Berris took up the planed board and rubbed his hands softly over the surface. ‘You think I’m more easily hurt than I am,’ he said, ‘in these complicated woman-ways of yours. I’m just plain hurt at not having her at all. I’d sooner buy her than nothing. With the Agis pictures. I’ve bought women before!’ He glared violently across at his sister.
Erif sighed; he was tiring to live with in these moods. But perhaps it was a possible way of helping him and Philylla at the same time. ‘Well, go on,’ she said, ‘but try the pictures alone first. Keep the money out, if you can, till afterwards. But if she lets you be her lover you must help her to go to Alexandria afterwards. It’s all very fine, Berris, looking like that, but after all, it’s my money too, and if I like to sell one of my jewels—yes, and the ones you’ve made would fetch most!—I can get her away just the same as you.’
‘Why don’t you do it then, you devil, instead of sitting there looking at me!’
‘Because we’ve been friends, Berris, all our lives, haven’t we? And if we were out of Greece I would be able to magic you. How could I not give you the chance of having her once? You see, Berris, it might turn out to be all you needed. Then she could go to Egypt, and we could go to Athens or somewhere. Till the end of the four years. Why can’t Hyperides write! I don’t see that Panteus would really hate you, either. Yes, I know you don’t care whether he does or not, but she’d hate you if he did. Oh, Berris, am I quite, quite wrong?’
Berris was calm again. He had begun to draw on the wood, a great tangly growth of elks and dragons—northern. He said: ‘I think you may be wrong. She may have stopped being in love with that man after the letter came, only she hasn’t found out yet, and she won’t unless something shows her. Wouldn’t it be odd, Erif, if she went out to Alexandria not knowing that, and only found out when she saw him! Or when she went to bed with him. She’d never be able to admit it to anyone but herself, and there it would be inside her all her life. Isn’t that a funny thing to think of!’
Erif said in horror: ‘I wonder if you can possibly be right.’ And then she began to cry, but quietly, so as not to interrupt Berris.
He said: It’s very easy to deceive oneself, and other people. It would be quite easy to deceive you, Erif, over this kind of thing. Yet it’s a thin, flimsy bit of pretence, quite easy to break with the right kind of blow: a sharp tap would do it, Erif, a word if it were the right word. A very little force would do it—even I could use that amount of force! Even on her. And if it was broken there would be nothing left standing between her and me.’
‘Oh, I wish you wouldn’t,’ sobbed Erif. ‘You may be right!’
‘Why shouldn’t it be me who’s right for once? And what a place we’ll make for you, what a home for the four years! And I am sure, I’ve known this in my heart ever since I first saw her.’
‘Oh, I do hate you all!’ Erif cried at him, and threw the plane on to the floor, skidding, crash, into the wall. ‘I had it all plain in my head and now it’s tangled, it’s a bad magic! Oh, Berris, I’ve got this curse on me still, I can feel it, the seasons have turned on me, and all the proper things that go with the seasons, love and marriage and friendship! Oh, I make everything I touch unlucky, I spoil people’s lives, I make straight things crooked! Oh, go away from me; I’m unlucky, I’ve lost Tarrik and Marob and my baby! Oh, take Philylla away if you like, I shall only hurt her! Oh, it’s all my fault. Oh, Berris, let me go. Oh, don’t hold me, oh, how shall I ever get free!’
But Berris wasn’t frightened; he knew how these whirlwinds arise suddenly in the soul and then subside. He took her on his knees and patted her shoulder and arm and told her not to be so silly, and let her snuggle against him and cry down his neck. It would pass. She had this evil in her still; better to let it come out. Philylla was almost always, as he remembered her, calm and strong. He had just bought a squared and seasoned oak trunk with curious knots; in his mind it was already turning into a reclining woman with curious breasts. He hoped Erif had not taken the edge off the plane, throwing it about like that.
Chapter Six
NOW IT WAS NEARLY the end of the winter and very stormy. Once or twice a north wind had brought snow down on to the houses, but it never lay, and Berris and Erif had no chance of sledging. It was a cold ride out to the house of Themisteas, even for Berris with all the hot and hopeful eagerness of his body. Eupolia wished very much that they still had their town house, but that had been lost at the end of the King’s Times, and she had quite enough to do salvaging their country estates; the house had been taken over by the ephors for the redistribution.
The classes were all in disorder now. During winter Dontas came home quite often. He was a silent, sometimes rather sulky boy, with tufty yellow hair and a blank face to his elders. He had been very much upset by the death of his Iren at Sellasia, but would not talk about it to anyone. He did not like Erif or Berris Der and went out quickly if they came into any room where he was.
During this time it seemed as though it were Erif who was avoiding ever being alone with Philylla. She tried to go on making friends with Ianthemis, but the girl realised that Berris was not interested in her, and she spent most of her time coaxing her father and mother to take some more definite action about Chaerondas. Sometimes she talked to Tiasa. Philylla would not do that now. She would not speak a word to her foster-mother nor even go near the home-farm, where she used to be so often and where she would still have been allowed to go if she had taken someone trustworthy with her. She did not care that Mikon was there and sometimes one or two others who wanted badly to see her and get reassurance from her. She would have had nothing to give them. She was puzzled about her life; she looked forward very much to seeing Berris from day to day, but she could not tell where it was all leading. And unless her road led to Egypt she did not or would not know where else it might lead. There had been no more letters, or at any rate none had reached her. In the meantime she had stood beside Berris Der, looking at the Agis pictures, and his arm had gone round her and he had kissed her and she had thought for a moment that if only he would tell her what to do and give her reason, she would surely do it. For now Panteus was not here to tell her. Nor Agiatis. He had fought for the King and he had made the pictures, and his sister Erif loved her and would never let him do any hurt to the house of Panteus and Philylla. She would ask again soon about the money and help. She was sleeping better than she had done for weeks.
But as for Berris, he was being worse torn than ever Erif guessed. It was all very well to be violent and male and insist on getting what he wanted, but he did also want most deeply to be kind to Philylla and do what she wanted. The kindness of the brush: the violence of the chisel. He wanted to be liked. He did not in the least mind if people did not like his pictures, because he was certain of them himself, but he did mind that people should like him! That Philylla should like him. Why complicate one’s life with women? Well, there it was: devilishly complicated. And she was so beautiful, so strong; she was not one of those little round girls one pummels and pulls the clothes off and takes by the thighs, squeaking. Some of her essential beauty would be lost if she did not come to him willingly and bravely, giving her hand in all honour with that piercing smile of hers, herself loosening the belt-clasp from under those lovely breasts, unhurrying, herself drawing him to her, down to her, to that incredibly tender and happy and all-satisfying meeting of the flesh. It did not do for him, though, to think of that much. His visual and tactile imagination was too good. For a little time the mere image filled his mind and body with deep joy, yet the joy held tension in it, ebbed and darkened away until nothing but the tension was left, an aching, stinging bodily tension that passed at last with other thoughts and other movement, but left behind it a terrible depression in which he could not work.
He wished Erif would talk about it more, help him to fix his mind, and, when that was done, help him to fix Philylla’s. But Erif was less ready to talk than he had ever known her. She would not find out for him whethe
r, for instance, Philylla was writing again to Egypt: merely said she supposed she was. Sometimes Philylla herself would suddenly begin to speak about her husband to Berris and he was never quite sure how to answer. For she might be doing it seriously as part of this marriage idea of hers, which sooner or later he thought he would be able to shatter, and, if this was so, he must always be on the look-out for the weakest point; or it might be that, unknown to him, the idea was already broken and she was only saying this maddening name, Panteus, Panteus, so as to tease him and stab him on; or she might be saying it to a friend she trusted—he knew she would not speak to her parents or sister as she did to him—and if so it would be both horrible and foolish to show himself as anything less than the dearest and most trustworthy friend.
Then, on the turn of winter, when already the sun was beginning to shine stronglier, and on southern banks the smaller flowers were out, two letters, forwarded deviously from Kirrha, came to the Queen of Marob.
One was from Hyperides, and the other was from Tarrik himself, and they were written after Harvest and the putting right of everything. It took her a little time to realise what had happened; she passed the letters to Berris without comment, for she did not trust herself to speak. It was he finally who said, trying to be as calm as possible: ‘Obviously, there is nothing wrong in Marob any more. Tarrik has, as he says, stopped being afraid of anything, and the seasons are afraid of him! Yes, it’s pretty complete, my dear. I’m glad.’ He kissed her. Then he said: ‘On this, do you think you can go back? It is—likely—isn’t it, that this will have put you right too?’
Erif Der went very red and she said: ‘Now Tarrik is made lucky, he will be able sooner or later to pull me home and make me safe and happy again. Oh, Berris, my marriage is not for nothing now! In spite of all the things which have happened and which will happen yet, in spite of pain and danger and separation, my marriage is real, and I shall see my husband and everything will come right in the end!’
‘That is all true,’ said Berris, smiling. ‘Your marriage is a kataleptike phantasia, Erif wife of Tarrik!’
‘And before this letter came,’ said Erif, with her eyes fixed and bright, ‘I was going to let you break a marriage and keep a woman from the husband she loves. Oh, if I go back to Tarrik, Philylla must go back to Panteus; and if she does not go, may I be stopped from going! Berris, do you hear, marriage is a real thing and the best thing, and I know it is the same for Philylla, and she shall have it again and make good come of it, and I shall sell my jewels and give her the money to go!’
Berris looked at her and did not speak for a time; he was rather white. At last he said: ‘No, Erif, if anyone is to give her the money, it’s to be me. But give me time—time—’ He sat down suddenly, dropping the sea-stained letters from Marob, and held his head in his hands.
‘All the time you want,’ said his sister, and kissed him and stood there, enclosing in the circle of her mind Tarrik and Hyperides and her son and Essro and Disdallis and Kotka, and all the golden corn harvests of Marob, and at the same time her friend Philylla and her brother Berris and the beautiful things he was going to make.
For the next fortnight neither of them came much to Themisteas’ house. Then one day Erif came with a pair of silver filigree ear-rings for Ianthemis, who danced away with them to show her father and mother and Tiasa. Berris had made them—not very well, but well enough—during the time he was thinking things out, so as to have something to occupy his hands. Erif found Philylla alone in her room, sewing; she looked up in the way she had, as though she were constantly expecting something, and shoved along the litter of needles and thread and half-made clothes so as to make room for Erif. She was very glad to see either of them again. Her hair had grown after the clipping at marriage, but she herself had cut it short again after Sellasia and had kept it short for mourning all this time; she usually wore a dark-coloured handkerchief stretched tightly over it and knotted at the back. She put her hands up to it now in an automatic gesture. Erif sat down beside her and in a low voice told her to be ready at such and such a time and place; she and her brother would have the money.
Philylla dropped her sewing and for a moment sat motionless with open hands. Then she turned sideways into Erif’s arms and clung to her and sobbed against her neck with little funny bird-like shriekings of laughter between the sobs. At last she said: ‘And then? You’ll get me a horse?’
‘Yes, we shall all have horses.’
‘You’ll come with me to Gytheum? You dears!’
Erif undid Philylla’s arms from round her neck and held her steady, smiling seriously at her. ‘As a matter of fact, we are coming with you to Egypt.’
The morning of the day came with a north wind slamming the shutters and making a grey flashing stream of each winter-leafy olive. Philylla put together the things she wanted, sewing them up into coarse, strong linen, so as to make two saddle-bags. She wandered about the house and was nice to Ianthemis and her father. She would not see them or it again until the King came back and she and Panteus had their own home once more. Then she would come and walk gloriously with her hair grown and perhaps, yes, perhaps carrying a child against her shoulder, a boy baby, through all the rooms and passages where she had been a prisoner all these months. Then she would forgive her mother for going Macedonian. Then she might begin to think of forgiving Tiasa! As the day went on, the wind, if anything, rose, but she was not afraid. She washed all over with plenty of oil, for she was not sure when she would have another chance. She visited the puppies. Berris had not taken his one away—he had said he would wait till spring when it would be easier to exercise and train it. They all came wobbling and scuttling up with tiny pretence barks, and licked her feet. It was beginning to get dark. She had a game of dice with her father and Dontas; they pretended all sorts of impossible wagers and all got excited about it and laughed a lot. Her mother brought in the lamps. About another hour.
She grew more restless now, and her heart beat uncomfortably. She found herself having to go so constantly to ease herself that she was a little afraid she had eaten something poisonous. Coming back from this, in that less well-lighted part of the house, she suddenly met her foster-mother, who stepped aside, bending her head, and then suddenly and imploringly stretched out her hands to her baby—who was hurting her so! A curious, sharp pain ran through Philylla, mixing with this spasmodic and nervous pain in her bowels, and she half moved towards Tiasa, as though on that bosom the pain could be cured or kissed away. But at this Tiasa sprang forward like a big, hot, soft tigress, and it flashed at Philylla that if she let herself be caught and touched and kissed she might be made prisoner again, and she hit out against Tiasa with one hand, not caring where it caught her, mouth or throat or breasts, and turned and ran. Her foster-mother did not follow her.
Berris waited with the four horses in the curious numb state he had been in ever since the letters from Marob had come and Erif had spoken about marriage like a priestess—like the Spring Queen. He was hurting himself and yet he knew he was also going through some experience as violent as any love affair, and which would ultimately set turning the wheels of his creation and make something solider and nearer reality than he had ever made before. There was a half-moon. The wind kept on tearing off piece after piece of cloud and sending them sweeping across its face; the stars were polished with cold.
Their fourth horse was laden with his and Erif’s things, valuables of one kind or another, and some rolled canvases. It had not given him any pain to leave a great deal behind; he was done with it. In any case, most of his things were definite orders which were now with their owners. He had wrapped up the Agis pictures and given them to a man whom he knew to be on the King’s side, asking him to pass them on, if he ever got the chance, to young Kleomenes, who was now with his mother Chilonis, slowly getting better of his wound. But he did not know whether they would ever get there. Erif had not made herself enough of a home to mind either about leaving most of her things behind and starting again
.
With startling suddenness the two were beside him; he had not heard them because of the wind. Philylla threw up her bundles over the saddle and mounted. Both women rode astride—it was safer for a long distance, when they might have to go fast. Erif was wearing thick trousers, as the Marob women often did in winter, and a felt coat with loops over silver buttons that fastened it tight from neck to waist and hid whatever jewels she might have been wearing. She had soft leather riding-boots, like her brother’s, that came up over the trousers. Her hair was plaited and tied, and she had a knife at her belt, which she enjoyed feeling with her free hand every now and then. Philylla wore a short woollen tunic, pulled up through her belt to knee height, an old one she had worn as a girl, and a heavy, dark-coloured woollen cloak. She tucked the flapping ends under her and sat back in the saddle and got a good grip of the reins. She had leather shoes, and inside them had bound her feet and ankles round with woollen strips to keep her warmer. She had grazed one leg climbing the wall, but she said nothing about it, and in the dark neither of the others saw.
They made a wide circle by sunk lanes and field-tracks to avoid the town of Sparta, and then came out on to the main way south to the sea, and halted to let the horses breathe, and stretch themselves; it was very awkward and uncomfortable riding in the dark on these winter roads. Impossible to talk much in this wind. It blew at their backs, every now and then whipping a gust of light sharp rain against them. When the horses moved on, the saddles began creaking again, the stumbling and jolting began again, the smell of the horses came up to their nostrils again if they leant a little forward to avoid the buffeting on their heads. Philylla’s legs were very cold; they hardly felt the rain any longer. Only the inner sides of her calves next the horse’s flank kept some warmth continuously with the horse, but her knees were already sore with rubbing, and her thigh muscles ached. All their hands, too, were bitterly cold.
The Corn King and the Spring Queen Page 57
