Strangers in Company

by Jane Aiken Hodge

  The professor, too, had lingered and now came hurrying up through the gate. “Ah.” He moved sideways to keep out of Stella’s picture. “I was beginning to wonder if I’d lost you. There’s supposed to be a bird here that croaks the doom of the House of Atreus. I’ve never managed to get a proper description of it from anyone, but I keep hoping to hear it every time I come.”

  “I shouldn’t think it would do much croaking with us chattering all over the place.” Stella had taken her picture and slung her camera back over her shoulder.

  “No,” he agreed. “I’d give my eyeteeth to stay here one day and come up in the evening.”

  “Ugh.” Stella shivered. “I bet it really would feel haunted then.”

  “It does now.” Marian surprised herself. It was curious; she had not quite realised how much she had felt it, the strange, heavy atmosphere of the place. It was like, and yet unlike, what she had felt back in London, the feeling of being always watched that had sent her to Dr. Brown. But there the haunting had been particular to her; here she felt it as general, heavy in the air, the breath of the Furies?

  “Imagination,” said the professor robustly. “Come on up, Mrs. Frenche. I want to hear what that glib young man has to say about Schliemann.”

  “Glib?”

  “Well.” Fairly. “It’s splendid stuff, for the purpose, but I wouldn’t give him an A for the course. I wonder if he’ll even mention that Homer speaks of Agamemnon as from Tiryns, not Mycenae at all.”

  They found Mike haranguing a rather silent group scattered round a circle of stones deeply planted in the earth. “Not Agamemnon, of course,” he was saying. “Much earlier. And so is what they call his tomb—the beehive one we’ll be visiting presently.” Behind Marian, the professor grunted approval.

  “But what an extraordinary place.” She turned to him as the rest of the party moved on up the hill. “It’s like Stonehenge.”

  “Only different.” The tension of the place seemed to have got into Stella. Once again she spoke with a brusqueness that was very nearly rude.

  “Which came first?” Marian turned to ask the professor but found that he had drifted away, binoculars at the ready.

  “Bird watching.” Stella gazed after him with contempt.

  Marian fought irritation and won. “Let’s go on up.” She made her voice a little extra cheerful. “I want to know if Mike will show us the bathroom where Clytemnestra killed her husband.”

  “Bloodthirsty, aren’t you, Mrs. F.?” Had Stella noticed the strain in Marian’s voice? Certainly the place was doing something very strange to her. Could she really be wishing that she had, simply, killed Mark all those years ago? It would have been easy enough, looking back on it. He was always taking pills. Pills to make him sleep, and pills to wake him up. Pills that combined well with alcohol, and pills that were poison with it. One of those times when he had been in session and had called upstairs, “Hey, Mari, throw me one of those blue torpedoes,” she could so easily have thrown him the wrong one. She would have been a wealthy widow; the twins all hers. Horrible. She looked out over the rolling plain. How had Clytemnestra and Aegisthus felt when they faced each other over the knowledge of what they had done?

  There was no fatal bathroom. The site of the palace was open to the sky, and one must imagine the great hall where Clytemnestra and her lover feasted Agamemnon and Cassandra before they killed them.

  “But Orestes’ stair still exists,” Mike told them. “And the postern by which he escaped after he killed his mother. You can go down if you want to, but it’s a long way, and besides, the Furies might get you the way they did him. I’d recommend the stairs to Perseus’ spring, myself; that’s really interesting, so long as you don’t mind the dark.” He felt in his pockets, produced an electric torch and a handful of candle stumps and gave a Greek exclamation that was evidently an oath. “I’m a fool. I forgot to get new ones. But these will do if we share them. Who’s for the long stair to the secret spring that made the palace of the Atrides impregnable?”

  “What do you think?” Marian turned to Stella. “I’m not mad about the dark myself.” Passionately, she hoped that Stella would agree with her. Even the entrance to the secret stair looked sinister, black against the bright sunshine.

  But Stella was already moving forward. “Oh, come on, Mrs. F.,” she said impatiently. “You can’t come all this way and then welsh out on the horrors.”

  Something odd about her tone? No time to think about it as Marian reluctantly joined the slowly shuffling queue and collected a candle stump from Mike. “That’s it”—he was cheerfully matter-of-fact—“one to four of you, follow my torch, and I promise you won’t get lost.” He laughed. “No room for that on the secret stair. And no time to waste, either, if we are to see the beehive tomb of Agamemnon.”

  “Not Agamemnon,” said Edvardson, from behind Marian, but Mike had already led the way into the dark cavity. There were exclamations, little gasps, giggles, as pair after pair vanished into the darkness.

  Cairthorpe gestured Marian and Stella to go ahead of him. “I’m the rear guard,” he said. “I’ve got a torch.”

  “Good.” Marian did not think there was anything good about it, but she was certainly not letting Stella go down that dark stair alone. In the end, she saw, the whole party had decided to go, although both Mrs. Esmond and Mrs. Hilton had shared her own qualms at first But Cairnthorpe was waiting, polite, patient, almost, she felt, relentless. She took a deep breath of thyme-scented air and followed Stella into the dark.

  For a while, sunlight, filtering down from above, made the candles absurdly useless, then, gradually, their flickering light was the only guide down the rough, half-seen steps. Somewhere in front, Marian could hear Mrs. Hilton’s voice raised in a steady grumble, while Mrs. Adams, who seemed to be trying to cling to her husband’s arm, kept up a shrill, unnerving squeak. It made Marian think, uncomfortably, of bats, and she wondered where the professor was in the now rather silent group of people who picked their way, awkwardly, downwards and still downwards in the thick dark. Far ahead, she could see Mike’s torch from time to time, vanishing round a bend in the tunnel, then reappearing rather farther off than she liked. But it was not the kind of going over which one could hurry. She sympathised with Mrs. Duncan, who was now muttering crossly to herself. Suppose the candles did not last the trip? It was not a possibility to think of.

  It seemed a very long way, in the heavy darkness that was beginning to feel damp. Somewhere ahead, there was a scuffle and one of the schoolmistresses spoke. “I don’t much like this,” she said. “OK if I go back, Mike?”

  And from what seemed a good deal farther down, Mike’s voice, apologetic. “Sorry, miss. Down here, in the dark, we must all keep together. It is a rule with us guides. You will understand, I am sure. But not much farther now.”

  “Oh, very well.” The scuffling below was more pronounced, as, presumably, the group of girls started moving downwards again. Marian and Stella, who had kept moving, had almost caught up with them in a place where, Marian thought, the stairway must widen. Could it be a passing place, from the old days, when men under seige went to and fro with vital flagons of water? Certainly, voices echoed strangely here, and she was aware of the other members of the party, some moving forward, others, apparently, still waiting, perhaps hoping that Mike would change his mind and take them all back.

  But his torch was moving, and candles flickering after it. Marian thought, from the voices she heard, that the more eager members of the party had seized the chance to get ahead. The going was easier, here, where the stairway widened out, and Marian stopped concentrating on her feet to congratulate herself that, in fact, she was bearing this ordeal by darkness better than she had feared. Curiously, it was Stella who seemed disturbed. Her breathing came quick and shallow, and the hand that held their candle was not quite steady.

  Ahead, someone else was in difficulties. A candle went out. There was violent movement, for a moment, and a terrified scream echoed
back to them, stopped suddenly, and was caught up by Stella. “What is it?” Marian took the candle from her now uncontrollably shaking hand. “What’s the matter down there?”

  “Let me pass.” It was Cairnthorpe, with his torch, and Marian was glad to stand close against the cold stone and let him by. A babble of voices was coming up, now, from the darkness. Mike’s, anxious; Mrs. Spencer’s; Mrs. Duncan’s; and then, above them all, Mr. Hilton’s, high with fright, “Martha! Martha! Where are you?”

  No answer. Mike’s torch swung back up towards them, its beam pitifully weak, but still strong enough to show a dark something on the stair, a little above where he stood. Mrs. Spencer spoke, with authority. “I’ve done some first aid, let me get to her.”

  More scuffling, and Cairnthorpe’s voice, also surprisingly authoritative. “Please stand still, everyone but Mrs. Spencer. I’m afraid there’s been an accident.”

  “Martha!” There was a sob in Mr. Hilton’s voice now. “Is it Martha? I only stopped to tie my shoelace. Is it Martha?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Mrs. Spencer’s voice was sober. “I’m afraid she’s hurt herself. Badly.”

  Dead. That tone could mean nothing else. Marian put out a firm hand to take Stella’s trembling one. “Do you want us to start back up?” she called down to Cairnthorpe. “Or can we help?” It was interesting, she thought that in this moment of crisis, it was Cairnthorpe who had taken command, not Mike.

  But, now, incredibly, a furious argument broke out between them as to who was to stay and who go for help. Common sense surely suggested that Mike, the Greek speaker, should go for help and Cairnthorpe stay with what was now tacitly admitted to be the body. But Mike refused, point-blank. He was responsible, he said, for the group. He must stay and organise the appalling task of getting Mrs. Hilton back up the dark stair.

  Here another voice broke in. Mrs. Duncan’s, Marian thought. “She should be left where she fell,” she said. “For the police.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mike robustly. “The candles won’t last much longer, for one thing, and what have the police to do with an accident like this?” But, somehow, the argument was over. Cairnthorpe said something under his breath, then turned and started back upwards.

  As the sound of his careful footfalls and the light of his torch dwindled together, silence fell on the party below, broken only by the painful, smothered sound of Mr. Hilton’s sobs. “Those shoes,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let her come. Oh, Martha.…”

  “Someone had better take him up.” This was the Professor, nearer to the scene of the accident than Marian had expected. “And then I think between us, Mike, you and I and Mr. Adams might …” Straining her eyes, Marian saw Mike’s torch swing round to illuminate Edvardson, who was bending over the huddled figure on the stair. “Yes,” he said, “she lost her right shoe, poor woman.” He raised his voice a little. “Mrs. Frenche, are you there?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think you and Miss Marten could help Mr. Hilton up? You’ve got a candle, haven’t you? And then perhaps the rest of the party would follow you, and leave the three of us.…”

  “Yes, of course.” It was obvious sense, and Marian was only surprised that it was Edvardson who had suggested it, not Mike, whose job it was. But then, just because it was his job, it was understandable that Mike should be badly shaken. “Wait here,” Marian told Stella. “I’ll fetch poor Mr. Hilton.” But he was already on his way up to them, being passed carefully from group to group, with light, sympathetic touches and murmurs of would-be consolation in the dark. His face, in the dim candlelight, looked ghastly, but, mercifully, he was now in some degree of shock. Tears trickled uncontrollably down his cheeks, but when Marian took his hand and began to lead him upwards, he followed in silent obedience.

  Just the same, it was a horrible and difficult journey, with Stella, following behind silent and, it seemed to Marian, oddly unhelpful. Turning back to light Mr. Hilton over a specially rough bit of stair, she cut short an impatient expostulation with Stella when she saw that silent tears were running down her face. Stupid to have forgotten that it must be the child’s first sight of death.

  Mike had been right about the candles. She was just beginning to look anxiously at the stub she carried, now flickering low in its socket and threatening, soon, to burn the hand that held it, when she saw, blessedly, the faintest hint of light ahead. “Thank God,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

  “But where’s Martha?” said Mr. Hilton.

  The unanswerable question brought them in silence out into the warm sun that showed Hilton as ghastly as Marian had expected. We ought to have hot tea, she thought, and brandy. As it was, she spread her plastic raincoat on the grass and made him sit on it. “Do you smoke?” she asked.

  “Martha didn’t like—” He choked on it.

  “Have one now.” Stella, at least, had pulled herself together and took the cue to produce a battered package. She and Marian registered, with a relieved exchange of glances, that he was speaking of his wife in the past tense.

  He must have noticed it himself. He looked up at them. “It can’t be true,” he said. “Just a fall; a little fall like that? They’ll bring her up. She’ll be all right, won’t she?”

  “We must hope so,” said Marian. Let him take his time; better so.

  “If only my shoelace hadn’t come undone.” He was reliving it now. “But it wasn’t safe, down there in the dark. And hard to tie.” He looked down at his right foot where the lace of a surprisingly good brogue looked indeed as if it had been tied with fumbling hands. “She shouldn’t have gone,” he said. “If only that young man—Cairnthorpe—if he’d only not urged her not to, she’d never have come. She didn’t mean to. But she was always one for a dare, was Martha.” And then, aware of the past tense again, he crumbled helplessly into tears.

  Stella was prowling restlessly about on the springy grass. “God,” she said, “this is horrible. How long, do you think?”

  “Cairnthorpe, or the others?” Marian was sitting beside Hilton, holding his hand and stroking it gently, as she might, once, have done for one of the twins in one of childhood’s moments of despair.

  “Both, I suppose.”

  “Well”—Marian did her best to make her voice sound matter-of-fact—“at least, here come the others. I hope they have some sense.…”

  Mercifully, they did. The subdued babble of voices she had heard, doubtless exclaiming with relief, as she had, on sight of daylight, was stilled when the first of the others emerged and saw Hilton’s crumpled figure. Mrs. Duncan, in the lead, blew out her candle and took charge. “Over here,” she told the group who followed her. “Out of the way.” They looked, understood and moved dutifully away. Only Mrs. Duncan came over to lean close to Marian and say, softly, “Should we move him? They’ll be up in a moment.”

  “Yes.” Marian looked up at her doubtfully. “I know, but I’m not sure.…”

  “You may be right,” said Mrs. Duncan. “Anyway, he’s got to know.”

  Mr. Hilton took no notice of anything. He was staring at his own shoes, as if hypnotised. “Here they come,” said Mrs. Duncan, and moved forward to spread her neat grey raincoat on the short grass as far as she could from where Mr. Hilton sat.

  Mrs. Esmond and her son had just emerged from the dark stair with Mrs. Adams. Mrs. Esmond, as was her habit, was talking loud and angrily. “Badly organised … asking for trouble.” She saw Mr. Hilton and fell suddenly silent.

  From behind and below came the professor’s voice. “Careful here,” he said. “It’s always tricky when you hit the light.” And then, “That’s it.” He emerged first, moving half-backwards, and Marian found herself thinking it was like him to take the most difficult place. One look at the inert figure that the three men laid gently on the grey raincoat told her that she had been right not to let Mr. Hilton hope.

  Suddenly, horribly, Mrs. Adams went into hysterics. “What do we do now?” she wailed.

  “I’m afraid we
wait,” said Mike. “For the police.” And then, quickly. “Even for an accident, like this, they must of course be summoned.”

  “Of course,” said Mrs. Spencer, and moved forward quietly to lay her white handkerchief over the dead face.

  Chapter Five

  They never did see the beehive tomb. By the time the police arrived the hills were casting heavy shadows across the valley. And when the inevitable questioning was over at last, dusk was in the air, and the level of hysteria in the party rising.

  The police had insisted on holding their examination up on the hill, where the body had lain until it was, mercifully, removed by a capable pair of young men with a stretcher, and Marian had found herself wildly imagining that these modern-looking Greeks in their neat uniforms perhaps believed in some primitive form of ordeal. Did they expect that poor little body to gush blood from nose and ears at a murderer’s approach?

  This was merely lunatic fantasy engendered by the grim hillside. In fact, it all seemed straightforward enough. Everyone knew that Mrs. Hilton had been staggering about in unsuitable shoes. Several people were sure that it was her candle that had gone suddenly out, presumably in some unexpected down draught. Everyone had heard her scream and fall, and if no one admitted to having been near her at the time, well, the police shrugged their shoulders. Down there, in the dark, it was hardly surprising. Mr. Hilton, coming slowly out of shock, explained about his shoelace and how he had momentarily lost touch with his wife before the disaster. “Very risky, down there,” he said, and went first red, then white.

  It was a very subdued party that checked in at the strikingly inappropriate modern hotel that loomed over Nauplia. Resigned now to waiting to the last to be assigned a room, Marian joined the professor, who was gazing out at an astonishing view of cliff and sea. “What do you think will happen?” she asked.