Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne and the Rebels

'He is certainly devoted to you. It was lucky for you that you had him with you. Very well, then. I'll take you to Constantinople. If the wind holds, we'll be there in five or six days from now. But I'll make a landfall at Lesbos and see if I can get hold of some clothes for you. You can hardly go ashore dressed as you are. Very pretty, I grant, but just a trifle improper. Although, of course, this is the east…'

He was talking volubly now, made easier by Marianne's half-confidences, and enjoying both the brief excursion into the past and the prospect of a few days' voyage in her company to revive, for both of them, a nostalgic vision of the green lawns of Devonshire.

Marianne was content to listen to him. She was still a little shaken to discover how easily the lies had come to her – and been accepted. She had mingled truth and fiction with a readiness that left her both startled and alarmed. The words had simply come of their own accord. She was even beginning to find that, with practice, she was actually enjoying the part she had to play, even though there was no audience but herself to applaud her performance. Most of all, it was necessary to act naturally, that most difficult of all arts, because failure would be met not with hoots and cat-calls, but with prison or even death. Even in the awareness of her danger there was something exciting that gave a fresh spice to life and made her understand a little of what it was that gave a man like Theodoros his power.

True, he was fighting for his country's independence, but he also loved danger for its own sake and would seek it out for the sheer exuberant delight of meeting it and beating it on its own terms. Even without the call to liberty, he would have flung himself into perilous adventures for nothing, for the pure joy of it.

She even discovered suddenly that there was another side to her mission, apart from the harsh aspect of duty and constraint, a thrill which, only an hour ago, she would have rejected fiercely. Perhaps it was because it had already cost her so much that she could not bear not to finish it.

She learned from Sir James's rambling monologue that the man in the white suit was called Charles Cockerell and that he was a young architect from London with a passion for antiquities. He had come aboard the Jason at Athens with a companion, another architect from Liverpool, whose name was John Foster. The two of them were on their way to Constantinople to obtain permission from the Ottoman government to dig for relics of classical antiquity on the site of a temple which they claimed to have discovered, since the pasha of Athens, for some obscure reason of his own, had refused them his consent. Both men were members of the English Society of the Dilettanti and had already been exercising their talents on the island of Aegina.

'As far as I'm concerned,' Sir James confessed, 'I'd rather they'd chosen to travel on any other ship but mine. They're not an easy pair to get on with, and mighty full of themselves in a way that could cause trouble with the Porte. But after all the fuss that was made over those marbles that Lord Elgin carried back to London from the great temple in Athens, there's no holding them! They're sure that they can do as well, or better! As a result, they keep on pestering our ambassador in Constantinople with letters complaining that the Turks won't cooperate and the Greeks are apathetic. If I hadn't agreed to give them a passage, I think they'd have stormed the ship.'

Marianne's interest in the ship's other passengers was perfunctory. She had no wish to have anything to do with them and said as much to the captain.

'It would be best, I think, that I should not leave my cabin,' she said. 'For one thing, it's not easy to know what name you should call me. I'm no longer Miss d'Asselnat and I've no intention of using Francis Cranmere's name.'

'Why not call yourself Miss Selton? You are the last of the line and you've every right to use the name. But, surely you must have had a passport to leave France?'

Marianne could have bitten out her tongue. It was the obvious question and she was beginning to find out that the pleasures of lying had their drawbacks.

'I lost everything in the wreck,' she said at last, 'including my passport… Besides, that was in my maiden name, of course, but to use a French name on an English ship…'

Sir James had risen and was patting her shoulder in a fatherly way.

'Of course, of course. But our troubles with Bonaparte have nothing to say to old friendship. You shall be Marianne Selton, then, because you're going to have to show yourself, I fear. Those fellows are as inquisitive as a waggon-load of monkeys, and with an imagination to match! They were very much struck by your romantic arrival and are quite capable of dreaming up some fanciful tale of brigands and God knows what that might well get me into hot water with their lordships at the Admiralty. All ways round, it'll probably be best for both of us if you become thoroughly English again.'

'Do you think they'll believe it? An Englishwoman roaming the Greek islands with a servant like Theodoros?'

'Absolutely,' Sir James laughed. 'Eccentricity isn't a sin with us, you know. More a mark of distinction. Those two scholars are solid citizens enough – and you're Quality. That makes all the difference. You'll have them eating out of your hand. You've excited them enough already.'

Then, in that case, I'll have to satisfy the curiosity of these architects of yours, Sir James,' she said, with a little, resigned smile. 'I owe you that, at least. I should be miserable if you had to suffer, all through saving me.'

It was a quarter of an hour later that the three-decker dropped anchor off the little port of Gavrion on the island of Andros, and a boat was sent ashore carrying Charles Cockerell, whose knowledge of Greek made him the natural person to undertake the mission of trust which he had, in any case, virtually begged the captain to give him.

He might be an impossible person but he was certainly a man of .some resource, for he returned an hour later bringing with him an assortment of female garments which, considering their entirely local origin, were both picturesque and becoming. Marianne, who was beginning to grow accustomed to the fashions of the islands, was delighted with her new wardrobe. Particularly since the gallant architect had thoughtfully included a variety of silver and coral ornaments which did credit both to his own good taste and to the skill of the local craftsmen.

Decked out in a full white gown with triple, floating sleeves, a sleeveless and collarless coat embroidered in red wool, a pair of silver buckled shoes, and even a big red velvet cap, Marianne presided that very evening over Sir James's dinner table, her exotic apparel forming an interesting contrast to the officers' blue uniforms and the plain evening dress of the other two gentlemen.

She provided the only faintly discordant note in what was otherwise a typically English evening. Everything about Sir James's cabin was firmly and unalterably English, from the table silver and the Wedgwood china to the heavy, old-fashioned furniture, the pervading aroma of spirits and cigars – and the lamentably insular cooking.

In spite of the variety of strange dishes she had eaten in the course of her improbable odyssey, Marianne discovered that her stay in France had profoundly altered her taste in culinary matters. She scarcely recognized the dishes she had enjoyed as a child.

Afterwards there were toasts to the King, to the Royal Navy, to Science and to 'Miss Selton', who then made a most affecting little speech, thanking her rescuer and all those who were taking such good care of her.

The two architects were literally drinking in her words, unmistakably impressed by her natural elegance and grace. Both succumbed instantly to her charm – as did all the men present – but each reacted somewhat differently. Whereas Charles Cockerell, a sanguine, rather over-fed young man with an air of regarding life as one enormous Christmas pudding, gazed at her hungrily and lost himself in compliments that tended towards a vaguely Thucydidean turn of phrase, his friend Foster, who proved to be a thin, nervous person whose reddish hair, cut rather long, gave him a disconcerting look of a red setter, said little except in monosyllables, darting quick glances at her out of the corner of his eye. But what little he did say was addressed solely to her, as if none of the others present existed.

After dealing for a while in a general way with the rumblings of revolt that were beginning to be heard in the islands, the conversation soon settled down to a discussion of the exploits of the two colleagues at Aegina and at Phygalia. At this point, the two of them entered frankly into competition with each other, each shamelessly doing his best to claim the greater part of glory for himself at the expense of the other. The only thing in which they were united was their joint criticism of Lord Elgin who, they said, 'had only to bend down to pick up a fortune' with the admirable metopes from the Parthenon.

'At the rate we're going,' Sir James said gloomily as he escorted his guest back to her cabin, 'those two will have come to blows before the voyage ends. Ah, well, I suppose I can always hand them over to the master at arms to ensure fair play. But for goodness' sake, my dear, take care not to smile at one more than the other, or I won't answer for the consequences.'

Marianne laughed and promised, but as time went by she was forced to admit that this lighthearted promise was harder to keep than she had anticipated. For in the few days it took for the Jason to reach the Dardanelles, the clash of rivals continued. She could not set foot on deck for a breath of air without one or other, if not both, rushing to keep her company. She began to think they must be mounting guard outside her door. In addition, she soon found their company wearisome in the extreme, since their style of conversation was identical and in both cases revolved around their own magnificent discoveries which they were burning to exploit.

There was another passenger who was sorely tried by the two architects. This was Theodoros. He thought them utterly ridiculous, with their straw hats, their flowing neckcloths, close-fitting white clothes and the green sunshades with which they persisted in shielding their pallid northern complexions – and in the case of Foster, his freckles – from the sun's rays.

'You'll never be able to get rid of them when we get to Constantinople,' he told Marianne one evening. 'They follow you like shadows and they won't give up when we go ashore. How will you manage? Will you take them with you, as escort, to the French embassy?'

'It won't be necessary. They are only interested in me because they are bored and have nothing else to do on board ship. That, and a certain snobbishness. Once we land, they'll be too busy to think of me. All they want is to get their horrid permit and scurry back to Greece.'

'What sort of permit?'

'Oh, I don't know. They've found a ruined temple and they want permission to dig about for buried stones and things. They want to make drawings, too, and study classical architecture – all that sort of thing.'

The Greek's face had hardened.

'There was an Englishman came to Greece once before. He had been ambassador in Constantinople, and he had permission to do all those things. But he wanted more than just to find things and make drawings. He wanted to take the stones with carvings on them away to his own country – stealing the ancient gods of my land. And he did it. Whole cargoes of stone sailed from Piraeus, taken from the temple of Athena. But the first, and most important, never arrived. A curse was on it and it sank. These men long to do the same. I can feel it. I know.'

'Well, we can't stop them, Theodoros,' Marianne said gently, laying a soothing hand on her odd companion's muscular arm, as knotted as an olive trunk. 'Your mission, and mine, are each more important than a few stones. We cannot risk failure, especially as we don't really know. Besides, their ship may sink, too!'

'You are right, but you will not stop me hating these vultures who come to snatch away what little glory my poor people have left.'

Marianne was deeply struck by the bitterness of this man whom she now looked on as her friend, but she had imagined the incident closed and forgotten when events proved her dramatically wrong.