As it did so, the Duke knew that one day, perhaps even by climbing up to the very top of the Parthenon, he would find all that he was seeking.
CHAPTER FIVE
The climb up to the Parthenon was more exhausting than the Duke could remember, unless, of course, it was because he was now a few years older.
Anyway, now he was there he enjoyed a glimpse of the sun streaming through the many white columns.
He ploughed on, realising that he was now the only person inside the Temple.
When he had entered the Parthenon, there had been a few tourists about, but not the crowd he had somehow expected.
He supposed that the King was right when he had said last night at dinner that there was still a great deal to be done in Athens and it might be a year or more before it was really attractive to modern tourists as other countries were.
“You have done so much already,” the Duke had said. “They should be grateful they can at least sleep in a hotel which is comfortable when they leave their ship.”
“We need more hotels,” the King had replied, “and also more carriages to convey people from one place to another.”
Queen Olga had smiled at him.
“You are always impatient, darling,” she sighed. “But you know as well as I do that you have done wonders in the short time you have been on the throne.”
The King looked pleased and she added,
“Your predecessor did nothing.”
“That is what I have always heard,” the Duke had chipped in. “And I really do congratulate Your Majesty that you have been able to achieve so much in so short a time.”
“But there is so much more that has to be done,” the King groaned.
“And we are young enough to have plenty of time in front of us,” the Queen had added encouragingly.
“And two successors in waiting for the throne, if I die of exhaustion!” the King smiled.
The Duke laughed.
“If you die then, as we are the same age, I will have to die too! But frankly I have a great deal more of the world to see and discover more challenges to amuse myself with than I have experienced already.”
“You are so right, David. George is only wanting us to make a fuss of him. When he tells me he is dying of overwork, I know he really enjoys the power it gives him and he is always full of new and creative ideas.”
The Queen spoke the last words almost caressingly and her eyes told the Duke just how much she admired and respected her husband.
Aloud the Duke said,
“I have never congratulated you on your second son when he was born last year. You have certainly made the succession secure and that I am sure is what the Greek people yearn for.”
“Baby George, as we call him, is so very strong and healthy that I am quite certain, when and if the time comes, he will make an excellent King.”
“As he is only a year younger than Constantine,” the King asserted, “I think you are making assumptions that the throne will ever be his.”
“We want to make quite sure of the succession. I hope we have a dozen more sons so that Greece will never again have to seek a King from another country.”
The King looked towards the Duke.
“I am so grateful,” he said, “to be here. I love the people I reign over and I am not being conceited when I say they love us.”
“Of course they do,” the Duke answered. “I think that they are extremely lucky to have such a charming and attractive Royal Family.”
“That is exactly what I wanted to hear you say,” Queen Olga exclaimed. “And when you come back for tea you must see Constantine and George. I know they will both be delighted to meet you.”
As Constantine was only two years old and George just one, the Duke thought that this was unlikely.
At the same time he could not help himself envying the King a little.
If he had a wife who was devoted to him as the Queen was to King George, then he too would want a family to fill his nurseries and later to ride his horses.
*
He was thinking of all this when at last he reached the top of the Parthenon.
When he stepped out, the sunshine was so brilliant that for a moment he could hardly see his way.
At first, the Duke had thought the place was empty except for himself.
Then he saw at the far end where he intended to go to admire the view towards the Gulf of Corinth and the Aegean Islands, there was one other person.
He moved slowly towards the place where he had stood before and had admired, as he had told the Queen, the most stunning view in the whole world.
Now he was aware that there was another person in the Parthenon besides himself – a very young girl.
She was so small and slight that for a moment he thought she was only a child and should not be there alone.
Then he could see that the girl, actually standing on the very edge of the parapet, was in fact a young woman.
Her long auburn hair was tied up at the back of her head.
She was very slim, and her waist, the Duke thought, could be encompassed by his two hands.
As he walked nearer to her, he realised that she was standing on the very edge in a very careless and dangerous manner.
The drop on this side of the Parthenon was directly onto the ground many hundreds of feet below.
Yet this girl was standing with only an inch or two between her feet and the chasm below.
‘I must tell her,’ the Duke said to himself, ‘that it is dangerous, even thought there is no wind, to go so close to the edge.’
He moved slowly, because the surface was dotted with stones, towards her.
When he had almost reached her, he could see the side of her face and then he realised that her eyes were shut.
He knew instinctively, although he did not know why, that she was praying.
Almost as if someone was speaking directly to him, he realised that she intended to kill herself.
It all seemed to flash instantly into his mind.
She had not moved since he had walked towards her.
Then she went to take one step forward and fall hundreds of feet onto the rocky ground below.
For a moment he thought that he must be imagining such a tragedy.
Yet he remembered hearing that people had died before by throwing themselves from the Parthenon and at the time he had been only vaguely interested.
He realised now, especially in anyone so young, it would be a dreadful and wasteful thing to do.
He drew nearer still.
He saw that the girl was still praying.
Then she flung out her arms as if to spread them before she jumped.
Instinctively, without thinking that it was not his business, the Duke sprang forward.
Seizing her round the waist, he pulled her down from the parapet.
She gave a little scream as he did so.
Then, as he tightened his grasp, she cried out,
“Don’t stop me – I have to do it. I have to!”
“How could you do anything so wicked,” the Duke asked, “as to kill yourself when you are so young and there is so much of your life in front of you?”
“I have to. You don’t understand,” she protested.
The Duke looked down at her and realised that she was extremely pretty, in fact, beautiful was the right word.
Her long auburn hair had golden tints in it and it seemed to be a perfect frame for her large eyes and clear white shin.
“Let me go! Please let me go!” she pleaded.
The Duke merely tightened his grasp on her wrist.
“Can you really want to die?” he demanded. “Why, why must you leave this world when you have not lived in it very long?”
“I have to. I have to,” she cried out again. “It is the only way I can escape.”
“Escape from what?” the Duke enquired softly.
He moved a few steps backwards so that they were no longer close to the parapet and, as he
had not loosened his grip on her wrist, she was forced to follow him.
She looked up at him and he saw that her eyes were the deep blue of the Mediterranean.
“Please let me go,” she begged him. “You don’t understand – I cannot face the future. If I was with my Mama and Papa – I know that they would agree with me.”
They were speaking Greek, but her voice was very soft.
Then the Duke asked her quietly,
“Tell me why you wish to do anything that to me is such a wicked waste and I will let you go.”
The girl gave a little sob.
The Duke realised that there were large blocks of stone to sit on just behind him.
He sat down on one still holding onto her wrist and she had to sit beside him.
“Now tell me,” he urged her, “why anyone so pretty and so young as you should want to leave this world when the sun is shining. I feel certain that the Gods are looking down at you disapprovingly.”
He added the last words because he thought they were appropriate.
Once again the girl gave a little sob.
“Perhaps like you – they will think it wicked,” she admitted almost beneath her breath. “In which case I will be born again – in a worse position than I am in now.”
The Duke knew that she was talking of The Wheel of Rebirth, in which a very large part of the world believed.
He therefore questioned her,
“You have been given a very pretty, or should I say lovely body, so what has gone wrong.”
“Everything, everything!” the girl screamed.
“Suppose you tell me about it. If I release you, will you give me your word of honour you will not make a run for the parapet?”
There was silence for a moment and then the girl answered,
“I promise you I will tell you first and then you will appreciate why I must die.”
Slowly, because he was afraid to do so, the Duke took his hand from her wrist.
She rubbed vigorously where he had held her.
Then the Duke quizzed her,
“Now suppose you tell me your name. It will make it easier for us to talk. Mine is David.”
“Mine is Thalia.” The Duke smiled.
“A very lovely name and I expect you realise that I am English.”
“I thought you looked large and so different from the Greek men.” “Now that we have introduced ourselves, tell me, Thalia, why you wish on this beautiful sunlit day to leave us and go away for ever.”
He thought as he looked at her what an attractive profile she had.
It was almost classical and he could imagine her being one of the Greek Goddesses.
“I am being forced,” Thalia said after what seemed a very long silence, “to marry a man – I hate and despise.”
“Why should you be forced to marry him?” Again she said nothing until almost as if she felt she had no alternative, Thalia replied,
“If I tell you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, will you promise that, if you cannot help me, you will let me go?”
“Do you mean to kill yourself?” the Duke enquired.
She nodded.
“I cannot imagine any problem, Thalia, for which there is not a solution of some sort. Tell me the truth and I am quite certain I will be able to help you.”
“No one can ever do that,” Thalia asserted and once again there were tears in her eyes.
“At least give me a sporting chance,” he replied. “I have a feeling, although I could be wrong, that you can speak English. I suggest we talk in my language rather than yours.”
“Why do you think I can speak English?” Thalia asked him in Greek.
“Your Greek is so perfect that you must have had a good education. I have only to look at you to see that you are what the English would call ‘a lady’.”
Almost despite herself, Thalia smiled.
“I am glad you think that of me and I must retort by saying you are clearly an English gentleman.”
“You are quite right, Thalia, perhaps it would make it easier if I told you that my full name is the Duke of Sherbourne.”
Just for a moment her eyes widened.
And then she murmured,
“So you are a very important man and it would be a mistake for you – to concern yourself with me.”
“If I am, as you say, important, that is all the more reason why I cannot allow anyone so beautiful to destroy herself. I therefore feel obliged, because, as you say I am an English gentleman, to save you from yourself just as I should save you if you were being assaulted or abducted by ruffians.”
“That is exactly what is happening to me – ” The Duke raised his eyebrows.
“I will tell you the truth and then perhaps you will understand. I am actually Princess Thalia, the daughter of Prince Spyros, who was a relation of the previous King Otho.”
The Duke was amazed, but he managed to prevent himself from showing it.
“My mother is dead and so is my father,” Thalia went on. “But my uncle who I live with is very ambitious that we should be powerful again in this country.”
She sighed.
“But the present King is not impressed with him. Although he made various efforts to be accepted at Court, the King has more or less ignored him.”
“Why should this affect you?” the Duke asked.
He was thinking she was so very lovely and there must be a great number of men ready to take her out or to flirt with her, if that was what she desired.
“My uncle insists that it would be advantageous for me and for the whole family if I marry Prince Federovski.”
The Duke looked surprised.
Then before he could ask the question that was on the tip of his tongue, she continued,
“He is a Russian and I don’t like the Russians. He is a particularly horrible and beastly man.”
“In what way?” the Duke asked her quietly.
“He is well over sixty. Yet he now wants to have a family that he did not have with his two previous wives, both of whom are dead.”
“And you don’t want to be the third,” the Duke murmured as if to himself.
“Of course I don’t!” she exclaimed. “I cannot bear him to touch me and I would rather die than be his wife.”
The Duke did not speak and she added,
“Now you understand! How can I possibly marry a man who makes me shudder – every time he comes near me and – who is cruel and horrible. I cannot actually tell you how I know that – but I do.”
She spoke violently and the words came jerkily from her lips.
The Duke could tell that every nerve in her body shrank at the idea of marriage to such a man and he could begin to understand now why she was escaping in the only way that seemed available to her.
As he did not speak, Thalia added,
“Now perhaps you understand. So please go away and leave me alone. I will pray as I was praying before you stopped me that wherever I am going my father and mother will be waiting for me with open arms.”
“I think they would be much happier if you lived and that is what I am going to insist you do.”
“Insist?” Thalia asked questioningly.
“I will insist until you have tried my solution to your problem. Which is that we will go now and have tea with the King and Queen at the Royal Palace.”
She looked at him in astonishment as he continued,
“I am their guest and I know that the Queen if no one else will totally understand what you feel and she will do everything in her power to help you. So trust me and come with me now and we will tell them what a terrible position you are in.”
“You are quite certain that they will want to help me?” she asked. “Even if they do, I doubt if my uncle will listen to them. He is quite certain that, if I marry Prince Federovski, I will automatically be of greater significance in Russia than I am here and he will then benefit by being my uncle.”
”What you are saying is that Prince Federovsk
i, whom he wants you to marry, is rich and influential in his own country.”
“I believe so,” Thalia replied. “That is what he tells us. But naturally even if he is hung with gold and owns half the world, I still hate him as a man.”
She paused for a moment before she added,
“I swear to you I could never, never let him be my husband.”
She spoke in a way that told the Duke how much it meant to her and then he remarked,
“Prince Federovski, I assure you, is not the only man in the world. Come back with me now to the Palace and I am sure that the King and Queen will look after you. In fact, I feel certain that they will make your uncle see sense.”
He rose as he spoke and, taking Thalia by the hand, he drew her to her feet.
“I just want to look again at the wonderful view,” he said. “That is why I came here and I think it is the most beautiful vista I have seen anywhere in the whole world.”
He led her to the end of the Parthenon where he had first encountered her.
He did not look at her, but he was sure that she was looking in the direction of Mount Olympus and he felt that she was praying to the Gods for help and guidance.
Then he turned round and walked back the way he had come.
“I climbed all the way up these steps,” he said, “and I found it hard going, but it will certainly be easier for us going down.”
“I thought I would go down more quickly – and in a different way,” Thalia muttered beneath her breath.
“It is something you must promise me that you will never even think about again.” As they were now about to leave the Parthenon, he stopped.
“Look at me,” he suggested, “and listen to me.”
She did as he told her, gazing up at him.
He thought she was even more beautiful than she had been when he had watched her praying.
“Now listen, Thalia. Life is the most valuable asset we possess. We may be rich, we may be poor, we may be like you in great difficulty, but our lives are sacred.”
Thalia made a murmur, but did not speak.
“It is wrong and wicked,” the Duke continued, “to destroy anything so wonderfully made as our bodies and our souls. As we know, our souls have the great privilege of flying up to Heaven above or plunging deep down into the darkness of hell.”
As the Duke spoke, he was surprised at himself.
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