by Ouida
‘Au revoir, donc; ce soir chez Papa,’ said Tyras, perceiving that he could make no better terms.
His brother knew that he would do his best to get the release of Philemon from Deliornis, for Gavroche, when he had his own interests to serve, and his brain was clear of alcohol, was an exceedingly intelligent and acute negotiator.
Left alone, he now finished his iced drink agreeably to himself, and turned the matter with which he was entrusted over in his mind. Gavroche when he liked could be an enjôleur; he had when he chose a fascination in his drowsy regard, and in the slight, mocking smile of his thin lips, which bewildered many, attracted many, and dominated not a few, though some, and those timid women and honest men, shrank from it.
The generosity of Othyris did not cause him any surprise because he was used to such liberality; but he thought that his brother must set great store on this youth for some reason unrevealed. There were hundreds of men and boys arrested every year for singing that song. Why did one out of the many interest Elim so greatly? That, however, he reflected, would not be difficult to discover, for here was the boy’s name, Philemon, son of Janos Odiskia, who was a labourer in the olive woods of Aquilegia, a district of the Helichrysum hills. Though Tyras habitually drenched his brains with brandy, he was shrewd, and did not make the mistake of judging others by himself. He did not suspect that anything disreputable was the cause of his brother’s action, but he reasoned that the motive must be strong, exceedingly strong.
‘I will get over Deliornis, and then I will find it all out,’ he said to himself. He liked finding out what was concealed, and was clever at it, when his indolence, and his caprice, and his inconstancy, did not make him weary of a chase before he had got fairly on the scent in it. The same thing never attracted or occupied him for long; not even his own interests.
‘You would have had more power than any of us if you had not burned up your brains with brandy and impaired your volition with morphine,’ Othyris had said to him one day.
‘The river would be dry land if it were not water,’ said Tyras. ‘Have you nothing more novel to say than that? A patron once told me in Paris that all his workmen died before thirty-five of drink of some sort. Why should I be more virtuous than a man in a blouse?’
‘There are a great many reasons with which I will not trouble you, because they would not weigh with you.’
‘And there are a great many reasons with which they would trouble me, if I were not irreclaimable. The King sent me a tour in the northern provinces when you were in Asia — oh-hé! I promise you he won’t send me on another.’
He laughed his short, weak sardonic laugh of which diseased lungs were the feeble bellows, but which had a faint, far-off echo of childish mirth in it which made his brother’s heart ache, recalling other days.
Gavroche had not been mistaken when he had counted securely on the complacency and compliance of the Minister in such a small matter as the arrest of a poor peasant. Deliornis would have opened wide the door of the fullest penitentiary in Helianthus to enjoy that delightful quarter of an hour in which the Prince of Tyras sat beside him in a recess, putting his hand familiarly on his shoulder and saying, ‘Voyez donc, mon cher? To be called ‘mon cher’ by a prince of the blood, Deliornis would cheerfully have passed a decree declaring that all prisons of every kind should be abolished! Kantakuzene stiffened his back sometimes; Deliornis never. The former had the irritating qualities of a man who has studied back history and his contemporaries; the latter had that delightful inferiority which comes from the total absence of early education. Kantakuzene occasionally was overborne by his own intellect into showing that he did not greatly estimate that of royal personages; Deliornis never showed this, because he never felt it, — never felt anything in the presence of his monarch except the humility and the timidity which the tradesman feels before a patrician customer.
Deliornis attributed the worst motives possible to his prince’s interest in the young peasant, but that did not prevent him from obeying the wishes of Tyras. He would have trodden on all laws and all justice if any one of the royal family had desired it; and he consented as readily to set the lad free without examination of the charge made against him, as he would have consented to put him in prison without any charge at all if invited to do so by the same personage.
Of necessity, he said that the law must take its course; that his personal interference with a question of the police was utterly out of the question; that no personal pressure could ever be exercised, etc etc.; and with equal discretion Gavroche assured him that he would never dream of his going out of the proper course of ministerial etiquette to oblige himself; that all he asked was clemency for the offence, if offence there were. But each of them knew very well, when their conversation ended, that Philemon, son of Janos, would be outside the gates of the gaol on the morrow, simply because the Prince of Tyras wished it. ‘Au bon entendeur salut!’
That evening the fastidious people, who could not see in a rag-merchant a heaven-born statesman, observed with disapproval and curiosity that the Prince of Tyras, who was quite sober, looked like a gentleman, and wore that air of amiable condescension which he could put on when he liked, conversed long and seriously with Deliornis in a flower-filled alcove of one of the least frequented of the Palace drawing rooms. No one could hear what passed, but the long conversation gave rise to many comments and conjectures on the part of the guests of the Court.
On the morrow Othyris received a note signed ‘Gavroche’:
‘It was all a mistake of the Carabineers. The usual fault: too much zeal in the public service. So touching! The youth, not later than to-morrow, will be restored to the bosom of his family, with compensation. Now rid me of Reuben’
Greatly to the chagrin of Baron Muntze all the signatures of the Prince of Tyras were withdrawn from his hold, the amounts for which they had been given being paid to him with full interest. A caution was at the same time conveyed to him that if he lent again to the Prince of Tyras he would be likely to get into trouble in high places.
‘Damn me, I ought not to spy on Elim after that! ‘ thought Gavroche, in an emotion of genuine gratitude to his brother; and the mystery of his brother’s interest in the youth who had been arrested was left unpenetrated by him for the moment, through one of those intermittent impulses of honour which now and then illumined the sodden darkness of his soul.
CHAPTER XX
ON the following day, towards sunset, the boy Philemon stood again on the mud floor of the little home so dear to him; he was embraced, kissed, wept over, received as one risen from the dead.
What had happened to him? He knew no more than a young dog why he had been seized and chained up, then unchained and let loose.
‘They took me.’ he said to his parents, when their clamours and caresses grew a little quieter. ‘They came down on the beach and said I was singing the song; yes, I was singing the song as I raked up the weed. They used me roughly and swore at me. They tied my arms behind me. They took me down to a guard-house by the Gate of Olives; and, when it was dark, to that gaol which stands by the church of Our Lady of Tears, the gaol that is all black and dreadful, and they put me in a stone cell, and there was no light; I was frightened. I screamed. Two guards came in and beat me, and they chained me to the floor. I had had nothing to eat. They brought me some water, but they held it in a pail to my mouth to drink, and most of it was spilled over. They left me some bread, but I could not eat. They left me alone a long, long time. They came in hours and hours after; I suppose it was night; it was all dark. They had lanterns. “Ah, you are dainty, are you, gallows bird?” they said when they saw the bread uneaten; and they kicked and cuffed me. Then they went out and left me in the dark. I do not know how long it was before they came again. They took me out in the morning light. There was bright full sun in the passages. My head swam. They took me to a man sitting at a desk, all buttoned up with epaulettes on his shoulders. He said to me, “You may go. It was a mistake.” And he wrote in a b
ig book. “Take him outside and let him go,” he said to the guards. “Here, you boy, say nothing; say only it was a mistake.” And he gave me three gold pieces. Here they are.’
His mother and brothers and sisters crowded to look; they had never seen gold. But his father said:
‘You should not have taken them. They had beaten you. Why did you take their money? Give them to me. I will ask the Great Man.’
So he always called Platon Illyris. Philemon gave them.
‘I took them because I was afraid. I shall always be afraid—’
His voice was very low, his eyes were haggard, his limbs trembled with fever. His youth had gone out of him; it was unlikely that it would ever return. Beat a young dog brutally; he will never be the same dog again.
Janos went up to the house of Illyris; they already knew of the boy’s arrival. When he had told his son’s story he showed the gold which he held in his hand. ‘Sir,’ he said to Illyris, ‘the Master of the gaol gave Philemon these three pieces. Should he keep them?’
‘No,’ said Illyris. ‘Give them to me.’
Janos gave them.
‘Child, bring me the little coffer,’ said Illyris.
Ilia brought it; a small and rusty box of iron, very strong, found many years before in the earth beneath the roots of an olive-tree blown down in a storm; it was probably many centuries old.
Illyris opened it, took out three pieces of the same value, and gave them to Janos, taking those of the gaol in their stead.
Then at his table he wrote in his fine bold characters, a little tremulous from age:
‘If these three gold pieces are intended as the measure of your equity they are too much: if they are intended as the measure of your iniquity they are too little.’
Then he signed his name Platon Illyris, put the paper and the coins under cover, and sealed them.
‘Send Maïa with this to the gaol, and bid her see that they give it to the governor,’ he said to Ilia. ‘Let her go the first thing in the morning.’
‘Is it the King’s son who has set Philemon free?’ asked Janos.
‘Ay, they can bind and loose,’ said Illyris bitterly.
‘Should we not thank him, sir?’ Ilia said with hesitation as Janos went away.
‘Thank whom?’
‘The Duke of Othyris. It must be he who has caused the boy to be liberated.’
‘Doubtless. Princes always say they have no power, but they can bind and loose, as I said, at their pleasure!’
‘But at least when they act justly do they not deserve some gratitude like other men?’
‘Their debt to Helianthus is as wide and as deep as the sea; if one of them pay a trifle back, by some little act which costs him nothing, have the children of Helianthus any right or call to be thankful? That is unworthy reasoning for a daughter of my race.’
‘Might not Janos go and watch for the Prince at the gates?’
‘Who would open the gates to Janos? You are mad.’
‘I believe those gates always stand open.’
‘They may. There are guards behind them.’
‘But when princes do well should they not meet with gratitude? Would you not write a word for Janos, sir?’
‘I? Write to a Gunderöde! You are mad, child.’
‘Will you allow me to write?’
‘I forbid you most absolutely.’
She did not disobey. But obedience was painful to her. It seemed to her that they must appear barbarians in the eyes of Othyris. Sleep did not come to her until a late hour of the night; she was thinking what she could do to show that she was not insensible to the act of the King’s son. Before the sun was visible upon the horizon, and the mists were still heavy and cold on all the dark slopes of the mountain, she went into the woods and gathered the bells of the fritillaria and the cups of the narcissus poeticus which were at that season growing thickly under the mosses in all the olive woods, and fringed them with some young sprays of olives, and tied them with a plaited band of grass. She gave them to the woman Maïa to whom, overnight, had been given the sealed packet for the governor of the gaol.
‘When you are in the city.’ she said to the woman, ‘go first to the gaol and leave that packet as the Master told you to do. Then go to the house of the Duke of Othyris. It is in the Square of the Dioscuri. The gates always stand wide open. It has great groups of date palms before it. Watch until you see him come out of the courtyard, if you watch all day long. Then go to him, give him these wild flowers, and say, “She with whom I live thanks you.” Only those words. No others.’
The woman repeated the words three times to make sure of her remembrance of them; then went on her way through the trees. She was a grave, worn, strong woman; she had seen many troubles in her life, and had neither curiosity nor garrulousness. Seven hours passed before she returned.
Ilia went and sat down and waited for her, where the water tumbled down over the rocks and a turn in the hill-path showed the shining sea and the distant and glittering domes of the city.
She was disturbed, and the natural repose of her temperament was broken by a vague anxiety and unrest. Perhaps she had done wrong? she asked herself.
The dark figure of Maïa came in sight, black in the white light; erect, although not young, she carried on her head a burden of useful necessary articles which she had bought in the city.
‘You saw him? ‘asked Ilia, as she rose and went to meet her messenger.
‘I saw him,’ the woman answered.
‘What passed?’
‘That which you commanded should pass. I waited long. The young man came out of his palace. I made a sign to him. He knew me. He beckoned me to him. I said to him “She whom I serve thanks you.” His face grew bright. He took the flowers, and he turned back and went within. He would have given me money, but I put it away. It was all done in a moment. There were many people staring, and the guards of the street looked angry.’
‘You did well,’ said Ilia. ‘Good Maïa, go in and take your rest.’
Ilia remained there alone, looking down through the radiance of the noonday light, outward to the sea with its wide semicircle of golden coast and purple mountain.
‘I must say what I have done.’ she thought.
There was no sound in the still noontide, except that of a woodpecker striking his beak on the trunk of an oak. The silence and the radiance of the early spring-day were like a benediction. She rose with regret as the Ave Maria rang far down below, and she retraced her steps to the house.
She entered the presence of Illyris.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘you will be angered, but I sent word by a message, by Maïa, that I thanked the son of the King for the freedom of Philemon.’
The face of Illyris grew very dark, like a storm which lowers in the hills.
‘I have suffered many things,’ he said harshly; ‘but never before in my long life have I been disobeyed.’
‘Never have I dared to disobey you before,’ said Ilia; ‘but I could not let a Gunderöde believe that the Illyris were ingrates.’
‘What matter what a Gunderöde may think!’ said Illyris with scorn. ‘You did wrong. But you inherit my temper. I cannot blame you for your heritage.’
He looked at her with a keen and searching gaze.
‘This young man pleases you?’ he added with suspicion.
‘I am sorry for him, sir.’
‘Wherefore?’
‘Because he is, by nature, just; and he is in a position wherein he cannot be just in action; he strives to do what good he can, but he knows that the utmost he can do is but a drop of clear water in a sea of mud.’
‘Whence got he his scruples?’
‘I know not.’
‘Is not he the son of Gregory’s grand-daughter by the grandson of Theodoric? What blood has he in his veins other than that of traitors to the people, traitors and tyrants? I must be in my dotage indeed when my word ceases to be law in my own house!’
‘I grieve to have offended you, sir;
but I could do no less.’
‘You did ill.’
She did not defend herself. She too thought she had done wrong in one sense, although right in another.
Illyris was silent, his eyes resting on her. She was calm and grave, with no embarrassment under his scrutiny. As was her habit, she had spoken in simple sincerity.
‘You may go to your room’,’ said Illyris. He turned to the table beside him, and wrote a few lines to the second son of the King, the great-grandson of Theodoric:
‘Young man, you have done a good action in restoring a child to his parents, and in saving an innocent from the pollution of prisons. You mean well, and I have no doubt of your good faiths but do not come here any more. Between Gunderöde and Illyris there is a gulf which can never be passed.’
Then he signed and sealed the letter, and on the following day he sent it down to the palace in the Square of the Dioscuri.
To Ilia he did not speak of it. It had never been his habit to confide in women or to consult with them.
He trusted their affections, but he never trusted their intelligence.
For the first time her future troubled him with a sad sense of his own impotence. From want he could secure her; absolute need she would never know; but beyond this he could not ensure her peace or safety. She was alone; and she was not of a temperament to make friendships easily or find interests in new spheres. She had too much of the granite and the steel of the Illyris in her.
Illyris felt that he had failed in his duty in his neglect of her; and yet what could he have done?
She had inherited his strength; he could only leave her to herself.
‘Will you live on here when I am dead, Ilia? ‘ he asked her.
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘always.’
She did not say, as others would have done, ‘Do not speak of death.’ because she knew that death stood beside his chair and beside his bed, and said, ‘ I am near.’ every hour of the day and night. Neither he nor she used empty conventional phrases.