A Terrible Beauty (15 page)

“I must return to the dig,” he said. “I want to make sure our men are all right.”

“They will all have gone home, Chapman—er, Ashton, I ought to say.” Fritz looked uncomfortable. “Apologies. Old habits and all that.”

“Chapman?” I asked.

“It is the name I adopted so as not to draw attention to myself,” Philip said. “I picked it in honor of the translator of Homer.”

“Of course,” I said. “His was the first I read and will always be my sentimental favorite.
Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess!
”

“Your knowledge is impressive, Kallista,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. “I had no idea you would take so readily to the Hellenic world. I only wish—”

“Upstairs,” Margaret said, interrupting. “You too, Lord Ashton. You will accept Colin's offer of a fresh suit, as I can no longer tolerate the state of what you are currently wearing.
Filthy
does not begin to describe it, and you smell of horse.”

He could hardly refuse after that. I waited downstairs for a few minutes, in order to give him and Colin time to find him something suitable to wear. I did not want to be present while they did so. There was something off-putting about one's first husband having to be dressed by one's second. Jeremy and Fritz had gone up as well, but Margaret stayed behind with me.

“Lord Ashton is a bit of a conundrum, is he not?” she asked. “Was he always so enigmatic?”

“Not to my knowledge,” I said, “but I cannot claim to have been well acquainted with him.”

“This odd incident with Achilles and the bronze and a mysterious Turk who has been chasing him across the Mediterranean—do you give it any credit?”

“There is a healthy market for stolen antiquities, and I have read any number of accounts of local workers pilfering things from archaeological digs. One hears about it in Egypt with great frequency. When people live in abject poverty, they will do nearly anything to supplement their inadequate incomes.”

“To have found something, at Troy, with Achilles' name on it…” Margaret's voice dropped almost to a whisper and she had a far-off look in her eyes.

“It would be an extraordinary coup,” I said, “but I wonder at the validity of the story. I am leaning toward agreeing with Herr Dörpfeld—Philip's head injury may have led him to believe he had found something of Achilles' when, in fact, it may have been something else altogether, if there was anything at all.”

“You think it was simple theft?”

“If the dead man kept the bronze, this Demir would have found it on him, or in his home, and would not have needed to come after Philip. If the dead man had already sold the bronze, which would be unlikely in so short a time and in such an isolated location, I would expect there to have been something amongst his belongings to suggest an influx of money.”

“If Philip found nothing, why is Demir still harassing him?” Margaret asked.

“Perhaps Philip owes him money and invented a fantastical story rather than admit he is in debt. How much can an archaeologist reasonably be expected to earn in a season? He was accustomed to living in luxury, but now has access to none of his former funds—he left his personal fortune entirely to me, and his nephew has the rest of the estate.”

“He might very well find it difficult to adapt to a limited income,” Margaret agreed.

“I shall have a quiet word with him after dinner and see if he would accept any help from me. It is his money, after all. He ought to have it back.”

I heard the sound of doors closing and water running upstairs. The gentlemen must have sorted out their clothing situation, leaving Margaret and me free to do the same. Colin had just got out of the bath when I entered our room.

“What do you make of all this?” he called to me.

“Margaret and I are considering the possibility that Philip owes this Demir money—”

“Money is not a problem for him,” Colin said. “I had a frank discussion with him on the subject. He has managed to save quite a bit. He worked in Vienna for a while, as an antiquities dealer, and uses his connections in that world to sell pieces he has acquired with his income. He's done rather well.”

“Is it all legal?”

He was rubbing his hair with a thick towel as he came into the bedroom. “Absolutely. He has been extremely careful about that. I would expect nothing else of him.”

“I know we both believe he is who is claims,” I said. “What convinced you he is telling the truth?”

“At first, I was too shocked to give the matter much useful thought,” Colin said, “and then I focused on the implausibility of his situation. Having spent more time with him, I am inclined to say, yes, he is Philip Ashton. He recalls our shared history with admirable detail—some of our exploits at Cambridge with too much detail. Yet it is not the memories, but something in the way he speaks, the manner in which he expresses his opinions and tells a story, that strikes me. The scar on his leg is an extremely strong piece of physical evidence to add to the fact that he does look like an older Ashton, one somewhat the worse for wear. In the end, my view on the matter is influenced most by something you, my dear, are ordinarily better acquainted with than I. After much considered analysis of the evidence, and accepting I have no way to actually prove the matter, I
feel
he is the friend I've known since my school days. What about you? What made you believe him?”

“You knew him better than I,” I said, my voice quiet as I slipped past him and turned the faucets to fill the deep tub.

“I do not like the recrimination in your voice. You are too hard on yourself.”

“Do you not feel awful as well?” I asked. I threw my arms in the air and fought back tears. “This is ghastly. Have you had any reply from the solicitor?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but Ashton is adamant he does not want anyone else to know he is still alive. So far as he is concerned, he is Philip Chapman, archaeologist; he wants no part of his old life.”

“Can we leave it at that? What if he changes his mind in the future and comes forward and says we knew all this time he was alive? Would that not be worse for the boys?”

“I cannot believe he would do such a thing. It would go entirely contrary to his character. We shall know more when the solicitor replies. Until then, do your best not to let it trouble you. As for the rest, tell me what you really think. Has he said anything that you take as proof he is who he claims?”

I thought about our conversation on the roof, what Philip said about that kiss on our wedding night. “Yes,” I said. “There are things no one else could know unless Philip was extremely indiscreet and discussed them with you. And if he had done so, I am confident you would not have shared them with anyone else.”

“What did he say?” Colin stopped buttoning his shirt and looked at me quizzically.

“Nothing. It was nothing, just an insignificant detail from our wedding day.”

“Something from the ceremony, or later?”

I knew precisely what he was getting at, and had no intention of discussing the matter further. “As I said, it was nothing of any consequence except that no one else could have known of it.”

Colin drew a long breath and held it before loudly blowing it out. “I would prefer to remain ignorant on the subject.” He returned to the bedroom, shutting the door to the bath behind him. Ordinarily, he would have left it open, so that we might converse with greater ease, and so he would know the instant I rose from the tub. He always liked to be on hand with a towel, a habit that often inspired him in certain amorous directions and led to our coming down shockingly late to dinner. I felt a strange pressure deep in my chest, and tears welled in my eyes.

When I emerged from the bathroom, he had already gone downstairs, without so much as a word. I slipped into what I knew to be his favorite of my tea gowns, fashioned from filmy cream-colored silk and trimmed with delicate lace at the cuffs, hem, and high neckline. Around my waist I looped a wide sash of the same silk, its edges detailed with a Greek key pattern embroidered in blue and gold. I pinned my hair in a loose bun on top of my head, not bothering to tame the escaping tendrils, as I felt they gave me a bit of a Gibson Girl style.

I took stock of myself in the mirror. An elegant gown and a fashionable pompadour could not hide the strain on my face.

I was not looking forward to the evening.

*   *   *

Dinner proved a more raucous affair than I had anticipated. The gentlemen consumed a great quantity of ouzo, given to them by Aristo Papadokos, the village woodworker who had become a close friend of ours—an excuse, I suspected, to see Mrs. Katevatis, upon whom I was convinced he had romantic designs. We dined on the roof terrace, and by the time the last bit of baklava had disappeared, the sun had long since set, its light replaced by a silvery slip of moon. Colin, Philip, and Margaret were around the table arguing about something to do with Latin while Jeremy and I sat with Fritz on chairs pulled close to the railing, looking out over the dark expanse of caldera. Jeremy passed cigars to all of us, and Fritz balked when I accepted one.

“You do not approve?” I asked.

“Quite the contrary—I rejoice,” he said. “I am surprised only because Ashton described you in ways so different from what I see having met you.”

“How so?”

“I had the impression you were like a fragile flower. I could not have been more wrong.”

“A fragile flower?” I crinkled my nose. Had I appeared as such all those years ago, when I married Philip? Granted, my education and my passions had not yet fully developed, but I did not believe myself to ever have behaved like a delicate debutante.

“Ashton probably wouldn't have liked her one bit if he had known her better,” Jeremy said. “She is difficult. Impetuous, although I will admit if pressed on this that at least she may be improving with age.”

I glared at him. “I changed a great deal after my husband's death, if I may still call it that. It would be useless to speculate how things might have turned out had circumstances been different.”

“I am of the opinion that you turned out most heartily well,” Fritz said.

“Thank you,” I said. “Were you there the day he found the Achilles bronze?”

“No, I was working at Magnesia on the Maeander that season.”

“What do you make of the story?” Jeremy asked.

“It is not easy to find sense in it, but I do believe his basic narrative. What we cannot be certain of is the bronze itself. No one had a chance to study it, so we can estimate neither its age nor its origin. Ashton, of course, wants it to have come from Achilles' helmet, but it just as easily could have been brought to the site by someone else much later.”

“Alexander the Great visited Troy,” I said.

“Yes, it was practically a place of pilgrimage to the ancients,” Fritz said. “I exaggerate some, but no Greek man would have traveled through that part of Turkey without going there. The stories surrounding it were highly significant to their culture.”

“What was his condition when you found him in Africa?” I asked. “Was he very ill?”

“Not when I first saw him. He was lean to the point of gaunt, but healthy. Sunburned. From his stories it was clear life with the Masai suited him in a way.”

“Why did he leave them?” I asked.

“To come back to you.”

I bit back the words I was about to speak. Jeremy, seeing the change in my expression, patted my arm. “There, there, darling. I am certain he would have come sooner had the hunting been not quite so good.”

“Thank you, Jeremy,” I said. “You are a source of true comfort.”

“I am confident he had no real idea how much time had passed,” Fritz said. “When we told him, he appeared genuinely horrified.”

“I believe you,” I said, flicking ash off my cigar before extinguishing it. I looked over at Colin, but he was too caught up in conversation to notice. If Philip had not tarried so long in Africa, Colin and I might never have married, a thought too awful to contemplate. For the first time since I had started traveling to Santorini, the villa began to feel more like a cage than a peaceful retreat. “Would you excuse me?” Smiling took an effort, but I did not want Jeremy or Fritz to follow me. Consolation offered no appeal, especially when my husband did not so much as look up when I started down the stairs.

I went first to the drawing room, where candlelight illuminated the Impressionist paintings on the wall. How I loved them—the way they captured light, and the way their colors so well suited the island. I paused before the portrait Renoir had painted of me, long before I had met him, using a photograph Philip had given him. I could hardly bear to look at it now, knowing the original image had been taken on the day of my first wedding. I removed it from the wall and called for Mrs. Katevatis.

“Could you please stash this somewhere?” I asked. “I don't want to display it anymore.”

“But of course, Lady Emily, although I must say—”

A loud bang interrupted her. We looked at each other and rushed toward the back of the house, the direction from which the sound had come. Adelphos was already in the courtyard, making his way to the barn, from whence I could hear the distress of the horses. I ran after him, terrified they had come to harm, but was relieved to find them only startled.

“It was a gunshot, Lady Kallista,” Adelphos said. I started to run again, this time to the room in which the injured man reposed. He was still unconscious, and so far as I could tell nothing had changed in his condition. By the time I returned to the courtyard, Colin and the others had arrived. My husband held me by the shoulders and looked me over.

“You are not hurt?” His dark eyes burned with intensity.

“No, I am unharmed. What happened?”

Mr. Papadokos, entering through the gate near the barn, laughed as he saw our frenzied state. “No need for alarm,” he said. “The shot was fired in the air to celebrate an engagement in the village. You English are too skittish. It is—” he paused, then shrugged “—it is embarrassing.”