Childish Loves (44 page)

All this is the result of another foolish expedition, to Anatolikon, for the purpose of persuading them of my … existence, which had the customary effect: a great deal of mutual congratulation. There was a violent salute of muskets and discharge of cannon to celebrate the removal of the Turks, who had lately been encamped there; and I shook hands with several dozen officers, officials and citizens of the town, who argued amongst themselves over precedence, which put them so out of humour they could only smile in a pinched sort of way on their being introduced. I was shown a very pretty church, dedicated to St Michael, which was supposed very recently to be the site of a miracle. A mortar had lately fallen, killing the curate's mother (this was not the miracle) and exposing a hidden spring, on which, during the worst of the siege, the townspeople had depended for their survival. This kind of superstition always dispirits me. It is the very cowardice of hope, and these same men who talk invincibly of omens will, when their harvest is ruined by two days of rain, call it a visitation of God and lay down their arms. But the visit ended in expressions of good health, which have already been answered in the usual way: Pietro, prostrate with fever and sweating in his own bed; and Lukas not much better and sweating in mine. (The doctor insisted on this, as he generally sleeps on the floor.) Our boat was caught in a shower on the journey home; we were all as thoroughly soaked as if it had sank. It appears at least that my constitution is not completely ruined, for I have nothing but a headache to complain of.

*

The assault on Lepanto has been abandoned. We have not the men, nor the money, nor (as it seems to me) the inclination. Parry has arrived at last, with eight mechanics, sent by the Committee, but much less in the way of materials than we had hoped. He tells me it will take at least two months to build the Congreve rockets, which are absolutely essential to any attack on occupied fortifications; consequently, the Prince and I have put off even the discussion of an attempt on Lepanto until it is practicable. The difficulty is, that if we confine ourselves to the
practicable
, our case is hopeless – we can only continue in the present manner, doing nothing, which takes up all of my time and is becoming increasingly intolerable.

I have lost all patience with the Suliotes. Having tried in vain at every expense, considerable trouble, and some danger to unite them for the good of Greece, and their own, I have come to the following resolution: I will have nothing more to do with them. They may go to the Turks or the devil. The
Ann
arrived on the 5th and deposited its stores on the shore, which, though they fell far short of our expectation, and some way below our needs, are nevertheless vital to our continuing defence, and any hope we still cherish of striking a blow for the freedom of Greece. The Suliotes refused to transport these stores, of cannon, powder, shot, mechanical tools, etc. – all of which we not only lack ourselves, but which, should they fall to the Turks, which is not unlikely, as we are surrounded by sympathizers and profiteers, would furnish our own destruction – from the beach to the fort, owing to the fact that it was a public holiday! Not until I began myself, in a frenzy of rage, to carry what I could up the sand, did they relent; and afterwards they approached me, in a spirit of conciliation, with a request that some hundred or more of their number (out of a force of three hundred and fifty!) should be promoted, on the strength of these efforts, to colonel, captain, private etc. – which they care about not at all, as there can be no rank where there is no order, except as it relates to their
pay
.

Parry at least is an excellent soldier, in the good English fashion: that is, he cares nothing for Greeks, and less for their liberation, but a good deal about his men and his guns. I had expected him to be a little disheartened by the conditions he found here but was not prepared for the violence of his reaction. He tells me that the fort, which was badly built twenty years ago, and has been worse repaired, should never have been built at all: as it is situated in such a way that it defends nothing but itself. It appears moreover that the force, such as it is, of which I am commander, refuses to serve under him – because he is an Englishman, and not a lord, and a soldier, and not a poet! We suffer every day, and every day a little more, from desertion. The Germans, French, Italians, etc. who come to Missolonghi, because they have read Homer, depart again, because they have seen Greece; and many that choose to remain are simply too dispirited to undertake the effort of going home. A state of mind that too much resembles my own for me to condemn it.

Our society at least has lately had an addition, a little Turkish girl named Hato (this is what I have decided to call her, as her real name is unpronounceable) discovered by Millingen, who brings her twice a week to visit me and sit on my lap. She is a child of some eight or nine years. Her father was killed three years before, her two brothers also, in the burst of brutality that followed Missolonghi's declaration of independence. She lives with her mother, in some squalor, but in spite of the misery of her life has remained – pretty, spirited, charming and agreeable. She saw her brothers' murder (their brains were dashed against a wall by
hand
) and cried out against their murderers, who spared her only because she made them laugh. This is the famous quality of mercy. I have written to Lady Byron in the hope of persuading her to adopt the child, as a sister to our daughter; for she really cannot continue where she is. She is growing too beautiful by the day, with the dark
pure
oriental complexion and modesty of feature, together with large black eyes; and the Greeks in this respect are not to be trusted. If Lady Byron does not want her, I will send her to Teresa, who
will
– as the child comes from me, and has seen me, and her face has been touched by my hand and kissed by my lips.

Lukas is jealous of her, and for this reason alone I should be sorry to see her go – because I gave her a sequinned necklace, and sent Tita out to buy her sweets, indulgences which he considers his by right. Lately it has become a question with me whether he is at all conscious of what might be considered his provocation. That is, what he provokes me
into
. He certainly is not shy in my presence, and makes himself free with everything that is mine, in a most suggestive way. The Greeks are not known to be squeamish in these matters, and a boy of his appearance is unlikely to have reached the age of fifteen without some experience of its effects. That he likes to be admired, I can have no doubt, but his preening, from what I have seen of it, is rather innocent; he responds most powerfully to his own charms.

*

Two days ago I had a strong shock of a convulsive description, but whether epileptic, paralytic, or apoplectic is not yet decided by the doctors (Bruno and Millingen) who attend me; or whether it be of some other nature (if such there be). It was very painful and had it lasted a moment longer must have extinguished my mortality, if I can judge by sensations. I was speechless, with the features much distorted, but not foaming at the mouth (they say), and my struggles so violent that several persons, including Parry and Tita, who are both strong men, could not hold me. It lasted about ten minutes and came on immediately after drinking a tumbler of cider mixed with cold water in Stanhope's apartments. This is the first attack that I have had of this kind to the best of my belief. I never heard that any of my family were liable to the same, though my mother was subject to
hysterical
affections.

Yesterday leeches were applied to my temples. I had previously recovered a good deal, but with some feverish and variable symptoms. I bled profusely and (as they went too near the temporal artery) there was some difficulty in stopping the blood, even with the
lunar caustic
. This however after some hours was accomplished, about eleven o'clock at night, and today, though weakly, I feel tolerably convalescent.

With regard to the presumed cause of this attack – as far as I know there might be several. Millingen conjectures that it was the result of the same sudden drenching that put Lukas and Pietro to bed, but which, owing to the debilitation of my constitution, has had a less immediate but more profound effect. There are besides this a number of general causes. The state of the place and the weather permits little exercise at present. It is possible that I have not been uniformly so temperate as I may generally affirm that I was wont to be. How far any or all of these may have acted on the mind or body of one who had already undergone many previous changes of place and passion during a life of thirty-six years I cannot tell, nor – but I am interrupted by the arrival of a report from a party returned from reconnoitring a Turkish brig of war just stranded on the coast, and which is to be attacked the moment we can get some guns to bear upon her. I shall hear what Parry says about it; here he comes.

*

The Turks burned their ship, departing from it in the boats before we could reach her; there was nothing left but a hundred feet of cordage, and a little spare canvas, which survived the blaze. Afterwards there was more trouble with the Suliotes. One of their number, a man named Yiotes, had taken Botsaris's son (who is not more than ten years old) along – whether to participate in the action, or witness the end of it, is not clear. He was stopped by a guard, a Swede, for reasons that are still obscure, and will not become clearer; he is dead now. Yiotes was also wounded in the conflict, and believed dead; and the Suliotes, hearing that one of their number had been killed by a foreign soldier, surrounded the arsenal and threatened to overrun it and attack the town. I gave orders that the cannon should be pointed at the gate. As I was still too feverish to stand, I summoned several of the Suliote chiefs to my bedside. They raged at me, shouting their reasons (of which they always have a great many), to which I listened as calmly as I could – I was too weak to do anything else. After an hour or more of listening, and saying little, I
stood up
– which occasioned in them a sort of shiver of horror, as they are a superstitious people, with a great belief in revenging spirits – and by these means persuaded them to break up their siege. Since then we have settled again into the old unhappy alliance. And I have returned to my bed.

*

I have lately been thinking over something my mother once said to me on my return from Harrow one summer, now a very long time ago. Odd how a word or phrase recalls to us (even when we have little enough cause to cherish the remembrance) the dead, but I have several fresh reasons for the association. Outside my window I see a dirty square and a dirty island morning beginning, with its dogs and its restless children. It is never properly cold here, in the good old Scottish manner, but what cold there is has a wet way of entering the bones. My mother said to me, provoked no doubt by some foolishness on my part, of vanity either wounded or inflamed, that it is only children who love themselves. A phrase intended chiefly as a rebuke. She meant that I was a child still, and that my
amour-propre
was the proof of it. What occurred to me the other day was that in this case I am a child no longer.

Lukas and I have quarrelled, without reconciling; and somehow this has made no difference and we continue exactly as before.

This is what happened. I had summoned him to my room on account of some moneys that I kept in a drawer, and which had gone missing. (I noticed their absence when I was once more in a state to notice anything.) Stanhope, who dislikes the boy's manner with me, had accused him before of stealing; but as I always gave the child whatever he asked for, and am not particular about possessions, I never saw any evidence for the charge. But I am particular about money. He came in, with a red face, as if he had lately been crying, which made me suspect that he meant to forestall me. I asked him what the matter was. He said that his mother and one of his sisters had heard that he was ill, and had promised to visit him; but that someone had told them he was fully recovered, and they had just written to say they would not come. He asked me very coolly then if I had written to them. I told him that I had not, but that it was just as well, as any journey between Cephalonia and the mainland at the present time would put his family in unnecessary danger.

He said, ‘That is not why. That is not why you wish to keep them apart from me.'

I asked him to explain himself.

‘It does not matter. You always get your way.'

‘It seems to me,' I said, ‘that that is exactly what I never get. Indeed, you do what you like with me, to which I make no objection. I ask only that what you take from me you take openly.'

It was his turn to stare a little.

Then, for I hate insinuation, I said, ‘Someone has taken from me, while I was ill in bed, several hundred piastres. I had counted them out for a purpose; there can be no mistake. They were in the turtle-shell box on my desk, and the box is now almost empty. I have summoned you to ask you if you took them.'

‘I take nothing from you,' he declared. And then, a moment later, in the same tone, ‘Maybe Pietro gave them to me. But I know nothing about the box.'

‘What do you mean, that Pietro gave them to you? For what reason?'

But he would not look me in the eyes. Eventually, he said, ‘You can ask him yourself.'

So I rang the bell, and when Fletcher came, I told him to bring Mr Gamba to me. While we waited, Lukas said, ‘As this is nothing to do with me, I suppose I may go' – but without much hope, and he made no attempt to leave. When Pietro came, I put to him directly what Lukas had told me. Lukas began to laugh strangely; Pietro looked uncomfortable. After a minute, he said, ‘Yes, it's true, I gave him the money.'

‘Why did you give it to him? And if you gave it, why did you not tell me?'

Both young men had refused to sit down. I alone was seated, as I dislike standing; and Pietro went to the window before replying, ‘You forget you were very ill. The doctors were always sending for something or other. We did not know what to do. We thought you would die.'