'I'm not afraid of that, and it is so long since I was on horseback that I'm aching for a mount.'
'You're a perfect amazon,' laughed the Countess. 'Unfortunately there are no riding horses here, apart from those belonging to the officers of the garrison. Only donkeys and a few mules. They are all very well for an airing, but if it's an intoxicating gallop you're after, you'd have a job persuading them to do more than a sedate trot. The ground here is generally too steep. But we can go out in the carriage as often as you wish. The country is very beautiful and I should enjoy showing it to you.'
Disappointed in this direction, Marianne agreed readily to everything her hostess had to offer in the way of distraction. She went with her for a long drive through narrow valleys covered with bracken and myrtle where it was deliciously cool, and along the sea shore on to which the Potamos valley and the Alamano's garden debouched. She saw with delight the tiny island of Pontikonisi in its dreamlike bay and the tiny monastery of Blachernes, looking like a small white ink-pot left lying on the surface of the water, with a huge cypress, like a back quill, beside it. They paid a call on the Governor, General Donzelot, at the Fortezza Vecchia and he took them on a tour of inspection and gave them tea.
Marianne inspected the old Venetian cannon and the bronze statue of Schulenburg who had defended the island against the Turks a century before, flirted mildly with a number of young officers of the 6th Regiment of the Line who were visibly dazzled by her beauty, and was generally charming to everyone presented to her, promised to attend the next performance at the theatre which was the garrison's chief amusement, and finally, before returning to Potamos where the Alamanos were holding a grand dinner party in her honour, knelt for a few moments before the sacred relics of St Spiridion.
St Spiridion had been a Cypriot shepherd who rose, by reason of his virtue and ability, to be Bishop of Alexandria. His mummified body had been acquired from the Turks by a Greek merchant who gave it as a dowry with his eldest daughter on the occasion of her marriage to an eminent Corfiot named Bulgari.
'And ever since then, there has always been a priest in the Bulgari family,' Maddalena concluded in her vivacious way. The one who showed you the relic and took some money from you is the latest.'
'Why? Have they still such reverence for the saint?'
'Well, yes, of course. But it's more than that. St Spiridion represents the greater part of their income. They didn't give him the Church, they only, as it were, hired him out. Rather a come-down for a great saint, don't you agree? Not that he doesn't answer prayers just as well as any of the rest. He's a splendid saint, for he doesn't seem to bear a grudge at all.'
Even so, Marianne dared not ask the one-time shepherd to intercede for her. Divine aid was not for her in the deed she contemplated. That was more a matter for the devil.
The grand dinner at which she was the guest of honour in white satin and diamonds seemed to her quite the longest and most boring she had ever sat through. Jolival had departed that morning first thing for the other end of the island to inspect the excavations which General Donzelot was undertaking there. Jason and his officers had been invited but had declined, pleading the urgency of the repairs to the ship, and Marianne, having waited all day in eager anticipation of the evening which would bring her reluctant lover to her, was hard put to it to conceal her disappointment and maintain a smiling face and an air of interest in what her neighbours were saying to her. The left-hand neighbour, at least, for on her right she had General Donzelot who was a man of few words. Like most men of action, Donzelot hated wasting time in conversation. He was polite and friendly but Marianne could have sworn that he shared her own opinion of this dinner as nothing but a tiresome duty.
Her other neighbour, by contrast, was indefatigable. He was a local notable whose name she had already forgotten, and he entertained her, in the most gruesome detail, with an account of the epic battles he had fought in his younger days against the ferocious troops of the Pasha of Yannina during the Souliot rising. Now, if there was one thing Marianne loathed, it was listening to people recounting their experiences of war. She had had more than enough of that at Napoleon's court where there was scarcely a man without a tale to tell.
Consequently it was with a sense of relief that she regained her own room when the evening came to an end at last and delivered herself up to Agathe's hands to be divested of her finery. Enveloped in a lace-trimmed wrapper of fine lawn, she was settled on a low chair to have her hair brushed for the night.
'Monsieur de Jolival is not back yet?' she asked Agathe who was busy with two brushes shaking out the hair which had been bound up all day long.
'No, my lady. At least, that is to say he came in while you were all at dinner, just to change. And I must say, he needed to! His clothes were all white with dust. He said not to disturb anyone on his account because he was going straight out again and would get his dinner down at the harbour.'
Marianne closed her eyes, satisfied, and abandoned herself to her maid's deft fingers with a deep sense of reassurance. Jolival was doing his best for her, she was certain. He had not gone down to the harbour for the sake of entertainment.
After a few minutes she told Agathe that she might stop now and go to bed.
'Don't you want me to plait your hair for you, my lady?'
'No, thank you, Agathe. I'll leave it loose tonight. I've a trifle of a headache and would rather be alone. I shan't go to bed yet.'
When the girl, who was accustomed to asking no questions, had dropped a curtsy and left her, Marianne went to the long window opening on to a small balcony and, taking down the screen of mosquito netting, stepped outside. She felt stifled and in need of air. The screens were a good protection against the insects but they also seemed to prevent the free circulation of air.
Tucking her hands into the wide sleeves of her wrapper, she moved across the balcony. It was much warmer than it had been the night before. Not a breath of wind had come at nightfall to cool the parching atmosphere. Earlier, at dinner, she had felt as if her satin dress were sticking to her skin. Even the stone balustrade on which she was leaning was still warm.
Out of doors, though, the night was glorious: an eastern darkness, rich with stars and heavy with perfume, ringing with the rhythmic note of cicadas. Down below, thousands of glow-worms made a second firmament of the dark shapes of trees and shrubs, while at the foot of the valley the sea gleamed softly, a silvered triangle framed by the tall spires of cypress trees. Except for the plaintive scraping of the cicadas and the faint swish of the sea on the pebbled shore, there was not a sound to be heard.
That little patch of water shining at the bottom of the garden suddenly began to exercise a magnetic effect on Marianne. It was so hot that she longed to bathe. The water would be cool and heavenly, soothing away the fever of impatience which had been growing on her all through that dreary dinner.
She hesitated. Not all the servants would be in bed yet. Some were probably still engaged in tidying the rooms which had been used for the party. If she went down and announced her intention of going for a swim they would probably quite certainly think her mad, while if she merely said that she was going for a walk they would probably follow at a discreet distance to make sure that no harm came to such a distinguished visitor.
A preposterous idea occurred to her. In the old days at Selton Hall she had had her own way of leaving her room without anyone's knowing, with the aid of the ivy that covered the walls. The little balcony here was only on the first floor and there were climbing plants rampaging all over it.
'It remains to be seen whether you are still as athletic as you used to be, my girl,' she told herself, 'but anyway it's worth trying.'
Her spirits soared at the thought of the escapade and of a cool swim. Childishly excited, she scampered to her wardrobe, dragged out the simplest dress she could find, a simple lavender print with a ribbon sash, and slipped it on over a pair of drawers. She added a pair of flat-heeled slippers and thus equipped made her way
back to the balcony, replacing the mosquito screen carefully behind her. Then she began the descent.
It was divinely simple. She had lost nothing of her old skill and in a few seconds her feet touched the sanded path and she was swallowed up in the overgrown darkness of the garden. The path that followed the course of the stream down to the tiny beach passed quite close to her balcony and she found it without trouble. She was hot after her climb and she sauntered unhurriedly down the sandy slope to the water beneath an overhanging canopy of leaves. The path was like a tunnel, filled with exotic scents, with a lighter patch at the far end, but underneath the trees it was pitch dark.
Suddenly, Marianne came to a stop and listened, her heart beating a little faster. She thought she had caught the sound of a light, furtive footfall behind her. It occurred to her that someone might have seen her come out and followed her and she was tempted to turn back. She waited a few seconds, uncertain what to do, but she heard nothing more and the sea seemed to beckon to her, cool and inviting. She walked on, keeping her ears open and treading as softly as she could but there was no further noise.
'I dreamed it,' she told herself. 'My nerves must be all on edge.'
By the time she got down to the beach, her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. There was no moon but such a multitude of stars that the sky was filled with a milky radiance that threw a faint light on the sea. Quickly she slipped off her clothes and clad only in her long hair, ran straight into the sea. As she plunged forward into the water, she almost cried aloud for joy as the blessed coolness enveloped her. Her parched body seemed to melt and liquefy. She had never known such a delicious bathe. When she remembered swimming as a child in the river that ran through the park at Selton, or from some empty cove on the Devon coast, it was in much colder water, cold enough, frequently, to bring the tears to her eyes. This was just cool enough to be life-giving and caressed her skin like silk. It was clear, too, so limpid that, splashing like a puppy dog, she could see her legs moving under water like a paler shadow.
She rolled over on to her stomach and set out to swim towards the middle of the little bay. Her arms and legs fell automatically into the remembered rhythm and she moved easily through the water, pausing from time to time to float for a moment on her back with eyes half-closed, revelling in her delight. She decided that she would swim until she was tired, a healthy, physical tiredness after which she would sleep like a child.
It was during one of these periodic rests that she became aware of a soft, regular splashing. It was coming closer and she identified the sound at once. Someone else was swimming in the bay. Raising herself up out of the water she peered through the darkness and made out a shadowy figure coming towards her. There was someone there, someone who had followed her, perhaps. She remembered the footsteps she had thought she heard earlier, on the way down. Realizing suddenly the foolishness of coming down to bathe alone like this in the middle of the night in a strange country, she turned to swim back to the shore, but the mysterious swimmer changed direction to cut her off. He was swimming fast and powerfully, clearly seeking to intercept her, and if she continued on her present course in a few more minutes he would have succeeded.
In sudden panic she reacted idiotically and in an attempt to frighten off what she thought must be some unknown enemy, she cried out in Italian:
'Who are you? Go away!'
Her voice died away in a gurgle as she swallowed a mouthful of salt water, but the stranger did not pause. He came on silently towards her, in a silence that was the most frightening part of the whole thing. Then Marianne lost her head completely and tried to escape by swimming straight ahead, making for one of the points of the bay in the hope of reaching land and so eluding her pursuer. Such was her terror that it did not even occur to her to wonder who it was. It crossed her mind that he was probably only a Greek fisherman who could not understand her and might have thought she was in danger, but she dismissed the idea at once. When she had first caught sight of him he had been swimming slowly and quietly, making as little noise as possible, advancing on her almost stealthily.
The shore was closer now but the distance between the two swimmers had also diminished appreciably. Marianne was beginning to tire. Her movements were growing sluggish and her heart was thumping painfully in her breast. She knew that she was nearly at the end of her strength and that she had no choice now but to sink or let him overtake her.
Suddenly, she saw, directly in front of her, a minute crescent-shaped opening, paler than the surrounding rocks. Summoning up her last, remaining strength, she forced her limbs into one last effort but the man was gaining on her. He was close behind her now, a great black shadow with no distinguishing features. Terror stopped her breath and, at the very instant two hands reached out towards her, Marianne went under.
She returned to consciousness and to an awareness of strange sensations. She was lying on the sand in inky darkness and a man was holding her in his arms. He, too, was naked for she could feel the texture of his skin next to hers, smooth and warm but strongly muscled. She could see nothing at all, except perhaps a thickening of the darkness before her face, and when she stretched out her arms, instinctively, they touched rock to the side and above her. She was in some kind of low, narrow cave in the rocks. She tried to cry out, seized with a sudden terror at finding herself immured in this crevice in the rocks. A firm and burning mouth stifled her cries. She tried to struggle but the arms tightened round her, holding her still as the unknown man began to caress her.
Sure of himself, he made no attempt to hurry. His hands were gentle but subtly experienced and she knew that he was seeking to rouse her to the pitch where love becomes an irresistible fever. She tried to set her teeth and stiffen her muscles but the man had an extraordinary knowledge of the female body. Her fears had evaporated long ago, and now Marianne could feel long, shuddering waves of pleasure stealing up through her body. Still the kiss went on, that, too, strangely skilled, and Marianne found her breath sucked from her and her spirit weakening… It was so strange, this making love with a shadow. Little by little, she felt the weight of a tall body, full of strength and life, and yet it seemed to her that in some curious way she was making love with a ghost. Witches in the olden days who claimed to have had intercourse with the devil must have felt like this. She might have thought that it was nothing but a dream if that other flesh had not felt so warm and solid and but for the faint yet altogether earthly smell of mint which clung about the person of her unknown lover. Moreover, he was gradually attaining his ends. Possessed by the most primitive desires, Marianne was moaning now in his arms. The insistent waves of pleasure were mounting within her, higher and higher, overwhelming her… When, at last, the man allowed his long control to break, she burst like a red sun.
Two voices cried out together. That, and the chaotic beating of his heart was all that Marianne heard of her invisible lover. The next instant, he had risen, gasping, and was gone.
She heard the pebbles shifting under his running feet and raised herself quickly on her elbow, in time to see a tall figure dive into the sea. There was a tremendous splash, then nothing more. The man had not uttered a single word.
When Marianne crept out of the hollow in the rocks which the stranger had chosen to shelter them, she felt light-headed but physically curiously calm. It astonished her that she should feel so happy. She felt no shame or guilt for what had happened, perhaps just because the man had vanished so swiftly after making love to her, and had vanished so completely. No trace of his presence remained. He had simply melted into the night and into the sea whence he had come, as the morning mist is dissipated in the first rays of the sun. Who he was and where he came from, Marianne would probably never know. He was most likely a Greek fisherman, as she had first thought. She had seen many since landing on the island, beautiful and untamed as clouds in the sky, and still carrying about them a little of the aura of the old gods of Olympus who had been skilled at catching mortals unawares. He must have seen her
go down to the beach and enter the water and it had been instinctive for him to follow her. The rest had been inevitable.
Perhaps it was Jupiter… or Neptune? she thought, amused in a way that astonished even herself. In the ordinary way, she would undoubtedly have felt outraged, baffled and indignant, and heaven knew what else, yet she felt none of these things. More than that, she was honest enough to admit to herself that those fleeting moments of passion had been not disagreeable and would linger rather pleasantly in her memory. She would be able to look back on it all simply as an adventure, a distinctly nice adventure!
The little inlet was not nearly so far from the beach as she had feared. She had been so frightened before that she had not been properly conscious of the direction. The moon, which was now rising beyond the point, sent a thin sliver of silver over the water, and it was suddenly much lighter, although just as hot.
Hoping that this time no one would see her, Marianne slid back into the water and swam to the beach, pausing when her toes touched the sandy bottom to take a cautious look up and down. Then she hurried out of the water and put on her clothes as fast as she could manage, without bothering to dry herself, only wringing the water out of her hair. Carrying her shoes to keep them from getting full of sand, she made her way up the beach to the dense shadow of the trees.
She was just stepping into it when she was frozen where she stood by the sound of a laugh. It was a man's laugh but this time Marianne was not in the least afraid. Anger and exasperation were uppermost. She was growing a little tired of this night's surprises. Besides whoever had laughed was probably the same… She felt her temper rising. She had been inclined to find her adventure rather charming, yet if he could laugh…
'Come out!' she cried. 'And stop laughing.'
'Good was it – your bathe?' came a mocking voice in execrably uncertain Italian. 'Good to watch, yes. Beautiful lady!'
As he spoke, the man emerged from under the trees and came towards Marianne. The flowing white robes he wore gave him a faintly ghostly appearance and the turban wound round his head made him seem to her to be very tall. She did not stop to think that this turbaned figure might belong to a henchman of the terrible Ali against whom she had been warned. She only thought that the man's words and his laughter had been an insult. Instantly, she darted forward and dealt him a ringing box on the ears, almost before she could see him.
Marianne and the Rebels Page 21