Read Ebook: The Prize by Grier Sydney C Pearse Alfred Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1318 lines and 73455 words, and 27 pages

"Oh yes!" cried Zoe. "Has he discovered anything?"

"He thinks so. He says he had little difficulty in finding the villa where his daughter used to live. The people all knew that Prince Romanos had prepared it for a lady, who lived there in great retirement, and never went out. He used to visit her frequently, but of late his visits had entirely ceased, and the old woman who once did the marketing had also disappeared suddenly. Also the sentries who used to guard the house on the outside had been removed--and all these things happened at the same time, five or six months ago. Of course it might mean merely that Donna Olimpia had gone to live somewhere else, but the Cavaliere made up his mind that she had been murdered--and really you can't wonder, after what he told us about her letters. He managed to get into the grounds one night with the help of a rope-ladder, and explored the whole place thoroughly. The house was clean and tidy, and there were no stains of blood, which was what he had feared to find, nor was there any grave in the garden. But everything indoors looked as though the inhabitants had gone away suddenly, without having time to pack properly. The furniture was all awry, and Donna Olimpia's gowns were hanging up in her wardrobe. In the nursery the little boy's toys and things were all left, and as far as he could tell the servants' clothes were all in their rooms too. What should you think it pointed to?"

"It looks as though they had been seized and carried off somewhere without being allowed to take anything with them," said Zoe. "Can it be Strio after all? But it seems such needless cruelty on the Prince's part not to let them take their things."

"Well, I should almost have thought they must have been abducted by some one else who objected to the way in which the Prince spent his time; but why they should take all the servants I don't know," said Armitage. "It seems unnecessary trouble, for if it was merely to ensure secrecy, I don't suppose they would have stuck at killing them. But the Cavaliere seems to have agreed with you. He was remarkably lucky, for just as he was coming out of the house, he saw some one in the garden. It was a tall man, wandering up and down on the lawn in front, throwing his arms about and groaning. He guessed immediately--which is more than I should have done--that it was Prince Romanos, tormented by remorse, and he went for him at once, and demanded what he had done with his wife and child. It really was Romanos, and he seems to have behaved rather well, all things considered. He didn't appear to mind Pazzi's dropping in upon him, and explained, with suitable expressions of grief, that all the inhabitants of the house, Donna Olimpia, the baby, and three servants, had been carried off by diphtheria in the space of two days. How does that strike you?"

"As remarkable, to say the least."

"So the Cavaliere thinks. He tried to corner Romanos in every possible way--about the letters especially. But he stuck to it that the first few were really written during his wife's illness, and contained her messages. The long one, which was supposed to have been dictated, he gave up at once, confessing that he had made it up in terror lest the Cavaliere should insist on coming to Therma, and add a public scandal to his private grief. Well, it seemed so impossible to shake his story, and he displayed such a friendly wish to keep his father-in-law in sight while he remained in the city, that the Cavaliere smothered his suspicions and accepted the story. They even visited Donna Olimpia's grave together the next day, and Pazzi might have come away satisfied if Prince Romanos had not made a bad slip. Something he let drop suggested to the Cavaliere that there was some uncertainty about the child's death, and he nailed him there and then. Bit by bit it came out that the little boy had not died with his mother. His nurse had snatched him up in a fit of delirium and carried him off, and was believed to have thrown herself and him into the harbour from the quay that same night. Their bodies had not been recovered, but a woman with a child in her arms was known to have drowned herself, and if those were not they, where are they?"

"You know," said Zoe inconsequently, "that I see a likeness in little Janni to Prince Romanos. What if he and Kalliop? were the missing child and nurse?"

Armitage started. "If it could be!" he said. "But no. You remember, Princess, that you thought Kalliop? also was like the Prince. But there is nothing to account for that. And the Cavaliere says somewhere that the nurse was an elderly woman--a Roumi, by the description he has of her."

"It is a most curious coincidence," said Zoe.

"But nothing more, I imagine. Well, do you wonder it made old Pazzi suspicious? However, he didn't show it, but the moment he could shake off his affectionate son-in-law he went straight to Professor Panagiotis, who has promised to get at the rights of the matter by hook or by crook. So now the fat's in the fire."

"This may be very dreadful," said Zoe, after a pause of dismay. "I don't think the Cavaliere ought to have spoken to the Professor before consulting us. Maurice and Graham would have gone to Therma and helped him to bring Prince Romanos to book. He would probably tell the truth when he found they knew so much, and were only anxious to help him. But now--oh, do warn the Cavaliere to take no open steps, whatever he may discover, before letting Maurice know. One can never tell what Professor Panagiotis will do. I suppose he has an ideal in his mind, and goes straight for it, he cuts off so many corners that anyone else would have to go round. I only hope the Cavaliere's letter has not been read on the way. We never consider the post here safe, you know."

"Pazzi waited until your brother's own messenger was coming out, and sent the letter by him. That accounts for our not having heard from him before, I suppose. Oh, I will warn him till all is blue, but I should doubt if Prince Romanos will come through this time."

"Personally, one could hardly wish him to escape," said Zoe, "for however much poor Donna Olimpia was to blame, he must have treated her shamefully. You can't wonder at her coming to Therma, for she knew only too well that she could not trust him out of her sight. Do you remember how lovely she was when we were at Bashi Konak? That must have been when they first met, of course, but she had changed very much when she told me about her marriage. And she was really devoted to him, poor thing!"

"The man ought to be flayed alive!" muttered Armitage, in a tone so ferociously at variance with his usual sunny kindliness that Zoe was betrayed into a laugh. He looked ashamed, and took up his picture again. "Well, Princess, we have kept poor Kalliop? waiting a long time, but I thought you ought to know how matters stood."

"Oh dear, I hope she won't have looked at the other picture!" cried Zoe, hurrying up the steps, but she was too late. Dana? was standing beside the easel, contemplating her idealised portrait with a pleased smile.

"Am I really as beautiful as that?" she asked them as they came up, with a na?ve frankness which betrayed no doubt of its answer. For the moment, in this softened mood, her expression was really not unlike that of the picture, Zoe thought. But as Armitage reached the top of the steps, she saw the second canvas in his hands.

"Ah, I thought this one was too small!" she cried. "Have you made two pictures of me, lord? But you might have let me wear the European clothes for one of them! Are they both exactly alike?"

In his perplexity, Armitage was still holding the larger picture, instead of placing it on the easel, and she came behind him and looked at it over his shoulder. Neither he nor Zoe ventured to say a word. Perhaps the girl would not notice the difference! But even as Zoe watched, a change came over the smiling face, and an angry sob broke from the beautiful lips. Dana? was at the easel again, her little dagger in her hand. Fiercely she drove it into the canvas, slitting it across and across and round the edge, then stood confronting them for a moment with stormy brow and heaving breast.

"You shall not mock me!" she gasped. More she would have said, but her fury would not let her speak. She snatched off her coin-decked cap and trampled upon it, caught up her apron and tore it into ribbons. Then the dagger which she had hurled from her caught her eye again, and Armitage sprang forward to seize it, fearing she would do herself an injury. His hand was actually on it, but she tore it away and struck at him as he tried to wrest it from her. Then, still in the same passion of silent rage, she hacked and hewed at one of her heavy plaits of hair, unheeding Zoe's entreaties, until it was severed in her hand, and flung it at their feet. Then the tension relaxed, and she pressed her hands to her eyes and fled sobbing.

"I ought not to have done it. How could she understand unless it was explained to her? Of course she thought I was trying to make fun of her," said Armitage, holding his wounded wrist.

"She had no business to look at the easel when she was told not," said Zoe practically. "You must let me tell Linton to bring some hot water, and we will tie up your arm. I am afraid she must have hurt you a good deal."

"Oh, I shall bear her mark!" he said, laughing, but Zoe thought that there was more in the words than a joke. Twisting his handkerchief round his wrist while she called to Linton, he stooped and picked up the severed plait from the floor. "What a pity!" he said.

"Yes, the naughty girl has effectually spoilt her appearance for some time," said Zoe. Armitage was smoothing the thick blue-black strands, and she took them from him with gentle firmness. "I shall keep this to make Miss Kalliop? a wig when she needs it," she said. "If she should take it into her head to cut off the other plait the next time she has a fit of temper, there will be nothing to fasten her cap to."

"Yes, indeed, ma'am," agreed Linton. "Anything more like a pig with one ear than that poor ill-tempered girl as she rushed past me just now I never did see. And to show such a wicked spirit, when his lordship was taking her picture so beautiful! I do hope, my lord, if I may make so bold, you'll paint her with the short hair showing, as a lesson to her to keep her temper in hand for the future."

"But that would spoil my picture," objected Armitage, who was an old friend of Linton's.

"And if it did, my lord, what's that to curing a fine handsome girl like that--and good with children too, as I must confess, though I wouldn't say as much to her--of her wicked ways?"

Whatever course Armitage might take with regard to his picture, Dana? was conscious that her outbreak of passion had set a barrier between her and the rest of the household. Even the children shrank from her in her black moods, and now Linton gathered them ostentatiously under her wing, requesting Dana? not to come near them until there was no danger of her doing them a mischief. This was the nearest approach to scolding that she received, for Zoe, without even alluding to the cause of the disfigurement, helped her to rearrange her hair in two smaller plaits so that it was as far as possible disguised. Armitage's bandaged wrist was a perpetual reproach to her, but she met with no reproof in words, though when she plucked up courage to apply to Wylie, who had found and confiscated her dagger, for its restoration, he refused without vouchsafing a reason. But though no word was said, and no punishment inflicted, she was surprised, and even irritated, to find that she felt her guilt much more keenly than on a memorable occasion when she had pushed Angelik?, then a child of four, off the fortress wall. Angelik? happily fell into a rubbish heap, and beyond being half-choked with dust, suffered no harm; but the incident roused Princess Christodoridi from her usual placidity, and she insisted that her husband should inflict a suitable punishment on his elder daughter, towards whom she suspected him of undue partiality. Struggling and screaming, Dana? was held fast by the women-servants while her hair was cut off by her father's dagger, and thereafter, a miserable little shorn object, she had been held up to every visitor as a model of juvenile depravity until her mother grew tired of the subject--the injured Angelik? meanwhile basking on the softest cushions, and enjoying the first taste of every dainty dish. The girl could recall even now the fierce thrill of resentment of the injustice that seized her when, just as her hair had almost grown again, her mother had rehearsed the whole story to a stray cousin from another island, though perhaps it was her father's injudicious sympathy that brought her at last to feel as if she was the injured party and Angelik? the aggressor. But now, assure herself as she would that Zoe and Armitage had mocked her cruelly and intentionally humiliated her, she could not bring herself to believe it, and the unaccustomed sense of guilt made her increasingly miserable. To use Linton's phrase, she "moped," and the household seemed to have lost sensibly in light and colour while she hung about in secluded corners. It was a relief when, after three days of morose inactivity, she asked sullenly for stuff and needles and thread, though she still sat solitary, making herself a new apron in place of the one she had torn up.

The end of the verandah, whither she betook herself, was quite remote from the usual living rooms, and she worked as if for a wager, undisturbed by either Zoe or Linton, who thought that a period of reflection would do her no harm. Hearing steps in the court below her, she set them down to one of the servants passing on an errand, until a low hiss and the word "Kalliop?!" reached her ears. Looking over the railing, she saw the guard Logofet, who had never forgiven her for the reprimand he had received on the occasion of their first meeting, standing below.

"Your uncle's here, Kalliop?," he said with a grin.

"I have no uncle," she cried angrily.

"Oh, that's all very fine. He told me to tell you that your uncle Petros was here, waiting to speak to you, and that it would be the worse for you if you didn't go."

"It's a lie. I have nothing to do with him."

"Oh, come now!" Logofet assumed an air of virtuous reproof. "Didn't I hear him myself ask the Prince to find you a place, and the Prince wouldn't have you without his leave? You take my advice, and don't tell any more lies, which no one believes, but just go and speak to him, for he won't go away without seeing you."

"But how can I speak to him? They won't let me pass through the gate at this hour."

"So it's true that you cut off half your hair!" he said. "I wondered whether I should find you tamed, my lady, with the Lady Zoe making such a pet of you, and the English lord putting you into a picture, but I see you're the Despot's true daughter still."

"I suppose you have been drinking with your friend Logofet," said Dana? icily. "Say what you have to say, and go."

"That's easily done, my lady. I want the little lord."

"What do you mean to do with him?"

"To restore him to his anxious father, of course," with a chuckle.

"I don't believe it. You want to kill him, as you did his mother. I won't give him up."

"Oh yes, you will, my lady, and without making any fuss about it, because if you don't, I shall simply go to Prince Theophanis and tell him the truth about both of you. Then the Lord Janni will go back to his father, and you to yours. Of course, if you are longing to get back to Strio, I have no objection, but it's for you to say."

Dana? shivered. Strio was bad enough to look forward to, but what she shrank from more was the prospect of her story becoming known. That the nature of all the lies and evasions and subterfuges she had employed should be publicly exposed, that she should stand forth as an impostor, the accomplice in a murder, the deceiver of her own brother and her kindest friends! She pressed her hands together in agony, and Petros spoke again, insinuatingly this time.

"It's not my business, lady, I know, and the Despot would kill me if he guessed what I am saying, but there's no need to go back to Strio if you don't wish it. The Lady Zoe will surely find you a husband if she has taken such a fancy to you, and you won't catch me letting out anything. I'm only asking you to do what will benefit us all. The Lord Romanos is mad to get his son back, I see my way to something handsome for myself if I take him back, and you will be able to stay on here. Isn't that fair?"

"My brother wants Janni back?" Dana? spoke in a dazed tone. "But then how is it you have not come for him before?"

Petros laughed with some little confusion. "Must I keep you here in the cold while I explain everything, my lady? Isn't it enough for you to know that the little lord is badly wanted, and to hand him over?"

"I will do nothing unless I know why you want him, and why you have waited so long."

"Holy Nicholas, lady! you are your father over again. Well, then, the first thing the Lord Romanos thought of on the Lady's death was to keep everything quite secret. If he had lost his love, he need not lose his people's good opinion as well; you see?"

"You are insolent!" flashed out Dana?. "The Lord Romanos acts as a wise man acts."

"Then surely, my lady, there can be no harm in his servant following in his footsteps? At any rate, that is what he has tried to do. For when the Lord Romanos remembered the little lord, and found that he had disappeared, he was torn between his paternal affection and his fear of discovery. He longed to trace his son, but he durst not bring the police into the matter, lest they should find out too much, and therefore he entrusted the matter to me. Now, lady, knowing that you and the little lord were safe where I could put my finger upon you at any moment, could I really be expected to bring the search to an end before it had begun? That is not a wise man's way."

"You allowed the Lord Romanos to believe that his son was dead?"

"And I suppose my brother is tired of false clues, or you would have visited the wineshops all over again?"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet