Golightly, understandably enough, thought it high time he got back to his parish, and Kitty had by now become so much the loving wife that she never thought to question a decision of his, although every proposal I made still met with immediate objections.
Morland was eager to get back to his practice, to try out some of the remedies he had acquired on his travels, and perhaps write them up into a paper for the Royal College.
His wife, too, was quite ready to leave.
“Ever since Lady Wickham first cried me up as her tame celebrity,” she confided in me, “I have had very little leisure to pursue my own way. What little time was left me from her ‘Creative Writing’ classes – a pointless object if ever I heard of one; writing may be taught, indeed, in the cases of half her ladies, it needed to be taught, since they were perfectly illiterate themselves, but creativity is not something that can be reduced to rules and made the subject of instruction; one either has it or one does not, and I am not entirely convinced that I have it myself. But I have let myself get carried away in my own eloquence. What little time I had left over from those classes has been almost entirely consumed at the easel, but not on my own projects. I must have taken the portrait of every lady on the island, and far too many of their obnoxious brats, too. And if I mention payment, they all refer me to Lady Wickham, whose gift they are very glad to receive, but whom I cannot possibly ask for money after her many kindnesses. Meanwhile I have not even finished that landscape I began when we were at Pondikonisi.”
“Pray, do not be offended, but I should hate to think of you as mercenary, my dear,” I replied.
“Oh, I do not mind the money, although it occurs to me that the labourer is worthy of his hire, and if I am to be treated like a servant I should be remunerated like one. What I really regret is the loss of time when I might have been working on my own pictures, or even, perhaps, enjoying myself with my husband and my friends.”
“I hope you will always include me among those friends, whatever you may think of the rest of my family.”
“Oh, they are all dear friends. Of course they are. But I shall be glad to have a life of my own again.”
Mrs Bennet bore the imminent separation with surprising fortitude, once she had been assured that we should never sail out of sight of land. It is amazing what that combination of ignorance and self-centredness that we call optimism may achieve.
“Of course, now that you are so near, my darling, we shall see you again soon. Now we know where you live we shall be visiting you ever so often, shall we not, Mr Bennet?”
“Oh, certainly,” I replied. “Whenever the opportunity arises. I promise you we shall be on the first coach across when they have finished building a bridge over the English Channel.”
The Royal Navy did not let us down, and Sir Thomas disembarked in the second week of March to find everything ready and waiting both for his arrival and our departure.
“I declare it a positive shame that you should go so soon, Mr Bennet,” he said, when I went to take my departure. “But, however, the offer of such advantageous terms may not be declined. I wish you calm seas, a prosperous voyage and a happy return.”
I almost expected him to add ‘three bags full’ or ‘season’s greetings or some other like cliché to this collection, but he was already transferring his attention to the papers on his desk as I loosed my grip upon his hand.
We should have been hard put to accommodate such a numerous exhibition in the frail caiques that were normally to be found in the harbor, and had enough to do in fitting into HMS Telemachus.
Captain Price was very apologetic, and very obliging.
“You shall have my day cabin among you all,” he offered, and Chips shall see what he can do with matchboard and canvas to divide it into four. It will be snug, but no more so than any other on board, myself included, confined as I will be to my sleeping-cabin, and I hope you will be able to put up with it for a day or two. You will be my first guests aboard, apart from Mrs Price, that is, from Portsmouth to London on our maiden voyage, for I do not count official passengers such as Sir Thomas Maitland.”
“You are very kind, sir,” I responded.
“Not at all. It is a pleasure to do a good turn for an old friend. Colonel Wickham, as he then was, was good enough to help an old seaman of mine when he was in Australia, and I welcome the chance to return the favour. There has been little enough chance, has there, General. I do not believe we have laid eyes on each other since the Sovereigns Ball’ in the year 14.”
“Nor we have,” replied Wickham, and little enough I saw of you there, once you had obtained your object. For the rest of the evening you could not be prised away from the luscious and fabulously wealthy Miss Crawford. Whatever became of her, I wonder?”
“Miss Crawford is now Mrs Price. She is just now in Malta, whence I hope to convey her home at the end of this mission. I love her dearly, Wickham, and will have nothing said against her, but it appears that she is no great seafarer. I dare say I was in error to bring her out to Lampedusa, before King Tom put a stopper to that project, but we were still at the stage when we could hardly bear separation. At least Malta has it compensations, by contrast.”
From all this it may appear that Wickham and Captain Price shared some past History unknown to both the Bennet and Darcy families, but they did not choose to expound on the subject and we could not, of course, question them on it.
We had a smooth voyage, one of the sweetest I can recall, with nothing to mar the spring sunshine and the steady breeze coming from behind us and to our right, that is to say, on our starboard quarter in the arcane tongue of the mariners. Captain Price was rather vehement about this being the vessel’s best ‘point of sailing’, illustrating his argument with various proofs which only a mariner or an Archimedes might hope to understand, while all the time the mountains, first of Aetolia and then of the Peloponnese kept us company on our left, for we never ventured out of sight of the shore, the captain being perfectly aware of Mrs Bennet’s aversion.
For all I know we may have followed a completely different course after dark. But at any rate we were free of vapours both of the female and male kind for the whole course of the voyage.
On the morning of the second day the Captain was good enough to point out to me the entrance to a large bay on the mainland.
“That is the bay of Navarino, or, as some call it, Pylos,” he said, “the best anchorage this side of Malta. If the Turks ever send a fleet to these parts, that is where it will lie. And that is the island of Sphacteria.”
“Sphacteria!” I could not help but exclaim. “The true Sphacteria? In real life!”
“The very same, and, if you look through my glass, on top of that hill to the right, you may see Demosthenes’ camp.”
“Never did I think to see Thucydides brought to life so!” I exclaimed. “and beyond it, you say, is Pylos? Sandy Pylos itself!”
“Neleus’ well-ordered city, indeed, or so they say.”
“I did not expect to hear the Odyssey quoted to me in these parts, sir. I honour you for it.”
“My father, though only a country clergyman, was a scholar, sir, and did his best to bring up his sons to be the same.”
“I honour you for it, sir, but perhaps, as we are so near, I shrink from asking, might it not be possible to make a short excursion on the way?”
“I fear not, Mr Bennet. The King’s business brooks no delay, and I should be court-martialled and shot, no doubt, did I accommodate you, however much I might wish to. But fear not, Mr Bennet, you miss nothing. There is nothing to see, not so much as one stone standing on top of another where they say old Nestor had his palace. Tempus edax rerum has swallowed it up with all else.”
“But might not a scholarly examination of the site reveal something, provide some clue, at least?”
“I make no doubt, Mr Bennet, that if there were anything to find, you should be the one to find it. But I dare not so much as set you down ashore, for your sake as much as
mine. It is simply too dangerous.”
“Is it so perilous an anchorage, then?”
“Not at all. You would be perfectly safe until you set foot on shore. Tolerably safe as long as you were within sight of the ship, but further than that I cannot answer for. These parts have been, essentially, lawless since before Constantinople fell, and with the present state of ill-feeling between the Greeks and the Turks I should not care to hazard your party, especially the ladies, to the chances of the way. The mountains are full of Klephts, that is to say, bandits, to whom the prospect of a near-defenceless party of unimaginably rich Westerners would be irresistible, while the Turks who control the towns are no more to be relied upon. One hears daily of their atrocities against the Greek population, accounts whose nature is such that I will not spoil your sleep by recounting them to you.”
“You describe a state of near anarchy. And yet we have a treaty with the Porte, do we not? Surely the situation cannot be quite so bad?”
“I rather fear it may be worse. There are rumours of open revolt that may break out any day, and once it does, no man, nor woman, Greek, Turk, English or Patagonian will be safe. Take my advice; stick to British territory. You will sleep safely there.”
Captain Price may have been reluctant to spoil my sleep, but if so, he was thwarted in his ambition, for I mulled over what he had said all night long.
And yet, when I arose and beheld the peaceful scene about us, the bright sun, the calm, blue waters dotted with white sails, and saw the shores of Cythera, the very isle of Aphrodite before us, I could not help but think the fears of the night to be but megrims.
Chapter Twenty: Aphrodite’s Island
The port of Diakofti is some distance from Palaeochora, or Old Town, where Cythera’s senior officer – for we cannot say governor, since the Seven Islands are not a colony – has his residence. To our eyes it hardly seems a port at all. It may have sufficed for classical triremes, and Venetian galleys but it is lacking in almost everything that a modern mariner looks for in a harbour.
Captain Price set us down by boat upon the shelving beach, while riding at anchor in the bay.
“I shall stay here until I hear from you that all is well,” he told Wickham. “I hope to be able to bear you all back on your homeward journey before long, but of course I cannot remain here indefinitely.”
He shook hands with each of us as we went over the side, quite as gravely as if he were setting us ashore in the Cannibal Isles, rather than a port in one of His Majesty’s possessions.
“You and your party would have been welcome to stay on board while Sir George does his duty, Mr Bennet,” he said to me, “but I know the attraction of a run ashore, and wish you well of it. The troubles on the mainland should not disturb you here.”
We trotted along an uneven path on the backs of donkeys as far as the gate in the old Venetian walls, where we dismounted.
Along the way we passed through fields awash with colour. This far south, the spring was well advanced compared with Corfu, and the wild flowers covered every slope and hillock. Most of them were carnations, calling to mind the gardener’s cry form Figaro, ‘Vedete I garofani’ but there were others I did not recognize, taller, thinner, with a harsh, dark red, flame-like colour.
“Oh, those are asphodels,” said Wickham when I enquired. “They grow like weeds in these parts.”
So, there I was, actually riding through veritable fields of asphodel, on the isle of Cythera. I could almost expect the Goddess herself to come round the next corner.
What did come round the corner was a very young Ensign of Foot, panting and flushed in the face. At the sight of Wickham’s uniform he froze to attention and saluted elaborately.
“Ensign Harvey reporting, sir,” he piped, “Captain Bentley’s compliments, sir, and he would be delighted to welcome you to dinner this evening, sir. Meanwhile I am to show you to your apartments, sir.”
“I may wish to see Captain Bentley rather sooner than that, young man, and you may tell him so when you have fulfilled the second part of your mission. And, as you can see, I will require suitable accommodation for the rest of my family.”
The young officer’s eyes widened as he took in just how many he needed to provide for. His lips trembled, and one could almost see the word ‘but’ forming itself on them.
Wickham forestalled him, however, with a “Lead on, Mr Harvey. You may wish to stand around in this heat all day, but I have no desire to indulge you in that inclination.”
Wickham and Lydia had been installed, as might have been expected, in the Commander’s quarters in the old Venetian fort.
“A servant will be along with your bags directly, sir,” said young Harvey, “and if your guests would be so good as to follow me, I will show them to their rooms, sir. After that, I shall be in the common room downstairs should you need me, sir. There will be a guard posted outside your door who will carry any message or summons, sir. I wish you joy of your visit to Cerigo, sir.”
He did not quite say ‘three bags full, sir’, but the words hung in the air.
A certain amount of (I rather suspect) random opening and closing of doors along the corridor saw us all provided with rooms, and with the promise of suitable bed linen and extra furniture directly.
The room in which Mrs Bennet and I found ourselves might well have served for a stage set in the Mysteries of Udolpho. It was, in fact, of quite an adequate size, but the massive stonework of the walls, the peeling plaster and the two small windows made it seem much smaller and darker than it was. On the best preserved wall, to the left of the door, could be discerned faint remains of a fresco depicting Venetian galleys fighting Turkish ships. The other walls betrayed only flaking plaster of an indeterminate hue.
For furniture there was an ancient bed, heavily carved with nautical motifs and winged lions, with slack strings and no sign of mattress nor covers, and a stout chest with a bowed top, studded heavily with brass nails.
The floor was strewn with rushes, quite in the mediaeval fashion, and, from their state, I should be quite prepared to believe that they had been there since Enrico Dandolo stopped at Cerigo on the way back from the infamous Fourth Crusade.
Mrs Bennet immediately set up a wailing.
“We cannot sleep here, Mr Bennet,” she cried. “There is no mattress, the floor needs sweeping, and I am sure that bed has not been aired.”
“I agree that it is not what you may have expected, my love,” I replied. “For myself, I hardly know what I expected, but I agree that this is not to be borne. The question is, what are we to do about it?”
Precisely how we should have answered that question I cannot tell. Fortunately, we were never faced with the necessity of doing so, for at that moment came a knock on the door, which I opened to reveal a soldier with two stripes on his arm, followed by two others without those adornments.
“Corporal ‘Awkins, sir, begging your pardon,” he announced himself, “ come to sort out your quarters for you. Don’t you let the looks of the place get you down, sir, they scrub up nicely, these old chambers do, and we’ve got a nice new mattress, fresh linen, and a bedkey, and there’ll be a press, bedside tables and chairs along in five minutes.”
“I am glad to hear it,” I replied, but should you not see to my son-in-law first? To General Wickham?”
“Lawks, sir, the general has a sergeant looking after him. Now, sir, if you’d care to take a turn around the battlements to stretch your legs, we’ll have this place sorted in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. They do say there’s a fine view of the mainland for those as likes that sort of thing.”
So there was, but I was permitted very little leisure to take an interest in it. The Golightlys and the Morlands were inevitably walking the same stretch of battlements, and lamenting the exchange of their comfortable quarters in Corfu Town for these mediaeval arrangements.
It is curious how, wherever we go, the new accommodation is always worse than that we have just left. And yet, six months ago, these
same ladies were complaining about the impossibility of making do with the very same apartments that they were now crying up. Something may be allowed, of course, for the gradual increase in little comforts that tends to accumulate during the course of residence, the cushions that one picks up here, the carpets acquired there, and so forth. Something must also be allowed for the deadening effect of use, of custom. But I think the main cause of such emotions may be summed up in a Spanish expression I heard used in Gibraltar “Que no haya novedad.” Let there be no new thing, the Castilian wishes his compatriot on departure, new things being, of their very nature, bad. The human temperament, by and large, does not welcome change, and clings to everything to which it has become accustomed. And yet, all old things were once new.
Philosophic musings of this nature, I find, are sovereign for drowning out the constant drone of female tittle tattle that is the bane of the married man’s life, and thus I suffered far less from this interlude than Golightly and Morland did, unhardened as they still are to such things.
After no more than half an hour of this delightful pastime, we were summoned back to our chamber to find a transformation quite complete. Everywhere was scrubbed clean, the bed was made up, with clean linen and a fine feather mattress, and a table, two chairs and a cupboard had appeared.
We had scarce taken in the improvement when the corporal entered again with a washstand, and his two men, carrying our bags.
“There you are, sir, didn’t I tell you we’d soon have everything set to rights. It’s a bit damp yet, but it’ll soon dry out. Things don’t stay damp for long round here. Now, sir, would you like us to unpack for you, or would you sooner do it yourselves? And Sarge says shall we come round in the morning with a spot of whitewash and brighten the place up a bit? Soon cover up those old faded pictures on the walls for you?”
Fortunately, the British soldier is easily persuaded to take his ease, and we were very soon left in privacy, although not before silver had changed hands and we had been enjoined ‘just to ask for Joe ‘Awkins, sir, if you need anything.”
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