Lament for Leto (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  “Perfectly right,” Henry agreed, but in a very suspicious voice.

  “Very good. Well, now, you all go to Leukas, yes?”

  “Sappho . . .” began Chloe.

  “Ah, yes, you are her revenant.”

  “A pretty substantial revenant!” said Henry, laughing again and finding his amusement aided and abetted by his sons, who joined in it with impolite enthusiasm. Chloe’s colour heightened again. Simonides scowled at Edmund.

  “I am saying, as my soul prompts me,” he went on, “that Rhodes is not the only island where wild flowers grow. When you are on Leukas, you will be within easy reach of the beautiful island of Corfu . . .”

  “So we shall!” said Edmund, referring to his map. “What about it, Dad? With three days to spare before we go to Athens, wouldn’t Corfu be the answer?”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea,” said Chloe. “So much better than the bargain we struck regarding Rhodes. It means we can all go home together, as we had arranged at the beginning. Now, Henry, wouldn’t that be quite the best solution? I think it will solve all the problems.”

  “Be even better if we could cut out Delphi,” said Edmund. “I believe there’s quite a lot of fun to be had on Corfu. It’s a first-class holiday place. I could bear to spend an extra day or two there.”

  “Oh, no,” said Chloe. “We can’t miss Delphi. And, Ronald dear, wouldn’t it be nice if you came to Leukas with us!”

  “Leukas? Oh, no!” said Dick in a horrified tone which greatly interested one of his hearers. “Not Leukas for me!”

  “Besides, at Delphi I expect to find one or more of the Cerinthes,” said Henry, ignoring Dick and Chloe. “I am most anxious to add retorta to my collection. Then there are the wild tulips, particularly bocotica, a most beautiful and striking thing. I only hope it will not be past flowering by the time we get there.”

  “At Delphi,” said Mary, in a dead tone of voice, “it may be possible to consult the Oracle. I wouldn’t mind knowing what the future holds for me when my aunt marries.”

  “We will all consult the Oracle,” said Roger. “I hadn’t thought of that!” The brothers, this time, avoided one another’s eyes, but each was secretly smiling.

  “Oh, dear! More ventriloquism?” said Dame Beatrice, with a startling cackle of mirth.

  “Ventriloquism?” exclaimed Chloe. “Surely nobody would think of desecrating the shrine of Apollo by pretending to imitate the Pytho!”

  “Oh, wouldn’t they, though?” said Henry, his laughter ringing out once more. “I should call it a pretty good jape, if anybody could pull it off! Just think of the fun you could have!”

  “Really, Henry! You are as irresponsible as Edmund and Roger,” said Chloe, declining to join in his laughter.

  “Tell you what,” he said, finding himself alone with her later, “that was a very peculiar outburst of Mary’s after we left that temple at Bassae, and that hasn’t been the only one. Is she often taken like that?”

  “She has always been a discontented, moody girl, but I have never known her to behave badly in public. I was deeply ashamed of her, and have given her a piece of my mind. When she first came to me she wanted me to make her an allowance and let her go her own way. I refused, of course. She has no conception of what it means to be independent and to make her own living. Any allowance I could make her would be quite insufficient for her needs, and she has been trained for nothing.”

  “I thought she typed your books for you.”

  “Only under constant supervision. She would never hold down a job in an office. Besides, I could not allow her to live alone. Heaven knows what kind of trouble she might get herself into.”

  “Well, I should have thought, all the same . . .”

  “Nonsense!” said Chloe. “I should have to pay a secretary if I didn’t have Mary. To make her independent of me is out of the question.”

  “We shall have to see about that,” said Henry firmly. “I’m only marrying one of you, you know.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Euterpe, the Muse of Lyric Poetry

  “When I was a young man I went to a certain city . . . to see the games and triumphs there called Olympian . . .”

  On the following morning the “state of the parties” as the disgruntled Julian expressed it, was finally settled. There were to be two expeditions only. In addition to Henry, Chloe, Mary, Edmund, and Roger, Julian (as tutor and bear-leader to the two boys) had been ordered, on pain of losing his job, to accompany the botanical party to Leukas and Corfu. The order came from Chloe, who announced that she did not intend the boys’ father’s attention to be distracted, especially on Leukas.

  Not only Julian but Hero received this fiat with ill-grace. She roundly upbraided the tutor for giving in to such an imposition—for so she saw Julian’s instructions. She appealed passionately to Dame Beatrice and Dick to get the decision reversed, but they pointed out that they had no power to question it, since Julian, presumably, had been brought on the tour solely in order to keep an eye on his pupils.

  For his part, Julian, stung by her reproaches and sufficiently disappointed on his own account, told her in sullen tones that he needed a job, particularly since he wanted to marry.

  “Marry?” said Hero. “You mean marry me?”

  “Of course. Don’t be silly. You’ve promised. What about that crack to Mary about going with me to church?”

  “I did not promise to marry a coward, a nothing-man, a servile!”

  “Servile is an adjective, not a noun. Why can’t you learn to speak English?”

  The second party, Dame Beatrice, Dick, Hero, and Simonides, decided (guided thereto by Hero) to go to Corinth and from there to Delphi, where the larger party would join them.

  “Although I would not be at all surprised,” Dick told Dame Beatrice, “if we did not see them again until we reach Athens.”

  “You think the botanist in Mr. Owen will take precedence of the archaeologist? I should not be surprised, either,” she agreed.

  At Andritsena, therefore, as soon as breakfast was over, the parties separated. Henry Owen’s went in the larger of the two cars to take the mountain road which joined the coast road to Pyrgos and the little town of Kyllini. This, according to Edmund’s map, was a calling-place for ferry-boats to the island of Zante. This being so, Henry was optimistic about the chances of being able to hire a boat to take his party thence northward to Leukas, and from Leukas he foresaw no difficulty about obtaining transport, still northwards, to Corfu.

  “Far more sensible to keep on the coast road to Patras. We’d be sure to get a steamer from there,” said Edmund.

  “It might not call at Leukas, and, of all things, I want to see Sappho’s Leap,” said Chloe. They were still arguing when the others waved them goodbye.

  “Well,” said Dick, two mornings later, “we seem a very happy, quiet little party without the others. I am very glad we are able to spend another day or two here. The mountain scenery is superb. Besides, now I am able to visit the temple at Bassae without the distractions of last time.” He took Dame Beatrice aside. “I am afraid Hero may do something rash about Simon now that she and Suffolk have quarrelled,” he said. “The awkward part of it is that she does not seem at all put out about it. Do you not think this is a good time to break the news to her? I do not want her to rebound—is that the term?—on to Simon, and I fear that that is what will happen. I never did think that her attachment to young Julian was all that strong.”

  “You may well be right.” She glanced over to where the twins were standing with their arms around one another’s waists. They were looking silently at the magnificent view.

  “I suppose you are still willing to do me that great favour you promised?”

  “And break the news to Hero? Yes, of course.”

  “Then I will tackle Simon. I should like to get it over before we meet the others again.”

  Dame Beatrice cast a benign eye upon the handsome Greek children.

  “The
y are obviously very fond of one another,” she said, “as one imagines twins naturally would be. For the rest, I doubt whether you need feel any anxiety. All the same, I will do as you wish.” The twins, who had turned about, came up to them.

  “And now, Papa Ronald,” said Hero, “we are one happy family, and Dame Beatrice shall be our mother.”

  “Grandmother,” said Dame Beatrice. “Are we all ready to depart?”

  “I will bring the car round,” said Simonides. “Corinth! What a charming city! Full, I think, of riches!”

  “In the time of the Persian Wars,” said Dick, “it contributed nothing but the prayers of its courtesans for an Athenian victory.”

  Simonides shouted with laughter, his thin, aquiline face falling into the mirthful creases of a faun or a young satyr. Hero linked an arm in that of Dame Beatrice.

  “I am not yet sufficiently packed,” she said. “Come with me while I put in my last effects, and weep with me because the lid does not shut down. Also I weep because I have said harsh words to Julian. These days without him I am lonely.”

  “He deserved your words,” said Simonides, “but if I had been in his place . . .”

  “Ah, but you could not be. You are my little brother and for you I have much adoration, but you are not yet a man. A Greek woman,” she went on, turning to Dame Beatrice, “must in all things be subservient to her husband. That is a woman’s nature, and so God intended it to be.” They walked arm-in-arm towards her bedroom. “But how could I be subservient to Simon?” Hero went on. “We are of one age, which means that he is five years younger than myself in all his outlook.”

  “You call him your brother?” said Dame Beatrice.

  “My little brother.”

  “Do you speak with the knowledge which is said to be power, I wonder?”

  “Please?”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that you and he are indeed consanguinous?”

  Hero squeezed the thin arm which held hers.

  “I have wondered,” she said, unemotionally. “You see, it would be so strange in Papa Ronald otherwise. You mean we are twins, Simon and I?”

  “That is what Mr. Dick wanted you to know.”

  “Well, that disposes of all doubts. Now I can love Simonides as much as ever I like. We have often spoken of it, you know.”

  “The fact that you might be related?”

  “Of course. Both orphans, both of twenty years on the same birthday. It seemed so likely, do you not think?”

  “Do you remember your childhood?”

  “Oh, yes, but not with Simonides. I had a Greek foster-mother, in England part of the time, then she married again, like I have told you, and we went to Greece and then Papa Ronald found me and I became his ward. I am not related to him, I think.”

  “No. He was a family friend, I believe.”

  “He was in love with my mother?”

  “I have no reason to think so.”

  “No, he would be too old, I think. I will find out later, but now I sit on this stupid luggage and make him shut.”

  “Unnecessary.” Dame Beatrice took charge of the recalcitrant suitcase and fastened it.

  “Does Simon know?” asked Hero, ringing the bell to have the suitcase carried out to the car. “About being twins?”

  “Mr. Dick will tell him.”

  “That is good. I think Simon is a little in love with me, but he is like mercury, all little balls that roll around and around and are liquid, not solid, and so can separate and then be all together again. They look like silver, but are heavier, much heavier, than lead. I think he is of the old Greeks and his soul, that he so loves to talk about—he is Platonist, you understand—is a soul, not from Plato, but from Zeus himself. Zeus had many loves—you will know the old stories, many very beautiful, like Danae, like Leda, even like Europa—and nobody except Hera—very jealous, very possessive was that one—see how she treat poor Leto, mother of Artemis and Apollo—cares anything at all about it. So, if Simon take many lovers, what of it? Nobody shall care, least of all Papa Ronald, because he does not know. As for me, I could never have been his lover, anyway, because I am jealous and must be the only one. Besides, he is much too young.”

  She sat beside Simon in the front seat of the car and they waited for Dick, who was paying the hotel bill. When he appeared he was wearing an expression of almost childlike mischief. He put his head in at the driver’s window and said, his eyes twinkling behind his glasses,

  “Not the road to Tripolis just yet. Now that we have rid ourselves of the others, we will go first to Olympia and then, if you wish, to Corinth.”

  “Ah!” said Hero. “You did not wish to see Olympia in company with Mrs. Cowie. How right of you, dear Papa Ronald, because Olympia is almost on their route, but Mr. Owen will not stop there now, because you are not with them to make him look at the ruins.”

  “I particularly did not wish for the company of Henry’s boys,” said Dick, “although I am sorry that Mary Cowie will miss Olympia.”

  “If it would affect her in the same way as after she went to Bassae, perhaps it is as well for her to miss it,” said Simon.

  “Papa,” said Hero, “I have something to say to Simon. He is glum. I will cheer him up. To him what he hears from you is bad news, I think, but I say to him like this: now we are sister and brother, I do not repulse you any more, so that you may kiss me and hold me in your arms as brothers and sisters should do, and I will not be afraid to fondle you and make much of you, for to you now I am a maiden, a nun, a priestess of Apollo, a temple virgin, pure, sexless, tabu, united with you by the sacred tie of blood, but not by the love of men to women. There! Is that not beautifully stated?”

  Simonides received the oration with a brief expletive in Greek. Dick observed, in his precise and scholarly voice, as he joined Dame Beatrice on the back seat of the car.

  “The temple virgins, my dear Hero, were not appointed until they were at least fifty years of age, so I fear that at present you would not qualify.”

  What Hero’s magniloquent speech had failed to do, this laconic statement accomplished. Simon exploded into happy laughter as he drove erratically and very fast, considering the narrowness of the road, in the direction of Pyrgos, where Dick directed him to turn sharply off for Plantanos and Olympia. It would have been possible to take the road to the west from Andritsena and then, by turning north, to pick up the eastward-running major road through Lagkadia to Olympia, but this would have spoilt Dick’s simple pleasure in his little ruse, and, apart from that, the route he had chosen was one which he had never travelled before.

  The party booked in at an hotel which was adjacent to the museum and which overlooked the ruins. These lay scattered over a wide area and were dominated by the temple of Zeus. Except that legend stated that he had been an Olympic winner in the Games, there was nothing to connect Apollo with the site except for a sculptured pediment in the museum which depicted him attempting to intervene in a battle between the Lapiths and some drunken centaurs.

  It was the setting, and not the broken columns of temples, the arched passage leading to the stadium, the two remaining pillars dedicated to Hera or the portico of the gymnasium which attracted Dame Beatrice. After the awe-inspiring mountain scenery around Bassae, the surroundings of Olympia had a true Olympian calm. The German archaeologists who had done so much and so imaginatively to preserve and reconstruct the Altis sanctuary had planted a grove of trees and the sanctuary itself was bounded by two rivers. The countryside was pleasantly undulating, peaceful, pastoral, fitted, in its benignity and calm, to be the scene of the Games where, every fourth year, weapons, feuds, and warring factions were forgotten, and Greek met Greek not bearing suspect gifts but in comradeship and brotherhood and in bloodless combat and fair competition for the honour of taking home to a rejoicing city nothing more notable in the way of spoil than a crown of wild olive.

  She watched while Hero and Simonides bathed in the shallow, soft and milky waters of Alpheios, for at that time o
f year the stream still sweetly ran in its gravel bed, and then she settled herself beneath the northern pines the northern archaeologists had planted, and took her siesta under their kindly, dark, green shade.

  When she woke she found Hero seated beside her.

  “You know,” said the girl, “you and I should not be here. It was forbidden to women.”

  “A woman did manage once to ignore or circumvent the ban, though,” said Dame Beatrice, “or so I believe I have read.”

  “Ah, but she was the mother of a winner at the Games, so says one story, and she was the priestess of Demeter Chamyne, says another. The first story tells that she came disguised as a man, her son’s trainer, the other that she came as her right as an official. Do you think I could ever disguise myself as a man? I think not.”

  “I agree, but you could, perhaps, become the mother of an Olympic champion.”

  “With Julian as his father? I am worried about Julian. I think I make a mistake there. Should I marry him, do you think? Please advise me.”

  “I cannot give advice on such a matter except to say that it is better to be quite sure before you marry.”

  “I like him, but I do not admire him.”

  “Very few women admire their husbands, I believe.”

  “A Greek must respect her husband, even if she does not admire him. That is most necessary. I do not even respect Julian. It is a tragedy.”

  “Well, at least it supplies you with your answer.”

  “What a pity Edmund is not older.”

  “Edmund, I fear, is an oaf. I say it in the kindliest spirit and with no implied criticism, but the fact remains. I should be sorry for any gentle, sensitive woman who married him, unless he alters a great deal as he grows older.”

  “Would you call me gentle and sensitive?”

  “No. I should call you bold, beautiful, and ruthless.”

  “Like Clytemnestra?”

  “Very possibly, although I cannot imagine that you would allow yourself to be married by force . . .”

  “Or that I would kill my husband with an axe?”

  They both laughed, and then Dame Beatrice said,