shall we?”
She was right. There was a great deal to talk about. The first evening was something of a strain. James and Felicity were the perfect host and hostess, full of understanding, skating over awkward pauses with skill and ease.
Felicity was the soul of tact. She knew that there would be things of which we would want to talk to no one but each other and only then when we were ready, and the following day James went off to his college, and she told us that she had an engagement which she must fulfill.
“Do forgive me,” she said.
“I’ll have to leave you two to entertain each other this afternoon.”
There was a pleasant part of the garden, walled in with mellow red bricks with a pond in the centre-the Tudor-type of intimate small garden within a garden. The roses were in bloom and I suggested that I show them to Lucas.
It was a mild afternoon, pleasantly warm without being too hot and we made our necessarily rather slow progress there. There was a stillness in the air and within the walls of that garden we might have stepped back two or three centuries in time.
“Let’s sit here,” I said.
“The pond is so pretty and it is so peaceful.”
There was silence and I went on: “We’d better talk about it, Lucas. We both want to, don’t we?”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“It’s uppermost in our minds.”
“Does it seem to you like a dream?” I asked.
“No,” he said sharply.
“Stark reality. I have a perpetual reminder.
Here I am now . like this. “
“I’m sorry. We didn’t know how to set it… and we had nothing that would help us.”
“My dear girl,” he said almost angrily.
“I’m not blaming you … only life … fate … or whatever you like to call it. Don’t you see? I have to spend the rest of my life … like this.”
“But at least you are here … at least you are alive.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Do you think that is a matter for great rejoicing?”
“For some at any rate. Your friends … your family. You are lame and I know there is pain now and then … but so much worse might have happened to you.”
“You are right to chide me. I am selfish, disgruntled and ungrateful.”
“Oh no, no. Do you think … it is possible … that something may be done?”
“What?”
“Well, they are very clever nowadays. There have been all sorts of medical discoveries …”
“My bone was broken. It was not set. It is too late to do anything about it now.”
“Oh, Lucas, I’m so sorry. If only we could have done something … how different it would have been.”
“You did a great deal and I’m a selfish creature thinking of my own misfortunes. I just cannot bear to contemplate what happened to you.”
“But I escaped. My fears were only in the mind.”
He wanted to know in detail what had happened, so I told him of my friendship with Nicole and how she had given me the drug and saved me from the Pasha’s attentions, and how the drug had been supplied by the Chief Eunuch who was a great friend of hers. He listened intently.
“Thank God,” he said.
“That could have scarred you as deeply as I have been … perhaps more so. And what happened to that man … John Player?”
It seemed as though the silence went on for a long time. I heard the buzz of a bee, and the high-pitched note of a grasshopper. Be careful, I was telling myself. You could so easily betray him. Remember it is not only your secret. It is yours and Simon’s.
I heard myself say: “He … he was sold to the same Pasha.”
“Poor devil. I can guess what his fate would be. He was a strange man.
I always had an odd feeling about him. “
“What sort of feeling?” I asked apprehensively.
“I felt that things were not all they seemed. Now and then I had a fancy that I had seen him before somewhere. Then sometimes he seemed as though he were hiding something.”
“What do you mean? What could he have been hiding?”
“Anything. I’ve no idea. That was just the impression he gave. He wasn’t the sort of man you’d expect to find swabbing the decks, was he? He was very resourceful, I | must say.”
“I think we could both say that we owed our lives to him.”
“And you are right. I wish I knew what had happened to him.”
“A great many men were employed in the gardens. He was big and strong”
“He would have fetched a fair price, I dare say.”
There was silence again. I was afraid to speak lest I<| should betray something. He went on musingly: “How; strange that we were all on that island together . never knowing whether we should be found before we died ofe starvation. ”
” How did you manage to get home, Lucas? “
“Well, I’m a wily old bird, you know.” He smiled, when he did so he was the man I had known when I met him.
“I seized my opportunities. I had a smattering their language, I found. It helped a lot. I had picked up few words when I was travelling round the world sock years ago. It is amazing how being able to communicai helps. I offered them money . for the three of us. I said that in my own country I was a very rich man. They believed me because they knew I had travelled a good deal. They wouldn’t consider releasing you or Player. You were too valuable. I was not. Being crippled, I was useless. “
“You see, there is some advantage in everything.”
“There have been times when I wished they had thrown me overboard.”
“You must not say that. It is accepting defeat no, welcoming it.
That is not the way to live. “
“You are right, of course. Oh, it is good to be with you, Rosetta. I remember how resourceful you were when we were on the island. I owe a lot to you.”
“But most to …”
“To that man Player. Well, he was a sort of leader, wasn’t he? He was cut out for the part … and it fell to him. He played it well, I’ll admit. And I was the impediment. I was the one who slowed down the progress.”
“You did nothing of the sort. How could you have done on the island?
Tell me the rest. “
“When I saw that I could not save you and nothing would make those men part with you and Player, I concentrated on my own case. They were more amenable in that direction. What price could they get for me? A man in my state? Nothing. I told them that if they would let me go, I would send them a valuable jewel. If they tried to sell me they would get nothing, for who would want a man who can’t even walk without a stick? If they threw me overboard that would be equally unproductive.
But if they took my offer of the jewel, then they would at least have something for their pains. “
“So … they agreed to let you go for the promise of a jewel?”
“It was simple logic really. They had two alternatives. Throw me overboard or despatch me in some other way and lose everything, or take a chance that I would keep my word and send the jewel. It would occur to them as it would to any -that I might not keep my side of the bargain. And if I did not, well, they might just as well throw me overboard. The wise thing, of course, would be to take a chance, for at least if they did there could be a hope of getting something. So . I was dropped at Athens a street or so away from the British Embassy. The rest was simple.
