Kiss the Moonlight Read online

  Before she joined him Athena tried to compose herself, knowing she must not let him realise she had overheard and understood his conversation with the young Captain.

  She had not let the Prince's Comptroller know she could speak Greek. Her grandmother had been most insistent that she should speak the language ever since she was a child and she had hoped it might prove a delightful surprise to the Prince.

  The members of the Prince's household automatically spoke in English to answer their Master's questions and Lady Beatrice had no knowledge of any language other than her own and French.

  "Perhaps it is a good thing they do not realise I understand everything that is said," Athena told herself.

  Then she was afraid of what else she might discover.

  She found it difficult at dinner to listen to the conversation between her Aunt and the Colonel or to answer the conventional, stiffly polite comments of the other officers who were present.

  The Prince's mother was staying in the Palace, but she was in ill-health and invariably, Athena found, retired to bed before dinner.

  She was a shy person which made her appear somewhat stiff in her manner to strangers, and Athena had felt ever since she arrived somewhat uncomfortable in her presence.

  But now she wondered if it was because the Princess was not in fact pleased to accept her as a daughter-in-law.

  "I am sure she would have wanted her son to marry a Greek," Athena told herself and wondered if the rest of the Parnassus family were prepared to swallow her like a nasty medicine only because she was rich.

  It was a discouraging thought and remembering the people she had met in Athens and her reception at Court she recalled the somewhat searching looks they had given her.

  Had this been because they were wondering why as she was so rich she should wish to marry a Greek Prince, unless it was for his title?

  This idea was almost as much of a shock as the thought that the Prince might not be interested in her as a woman.

  "How could they think such a thing?" Athena asked herself indignantly.

  Yet it was, she admitted, the obvious explanation they would put upon her acceptance of a man she had never seen.

  The whole marriage which up to now had been invested with a strange unearthly magic became something quite different.

  Quite suddenly she felt horrified at everything that was happening.

  How, she wondered wildly, had she ever been persuaded into setting out on a voyage to meet a man to whom she could mean nothing and who in fact could mean nothing to her?

  Yet, because her grandmother had invested Greece with a splendour and a glory that was sacred she had accepted the suggestion of marriage almost as if it had been a gift from the gods.

  "I must have been mad!" Athena thought.

  Then she realised that while she had been thinking dinner had come to an end and she had not in fact heard one word of what had been said to her since about half-way through the meal.

  Her Aunt led the way into the Salon.

  "You seem a little distant this evening, Mary," she said. "The Colonel asked you the same question three times before you answered him."

  "1 am sorry, Aunt Beatrice, I think perhaps I am a little tired."

  "It is the hot sun. You are not used to it," Lady Beatrice said. "As the Prince will doubtless lie arriving shortly and I want you to look your best, it would be wise to go to bed and have a good night's rest."

  "Yes, of course, Aunt Beatrice, I will do that."

  Lady Beatrice glanced towards the door before she said in a low voice:

  "The Colonel tells me they are still having difficulty in getting in touch with the Prince, but he is certain that His Highness will be here tomorrow. Nevertheless I am considering whether we should return to Athens. This waiting is extremely embarrassing."

  "Perhaps we should have remained in the City the three weeks they expected us to stay," Athena suggested.

  "That is what we should have done," Lady Beatrice agreed, "but it is too late to think of it now. Everything has been planned by Mama and I am afraid I accepted her arrangements without questioning them. It was stupid of me."

  For her Aunt to admit that she was at fault meant, Athena knew quite well, that she was extremely perturbed.

  Because she herself felt so worried at the Prince's non-appearance, she felt it would not make the situation any better to discuss it.

  "Do not worry, Aunt Beatrice," she said, "I am sure it will be all right. And it is so lovely here."

  "It is quite an intolerable situation!" Lady Beatrice replied." I must say I have always believed that the Greeks had good manners—until now!"

  "The people we met in Athens were certainly very polite," Athena remarked.

  "They all spoke warmly of His Highness," Lady Beatrice said. "Yes, indeed," Athena agreed.

  But to herself she was wondering exactly what thoughts and intentions had lain beneath the complimentary manner in which they had talked about the Prince.

  Had they been glad that he should have the money he urgently needed for his people?

  The Parnassus country was, Athena knew, quite a large territory, stretching east of the mountains and being only partly productively fertile.

  Travelling to Greece in one of its country's steam-ships, Athena had imagined herself riding over the land beside the Prince, deciding how they would improve the lot of the poorest, perhaps building better ports for the fishermen and raising the standard of education.

  Now she suddenly felt uncertain and afraid.

  Supposing he wished to do none of those things with her? Supposing Madame Helena, whoever she might be, should have his complete confidence and companionship?

  She said goodnight to her Aunt and retired to her own room before the Colonel and the other gentlemen came from the Dining-Room into the Salon.

  When she was undressed she dismissed the maid who had waited on her and walked out onto the balcony to gaze once again on the sea.

  Dusk was falling and there was the last glimmer of gold and crimson on the horizon. The stars were coming out in the velvet darkness overhead.

  There was no wind, and although the great heat of the day had gone it was still warm.

  She leaned over the balcony, her arms on the cool stone, and stared into the darkness.

  "Why am I here?" she asked herself. "Why have I allowed myself to come to a place where I am not wanted as a person, but only as the purveyor of wealth?"

  The idea horrified her.

  Always she had been very conscious of herself as a person.

  "Know thyself," one of the Seven Sages had said, and she tried to follow it because she knew it was the foundation of Greek thought to be honest and to understand her own feelings.

  Looking back she knew she had been bemused as a child would be with fairy-stories. She had not faced reality. She had just let herself drift into a day-dream that had seemed real simply because she wanted it to be.

  Now she had woken up.

  "What can I do?"

  The question was insistent, almost as if someone had asked it aloud, and Athena shivered.

  She saw how easily she had been manipulated by her grandmother into accepting the idea of marriage and she saw only too clearly that she was now involved almost to the point of no return.

  "Supposing I hate the Prince and he hates me?" she asked herself. "What can I do about it?"

  She remembered the effusive manner in which the Courtiers at the Palace and the King himself had spoken of the Prince.

  Now she suspected that their praise of him had not come from their hearts but it was merely because they wished to assure her that she was doing the right thing in bringing her money into their country.

  For the first time since she had realised she was a great heiress Athena was afraid.

  Her future had not actually meant anything to her in the past. She had been told the money had been left to her and she was very rich, but her father was a wealthy man and she had never wanted for
anything since she had been a child.

  She had accepted her wealth as she might have accepted the gift of a necklace or a new horse.

  She was pleased, but she had not thought about it continually and it did not seem ol any particular consequence.

  Now she realised how important it was—a passport to marriage. A marriage in which she had no choice and which, even more frightening, the bridegroom had no choice either.

  It was an arrangement—a manage de convenance the French called it—and every instinct in Athena fought against the idea.

  Now the Prince suddenly assumed frightening proportions.

  A man—a man who could make demands upon her because she bore his name, a man who would use her fortune, which would become his on marriage, a man who had no other interest in her as a person.

  "I must have been ... crazy!" Athena said into the darkness. "How could I have accepted anything so horrible without considering it?"

  She put her head back and looked up at the stars. They seemed immeasurably far away and she felt very small and insignificant.

  "What does it matter what happens to you?" she felt as if someone asked mockingly.

  Then she replied fiercely:

  "It does matter! I am I. I will not be over-ruled and humiliated in this fashion. I must escape."

  The words seemed to come to her almost as if it was a light in the darkness.

  Escape! But how? Where could she go? What could she do?

  She stared out at the sea, feeling that there must be an answer in the gentle movement of the waves.

  Almost mockingly the idea came to her that if she had been a Greek in the old days she would have consulted the Oracle.

  The Oracle of Delphi, as her grandmother had always explained to her, had guided and inspired those who consulted it for nine hundred years.

  The Greeks had believed that Apollo spoke through the lips of the Pythia. She sat in a cave near the great Temple of Apollo and was a pure young girl trained in priesthood and in the worship of the god.

  The Dowager Marchioness had explained to Athena so often what occurred.

  "On the day of the Oracle the Pythia bathed in the waters of Castalia and drank from the holy spring. She put on the special robes of prophecy and was led to the Temple of Apollo."

  "What happened then, Grandmama?"

  "She passed through the main halls of worship until she reached the adyton, the most sacred part of all, the living place of the god where only the priests were allowed to enter."

  "Was she afraid?"

  "No, dearest, she was dedicated to her work. She took her place on Apollo's throne and she may have taken a branch of the holy laurel in her hand or perhaps she fumigated herself with burnt laurel leaves."

  "I knew the laurel was sacred to Apollo," Athena remarked, "but I do not think the leaves could have smelt very nice."

  The Dowager Marchioness ignored her.

  "Music was played," she went on, her eyes half-closed as if she herself remembered it happening, "and incense was burned." "And then ... ?" Athena prompted.

  "Then the Pythia fell into a trance and when she was possessed by the god she uttered strange and often wild words that were carefully taken down and later a priest put them into verse."

  The Dowager Marchioness went on to tell many stories of what the Pythia had said and how her prophecies had come true.

  Athena had sat wide-eyed, listening, believing and almost seeing the pictures her grandmother conjured up.

  "If the Oracle was there today," she said to herself, "I could go to Delphi and ask Apollo to help and guide me."

  Suddenly she was very still.

  She knew how near Delphi was to the Summer Palace.

  Just around the corner, so to speak, of the promontory projecting into the Gulf of Corinth there was the Krisaean Gulf at the head of which lay the Port of Itea.

  This Athena knew, was where the pilgrims, who nearly all went by sea, used to disembark when visiting Delphi. It was in fact at Itea that Lord Byron had landed when he had visited Delphi over thirty years ago.

  Athena remembered reading how he and his friend John Hobhouse had been rowed in a strong Cephaloniot ten-oared boat.

  Winding in and out of the rocky bays that lined the Gulf they saw a mass of anchored merchant vessels swaying in the moonlight and finally at midnight reached the Port of Itea.

  "It is not far away," Athena whispered to herself. "I could go there.'

  She moved from the balcony into her bed-room and sat down on the bed.

  Now a plan was beginning to fall into place almost as if it was a puzzle which she were solving piece by piece.

  She had mentioned Delphi to Colonel Stefanatis, but he had not seemed interested.

  She had imagined before she left England that all the Greeks, like her grandmother, would be obsessed by their glorious past and by the wonders which still lay only half discovered in their country.

  But she learnt from the Greek passengers on board the steamer that they were far too concerned with modern politics to worry much about the past, or else, Athena thought humbly, they had not been interested in talking about their national heritage to her.

  But Delphi had shone in her heart like a lighted candle, and she knew that one of the first things she planned to do in Greece was to follow the Sacred Way

  to the Shrine of Apollo.

  Now she knew it would be far easier not to take the long laborious road across the arid foot hills to Parnassus which thousands of pilgrims had trod wearily in the past. Instead she could do what Lord Byron had done and approach Delphi from the sea.

  For the first time in her life Athena felt a desire to be independent, to do what she wished without asking approval, without everything being planned for her.

  It was almost as if the spirit of Greece that she had felt so strongly like a shining light had entered into her and awoken her to new possibilities within herself.

  She felt a wild springing within her mind which had never been there before, a desire to enquire, to find, to know on her own—without being dictated to, without being told what to do.

  She was certain as if the Oracle had already spoken, that she must first find her way to Delphi.

  She had a guide-book which she had bought in Athens and it had a rough map of Greece in the front of it.

  It was badly printed and badly written, and yet it showed her clearly what a little way she had to travel from where she was now to Port Itea.

  That was all that concerned her at the moment, and she knew that once Itea was reached, Lord Byron had climbed towards Delphi which stood above it, built on the cliffs of the mountains where they overlooked the valley of the River Pleistos.

  "I will go there, and nothing will stop me," Athena told herself.

  As if she could not keep still she walked about her bed-room, thinking out ways and means.

  Of one thing she was quite certain—if she asked in the Palace for any help, they would try to stop her.

  She would be put off with the usual excuses: nothing could be arranged until the Prince returned—doubtless His Highness had his own plans for taking her to Delphi, just as he would wish to show her other parts of the country!

  But how could anyone know that was what he intended?

  Doubtless he was as uninterested in the "Ruins" as everybody else appeared to be.

  She had been so sure when she left England.that, if nothing else, they would have one taste in common which was all-important, the love of Ancient Greece.

  A reverence for its teaching, the belief that the whole world owed to the Greeks the beginning of Science and the beginning of phdosophical thought.

  This was what her grandmother had taught Athena and she had been convinced that the Prince would be still fighting to restore to the world the splendourof the miraculous fifty years when Athens became the centre of the Gods of Greece.

  Now everything she had anticipated was lying in ruins at her feel. Of course the Prince would not think
like that! Why should he? He would be like the other men at the Court of King Otho who laughed and gossiped and argued about politics.

  No-one had offered to take Athena to see the Acropolis, and when she suggested it they had pushed the idea aside as if it was too commonplace and uninteresting to be given a second thought.

  She had been too shy to insist, and she had told herself that perhaps the Prince would want to take her there himself.

  Then they could dream amongst the marble pillars of the glory of the years when the Acropolis in all its brilliance glowed with light and it served both as a fortress and the sacred sanctuary of Athena.

  Athena had imagined that the Prince would explain to her how the Parthenon had looked drenched with colour, blue, scarlet and gold, and containing treasures from all over the Greek world.

  They would have walked together, she had thought, to the Erechtheion—the most mysterious and sacred place on the whole Acropolis. Here was the golden lamp that was never allowed to go out, the olive tree Athena had called forth from the ground and the fountain which had sprung up when Poseidon had struck the earth with his trident.

  She had imagined herself listening to the stories he would tell her in a deep voice unlike her grandmother's and she had felt herself thrill because she would not be only reliving the story of Greece but would also be with a Greek who loved it as she did.

  "Those were just childish dreams," she told herself bitterly. "How could I have been so naive—so utterly absurd to imagine he would wish to do anything of the sort?"

  "I will go home," she decided. "When I meet the Prince I will be strong enough to tell him that I have made a mistake. We have both made one. Perhaps I can give him some of my money in compensation—■ but I cannot marry him !" She paused to add : "I will not marry him!"

  Then she felt herself tremble because she knew how difficult it would be to make not only the Prince but also her Aunt realise she was serious.

  It would seem inconceivable to both of them that at the last moment after coming all this way she should decide not to be a sacrifice to the Prince's need for money.

  "Even if he is pleasant and nice to me at the beginning," she told herself, "he will soon want to return to Madame Helena."