Greek Wedding (10 page)

‘I'm more than relieved to hear you say so,' said Brett. ‘It's not so much for myself that I'm anxious, as for Miss Vannick here, and her aunt.'

‘Vannick!' The young Greek's eyes flashed suddenly into fire. ‘You are Miss Vannick?' He turned his brilliant gaze searchingly
on her and spoke in quick English with an accent that she recognised, with surprise, as like her own.

‘Yes? Why?' Wild, unreasonable hope surged up in her.

‘You have a brother, Petros? Peter, I should say?'

Now it was more than hope. ‘Yes?' Eagerly.

But his face had changed. ‘I spoke too rashly. One should not tempt the fates, But some of them escaped from Missolonghi. So why not Petros? He was a fine fighter; a brave man; my friend. And you are his sister.' Surprisingly, he kissed her lightly on the cheek. ‘Welcome to Greece, sister of my Brother Petros.'

‘You know him well?' She would not use the past tense.

‘Well! He sailed with me when he first came to Greece. He taught me your language—' He laughed. ‘And I did my best to teach him ours. A brilliant teacher, your brother Petros, and a fine man. If only he had not fallen under the spell of that mad Lord Byron—but nothing would do but he must serve him. When the mad lord died, I hoped Petros would come back to me and the
Philip
, but he said he must stay in Missolonghi. Always, when we took supplies in, I urged him to come away, but each time their situation was worse. I knew he was right to stay. Don't look so sad, sister of my friend. We will pray, together that he is safe.'

‘Yes, indeed.' Brett had listened with increasing hope. ‘And, in the meanwhile, perhaps you, sir, will speak for us to your friend the captain here. I was taking Miss Vannick to Nauplia to make enquiries about her brother. Your friend seems to think us lawful prize, merely because we have come from Constantinople.'

‘Where Mr. Renshaw had, in fact, rescued us (my aunt and me) from the Turks,' interposed Phyllida.

‘From the Turks?'

‘Yes.' Phyllida was grateful to Brett for intervening. ‘That is why it is so dangerous for them to remain here, where, I understand, the Turks are expected momently.'

‘Oh well, as to that—' His smile flashed out. ‘I only believe in the Turkish fleet when I actually see it. I think the Spetsiots have let themselves be panicked too easily. But never mind that. Of course you must not be left here. I will explain to my friend that your mission to Constantinople was one of purest gallantry.' This time the lightning smile was for Phyllida alone.
‘You see how well your brother taught me to speak your language. I am glad, now, that I paid attention to him, since it makes it easier for me to serve you.' He turned away to embark on a furious argument with the pirate captain.

Brett and Phyllida watched and listened anxiously, but it was difficult to catch more than an angry phrase here and there. For a moment, it seemed that they would come to blows, then their rescuer used one quick, venomous phrase and it was over.

‘What did he say?' Phyllida had missed it.

‘Something about the Mavromikhalis,' Brett told her. ‘I've heard of them. They're the ruling family down in that wild southern part of Greece, the Mani. Not even the Turks dared meddle much with them; they used merely to name the head of the family their representative and made do with a token tribute from him. I don't suppose our captor there would much want to make enemies of them.'

‘No.' She turned to greet their rescuer.

‘All's well,' he said. ‘My friend there understands his mistake at last. Your ship is yours again, milord—'

‘Just plain “Mr”,' said Brett. ‘Brett Renshaw, and your debtor for life. And you?'

‘Alexandras.' Again his smile was for Phyllida. ‘My friends call me Alex. And you are no debtor of mine, Mr. Renshaw. It is for Miss Vannick that I have annoyed my friend over there. Who knows? If it had not been for her, and her brother, I too might have found that beautiful
Helena
of yours irresistible. A steam-yacht, here in Greece. Do you not understand what a temptation she represents?'

‘I think I am beginning to,' said Brett dryly.

It seemed too good to be true, but an hour later they were all back on board the
Helena
, with the greater part of their possessions safely restored. ‘That's a most remarkable young man,' said Brett.

‘Isn't he?' Phyllida's cheeks glowed as if the praise had been for her.

‘I'm more in debt to you than ever,' he went on. ‘I begin to
think it was the luckiest day of my life when you rowed out to the
Helena
.'

She laughed. ‘Just don't try to pretend you were glad to see us at the time.' And then, seeing his face change. ‘I'm sorry. That was a bad night for you, was it not?'

‘One day, perhaps, I'll tell you just how bad. But now, if you will excuse me, I must find Barlow. It's time to think about sailing. Thank God.'

‘But not before we thank—' She hesitated. It was disconcerting not to know their rescuer's surname.

‘Yes, indeed we must thank him. But in fact he promised to come aboard for a demonstration of our engine.'

‘Oh, I'm glad.' Disconcerting to recognise just how glad she was.

But the demonstration was not a success. Mr. Brown, sweating and cursing, was beginning to discover just how much damage the pirates had done to his beloved engines. ‘As much wear and tear as on the whole voyage out.' He summed it up gloomily. ‘It's going to take me every spare part I've got to fix it. I think I can, but once anything else gives way, we're done. Oh no,' he answered Brett's question. ‘Nothing wilful about it, I shouldn't think. They just couldn't resist playing with it.'

‘Of course not,' Alex said. ‘My countrymen are like that, I'm afraid. No malice, and not much sense. How long do you think before you can get her going?'

‘Tomorrow sometime.' Brown was wiping his hands on a bit of cotton waste. ‘We should make Nauplia by night.'

‘If it's safe to go there,' said Brett.

‘Safe?' asked the young Greek. ‘Oh, you mean the Turks? No need to trouble yourself about them. I was in Nauplia yesterday. All's quiet, or at least as quiet as we Greeks know how to be. But just the same I think I shall give myself the pleasure of waiting and escorting you to Nauplia. My friend in the
Hera
is an obstinate man.'

‘But if you were in Nauplia yesterday,' Phyllida pounced on it, ‘you'd know if there was news of Peter.'

‘I'm afraid I probably would.' He was too honest, she thought, to spare her. ‘But we will set further enquiries on foot. The refugees I talked to yesterday were in no state to think of much beyond their own troubles. But tomorrow while the engine is repairing, will you let me be your guide round Spetsai,
kyria
? There are none of the Greek antiquities you Franks set such store by, but some chapels, I believe, that are worth the visit.'

*          *          *

When they reached the quay next morning, the
Hera
was ready to sail. They paused to watch her go. ‘I'd as soon not leave your
Helena
till she's well away,' Alex told Brett. ‘I wouldn't want to put temptation in my friend's way. Even without her engines, yours is a splendid ship, milord.'

‘Yes, but she's intolerably slow under sail alone. It was one of my major disappointments in her design.'

‘That wretched little square sail on the funnel? I was thinking about that. It seems to me that with a little of our Greek ingenuity, we could rig you something much better. You'll let me experiment, when we have tired Miss Vannick out with chapels?'

‘If Captain Barlow agrees.' Barlow and Miss Knight had both stayed on board, Barlow to help Brown and Miss Knight for a badly needed rest.

Phyllida, finding one faded Byzantine fresco very like another, was almost tempted to envy her aunt as the sun grew hotter and the odours of peasant living stronger. She was tired of picking her way through filthy alleys, tired even of listening to Alex and Brett talk about the course of the war. Her head was beginning to ache.

‘You're tired.' Brett took her arm to guide her round a particularly unsavoury pile of rubbish. ‘We've brought you too far. It was monstrous of me to forget all you've been through.'

‘Not at all.' She was beginning the polite, necessary lie, when Alex, who had gone on a little ahead, came back to meet them.

‘I've a surprise for you.' She wished he would go on calling her ‘sister of my friend', but this time he made do with a warm, admiring smile. ‘I hope you'll agree that I've not brought you all this way for nothing. You'll let me—' Somehow he had removed her from Brett's supporting arm and was guiding her forward to a hilly corner beyond the houses. ‘There!' He smiled with pleasure at her exclamation of surprised delight. ‘You see, your brother taught me how you Franks like a—what do you
call it?—a prospect?'

He had brought them out on to a small, cleared plateau. In front, the ground dropped away sharply to the wine-dark sea. Ahead, clear in that extraordinary pellucid light, lay the mainland, Greece itself, the fabled shore she had longed to see. Those purple mountains, ranging away to the south, might once have harboured Zeus himself. She smiled at her own nonsense, and turned back to Alex, who was speaking again.

‘I have another surprise for you,
kyria
, one that I hope will please you too.' He led the way across the open space to where a group of Greek sailors were busy under the shade of a huge mulberry tree. ‘We are to have a picnic here.' And then, with a flash of white teeth,. ‘I little knew how grateful I should be to Petros for teaching me his language—and yours.'

Resting in the grateful shade of the mulberry tree, Phyllida was glad to drink the light white wine that Alex's men had brought, to eat highly seasoned cold lamb in her fingers and listen to the two men talk. They seemed to have established, from the first, a surprisingly easy understanding. It pleased her enormously, and puzzled her at the same time, but as she listened and gazed out at the splendid sweep of sea and shore she thought she began to understand. In his own way, each was that extraordinary phenomenon to an American, an aristocrat. She had never heard of the Mavromikhalis, but listening to Alex talk of his home down south in the Mani she felt something of the power his family must wield there. And Brett? He, too, behaved with the calm confidence of one who had always been exempt from the minor problems of every day. Just the same, as Alex began to question him about life in England she saw a shadow cross his face and remembered what he had said to her. ‘One day I'll tell you perhaps how bad.' She was sure, now, that there was more wrong in his life than Helena's rejection.

‘You have great estates in England?' Alex was asking.

Brett's face closed. ‘No. None at all. The
Helena
is my estate.'

‘Then I'm glad you didn't lose her.' Alex rose gracefully to his feet: ‘The sun is getting round to us. Time to go, perhaps? Your man struck me as someone who would always be better than his word. Who knows? He may have the engines working already. I can hardly tell you how I long to see the
Helena
with steam up. Is that the phrase
kyria
?'

‘Absolutely. You're simply amazing, Mr.—' She stopped,
blushing.

‘Please call me Alex. Everyone does.'

‘Thank you.' Doubtfully. Call him ‘Alex' and go on calling Brett ‘Mr. Renshaw?'

‘If you do that, Miss Vannick,' Brett himself came to the rescue. ‘I shall be sadly affronted if you don't start calling me “Brett”. After all, compared with Alex here, I am an old, old friend.'

‘You are indeed—Brett.'

She had forgotten to expect Aunt Cassandra's look of outrage when she heard this use of christian names. ‘But what else could I do, Aunt, when Alex doesn't seem to use his other one?'

‘That young Greek!' Cassandra's tone was surprisingly sharp. ‘Frankly, I'll be delighted to see the last of him. I wouldn't trust that one an inch, and don't you, Phyllida. I blame myself for letting you go ashore alone this morning. If I'd known Captain Barlow wasn't going too, I'd never have stayed behind.'

‘Oh, Aunt.' Phyllida felt an odd little qualm of shame. She had known, and had taken very good care that her aunt did not find out.

‘Picnics and wine-drinking,' went on Cassandra. ‘I tell you, Phyllida, I'll be glad when we see the last of him.'

‘But he's Peter's friend.'

‘And since when has that been a recommendation? Peter's a dear boy, but you know as well as I do that his choice of friends—Think of the rag-tag and bobtail he used to go bowling with at Harvard.'

‘But that was quite different. He was a boy at Harvard. Now he's grown up; every thing's changed. Alex'—she coloured but ploughed firmly on—‘Alex is a man. He's fighting for his country. He takes life seriously. Look how he had Peter teach him English.'

‘And very useful it will be to him, too, in this war of theirs. Suppose Lord Byron had lived, Peter and this “Alex” might be his right-hand men by now, with a strong chance of getting into the first real Greek government. I'd very much like to know what hopes of that beautiful young Greek's were snuffed out with Byron at Missolonghi.'

‘Aunt, you're being horribly unfair.'

‘Am I?' Something in Phyllida's tone had sounded a warning
bell in her aunt's receptive ear. ‘I'm sorry, child. I expect I am. Forgive me, I'm a little tired still, and crotchety to go with it. It's an old maid's privilege…'

Phyllida was glad to finish combing out her rebellious curls and return to the cheerful party on deck. She left her aunt with a good deal to think about. But, Miss Knight reassured herself, they would be parting from this too handsome young Greek at Nauplia. He was in the engine room now, watching Brown put the finishing touches to his repairs. No need to hurry after Phyllida who had joined Brett up on deck. She sighed, rebuked herself for a shameless match-maker, and wished that Alexandros (wild horses would not have made her even think of him as Alex) had never rescued them.