The Revolt of Aphrodite: Tunc and Nunquam

  It was still light when we came into the landing stage where the small group of servants awaited us, two of them with lanterns already lighted against the approaching night. They were supervised by a fat bald-headed capon of a man whom I had no hesitation in identifying as a eunuch. It was partly because of the unhealthy lard-coloured pallor of his skin: partly because of the querulous spinster’s voice which inhabited the fat body. He bowed in deeply submissive manner. Mr. Sacrapant waved him away with my suitcase as together we walked up a steep path into the garden of a small villa, with charming vine-trellises on three sides, and a fine balcony overlooking the sound. This was apparently where I was to stay, and here I found my case already lying on the bed open; two servants under the supervision of the bald majordomo were hanging up my clothes. Sacrapant had a good look round and satisfied himself that all was well with me before taking his leave. “I am going back with the boat” he said. “Now in half an hour a man with a lantern will come to lead you to the villa where Mr. Jocas will be waiting for you—both of them in fact.”

  “Both brothers?”

  “No. Miss Benedicta arrived last night. She is staying for a few days here in the other villa. You will meet her also.”

  “I see. How long do I stay?”

  Mr. Sacrapant looked startled. “As long as … I don’t know sir … as is necessary to conclude your business with Mr. Jocas. As soon as you see him all will become clear.”

  “Have you ever heard the name Sipple?” I asked.

  Sacrapant thought gravely and then shook his head. “Never to my knowledge” he said at last.

  “I thought perhaps as you knew Count Banubula you might also know Sipple, an aquaintance of his.”

  Sacrapant looked desolated, and then his face cleared. “Unless you mean Archdeacon Sipple. Of course! The Anglican clergyman.”

  It did not seem a fruitful line of enquiry to pursue, and I let it slide out of the picture. I strolled back with him towards the landing stage, along the winding paths which smelt of some powerful scent—was it verbena? “One more thing” I said, in spite of myself. “Who was the young woman watching us as the launch pulled in? Up there among the trees. She turned back and slipped into that little copse there.”

  “I saw no one” said Sacrapant. “But that is where Miss Benedicta’s villa is; but you know, Mr. Charlock, it might have been anyone from the harem. There are still quite a lot of old aunts and governesses living there. Mr. Merlin was very generous to both relations and servants. Why, it could have been her English or French teacher—both live there still.”

  “She was youngish, handsome, dark.”

  “Well it was not Miss Benedicta, then.”

  He said goodbye with a shade of effusive reluctance; I felt that he would very much have liked to accept an invitation himself to the Pehlevi table. But it was not to be; he sighed twice, heavily, and once more took his place in the pinnace. The crew was Turkish, but the captain was Greek, for he spoke to Sacrapant in his mother tongue, saying something about the wind freshening. My friend answered impatiently, placing his hat safely beside him. He gave me a small genteel wave as the distance lengthened between us.

  I stood for a moment or two watching the light dying out along the mauve hills and combs of the Asiatic shore. Then I walked back to the little villa. Someone had already lighted the petrol lamps and their white fizzing flame carved black shadows out of the rooms around them. I shaved my jumping reflection in the bathroom mirror and put on the only summer suit I had brought with me. I was sitting, at peace with the world, on the side terrace when I saw a lantern coming slowly down through the trees towards me. It was held by the fat majordomo who had been present at the landing stage. He bowed, and without further words spoken I followed him slowly upwards through the gardens and copses towards where in some room (which I could not readily imagine) my host Jocas Pehlevi awaited to offer me dinner.

  (If it gives me vague pleasure to recount all this, dactyl dear, it’s because it seems about 100 years ago.)

  It was eerie as well as rather beautiful to pass in this fashion up the hill, guided only by the single cone of light which threw up silhouettes of buildings without substance or detail. Owls cried among the bushes, and in the heavy night air, the perfumes hung on, insisted. We crossed a ruined quadrangle of some sort, followed by a series of warrens which suggested kennels; ducked through an arch and walked along the side of a ruined turret on a broad flagged staircase. Now lights began and the bulk of the main house came into view. It suggested to me a huge Turkish khan built as such caravanserais were, around a central courtyard with a central fountain; I heard, or seemed to hear, the champing of mules or camels and the whine of mastiffs. Up through a central massive door and along a corridor lighted with rather splendid frail gas-mantles. Jocas was sitting at a long oak table, half turned sideways towards the door which admitted me, staring into my eyes.

  In those disproportionately huge hands he held a piece of string with which he had constructed a cat’s cradle. As we looked seriously at each other I received a sudden flock of different impressions—almost like a shower of arrows. I felt at once a feeling of being in the presence of someone of great virtue, of psychic goodness, if you like; simultaneously, like an electric current passing in me, I felt as if the contents of my mind had been examined and sifted, and as if all my pockets had been turned out. It is a disquieting effect that one sometimes runs into with a medium. Side by side with this however I had an impression of a naive and almost foolish man, half crippled by nervousness. He was wearing, goodness only knows why, the traditional three-quarter frock coat and the Angora bonnet of wool—articles of attire which, on such a night, must have been a torture to support. Perhaps it was his desire to show some little formality towards a stranger? I don’t know. I stared at that strange face with its swirling peruke of hair, and the tiny piratical rings in the ear lobes, and felt unaccountably reassured. When he stood up one saw that, though thick set, he was on the short side; but he had extremely long arms and huge hands. The hand that grasped mine was moist with anxiety—or perhaps just heat generated by the absurd clothes? He wore a couple of ribbons—a Légion d’Honneur and something else I could not identify. He said nothing; we just shook hands. He motioned me to an empty chair. Then he threw back his head and gave a laugh which might have seemed sinister had I not already taken such a liking to him. His canines were tipped with gold points which gave his smile a somewhat bloodthirsty effect. But his teeth were beautiful and regular and his lips were red. He was of a swarthy cast of countenance—a “smoked” complexion: and while he seemed a hale middle-aged man there was quite a touch of grey in his hair. “Well” he said. “So at last you have come to us.” I excused myself for my dilatory habits and the delay I had caused. “I know, but you have other things to do, and are not interested in making money.” I assured him that he was in error. “So Graphos says” he said, dropping the string into the wastepaper basket and moodily cracking a knuckle. He seemed plunged in thought for a moment; then his face changed expression. He became benign. “You see he was right, Charlock; there was no time to be lost, there never is in matters of this kind. You were distributing these things free, were you not? Well, I had one copied, and took our drawings and articles on it for a patent. In your name, of course. That means that whatever happens —you may not want to let us handle it—the invention is yours and can’t be stolen.” He waited a long time, staring sorrowfully at me. “My brother Chewlian did it for you. He runs the European side of the firm in London. He is an Oxford man, Chewlian.” A haunted, wistful look came into his eye. “I have never been further than Smyrna, you see. Though one day….” I thanked him most warmly for this kindly intervention on my behalf; he knew full well that I would not know how to go about patenting such an object. He got up to adjust a wavering gas-jet, saying as he did so: “I am very glad you are pleased. Now at the same time Chewlian drew up a contract offer for you to study. Benedicta brought it with her, you will have it tonight
. Myself I think it errs on the side of over-generosity, but that is Chewlian all over!” He sighed in admiration at his brother. An expression almost maudlin in its affection crossed his face. “He behaves like a Prince not a businessman.” Then all at once he grew tense and serious and said: “That remark has made you suspicious. Why?” It was perfectly true; and he had read my mind most accurately. I said lamely: “I was thinking how incompetent I am to understand business documents, and hoping you would give me time to think them out.” He laughed again and slapped his knee as if at an excellent joke. “But of course you shall. Anyway you have already taken your precautions haven’t you?” I saw from this that he knew I had decided to take Vibart’s advice before signing anything.

  I nodded. “Come, we will have a drink on it” he said cheerfully, going to the corner of the room where decanters and plates glimmered. He poured me a glass of fiery mastika and placed a cheese pie beside me on the arm of the chair. “But there is something much bigger than this one small thing. Chewlian says we should try and enter into association with you to handle all your inventions. You have others in mind, have you not?” He got up impatiently and strode up and down the room again, this time in a fit of vexation, saying: “There! once again I have made you suspicious. I am going too fast as always.” He spoke a curious English with a strong Smyrna intonation, slurring the words as if he had picked them up by ear and had never seen them written. “No” I said. “It is just that the idea is completely novel to me.”

  He snorted and said, “My brother would have put it to you much more … gentlemanly I suppose. He says I am always like a carpet seller.” He looked rueful and absurd in his black curate’s tail coat. “Anyway he has sent us a draft paper—articles of association—for you to look at.” He fingered the dimple in his chin for a moment and stared at me narrowly. “No” he said at last. “It is not suspicion so much. You are slow. To understand.”

  “I admit it.”

  “Never mind. When you understand you can see if you want to join us or not. The terms are generous, and nobody yet has been dissatisfied with the firm.”

  I tried my hardest not to think of Caradoc and his strictures lest my thoughts be read by this disarming yet determined little man. I nodded, attempting an air of sageness. He crossed to the door and called “Benedicta” once, on a sharp hawk-like note which was at once humble and imperious. Then he came back and stood in the centre of the room staring down at his own shoes. I looked about me studying the jumble of furniture and decoration which gave it the air of a store-room. An expensive chronometer on one wall. A case of chased silver duelling pistols. Then I identified the slightly sickly smell of rotting meat. In one corner on a tall perch slept a falcon in its soft velvet snood. From time to time it stirred and very faintly tinkled the small bells it wore. While we were waiting thus the door opened and a dark girl appeared, holding a briefcase which she placed in an armchair. I thought she bore a resemblance to the girl who had watched the launch come in to shore from the grove of trees up the hill. She stopped just outside the radius of the lamplight and said, in somewhat insolent fashion: “Why are you dressed up like that?” The note of icy contempt withered Jocas Pehlevi; he shrivelled to almost half his size, ducking and joining his hands almost in a gesture of supplication. “For him” he said. “For Mr. Charlock.” She turned a glance of indifferent appraisal upon me, echoing my bow with a curt nod. It was a cold, handsome face, framed in a sheeny mass of dark hair twisted up loosely into a chignon. A high white forehead conferred a sort of serenity upon it; but when she closed her eyes, which she did in turning her head from one person to another, one could see at once how her death-mask would look. The lips were full and fine, but most of their expressions hovered between disdain and contempt. She was, then, as imperious as only a rich man’s daughter dares to be: and noting this I conceived a sort of instant dislike for her which rendered her interesting.

  Her entry had reduced Jocas to the dimensions of a small medieval playing-card figure; he scratched his head through the woollen bonnet. “Go and change at once” she said sternly reducing his self-esteem still further; he slipped away with an ingratiating bow in my direction, leaving us face to face. If she had moved forward a pace I would have been able to identify the peculiar blue of her eyes. But half in shadow like this they glowed with a sullen blue magnetism. She looked at me as if she had the greatest difficulty in mustering any interest in me or my doings. Then in a low voice she excused herself and turned aside to the dark corner of the room where the great falcon sat in the manner of a lectern-eagle. She was wearing a long, stained garment of some sort of leather or velveteen. Now she pulled on an extra sleeve and worked her hand into a gauntlet. Somewhere in the shadows there came the dying fluttering of some small bird, a quail perhaps, and I saw with disgust that she was busy breaking up the body with her fingers into small tid-bits. She suddenly began uttering a curious bubbling, crooning sound, uttering it over and over again as she drew a long plume softly over the legs of the peregrine; then the gloved hand teased the great scissor beak with the bleeding meat and the bird snapped and gorged. As it ate she reiterated the single word in the same crooning bubbling fashion. Slowly, with the greatest circumspection, she coaxed the falcon on to her wrist and turned to face me, smiling now. “He is the latest to be taken” she said. “I don’t know as yet whether I shall succeed in bringing him to the lure. We shall see. Do you hunt? My father was a great falconer. But it takes an age to break them in.”

  At this moment the tall doors at the end of the room opened and I saw a long dinner table laid upon a wide balcony. Jocas had already arrived upon the scene after a change of clothes. He wore now a comfortable Russian shirt of some soft silky material. His mane of hair was brushed back above his ears. “Lights” called Benedicta sharply, and at once the servants diminished the amount of light by blowing out half the candles. This left a small lighted area at one end, with two places set. “Don’t move please.” Still softly crooning the girl advanced to the balcony and crossed it towards the shadowy end of the table where she was to sit throughout the meal, eating nothing herself, but from time to time feeding the falcon. Jocas and I sat at the other end of the table, served by the expressionless eunuch. Out of the corner of his eye the little man kept glancing at the girl with a professional curiosity. For her part she now removed the easy fitting rufter-hood for brief intervals, and then slipped it back into place. “It needs the patience of the devil” said Jocas. “But Benedicta is good. If you like we can take you for a day’s sport—francolin and woodcock. Eh Benedicta?” But the girl sat absorbed before her plateful of bleeding odds and ends and did not deign to look up or answer. Presently she rose—it was part of the routine it seemed—and announced that she must “walk” the falcon; bidding us goodnight she walked softly down the marble staircase into the garden and disappeared. It seemed to me that Jocas addressed himself to his dinner with a sort of relief after this—and he also became more voluble.