CHAPTER XXVII. INARIME’S VIGIL.
The journey back to Tenos was a mournful one. Selaka, in a mixture of dread and compunction, shunned his daughter’s glance. There might be a question of the amount of blame due to him for the trouble in which they were mutually involved, but the physical weakness consequent upon his sharp attack left him a prey to exaggerated feelings. That his daughter, his treasure, whom he had believed few men worthy to possess, should have been publicly insulted by a wretch like Oïdas to avenge an ignoble vanity which conceived itself affronted—that so horrible a stroke should have been dealt him by fate, and the heavens remained unmoved and the blood of life still flow in his veins, vision not have been struck from his appalled eyes! Pride lay dead at a stroke, and the unhappy man felt that he could never again lift a front of dignity to the light of day.
Of her own wound Inarime thought nothing. To have got rid of the offensive Oïdas was a gain, even if it cost her an insult. Her father’s illness was her only care. Dr. Galenides ordered rest and mountain air. Books, he opined, and cheerful shepherd surroundings would more than do the work of physic. The simple sights of nature and her restoring silence would relieve the shocked system, and the late catastrophe should be ignored.
Constantine travelled with them, moody and petulant by force of unexhausted vengeance. He paced the deck, muttering and smoking, smoking and muttering, forgetful of the clamours of the unassuaged appetite, and consigned the courteous steward to the devil when importuned to go down to dinner. Dinner indeed! while that fellow lived who had stolen his friend Stavros from him, beaten him in his election, and outraged his family. His days were passed in an open-eyed bloody-minded dream, and he gloated over the picture of the thrashed mayor, with his features reduced to a purple jelly, and his sneaking frame doubled up with pain. He could have kissed Reineke’s hand in gratitude. Horse-whipping was not in his line, but he understood, when administered by proxy, what a very excellent thing it was. To himself he plotted how when peace should have descended on the insulted and angry household, he would manœuvre to reward Reineke.
“He’ll marry her, he will, or my name’s not Constantine Selaka,” he reiterated to himself, and took the wide expanse of sky and sea to witness that it was a solemn oath.
At Syra they were late for the bi-weekly boat, but Pericles would hear of no delay, so they chartered a caique and shot across the placid blue, as the trail of sunset glory faded out of the deepening sky and Tenos showed below a solitary patch of green cloud. As they neared the little pier, the swift, short twilight had touched the valleys and lent mystery to the bare sweeps of hillside. A palm stood out upon the sky and appealed to Inarime’s sad eyes in the language of intense familiarity. She remembered to have noticed that one tree on her first childish voyage to Syra and, on coming back, to have claimed it with eager, friendly gaze. It seemed now that eagerness might henceforth hold no part in her experiences, and she felt like one who was staring back with sorrowful visage upon serene unnumbered years. The tears came rapidly as she noted each feature of the dear familiar picture, the background of her young life, and with them the magic thought that Gustav, too, had gazed lingeringly, tenderly upon it, thrilled her ineffably. She tried to imagine his impressions, and examined it keenly to discover how it might strike upon strange vision.
This is a craving of girls—to know how their lovers look upon things both have seen; to get inside their sight and count their very heart-beats. Women grow less exacting and imaginative, I believe, and have more practical demands upon love.
Aristides met them with mules and voluble utterances.
“Where is Paleocapa?” Pericles demanded, remembering to cast a searching glance about for the ruffian steward.
“He went up to meet some fellows in Virgin Street. I’ve no doubt they are in the Oraia Hellas,” answered Aristides.
“Besotting himself with his abominable raki—the brute!—Annunziata is well?” Selaka queried, sharply.
“Did you ever know her ill? Kyria Helena is up at Xinara. Nothing has happened since you left except the occasional backslidings of Paleocapa, who at times cannot be kept from his raki and was no less than thrice dead drunk. Oh, yes, Demetrius’ wife is dead, and Michael the carpenter is going to be married to make up for the deficiency,” Aristides chirped on, as heedless as a blackbird.
“Will you give us peace, you chattering fool,” thundered Pericles with an outburst of wholesome rage.
The sharp perfumes of the thyme and pines were wafted on the cool breezes of an April evening, as the little cortège of mules, guided by Aristides, wound slowly up the marble-stepped and rocky way, and Inarime drew in the air with quivering nostrils and parted lips. It was the air of home she breathed, fresh, untainted, smelling of upper hills and far off-seas, not that of a dusty city cheapened by the presence of all-pervading man. Thankfully she acknowledged the quiet of the land, the view unbroken by moving object. Here, at least, might one live unshamed, if even the heart were cut in twain. Upon the projecting point of the Castro, hung one first pale star, steadfast and patient like the light of a soul. Thus patiently and steadfastly should the star of love shine for her, its flame softly and uncomplainingly cherished by her. She would not again quit the shelter of her own grey Castro that looked so desolately upon these valleys, like the ghost of other centuries lured to the scene of its departed splendours. Her spirit sprang towards it with a throb of solemn joy. Dear sight! she could have clung to its burnt flanks and wept among its thymy crevices.
Night was flying over the heavens as they rounded the little path under it that leads into Xinara. The wind blew chill and balmy, and chased skurrying clouds across the peeping stars, like shadows flailed by the invisible powers to dim their mild radiance. Inarime shivered a little, and turned anxiously to her father.
“Pull up your coat-collar, father,” she entreated.
Demetrius and Johannis were smoking at the shop door when the expected procession passed through the village street. Michael was sitting in his betrothed one’s kitchen, staring at her silently, and profusely expectorating, which was his way of courting. All the villagers that dwelt on high, leant over their rickety wooden balconies, sniffing the evening air and talking in a subdued tone, and those below lounged against door-jambs, or over garden walls.
“Καγ ἑὁπἑρα,” waved upon many voices to Pericles and Inarime, and more royal “Ζἡσω” to the King of Tenos.
“Ζἡσω ὁ βασγἑυς ρἡς Τἡνου,” Demetrius sang out, cheerfully, and every head uncovered, hats were frantically waved by the men, handkerchiefs by the women. One foolish fellow high up, ran into the house for his pistol and luxuriously fired off a couple of shots by way of salute.
“Confound the idiots!” muttered Constantine, shuddering in his terror of the explosion. He hated the sound or the idea of the weapon, and his abortive duel with Stavros had not tended to lessen his instinctive abhorrence.
“No more of that, my good fellows,” he roared, commandingly. “Any expression of your kind regard flatters me, but my brother has had an illness, and is very much shaken. The ride from the town has proved rather more than his strength is capable of, and your noisy enthusiasm would quite prostrate him. Many thanks and good-night.”
“Ζὁψω!” again shook the silence of night as they rode through the village.
“The Virgin be praised! We have back our own dear young lady,” Katinka shrieked, kissing her fingers vigorously.
Inarime waved her hand in gracious recognition, and the proud, cherishing eyes of her adorers watched her slim figure, and the homely shape of her charger until the twilight mist swallowed them out of their sight. Annunziata and Kyria Helene stood at the little postern gate to welcome them. The tender brightness of their glances and the warmth of their cheering smiles struck the home-sick girl with the force of a buffet. She stumbled choking into Annunziata’s arms, and hung limp about her.
“Annunziata, Annunziata,” she cried like a child.
“My own girl! It is heaven to have you back. ‘When will she come?’ the villagers ask me every day, and shake their heads mournfully at the continued eclipse. Dear sir!” she added, as she caught the hands of Pericles, and held them fondly.
Pericles pressed her brown fingers, then kissed the cheeks of his sister and pleaded for immediate rest.
“It’s what we all need—supper and bed,” Constantine growled, turning to abuse Aristides for delay.
Oh, the poignant appeal to the senses of the dusky, sweet-smelling courtyard, rich with its departing spring blooms! It swept Inarime like the breath of childhood and filled her with fervent gratitude. To go away for the first time and come back! A month may hold the meaning of a cycle and awaken in the young heart all the fancies, the miseries and joys of the wanderer. Astonishment thrilled her that this place should greet her with its aspect of awful changelessness, and yet, if a stone, a flower, a chair were changed, it would have left her dumb with aching regret.
Annunziata’s arm was round her, and she put up a timid hand to feel the Turkish kerchief, the plait of false hair outside, and lovingly touched the wrinkled cheek.
“It is so good to be back with you,” she whispered.
“My treasure! my dearest child! I have been with you since you were a baby, and the sun did not shine for me while you were away,” the old woman murmured, and her tearful eyes pierced the baffling glimmer of early moonlight like glittering stars.
The little white salon was cozy and inviting by lamplight, and beyond it, in the inner room, the table was laid for supper. Constantine, dead with fatigue, hunger and shaken bones, pounced on it like a famished ogre, but a little soup and wine sufficed Inarime and Pericles.
“Brother, you look thin and worn,” Helene exclaimed, eyeing him doubtfully.
“Has he not been ill?” screamed Constantine, between the noisy gulps of his soup.
“I am well enough, sister, but very weary,” said Pericles, rising from the table. “Inarime, I would speak a word with you before I sleep.”
She followed him to his room, and when he fell into a chair, she crouched on her knees beside him.
“My child, I have been humbled through you,” he began, musingly, while his fingers gently stroked her hair. “Your instinct against my reason! And instinct conquers, reason is beaten, and grievously rebuked. I meant it for the best, my Inarime. But now I yield to your wishes. It would have been well for me to have taken counsel with them from the first. But this is ground upon which, perhaps, the old may always learn from the young without disgrace.”
His speech faltered and died away in supreme weariness. Inarime held her breath. Could this mean the recall of Gustav? And yet the hope seemed so wild that she dared not give it a transient shelter lest the reaction should utterly overwhelm her.
“To-morrow, father dear,” she urged, kissing his hand. “You are so tired now.”
“I have not much to say, and I hasten to have it over that I may not be obliged to revive the painful subject. I will not seek again to oppose your natural desire to remain unwedded, since you cannot hope to wed where your heart is.”
Tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes. She moved away from him in silence, and then glancing over her shoulder, saw the droop of illness in his frame, and his arms hanging languidly beside him. She was smitten with remorse, and went back to him.
“Thank you, father,” she said, softly.
“Kiss me, my girl, and leave me,” he just breathed.
She stooped over him and kissed him tenderly. All her reverent love returned on a swell, and it seemed a small thing to give up her lover to stay with her father always. The untroubled harmony of their relations dwelt with her again.
She went to her room, and opened the window to look out upon the peaceful night scene. Her terrace ran round the house, and commanded a view of the plain rolling to the distant sea and the girdling hills and wide dim valleys. The moon was high under a white veil of milky way. The bright metallic stars made a counter-radiance to her silver light, and every leaf and rugged contour was sharply visible in the mystic illumination. An oppressive silence lay upon the mountains, heavy stillness enveloped the valleys; the leaves dropped silver, and the flow of the torrents and the tiny quivering rills ran chill upon the nerves. The spirit of water and moonlight pervaded the scene, running through it with innumerable thin faint echoes. Every nook and crevice lay revealed, and the shadows were defined with harsh distinctness, the distances losing themselves in their own dark verges. Through the dusk, yellow lights from the farm casements were sprinkled here and there, and villages showed through their gardens and orchards as black masses upon the barren highlands.
Her heart was empty from excessive feeling as she looked across the land. Oh, for courage and freedom to wander forth and touch with feet and hands each well-remembered spot! A bat flitting through the air brushed her cheek, and she looked up to follow its black passage. She sat and watched everything, her energies expended in the delight of recognition. The waves of white cloud stealing across the heavens, and the moon imperceptibly beginning to dip, warned her that time was running apace, and a fluttering movement in the trees underneath told of birds softly stirring in their warm nests. The thought of their warmth made her aware that her teeth were chattering and her limbs were rigid with cold.
Still she sat through the night, and watched the day ushered in upon violet light, that soon glowed like fire. Crimson wings sped over the sky with quivering promise. At their touch the stars seemed to tremble, grew pale and were extinguished one by one. The little birds exulted in their nests and essayed a note or two. Daylight broke upon the earth from the fires of the East. Warmth travelled down the abysses of air, and in its first caress the night-dews shone like jewels on the leaves and flowers. The rapture of the birds grew into a spray of delirious song; it dashed upwards with the ring of silver mellowing to gold as it caught melody. The moon gazed pallid regret upon the scene and melted away in sickly stealth, as the voices of the morning awoke with the shrill crow of the cocks. Every folded leaf was now unclosed, and upon the skirts of the flying dawn the sun rose and spread his tyrannous light over hills and valleys. The world breathed in day, the dewdrops were beginning to melt, and the song of the birds was insufferably sweet to the ears.
Her hands were clammy and her frame was stiff when Inarime rose and entered her room. Never more would she be asked to leave this place. The hand beggared of the touch of Gustav’s, she was now free to keep unclaimed by any other man. Even that small boon was something to be thankful for, and she blessed her father before flinging herself down to snatch an hour of oblivion and rest for her tired young limbs. In a few hours the kindly villagers would flock to welcome her in person, and the dispensing of customary hospitalities would leave no time for poignant thoughts.