Marianne and the Rebels

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.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN Night on the Golden Horn

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.