Master Georgie Part 3

On our fourth day out it became apparent that Naughton was considerably smitten with Myrtle. She, as usual, appeared unaware of it, though she could scarcely move for tripping over him. It wasn't the first time she had caused a flutter in a manly breast, not that Naughton could by any stretch of the imagination be cla.s.sified as manly. His lurch towards Myrtle surprised me. I wouldn't have thought he was discerning enough to appreciate her, he being the shallow sort of fellow susceptible to more obvious charms - a rosy complexion, sparkling eyes, splendid bust, etc. Myrtle was smallish, pale, had a chest as flat as a board, morose eyes of a colour neither green nor brown, and a somewhat sullen pout to her lips. It's true that when she engaged one in conversation, or was observed playing with the children, or she smiled, it was a different story. Then I do believe she cast a spell. Beatrice adored her, and Annie, who, G.o.d knows, had every reason in the world to find her detestable, showed signs of sincere devotion.

Naughton, struck all of a heap, went so far as to take George to one side and make his feelings known. 'Your sister is remarkably fetching,' is how he imprudently put it.

'I imagine that she has many admirers.' To which George rashly replied she had but one, to whom she was betrothed and who was waiting for her to join him in Constantinople.

I say rash, because it was highly likely we would continue to rub shoulders with Naughton when we reached our destination, and what did George intend to do then?

'Are you going to hire some young hussar to play the part of lover?' I asked him.

'I'll worry about it when we get there,' he retorted, and then drank so much during the afternoon that he quite forgot to tell Myrtle of her impending marriage.

Result - in the middle of dinner, the infatuated Naughton turned to her and blurted out for all to hear, 'Your fiance is a fortunate man, Miss Hardy.'

The effect of this startling announcement on our section of the table was comical indeed. Annie, about to fork up a portion of pie-crust, sat with open mouth and implement suspended in the air. Poor Beatrice, already munching, choked on her morsel and might have expired if the veterinary surgeon hadn't thumped her between the shoulder blades. Myrtle alone stayed calm; gazing steadily at the speechless George, she replied, 'It's kind of you, Mr Naughton, but I a.s.sure you it is I who am fortunate.'

I don't know what she said to George afterwards. Nothing, I expect. George could do no wrong. If ever there was a woman with fairy dust in her eyes, it was she. Once, I had appealed to her to put a curb on George's drinking, which had grown excessive following the demise of his father. 'It's not for me to interfere,' she'd said. 'Besides, it makes him happy.'

Secretly, I wondered whether she didn't prefer him half-seas over: possibly it gave her more of a hold. He'd been shaken far more than was necessary at the circ.u.mstances surrounding his father's death. Though he didn't confide in me until some months later, I already had my suspicions that matters were other than they seemed. A relative of old Mrs Hardy, a Captain Tuckett, had come to the house the night it happened, and he'd told me that George was in a horrid state earlier in the evening, quivering and blubbing, and rambling on about Punch and Judy of all things. Then, of course, there was the sudden intrusion into the household of Pompey Jones - the duck-boy as Myrtle insisted on calling him - not to mention her own unexplained and astonis.h.i.+ng elevation, packed off to boarding school as though she was a daughter of the family.

Myrtle was now indispensable. Old Mr Hardy had been a bully and a fraud, and as often happens with sons of such men - sensitive boys, that is - George had feared and admired him in equal proportions. It would not be incorrect to say that George had placed him on a pedestal, and a pretty lofty one at that. Mr Hardy's topple from the heights had shattered both of them. It was Myrtle's destiny in life to make George believe he had stuck himself together.

Several days later, when I was taking a turn about the deck, staring out at the monotonous vista of sea and sky, Naughton joined me and began a footling conversation on the construction of violins; the best wood, etc. He was a manufacturer of the things, with a thriving business, so he boasted, not a stone's throw from the Custom House. I am not a lover of music, though I once had the luck, during the celebrations surrounding the inauguration of the Albert Dock, to attend a piano recital enlivened by the soloist unexpectedly somersaulting from the platform.

Naughton was tedious enough when raving on about instruments, but he soon became even more so; he had the temerity to share his thoughts on the coming war. His ignorance of history was infuriating and his judgements worthless. It was his opinion that our affairs were in the right hands.

'By that,' I said, 'I presume you mean those buffoons who, by reasons solely of wealth and t.i.tle, control both government and army?'

'Buffoons -' he stuttered.

'Idiots, triflers,' I elaborated. 'No national respect for ancient tradition, no adulation of rank, however sincere, can fit an uneducated man for high office.'

'Uneducated?' he protested. 'Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Russell, Lord Raglan -'

'The want of educated men,' I thundered, 'has been the cause of our miseries in the East. They know next to nothing about the vast empire of the Turks. Our consular service, its members recruited from the aristocracy, live in their palaces as though the Thames flowed outside their windows. Their duties consist of home pursuits - the reviewing of parades, the throwing of garden parties, visits to the opera. They might just as well be living in Buckinghams.h.i.+re. What reports have they sent on the nature of the climate, the terrain, the produce and resources of the country, the state of the roads?'

I was fairly shouting now. He looked affronted, which was gratifying. 'I suppose you have brought with you samples of building materials to show prospective buyers,' I continued. 'Brick...stone, etc. There are, as you know, very few roads in the region.'

'I have not,' he said stiffly.

'Mark my words,' I said. 'There'll be a great call for bricks...none at all for violins...unless, perhaps, you intend Sebastopol to fall to the sounds of music.'

I had thought I'd put him in his place and he'd stalk off and leave me in peace. Not so; he stuck to my side like a burr. It's uncomfortable, being paced by a man one's insulted. Just as I was almost reduced to commenting on the waves and the clouds, their particular bounce and shade of colour, etc., he said, 'Dr Potter, what exactly is the situation of the young man Miss Hardy is to marry?'

'Situation...?'

'Position. What is his business?'

'War,' I said. 'He's a captain in the llth Hussars.'

Then he did leave me, for who could compete with a peac.o.c.k of the dazzling Light Brigade, however imaginary?

We sailed into Valletta harbour thirteen days on. Nothing would induce Beatrice to stay on board during the twenty-four hours required for the refuelling and restocking of the steamer. She was adamant that she must sleep on dry land, and failed to see the humour in my remark that, should she do so, she would find it somewhat strewn with boulders.

'There isn't a speck of soil on the whole island,' I informed her.

'Nonsense,' she said, pointing at the glowing fields above the harbour.

'Not natural soil,' I said. 'It was carted in from Sicily and elsewhere. The Knights of Malta allowed s.h.i.+ps into the harbour only if they could pay their dues in grit and dirt.'

'What nonsense,' she said again. 'There is never any shortage of dirt, wherever one goes,' and she insisted I find her and Annie an hotel.

That afternoon our party wandered about the town, the women captivated by the jumble of peoples thronging the narrow thoroughfares. I found the place greatly altered since my visit two decades before. What, to a young man's eyes, had appeared an ancient stronghold, full of quaint architecture and exotically attired Arabs, Nubians and Jesuit priests, now presented itself as decidedly modern and raffish, the English influence being much in evidence. Time and again the women were forced to gather up their skirts to avoid the careless splatterings of the numerous red-coats who staggered out of the wine-shops and relieved themselves in the streets. I found this alteration disconcerting, and felt the burden of my years.

'When I first came here,' I told Beatrice, 'my hair was carroty -'

'I know it,' she replied. 'There were vestiges when we first met. The grey is a great improvement.'

We hired donkeys before dinner, plodding up the winding paths beside gardens splendid under foliage of date and palm, until we reached fields of barley winking gold in the sunlight. The children, lifted down, tottered round in the dust, swaying to the constant and pretty ringing of church bells floating up from the town. Their mother, safe from prying eyes, rained kisses on their baby cheeks and sang them nursery rhymes.

I spent the night in the hotel with Beatrice and Annie. It was a needless expense, but I don't sleep well without the warmth of Beatrice at my back.

We sailed the following morning, the talk at breakfast being that war was unavoidable. In two days' time no fewer than three French transports would enter the harbour en route for Gallipoli, their arrival to be greeted by a turn-out of the Guards and Rifle Brigade - this information from Naughton, who the night before had been up to the batteries-for his supper. One of the engineers, whose word could be trusted, had confirmation that in our absence from England a siege train of eighty heavy guns had been a.s.sembled at Woolwich. Though to be expected, I found the news depressing; it is my belief that grim-grinning death is the only victor in war.

I pa.s.sed the third night of our voyage to Constantinople on deck, having bullied a reluctant Beatrice to keep me company. She grudgingly admitted, when I tickled her from sleep at dawn, that a mattress and covers beneath the stars were in many ways preferable to the cramped confines of our cabin.

It was not a sudden longing to return to nature that caused me to s.h.i.+ft us up-top, rather a desire to gaze once again upon the site of the hermit of Malea, a bearded solitary who, fifty years before, had built a shelter upon a promontory on the Cape, from which vantage point, cross-legged, he proceeded to contemplate the heave of the ocean. Twenty years ago it had been the practice of s.h.i.+ps and yachts, after first blowing their whistles, to lower boats stocked with biscuits, salt and oil, and deposit such supplies, weather permitting, on the rocky outcrop below his dwelling.

'Legend has it,' I further informed Beatrice, 'that he came from Athens, where he was once a wealthy s.h.i.+p owner. Rather like yourself, his love of the sea' - here she flashed me one of her looks, of the sort guaranteed to turn a lesser man to jelly - 'was so great that he always commanded a s.h.i.+p of his fleet. On three occasions, the vessel he steered spun off course...due to vagaries of the wind...and foundered on the rocks off Cape Malea.'

'What rocks?' she said. 'I don't see any rocks.'

'They're out there somewhere,' I a.s.sured her. 'In despair, and to do penance for his drowned men, he vowed to retreat from the world.'

'Why the whistles?' she asked. 'If he does nothing but stare at the horizon, surely he can see the s.h.i.+ps.'

'The word hermit,' I reproved, 'from the Latin eremita, defines a secluded place, a desert. He needs time to hide himself. A hermit cannot be forever hob-n.o.bbing.'

'Well, he's certainly in retreat now,' observed my impatient wife, s.h.i.+vering at the rail and squinting out across the misty waters. Shortly after, she complained the salt spray stung her lips, and made to go below.

'Do stay,' I implored her. 'It gives me pleasure to have you stand at my side.'

'I won't,' she retorted crossly. 'I'm thinking of becoming a hermit,' and with that parting shot, she left me.

I never caught so much as a glimpse of land, though I stayed at my post for an hour or more, watching the racing sea and dwelling nostalgically on my long-gone bachelor days.

There are many things in this life capable of throwing people off course - the death of someone close, the loss of income or health, the realisation that cherished hopes cannot always be fulfilled. With regard to myself, nothing has affected me quite so brutally as that manifesto of the new sciences, Principles of Geology by Mr Lyell. I was twenty-two years old when I first read it. Result -1 have not been the same man since. Echoing the sentiments of Mr Ruskin, I have often lamented to Beatrice, Those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them through every cadence of the Bible verses.'

It was not so much Lyell's shattering of the fairy tale of Creation that plunged me into mental turmoil, rather his a.s.sertion that the interchange of land and sea is perpetual. Thus, our northern hemisphere, once a vast ocean sprinkled with islands, must, he argued, return to its original state, albeit in the remote future. It is not a comforting notion. Man himself is so buffeted by s.h.i.+fts of thought and mood, not knowing from one day to the next what he truly feels, that a s.h.i.+fting earth is well-nigh the last straw.

I was never more conscious of my tenuous hold on the ground beneath my feet than during our first weeks in Constantinople, for nothing would satisfy the women other than to engage in a constant round of expeditions, luncheon parties and late night suppers. I exclude Myrtle, of course, who was diligent in taking the children to the sea-sh.o.r.e morning and afternoon, though this may not have been as good for them as she imagined. When we sailed into port it was Beatrice who noted the murkiness of the atmosphere. I was told that the Sultan had issued orders for all steamers to consume their own smoke - if true, its effect was negligible. 'One is reminded of Liverpool,' is how Beatrice put it, 'seen from the opposite side of the Mersey.'

It was astonis.h.i.+ng how quickly the women adapted to their unusual surroundings. Conditions which would have had them in a faint at home produced no more than a reference to quaintness. Once it was established that the shrill humming which heralded each sunrise was not, as feared, the persistent whine of a giant mosquito but merely the muezzin's call to prayer, Beatrice was all for opening the windows, the better to take in the sound. 'How melodious,' she murmured, though indeed the reverse was the case. Even the hotel, which was no more than a large house, considerably deficient in comforts, drew no complaints.

It helped, I suppose, that we were all in the same boat, so to speak, for the town was swarming with English folk and we were never alone in our feverish activities. Casual acquaintances, of the sort who, in the sensible confines of our own country, would scarcely have rated a nod, leapt overnight into the category of bosom friend.

'He's surely a rogue,' I complained to George, when he brought to our table in the Messieri Hotel a young man transparently disreputable. 'You would have shunned him at home.'

'We are not at home,' George countered. 'And I find him amusing.'

'She has a reputation,' I warned Beatrice, who, taking a lead from George, soon became on intimate terms with a Mrs Yardley, travelled out from England in the company of a colonel of the Guards. 'She is plainly connected to that gentleman without the benefit of marriage vows.' To which Beatrice tartly replied we were hardly in a position to throw the first stone. I confess she had me there.

The military news was confusing. On our arrival we had been told of a glorious Turkish victory and a.s.sured that the danger of conflict was past, only to learn the following day that the Duke of Cambridge and Lord Raglan were at this moment on their way to Malta to make a declaration of war. There were many among us, profiteers all, Mr Naughton being a choice example, who hoped the latter story was the truth. Meanwhile, we continued on our merry round.

Of all our numerous outings, the spectacle of the dancing dervishes remains most vividly in the mind, their performance being ridiculous in the extreme. It took place at Pera, in a small mosque adjacent to a harem. We were given seats in the gallery, from which we looked down on a circle of men garbed in long coats and wearing the sort of conical hats believed to be common to witches. In the centre sat a high priest, eyes closed as though he slept - and who could blame him? In the gallery opposite, a stout individual wearing a long beard and a silk dress decidedly feminine in design - Beatrice whispered she thought it divine - shook a tambourine and emitted a fierce howl whenever the fancy took him. For an hour or more we were subjected to a monotonous gabbling of prayers. Just as I was near swooning from boredom, the dervishes rose to their feet - they were immensely tall - cast off their outer garments and shoes and walked about, bowing ceremoniously to the priest and to each other. Then, at no apparent signal, they began spinning round and round. A more absurd sight could not be imagined, for they wore white petticoats and held their arms raised above their hats, so that they resembled huge revolving extinguishers. Efforts to suppress the hilarity raging through the gallery were far from successful.

Afterwards, Annie, Beatrice and Mrs Yardley gained admittance to the harem, where they were received by a Madame Kiasim whose raven locks were dyed b.u.t.tercup yellow and who was reported to have read a French novel throughout. No other women were visible. A slave shortly brought in gla.s.ses of water and a plate of sweetmeats, Madame Kiasim later demanding payment for this refreshment without once looking up from her book.

In all this relentless gadding, this reckless bonhomie, I detected something of the hectic gaiety which must have prevailed during the last days of Rome. Like dervishes, we twirled from one diversion to another. At yet another picnic in the hills outside the town, the women's chatter rising like the twitterings of starlings, a premonition of impending disaster took such a strong hold of me that I was forced to leave the group and walk to a pinnacle some distance off. As I gazed below, to where the domes and slender minarets glittered amidst the cypress trees, a quotation came unbidden to my thoughts - We have run this morning twenty-four miles, and could run forty-eight more. But who can run the race with death? In the distance, beneath an azure sky, the narrow arms of the Bosphorus and Golden Horn, that perfect blending of land and water, pointed at the Black Sea.

That evening, when we returned to the hotel, we were met with two items of dreadful news; the first - depending on whether one considers things personal rather than universal to be of paramount importance - concerned Myrtle. In our absence the children had pined for a sight of their collie pup, housed down by the port. Sent for and let loose on the mosaic tiles of the forecourt, and no doubt terrified by reverberating footsteps, it had turned tail and lolloped back through the open doors, where it was immediately pounced upon by dogs, of which there are innumerable fierce packs roaming the streets, and torn to b.l.o.o.d.y shreds. Fortunately, the children, one toddling, the other in its nursemaid's arms, were too far behind to see the shocking a.s.sault.

Myrtle, in swift pursuit and coming in full view of the butchery, fainted clear away. Those who knew of her strength and singularity of character would have found her collapse hard to credit were it not for the testimony of the keeper of the hotel who had followed her abrupt departure from the premises. Restored, she had been helped from the scene of carnage by Mr Naughton and an unknown gentleman in military uniform.

The second piece of news, days out of date, was that England had declared war on Russia.

For a full week following this momentous announcement, we witnessed the most nauseating display of patriotic fervour. Cannons were fired by those s.h.i.+ps of the fleet already returned to harbour after the supposed destruction of Sebastopol. The Messieri Hotel became a focal point for gatherings of English residents, all gesticulating like foreigners. It had seldom been safe to venture into the streets after dark, unless one cared to be jostled by drunken troopers, and now it became positively dangerous. Many a night we were woken by the gurgling screams of some poor wretch having his throat cut. Forced to stay indoors, we were subjected most evenings to the carollings of Mrs Yardley, who, accompanied at the piano by a haberdasher from Yorks.h.i.+re, sang such sentimental ballads as 'The Soldier's Tear' and 'Yes, Let Me Like a Soldier Fall'. Mercifully, she appeared not to know that one time family favourite, 'Mother Dear, I am Fading Fast'.

George too was affected by the atmosphere, though he was touched by something more resonant than the trillings of the Messieri songbird. Before leaving for Constantinople he had sought an interview with the Army Medical Board in Manchester, and offered his services. In spite of possessing the right qualifications and having spent in excess of five years on the surgical wards of the Liverpool Infirmary, he was deemed unsuitable on account of his marital status. No objection was raised to his travelling out as a civilian, nor to his procuring a post for himself at the General Hospitals of Scutari or Gallipoli, but attachment to a regiment was out of the question. Since our arrival in the East he had made no attempt to make enquiries of either such place; when not on the sea-sh.o.r.e with Myrtle, he had busied himself with photography or else disappeared into the Greek quarter of the town with new-found friends. To be fair, he had practised his trade when called upon, and without charge - treating an elderly Greek lady for dropsy, dressing a burn on Mrs Yardley's arm, lancing a child's boil, etc.

Now, he surprised me, for he lost no time in making preparations to visit Scutari. His cause was helped by his recent medical attentions to Mrs Yardley, her gentleman friend, the colonel in the Guards, going out of his way to a.s.sist him. It took longer than expected to arrange matters and George fretted under the delay. Again he surprised me, for he gave up his patronage of the Duke of Wellington public house and scarcely wetted his lips at dinner. I found this change of heart touching. He wrote long letters, many to his mother, and even took the trouble to pen a few lines to Mrs O'Gorman.

One evening, when we were sitting on the veranda of the hotel watching the sun go down and waiting for the ladies to join us, he turned to me and said he hoped I would always be his friend. I replied indeed I heartily wished it so - and he mine.

'You have always looked after me, Potter,' he said. 'And I have not always taken your advice.'

'My dear boy -' I began.

1 would like you to know that in the event of something happening...something untoward...to me, that is, I have appointed you my executor. I trust you're agreeable.'

'Come, come,' I said. 'What has brought this about?111 felt uncomfortable.

As a man without resources - in terms of money -1 have always relied heavily on George's generosity. It had been my dream that some bright day I might be able to repay him - through my writings; alas, it has remained a dream.

'Should I obtain a post at Scutari,' he said, 'it would give me great peace of mind if you would stay here and arrange pa.s.sage home for Annie and the children.'

I agreed, of course. How could I refuse? He then began a rambling discourse to do with his past life, regrets, wasted opportunities, lack of application, etc., and how he felt, in some mysterious way, that the war would at last provide him with the prop he needed.

'Prop?' I said.

'Crutch, even,' he said. 'A man like me needs something to hold him upright. Beyond Myrtle, that is. There are things I have done that were not right.'

'In a hundred years,' I a.s.sured him, 'we shall all have forgotten the things that trouble us now.'

'I shall need a thousand years,' he said, and I swear he had tears in his eyes. His words made me uneasy; it is not generally a good sign when people like George lean towards introspection.

Just then Naughton came up and was no doubt taken aback at the warmth of my welcome. After much beating about the bush he asked George if the gentleman to whom his sister was betrothed had yet been called to active duty. George looked puzzled.

'Not yet,' I said. 'The rest of his regiment is still at Malta.'

'He's a good-looking fellow,' Naughton observed, in a distinctly wistful tone - at which it was my turn to be puzzled. Following some judicious probing I gathered he was referring to the soldier who had gallantly come to Myrtle's side during the shocking incident with the dogs.

'Are they to be married before or after the war?' Naughton asked, and it was then that George, irritated by such persistence, chose to break off Myrtle's engagement. 'He may be handsome, sir,' he replied, 'but he has treated my sister disgracefully. She will never be his.'

I remember how pleased we were at our inventiveness. It was, after all, nothing more than an amusing ending to a good, if rather cruel, joke.

It was decided that Beatrice, Annie and the children would sail home at the beginning of May, Constantinople having become insufferably crowded with troop transports and officials. Moreover, with the advancement of the season came an alarming increase in the number of flies and things that nipped in the night. It did no good to shake the bed linen from the balcony, as Beatrice took to doing morning and evening, for the verminous intruders were secreted in the floorboards and every slight crack in the walls. Annie, for one, couldn't wait to retire to the civilised surroundings of her aunt's house in Anglesey.

In April, George had achieved his goal, and now spent three days a week at Scutari, where he had been appointed a.s.sistant to a Turkish doctor at the Barrack Hospital. He could have returned each night, Scutari being no great distance, but felt it prudent to consolidate his position. His cases, as yet, consisted for the most part of falls from horses, injuries sustained in inebriated brawls and fever occasioned by venereal disease. In these parts a soldier could get drunk for sixpence and syphilis for a s.h.i.+lling. He said it was just as well he was not required to perform more surgery, facilities being primitive in the extreme. He reckoned there was a rat for every patient admitted.

He was a changed man. Though he returned weary and in need of a bath, hair cloudy with dust and clothes stained, his blue eyes conveyed a candour and innocence of spirit missing since his youth. Myrtle rarely accompanied him, due to the impending departure of the children. In this she was content, her love for them being quite simply an extension of her love for him.

In deference to the wishes of Beatrice, a last outing was planned - an excursion to the Sweet Waters of Europe beside the Golden Horn, followed by an evening at the opera. My feelings can be imagined, yet I smiled, feigning enthusiasm. I loved my wife, and indeed, the thought of parting from her, for Lord knows how long a duration, filled me with sorrow. How was I to manage? I dwelt sentimentally on the habit she had of sometimes picking at the food on my plate, the fond way her stubby fingers rubbed at my insect bites in the small hours. Needless to say, attempts to put my thoughts into words were greeted with irritation. Yet, when she slept and I made to move from the circle of her hot little arms, her clasp only tightened.

The Sweet Waters of Europe, a resort popular with all the Turkish rank and fas.h.i.+on of Stamboul and Pera, lay a fast two hours' ride across country. We were to picnic in the grounds of the Palace belonging to the Sultan's brother, a man celebrated for the beauty of his cultivated gardens and the hundreds of peac.o.c.ks that swayed up and down his avenues of roses. I say fast, but as the children's necks were in danger of being dislocated from the jogging of the ponies, our progress was necessarily more sedate. We started soon after dawn but by eight o'clock the sun was already high and Myrtle wielded her fly-whisk above those downy infant heads as though warding off eagles.

It was pretty countryside we pa.s.sed through and if it had not been for the temperature - a well-built man is rendered almost to lard by a fierce sun - I would have found it a pleasant enough way to spend a morning. We were trailed and sometimes overtaken by Naughton, who rode rather well for a violin maker. He was accompanied by one of the engineers and a skinny man in a turban. Each time Naughton drew close, he called out a greeting and raised his hat. Of course, he only looked directly at Myrtle. 'He stalks you like a hunter,' Beatrice said. 'I don't know how you bear it.'

'You forget that I understand obsession,' said Myrtle. 'Besides, what harm does he do?'

As we approached our destination, winding our way past the rustic villas that lined the water's edge, a flight of storks rode the blue heavens. For a moment we saw them clear, then, piercing the glittering sunlight around the golden dome above us, they flashed from dazzling view.

The Palace was built on a wide plateau, its grounds planted with trees and flowering shrubs. Leaving our ponies, we climbed a flight of steps and entered by way of a tunnel fas.h.i.+oned out of some sort of exotic privet. A hundred men, so Annie said, were employed in its upkeep.

The gardens beyond were extensive, an artistic blend of lawns, rockeries and herbaceous borders. I myself have never been able to raise much interest in horticulture, and grew weary of Annie's constant exclamations of delight at this or that example of what she termed an exquisite bloom. I was far more taken by the little clearings among the trees, in whose shade lolled parties of fortunate ladies, their scarlet fingernails languidly fanning the air. How I longed to join them! Instead, spurred on by Beatrice, who was driven forwards by the distant sound of clapping and muted cheers, we toiled down an avenue of purple rhododendrons and came at last to an open s.p.a.ce ringed by boisterous spectators.

Here, the navy was holding an athletic sports day, presided over by a French admiral who, judging from the uncomplimentary remarks of several English onlookers, should have been occupied with more urgent matters, namely the conflict brewing beyond the Bosphorus. I rather agreed, though later, having caught a glimpse of this gentleman coming out of the refreshment marquee, gloriously attired in c.o.c.ked hat and braided coat and supported on either side by blue-coats, I altered my opinion of his usefulness. It was evident from his drooling mouth and tremulous gait, each step placed as though fearful of encountering quicksand, that his days were numbered.

Presently Beatrice became absurdly engrossed in sprinting and jumping; unable to stand upright any longer in the blistering heat, I found refuge under a Judas tree and, draping a handkerchief over my perspiring face, fell into a reverie. My thoughts, possibly because I was thirsty, centred on the writings of Homer, in particular those verses dealing with the death of Antinous, stabbed in the throat by Ulysses as he was about to drink from the golden goblet -hence the proverb, There's many a slip turixt the cup and the lip -when I was painfully disturbed by a kick on the ankle. s.n.a.t.c.hing the cloth from my eyes I was in time to see an elderly gentleman diving across my legs and sprawling to my side.

I have often thought that most things in life are ordained and that there is no such thing as chance. Galileo Galilei could not have deduced that the earth spun round the sun without the inventor of the telescope having been born in his lifetime, any more than Myrtle would now be in her present proximity to George without an outbreak of smallpox and a visit to a brothel. These two examples, of course, are in no way to be compared in importance, but they do point to an extraordinary fusing of time and place. In my case, I have been the unhappy victim of predestination in that anything I might have had an apt.i.tude to study has already been worked over by minds greater than my own.