The Island Mystery Part 20

"I'd like to; but I must ask the Queen first."

"I might be some help."

"You would," said Phillips. "I'm not clever, you know. I wish I was.

And, of course, the Queen is very young."

"I'm quite old," said Gorman, "and amazingly clever."

"I can see that. I saw it directly I met you."

"Then you'd better let me help. We'll see if we can't catch Smith at some little game."

CHAPTER XV

There is no doubt that the Donovans owed their comfort on Salissa very largely to Smith, the s.h.i.+p's steward, who had entered their service at the last moment, and, as it seemed, accidentally.

Donovan would never have achieved the rest and quiet he desired without Smith. Advocates of the simple life may say what they like; but a man like Donovan would have lived in a condition of perpetual worry and annoyance if he had been obliged to go foraging for such things as milk and eggs; if it had been his business to chop up wood and light the kitchen fire. He would not have liked cleaning his own boots or sweeping up the cigar ends and tobacco ash with which he strewed the floors of the palace. He would not have slept well at night in a bed that he made himself. He would have gone without shaving most days--thereby becoming uncomfortable and most unsightly--if he had been dependent on his own exertions for a supply of hot water and a properly stropped razor.

His daughter would have made a poor queen if it had fallen to her lot to cook meals for herself and her father, if she had spent a morning every week at a wash-tub and another morning with an iron in her hand. There were no labour-saving devices in the palace. King Otto had a remarkable taste for fantastic architecture; but it had not occurred to him to run hot and cold water through his house or to have a lift between the kitchen and the upper storeys. There was not even in the whole palace a single sink in which a plate could conveniently be washed. It is impossible to be a queen in any real and proper sense if you have to spend hours every day doing the work of a kitchen-maid.

Queens, and indeed all members of aristocracies, ought to be occupied with thoughts of great and splendid things, wide schemes of philanthropy, sage counsels for the elevating of the ma.s.ses. But the human mind will not work at social and political philosophy if it is continually worried with problems of scouring pans and emptying slops.

That is why there must be a cla.s.s of menials, perhaps slaves, in society, if any advance is to be made towards the finer civilization.

It was Smith who saved the Queen from becoming a drudge and Donovan from unfamiliar kinds of toil which would probably have still further injured his heart, would certainly have broken his temper.

Salissa was not by any means a desert island. It was inhabited by intelligent, kindly people, who kept milk-giving cows and hens which laid eggs. It was well cultivated. Grapes and wheat grew there. There were fish in the surrounding sea, and the islanders possessed boats and nets. Nor were the Donovans castaways of the ordinary kind. They had a large house, luxuriously furnished. They had ample stores of every kind. Nevertheless they could scarcely have lived on Salissa--they would certainly not have tried to live there long--if they had not had Smith with them. Picnicking is delightful for a short time. A picnic unduly prolonged degenerates rapidly through all the stages of discomfort, and ends in actual hards.h.i.+p.

Smith organized the life of the palace. Every morning an island boat crossed the harbour bringing eggs, milk and fish. Every evening just at sunset it came again with more milk and if necessary more eggs.

Four island girls were brought from the village by Stephanos the Elder, and--this was the impression left on the Queen's mind--solemnly dedicated to domestic service. Smith taught them the elements of housework. Two boys were taken from the fields and handed over to Smith. He taught them to polish boots, clean knives, and make all kinds of metal--silver, bra.s.s and copper--s.h.i.+ne splendidly. Smith's work was made easier for him by Stephanos the Elder. That old man spent two hours every day in the palace. He did not bring osier rods with him, but the girls knew, and the boys knew still better, that his arm was strong and that pliant rods hurt horribly. There were no corners left unswept in the rooms of the palace, no plates unwashed, no failure in the supply of cans of hot water for Donovan's bedroom or the Queen's. At first Smith did all the cooking himself. Later, when one of the girls showed some intelligence, he attended only to the more difficult and complex dishes. He never allowed any one else to wait on Donovan. The organization was not accomplished at once.

For a few days life in the palace was exciting, full of surprises and occasions for laughter. For a few days more it was a very well-arranged picnic, rather less exciting than it had been, with meals which could be confidently reckoned on and many minor comforts.

At the end of a fortnight it had settled down into something like the smooth routine of a well-managed English country house.

But the Queen, even when things in the palace were well ordered, did not find the island dull. She explored it all. With Kalliope as guide she climbed rocks, descended into lonely coves, walked through fields and vineyards, wandered over the pasture land of the upper plateau.

She rowed, taking turns at the oars with Kalliope, into many caves and found fascinating landing-places among the rocks. One fine day she sailed all round her kingdom in the largest of the island boats, manned and steered by Kalliope's lover.

She did not forget that she was a queen. She learnt the names of all her subjects. She made plans for many improvements. Roads should be built, houses rebuilt, water should run about in pipes and women turn taps instead of carrying great pitchers on their heads. Motor tractors, instead of small bullocks, should drag the island ploughs.

Motor engines should drive the fis.h.i.+ng boats. Every evening, Kalliope sitting by her, the Queen drew maps, designed cottages, and made long lists of things which the _Ida_ should, in due time, fetch from England.

She started a school in the great hall of the palace. Smith explained to Stephanos the Elder what was wanted and he undertook the duties of attendance officer. The Queen's idea was to encourage the children with gifts of chocolates. Stephanos, who must have had the mind of a Progressive, established a system of compulsory education. The Queen spoke very few words of the children's language, and Kalliope, who acted as a.s.sistant mistress, did not know much English. But the laws of arithmetic, so the Queen felt, must be of universal application, two and two making four, by whatever names you called them. And the Alphabet must be a useful thing to learn whatever words you spell with it afterwards. So the Queen drew Arabic numerals on large sheets of paper and tried to impress on a giggling group of children that the figures corresponded in some way to little piles of pebbles which she arranged on the floor. She succeeded in teaching them that K, written very large, and held up for inspection, was in some way connected with Kalliope. She failed to persuade them that S could have anything to do with Stephanos the Elder. S, perhaps because it is so curly, always made the children laugh uproariously. The mention of the name of Stephanos made them suddenly grave again. He was no subject for merriment, and it seemed impossible that a sign so plainly comic as S could possibly be a.s.sociated with him.

The mystery of the island was the Queen's only disappointment. It remained obstinately undeveloped. No more suspicious sc.r.a.ps of paper were to be found anywhere. Smith hardly ever stirred outside the palace. The cisterns were, indeed, still in the cavern, but no change took place in them. They stood there, great, foolish, empty tanks of galvanized iron, entirely meaningless things. The Queen came to regard them without wonder. They were just there, that was all. Little by little the mystery ceased to interest her, ceased even to be a disappointment.

Then one day, just as she was beginning to forget it, the mystery suddenly became exciting again.

It was still Kalliope's habit to sleep, wrapped in a rug, on the floor at the foot of the Queen's bed. Smith commanded and the Queen entreated, but the girl refused to occupy a room of her own or to sleep on a bed. Every morning about seven she woke, unrolled herself from her rug, tiptoed across the room and pulled back the curtains.

The flood of sunlight wakened the Queen and the two girls went together to bathe from the steps below the Queen's balcony.

One morning Kalliope gave a sudden shout of excitement when she pulled back the curtains.

"Mucky s.h.i.+p!" she cried.

She ran from the window. The Queen, blinking and no more than half awake, was seized by the arms and pulled out of bed. Kalliope was the least conventional of lady's-maids. She loved, even wors.h.i.+pped and adored, her mistress, but she had no idea whatever of propriety of behaviour. Bedclothes were scattered on the floor. The Queen, staggering to her feet, was dragged across the room to the window.

Kalliope pointed to the harbour with a finger which trembled with excitement.

"Mucky s.h.i.+p," she said.

Kalliope's English was improving in quality. The Queen had forbidden her to say "d.a.m.n" or "b.l.o.o.d.y" but about "mucky" she had received no instructions. It still seemed to her a proper epithet for any s.h.i.+p. In this case it was unsuitable. The s.h.i.+p, a small steamer, which lay at anchor in the harbour, looked more like a yacht than a cargo boat.

Her paint was fresh. Her hull had fine lines. Her two masts and high yellow funnel raked sharply aft. The bra.s.swork on her bridge glittered in the sunlight. But Kalliope stuck to her epithet.

"Mucky s.h.i.+p," she said, "once more."

"Once more" was a recent addition to her English. She had picked the phrase up in the Queen's school, where indeed it was in constant use.

She knew what it meant; but it was not clear why she used it about the steamer.

The Queen was excited, almost as much excited as Kalliope. Even to dwellers in seaport towns there must, I think, always come a certain thrill when a s.h.i.+p arrives from the sea. In Salissa, where s.h.i.+ps rarely come, where no steamer had been seen since the _Ida_ sailed, the sudden coming of a strange craft was a moving event. And the manner of her coming stirred the imagination. A s.h.i.+p which sails in by day is sighted far off. Her shape is seen, her flag is read, perhaps, long before she reaches the harbour. Half the interest of her coming disappears as she slips slowly in, gazed at by all eyes, speculated on, discussed by every tongue. But a s.h.i.+p which arrives by night is full of wonder. At sunset she is not there. In the darkness she steals in. No one sees her approach. She is there, rich in possibilities of romance, to greet eyes opening on a new day.

The Queen and Kalliope had no morning swim that day. They were eager to dress, to go out, to row across to the strange s.h.i.+p. They had no time to waste in bathing. As they dressed they ran to and fro about the room, never willing to take their eyes off the steamer for very long. It was interesting to watch her. Men were busy about her decks and a tall officer could be seen on her bridge. A boat was swung out and lowered from the davits. She was manned by four rowers. The anchor cable of the steamer was hove short. A warp was pa.s.sed down to the boat and made fast in her stern. Then the anchor was weighed and hung dripping just clear of the water. The rowers pulled at their oars. The boat shot ahead of the steamer. The warp was paid out for awhile and then made fast on board the steamer. The work of towing began. The boat, moving slowly in short jerks, headed for the sh.o.r.e. The officer on the steamer's bridge directed the rowers, shouting. They made for the entrance of the great cave. Close under the cliffs the steamer's anchor was dropped again. Another anchor was run out by the attendant boat, then another, and a fourth. At last the steamer lay, moored bow and stern, broadside on to the cliff, a few yards from the mouth of the cave.

The Queen, fully dressed at last, ran to her father's room. Kalliope was at her heels. Donovan was in bed and still asleep. At that hour Smith had not even brought him his cup of coffee or his shaving water.

The Queen was less ruthless than Kalliope had been. She did not pull her father out of bed; but she wakened him without pity.

"Father," she said, "a steamer has arrived. She came during the night.

She looks like a yacht. Do you think she can be a yacht? I wonder who's on board of her."

Donovan sat up and yawned.

"Is she going off again right now?" he asked.

"Oh no," said the Queen, "she has gone in quite close to the sh.o.r.e.

She has put out four anchors. She looks as if she meant to stay for weeks."

"Then there's no darned hurry," said Donovan, "and no need for me to strain my heart by getting out of bed at this hour. Just you run away, Daisy, and take that girl of yours with you."

"But, father, don't you want to see the yacht? Don't you want to know who's in her?"

"We'll send Smith after breakfast," said Donovan, "and ask the proprietor to dine."

Mr. Donovan lay down again and put his head on the pillow.

"But I can't possibly wait till dinner-time," said the Queen.

"Well, luncheon," said Donovan.

His voice was a little m.u.f.fled. After lying down he had taken a pull at the bedclothes and had arranged the corner of the sheet over his mouth and ear.

The Queen gave him up; but she was not willing to wait even till luncheon-time or to trust Smith to deliver the invitation. Kalliope shared her impatience.