will be done, finished, ready, available, etc. You may already have made the same enquiry yesterday. The answer will still be ‘avrio’. Morland, who has travelled, and, indeed, studied for a while at Salamanca, tells me that it is very similar to the Spanish ‘mañana’, but without the same sense of urgency.
‘Auri sacra fames’ worked its magic, nonetheless. The party began at sunset, with promises of ‘varka avrio’ and was still in full swing at dawn, when we were bundled onto said varka with all our possessions by half the population, who then returned to the fray, leaving us to the tender mercies of a heavily mustachioed ruffian who merely grunted at us and bellowed at his crew to set sail.
The last we saw of Ithaca was the fire spurting as another lamb was laid to the spit.
Chapter Eighteen :Winter in Corfu
When we entered the drawing room at the Villa Alkyone on our return from Ithaca, I should have sworn that Mrs Bennet was still in the middle of the very same sentence about the inferior quality of the island’s seamstresses with which she had been consoling herself when we left.
Mrs Morland, indeed, greeted her husband very properly, with every sign of affection, and drew him off into a corner for a private conference. All I merited was,
“There you are dear. I wish you would speak to Cook! We have not had a hot meal since you went off on your travels, and have to wait such an unconscionable time between courses. Mrs Simpson never gave us such trouble, but I cannot get on with this new man. It seems so unnatural, somehow, having a man for a cook, so foreign.”
“I rejoice to see you, too, my dear, but perhaps I may be permitted to observe that I am not the master of this household, nor are you the mistress?”
“Oh, Lydia is very happy for me to take charge, are you not, my love, and I am sure Wickham would not mind. He is so busy at his office, signing his important papers all day, and he does not have your touch with servants. You will set all to rights, I am sure.”
It is a hard lot, being indispensible, but I have grown accustomed to it since Jane and Lizzie left. I thought it best to consult Spiro on this issue, since I had never looked into the kitchen, and did not even know the cook’s name.”
“He called Spiro,” was the answer to my enquiry. “He my cousin. He man, but he first-rate cook. Work for the French in taverna on the Listo.”
“His name is Spiro too? What a coincidence!”
“All men in Corfu called Spiro. Why holy Hagios Spiridion protect us, save us from Turks if we not called after him?”
“Does that not give rise to some confusion?”
“Why we confuse? Everybody know everybody else, big Spiro, little Spiro, fat Spiro, ugly Spiro, other names too. Now we go see my cousin Spiro, please big Signora Benneta.”
“When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war” goes the old proverb, and so I found it when we reached the kitchen. I had expected Spiro (my Spiro, that is) to deal gently, or at least amicably with his relative, and was surprised at the torrent of what sounded like Greek invective which poured out of his
mouth, and even more surprised by the fiery response of the diminutive, roly-poly little man he addressed.
The arm-waving, foot-stamping and striking of foreheads and breasts that accompanied the tirades on both sides did not surprise me in the least. I had been south of the Alps quite long enough to accept them as an inevitable accompaniment to any serious discussion. When it came to brandishing knives, however, I thought it best to intervene.
“What, exactly, is the problem,” I asked. “Or have you not, as yet, got beyond exchanging greetings?”
All gesticulations ceased, and two pairs of black eyes stared intently at me.
“This misbegotten son of a Turk say he cannot serve food any quicker. He disgrace to family. He only my cousin by marriage.”
“But the kitchen is only a few steps from the dining room, and on the same floor. What causes the delay? Are the cooking arrangements not satisfactory?”
Pause for more shouts and gestures.
“He say cooking not problem. What takes time is waiting for food to get cold.”
“But we like our food hot. We want our food hot.”
More altercations.
“He say hot food bad for you. Everybody know that.”
“Tell him hot food bad for Greeks, cold food bad for English.”
Expressions of appalled disbelief and pity. Resigned acceptance.
“He say all English mad, everybody knows. But English good, English protect from French, from Turks, English fillellinikes. English want food hot, English get food hot, but he not to blame when get ill.”
Fortunately, none of us did fall ill, all through that glorious winter, the first I remember without snow. Corfu is a splendid place for old bones, and I never once had to consult Dr Morland for my rheumatism, although the locals shivered in their shawls and greatcoats while the English walked about in their summer attire.
I had never thought to determine how long we should stay, but there seemed to be no hurry for our departure. In fact we were constrained by Mrs Bennet’s refusal to countenance any but the shortest of see crossings, which meant in practice, back to Otranto and then on to Calais or Bordeaux.
Crossing to Albania and proceeding through Turkish territory was not an option worthy of serious consideration. The whole of the Balkan region, according to Wickham’s intelligence, was seething with revolts in the making, and even if the Turks gave us no trouble on the way, the chances were that the Greeks would, or the Vlachs, or the Tosks or any of the innumerable communities we should have to pass through before reaching civilization in the Austrian possessions. The whole length of Italy and France it must be, then.
“You will never get across the Alps now until next May,” said Wickham, when I broached the subject of our departure, as I felt bound to do after the first month. “Or April at the earliest. You must not deprive us of the pleasure of your company before then.
Thus it was that we spent Christmas in Corfu, where the local notion of goose and plum pudding may be a trifle strange, and that of port wine even stranger, but the company more than made up for these deficiencies. What made the company even better was the absence of Sir Thomas Maitland, who was making the most of the superior accommodations of Valetta. This left Wickham as the senior British officer on the island, and he made the most of it.
After Christmas comes New Year, of course, which we were obliged to celebrate twice, to accommodate both Franks and Greeks. I am happy to report that both lived up to their responsibilities in such a way as to bring nothing but credit to their communities, although Mrs Bennet could never be brought to understand why we should have another New Year so soon after the last.
“But where did the year go?” she demanded, plaintively, when I tried to explain the situation to her, “We have not had spring nor summer yet. We are still in winter.”
“Why should we not be?” I replied. “For it is December.”
“But last week was January! Where have all the intervening months gone? And what year is it? Will it be 1822 tomorrow?”
“No, my dear, it will be 1821, for we are in 1820 just now.”
“But it was 1821 just yesterday.”
“So it was, on the English calendar. But tonight we are on the Greek calendar. Trust me, my dear, although yesterday was the eleventh of January 1821, today is December the 31st 1820, and tomorrow shall be the first of January in the year 1821.”
She frowned for a moment while I dismissed the idea of telling her that the day after tomorrow, when we reverted to the western calendar would be January the 14th, then sighed.
“You know best, Mr Bennet, I am sure. But must we make our New Year resolutions all over again?”
“I leave that to yourself to determine.”
Chapter Nineteen : Embarkment for Cythera
Being, as it were, confined to Corfu for the winter at least gave me the opportunity to study the degenerate argot which is now in common use among the descendants of Plato and Demosthenes.
It is a dialect so altered as barely to be the same language, although the Greeks pride themselves upon it so. There is a basis of the true, ancient language which Pericles might recognize, but it is so overlaid with so many layers of Latin, Turkish and what I take to be Slavic accretions that one may go a long way without finding it. I could find much to say about the decline of the declensions, the confusion of the conjugations and the sad mess made of both number and gender, but this is not the time nor place, though I may write a paper upon it for the Philological Society one day. The main obstacle for a classically educated person, however, is the pronunciation, which is so altered as to be almost incomprehensible. Practically all the diphthongs have coalesced into an indeterminate ‘ee’ sound, and many of the consonants have transformed themselves beyond recognition. Thus, for example, they have a perfectly good letter B, the good old beta from which our own letter derives, but they pronounce it like our letter V, so that when receiving an invitation from a Corfiot notable to a reception, say, one finds it addressed, not to Kyrios Bennetos, but to Kyrios Mpennetos. The same thing occurs with other letters, noticeably D, where they pronounce their own Delta as ‘th’ and write ‘nt’ where they wish to signify our ‘d’. Thus not even the written language can be relied upon not to confuse.
The spoken tongue is even more bewildering, for the stress they place upon syllables strikes the educated ear as always in the wrong place. Thus, for ‘sea’, one of the few words where the good old term is still in use, they say not ‘thalassa’, but ‘thalassa’, and for ‘father’ not ‘pater’ but ‘pateras’. I can find no system in where the stress may be placed other than that it must not be where it would naturally go, depending on quantity.
Thus it was that by the end of the winter, while I could generally puzzle out written Greek, of which one meets with not a great deal, I must say, the spoken language was still a mass of pitfalls.
Except for Golightly, this language problem troubled my companions not in the slightest, nor, as far as I could see, any of the other English residents of the islands. Mrs Bennet had the comfort of complete faith in the sagacity of her husband, as had Kitty with Golightly, while the Morlands found that Italian served very well, in Corfu, at least. As for Wickham, where interpreters did not suffice, he relied upon shouting and waving a big stick.
“It worked in New Holland,” he told me when I doubted the efficacity of his technique, “and I find it works here too. Let them learn English if they have anything important to say. After all, it is much easier than any foreign tongue.”
I rather suspect that by the end of February, when we had been with them nearly six months, Wickham was beginning to tire of our company. Guests, the old saying goes, are like fish : they begin to stink after a few days, and we had been there near two hundred.
I was not surprised therefore when he asked if Mrs Bennet might not be persuaded to conquer her fear of sea travel by the offer of a passage to Italy in a vessel of His Majesty’s Navy. That is to say, the asking of the question was no s
urprise. The proposed mode of transport was a complete novelty.
“We received despatches from Malta this morning,” he continued.” King Tom comes back from Valetta next week, in a frigate of the Royal Navy, no less, in which I am to be ready to embark without delay to inspect the new fort at Cerigo, which is the ancient Cythera. This comes as no surprise. He generally contrives to get me out of the way for a while as soon after his arrival as may be, so that he may undo all the good work I have been doing here in his absence without disturbing the official fiction of our perfect amity. If you remember the old times on Wearside, I once commanded a company guarding a fort that was being built, and so I am by way of being the resident expert on all things to do with fortification. I am on good terms with the captain of HMS Telemachus, and I dare say that he would not object to taking on a few more passengers. After depositing me it would barely take him out of his way for him to drop you off at a convenient point on the Italian coast. Think of the convenience and the economy, and the comfort of not having to deal with foreigners on the first leg of your journey. Does not that strike you as a godsend?”
It struck me as a convenience, although I was not quite sure for whom. I had a pretty good notion of the map of these waters in my head, and could not see how Cythera could by any means be described as on the way from Corfu to Italy, but I am, of course, no mariner.
The news of our imminent departure met with varying receptions.
Lydia was sure that she would never be able to bear such a parting. How could she do without her dear, dear mother and her beloved sister? She would spend every day weeping and sighing until she could see them again, and could her mother perhaps send her a few yards of that tulle that she had so admired in Kitty’s dress, the one which had been such a bargain at that London Warehouse?
Our Neighbours' Sport Beyond the Seas Page 12