by John Buchan
What made my capture complete was the way she treated me. She seemed to have chosen me as her friend, and to find comfort and security in being with me. To others she might be rude and petulant, but never to me. Whenever she saw me she would make straight for me, like a docile child waiting for orders. She would dance or sit out with me till her retinue of youth was goaded to fury. She seemed to guess at the points in her behaviour which I did not like and to strive to amend them. We had become the closest friends, and friendship with Koré Arabin was a dangerous pastime.
The result was that I was in a fair way of making a fool of myself. No … I don’t think I was in love with her. I had never been in love in my life, so I was not an expert on the subject, but I fancied that love took people in a different way. But I was within measurable distance of asking her to be my wife. My feeling was a mixture of affection and pity and anxiety. She had appealed to me, and I had become her champion. I wanted to protect her, but how was a middle-aged lawyer to protect a determined girl from far-away perils which he did not comprehend? The desperate expedient of marriage occurred to me, but I did not believe she would accept me, and, if she did, would not the mating of age and youth be an outrage and a folly? Nevertheless I was in a mood to venture even on that.
I must have presented a strange spectacle to my friends. There were other men of forty in London at the time who behaved as if they were twenty-five – one buxom Cabinet Minister was to be seen at every dance – but none, I am certain, cut an odder figure than I. The dancing Cabinet Minister sought the ball-room for exercise, because he preferred dancing to golf. I had no such excuse, for I danced comparatively little; my object was patently the society of one particular lady. In Koré’s train I found myself in strange haunts. I followed her into the Bohemian coulisses to which Shelley Arabin’s daughter had an entrée – queer studio parties in Chelsea where the women were shorn and the men left shaggy: the feverish literary and artistic salons of the emancipated and rather derelict middle-class: dances given at extra-vagant restaurants by the English and foreign new-rich, where I did not know or wish to know one single soul. Also we appeared together at houses which I had frequented all my life, and there my friends saw me. Of course they talked. I fancy that for about two months I was the prime subject of London gossip. I didn’t care a hang, for I was in a queer obstinate excitable mood. We hunted together, too, and there is no such nursery of scandal as the hunting-field. With a great deal of work on hand I found this new life a considerable strain, and I was perfectly conscious that I was playing the fool. But, though I don’t think I was in love with her, I simply could not let the girl out of my sight.
Now and then my conscience awoke and I realised with a shock that the time was slipping past, and that the real problem was still unsolved. I knew that I could not shake Koré in her resolution, and I suppose I hoped blindly that something would occur to prevent her acting on it. That something could only be a love affair. I was perfectly certain that she was not in love with me, but she might accept me, and at the back of my head I had the intention of putting it to the test. Ertzberger had divined what was going on and seemed to approve. ‘A boy is no use to her,’ he said more than once. ‘Besides she wouldn’t look at one. She must marry a grown man.’ He implied that I filled the bill, and the man’s assumption gave me an absurd pleasure. If anyone had told me that I would one day go out of my way to cultivate a little Jew financier, I would have given him the lie, yet the truth is that, when I was not with Koré, I hungered for Ertzberger’s company. He alone understood what was in my mind, and shared my anxieties. ‘She must not go back,’ he kept declaring; ‘at all costs she must be kept away from Plakos – at any rate during this spring. I get disquieting reports. There is mischief brewing in the hills, and the people of the coast have had a bitter winter of famine. There has been a lot of sickness too, and in the village at the house gates the mortality among the children has been heavy.’
‘You mean Kynaetho?’ I asked.
‘Kynaetho.’ He looked at me curiously. ‘You seem to have been getting up the subject … Well, I don’t like it. If she goes there in April there may be a disaster. Upon my soul, we should be justified in having her kidnapped and shut up in some safe place till the summer. So far as I can learn, the danger is only in the spring. Once let the people see the crops springing and the caiques bringing in fish, and they will forget their grievances.’
Early in March I was dining with the Nantleys, and after dinner Mollie took me aside for a talk. As I have told you, she is one of my oldest friends, for when I was a grubby little private schoolboy and she was a girl of thirteen we used to scamper about together. I had had her son Hugo in my chambers, before he went into Parliament, and Wirlesdon has always been a sort of home to me. Mollie was entitled to say anything she liked, but when she spoke it was rather timidly.
‘I hear a good deal of talk about you,’ she said, ‘and I can’t help noticing too. Do you think it is quite fair, Ned?’
‘Fair to whom?’ I asked.
‘To Koré Arabin. You’re different from the boys who run after her. You’re a distinguished man with a great reputation. Is it fair to her to turn her head?’
‘Is that very likely? What if she has turned mine?’
‘Do you really mean that?’ she cried. ‘I never thought of it in that way. Do you honestly want to marry her?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know what I want except that I must stand by her. She’s in an appallingly difficult position, and badly needs a friend.’
‘Yes. But there’s only one way in which a man can protect a young woman. Do you mean to marry her?’
‘She wouldn’t accept me.’
‘But you mean to ask her?’
‘It may come to that,’ I said.
‘But, Ned dear, can’t you see it wouldn’t do? Koré is not the right sort of wife for you. She’s–she’s too— Well, you’ve a career before you. Is she the woman to share it with you?’
‘It’s not many months since at Wirlesdon you implored my charity for Miss Arabin.’
‘Oh, I don’t want to say a word against her, and if you were really desperately in love I would say nothing and wish you luck. But I don’t believe you are. I believe it’s what you say – charity, and that’s a most rotten foundation to build on.’
Mollie in such affairs is an incurable romantic.
‘I promise never to ask her to marry me unless I am in love,’ I said.
‘Well, that means you are not quite in love yet. Hadn’t you better draw back before it is too late? I can’t bear to see you making a bad blunder, and Koré, dear child, would be a bad blunder for you. She’s adorably pretty, and she has wonderful qualities, but she is a little savage, and very young, and quite unformed. Really, really it wouldn’t do.’
‘I admit the difficulties, my dear Mollie. But never mind me, and think of Miss Arabin. You said yourself that she was English at heart and would be very happy settled in England.’
‘But not with you.’
‘She wouldn’t accept me, and I may never propose. But if I did, and she accepted me, why not with me?’
‘Because you’re you – because you’re too good for a rash experiment.’
‘I’m not good enough for her, for I’m too old, as you’ve just told me. But anyhow your argument thinks principally of me, not of Miss Arabin. It is she who matters.’
Mollie rose with a gesture of impatience. ‘You are hopeless, Ned. I’m sick of you hard, unsusceptible, ambitious people. You never fall in love in your youth, but wait till after forty and then make idiots of yourselves.’
I had a different kind of remonstrance from Vernon. We saw little of each other in these days beyond a chance word in the street or a casual wave of the hand in the club smoking-room. When I thought of him it was with a sense of shame that I had let him slip so hopelessly out of my life. Time had been when he was my closest friend, and when his problem was also my problem. Now the whole story of his dream
seemed a childish fancy.
One night in March I found him waiting for me in my rooms.
‘I came round to say good-bye,’ he said. ‘I shall probably leave London very soon.’
It shows how completely I had forgotten his affairs that I did not remember that his particular crisis was drawing near, that, as he believed, the last door in his dream-world would soon be opened.
Then, before I could ask about his plans, he suddenly broke out:
‘Look here, I hope there’s no truth in what people tell me.’
His tone had the roughness of one very little at his ease, and it annoyed me. I asked coldly what he meant.
‘You know what I mean – that you’re in love with Miss What’s-her-name – the girl I met at Wirlesdon.’
‘I don’t know that you’ve any right to ask the question, and I’m certainly not going to answer it.’
‘That means that you are in love,’ he cried. ‘Good God, man, don’t tell me that you want to marry that – that tawdry girl!’
I must have reddened, for he saw that he had gone too far.
‘I don’t mean that – I apologise. I have no reason to say anything against her.’
Then his tone changed.
‘Ned, old man, we have been friends for a long time and you must forgive me if I take liberties. We have never had any secrets from each other. My own affairs give me a good deal to think about just now, but I can’t go away with an easy mind till I know the truth about you. For God’s sake, old fellow, don’t do anything rash. Promise me you won’t propose to her till I come back in April.’
His change of manner had softened me, and as I saw the trouble in his honest eyes I felt a return of the old affection.
‘Why are you anxious on my account?’
‘Because,’ he said solemnly, ‘I know that if you married that girl our friendship would be over. I feel it in my bones. She would always come between us.’
‘I can’t make any promises of that kind. But one thing I can promise – that no woman will ever break our friendship.’
‘You don’t understand. Some women wouldn’t, but that girl—! Well, I can say no more. Good-bye, Ned. I’ll hunt you up when I come back.’
He left me with a feeling of mingled regret and irritation. I hated to go against Vernon’s wishes, but his manner when he had spoken of Koré, the look in his eyes, the inflection of his voice, conveyed an utter distaste which made me angry. I pictured him at Severns nursing his unreasoning dislike of the poor child. Vernon, as my nephew Charles had said, was a prig, and his narrow world had room only for blameless and vapid virginity. The promise he had asked of me was an outrage.
Yet I kept a promise which I had never made. For suddenly Cinderella disappeared from the ball. After a country-house dance I drove her back to town in my car, and left her at the door of her flat. During the long drive she had talked more seriously than I had ever known her to talk before, had spoken of herself and her affairs with a kind of valiant simplicity. The only sophisticated thing about her was her complexion. All day afterwards my conviction was growing that she was the woman for me, that I could make her not only secure but happy. We were by way of dining with the Lamanchas, and I think if we had met that night I should have asked her to marry me … But we did not meet, for by the evening she was gone.
I looked for her in vain in the Lamanchas’ drawing-room and my hostess guessed what I sought. ‘I’m so sorry about Koré Arabin,’ she whispered to me. ‘She was coming tonight, but she telephoned this afternoon that she was unexpectedly called out of town.’ I did not enjoy my dinner, and as soon as I could decently leave I hurried off to her flat. It was shut up, and from the porter on the ground floor I learned that she and her maid had left with a quantity of luggage to catch the night boat to France. He was positive that she had gone abroad, for he had seen the foreign labels, and Miss Arabin had told him she would not be back for months. The keys of the flat had been sent to her solicitors.
With a very uneasy mind I drove to the Ertzbergers’ house in Belgrave Square. Ertzberger had just come in from a City dinner, and his wife seemed to be giving some kind of musical party, for the hall was full of coats and hats and extra footmen, and the jigging of fiddles drifted down the staircase. He took me to his study at the back of the house, and when he heard my news his face grew as solemn as my own. There was nothing to be done that night, for the Continental mail had long since gone, so I went back to my chambers with a pretty anxious mind. I felt that I had let something rare and precious slip out of my hand, but far more that this preciousness was in instant danger. Honestly I don’t think that I was much concerned about myself. I wanted Koré Arabin saved – for me – for everyone – for the world. If I was in love with her it was with an affection more impersonal than usually goes by that name. It was as if an adored child had gone missing.
Regardless of our many engagements, Ertzberger and I appeared on the doorstep of Messrs Mower & Lidderdale, the solicitors, at the hour when according to the information given me by telephone the senior partner usually arrived. Mr Mower confirmed our fears. Miss Arabin had returned to Plakos; she had been preparing for some weeks for the journey; he had not advised it – indeed he had not been asked his advice nor would he have dared to volunteer it. ‘A very strong-minded young lady,’ he repeated – ‘I might almost say strong-headed.’ She had sold the lease of her flat, and had left no instructions about her return. Yes, she was well supplied with money. Miss Arabin was her own mistress absolutely, for her father had created no trust. He had nothing more to tell us, and Ertzberger departed for the City and I for the Temple.
In the afternoon I was rung up by Ertzberger in my room in the House of Commons. He had been making inquiries, he said – he had his own ways of doing that sort of thing – and he had discovered that Koré had recently sold large parcels of stocks. She had been selling out steadily throughout the winter, and now had practically no investments left. The proceeds had been deposited on current account in her bank. There his information stopped, but he was profoundly disquieted. ‘That child has all her fortune in cash under her hand,’ he said, ‘and God knows what she means to do with it. Any moment she may beggar herself, and no one can prevent her.’
That night I understood that my infatuation was over, if indeed it had ever existed. I wanted the girl safe, and I did not care who saved her, but I wanted it so much that at the moment nothing in heaven or earth seemed to matter in comparison.
It was now near the end of March, the Courts had just risen and Parliament was about to adjourn for the Easter vacation. I had a good deal of important work on hand, but I was entitled to a holiday, and I thought I could arrange for at any rate a fortnight’s absence from town. But whether I could arrange it or not I meant to go, for I could no more settle to my tasks than a boy can settle to Tacitus on the day he is playing for his school. When Ertzberger according to our arrangement turned up at my chambers that night after dinner, he found me busy with an atlas and a Continental Bradshaw.
‘I am going to Plakos,’ I said.
‘That is good. You are still a young man, and you have been a soldier. It is very good. But if you had not gone, I had decided to go myself.’
‘This is Wednesday. Miss Arabin left last night. She will get there – when?’
He made some calculations. ‘Not before Tuesday. You might overtake her, but I do not think that is necessary. Easter is the danger point and the Greek Easter is still a fortnight off. Besides you must stop a day in Athens.’
‘I shall want help. Can you get me half-a-dozen handy fellows I can trust?’
‘I had thought of that. Indeed I telegraphed about it this afternoon. I can find you the men – and money, of course, if you want it. I will find you a lieutenant, too, and make all arrangements about transport. That at least I can do. You realise, Sir Edward, that there is a certain danger in this enterprise?’
‘I realise that Miss Arabin in a week’s time will be in deadly danger …
I must have a day or two to wind up my work here. I think I can leave on Saturday morning.’
As a matter of fact I left London on the Friday night.
Part Two
EIGHT
I CAME TO Plakos in a blind sea-fog. After a day and a night of storm the wind died utterly, and we made the isle on a compass course, feeling our way in by constant soundings. A thick salt dew hung on every stay and hawser, the deck and bulwarks swam with moisture, and our coats were in an instant drenched as if we had been out in a hurricane. Sea and land alike were invisible. The air was thick and oppressive to the breath, and every muscle in the body felt weak and flaccid. Also there was a strange quiet – only the ripple caused by our slow movement and the creak of sodden cordage. I might have been a shade looking on an island of the dead.
I had reached Athens in record time, but there I found a weariful delay. In spite of Ertzberger’s influence the wheels were clogged. I was met at the Piraeus by his agent, one Constantine Maris, whose instructions were to hold himself at my disposal. I took to Maris at once – a young fellow of thirty, who had been in the Greek regular army and had been the right-hand man of Zimbrakis when at Salonika his troops declared for Venizelos. He had been all through the war till it ended in Bulgaria’s submission, had been twice wounded and once in prison, and had been chosen by Ertzberger to represent him in Athens because of his truculent honesty and tireless energy. Both in character and appearance he was more like a Frenchman than a Greek – a Norman, for choice, for he had reddish-brown hair and a high-bridged northern nose. He had the additional merit of being well educated, having put in two years at the Sorbonne: and he talked excellent French. His family were of Athens, but his mother, I think, was from one of the islands. He had the looks and manners of a soldier.
But Maris had found the task set him almost impossible. Ertzberger had bidden him get together a batch of reliable fellows who would obey orders and ask no questions, but as we rumbled Athens-ward from the Piraeus in the little train he confessed that such men were not to be found. In the war it was otherwise, but the best had all gone back to the country villages. He had collected a dozen but he was not enthusiastic about them, except a certain Janni, who had been a corporal in his old battalion. When he paraded them for my inspection I was inclined to agree with him. They were an odd mixture – every kind of clothes from the dirty blue jeans of the stoker to the black coat and pointed yellow shoes of the clerk – ages from nineteen to sixty – physique from prize-fighter to sneak-thief. All had served in the war, however, and the best of them, Janni, had an empty left sleeve. After much consultation we dismissed two and were left with ten who at any rate looked honest. Whether they would be efficient was another matter. Maris proposed to arm them with revolvers, but not till we got to Plakos, in case they started shooting up the town. They were told that they were wanted as guards for an estate which was threatened by brigands, but I doubt if they believed it. The younger ones seemed to think that our object was piracy.