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In the twenty-fifth year of my marriage, and fourteen years after the last ember of affection for my husband had been utterly snuffed out, I took it into mind that I should like to visit Greece.
This was an audacious idea considering I had never left England, save for the few weeks of my honeymoon in France. My husband George was in the House of Lords, a respectable politician who, while never violent or cruel-spoken with me, seemed utterly uninterested in anything to do with his home life. To him, a wife was a necessary accoutrement to his position, such as a carriage or a house in town. In the dawn of our marriage he made the few expected attempts to sire an heir, but after three unproductive years, he seemed to give up entirely. I pleaded with him to consider his legacy; who would be the next Viscount Rochdale? He merely informed me (by letter, a dictated one at that) he would arrange for his nephew to inherit and not to worry further about the matter.
So I was left alone, both in the country and in town, for weeks or months at a time. After aging out of the glittering world of balls and parties, I decided to focus on improving my mind, attending various lectures on history and geography in London, where the first sparks of interest began to catch in my imagination.
It was at one such lecture, given by the celebrated archaeologist Dr. Arthur Oakes, that I made the acquaintance of a handsome woman of about my own age, who had listened to the speech with a notebook in hand, abbreviating various sentences in a mysterious shorthand while making scoffs and grumbling noises beneath her breath. The subject of the speech was a lost temple of Hera, located somewhere in an isolated island near Samos, Greece. By the end of the lecture it was quite clear to me that the woman disagreed with nearly every point Dr. Oakes said. She even went so far as to look at me through gold-rimmed spectacles at the end and say "Can you believe that nonsense? Lost to time indeed. Why just last year, a fishing boat got within sight of the island—they even charted it on a map!—before a sudden storm capsized the poor vessel and killed almost all the men on board."
"Really?" I asked with unveiled interest. My eyes shifted over to Dr. Oakes, who was standing with a lovely young lady at his side and speaking to another academic looking fellow. His wife, or so I assumed her to be, was looking at him with utmost awe, and every now and then the scholar would beam down at her, his eyes full of love and light.
The woman beside me followed my gaze and snorted. "Old philanderer. Can you imagine what the man might discover if he stopped chasing young girls for five minutes?" She let out a bitter laugh.
I stared back at her, aghast. "You mean, she isn't his wife?" I asked.
"No, madam. The unfortunate creature shackled to that idiot for life would be me. Elinor Oakes, at your service." Despite her rough speech, she did do me the courtesy of curtsying as I introduced myself as the Viscountess Rochdale, though afterward she invited me to take tea in a nearby hotel just as she might have with any contemporary. "If you're interested in the lost temple, I've gathered quite a few of my own reports I'd be happy to share with you."
Over the following weeks, Elinor had shown me a wealth of research regarding the lost temple. Like myself, she had traveled a bit in the early years of her marriage, before Dr. Oakes had lost interest and sought company of a younger sort. At first, it hadn't troubled Elinor too badly. She'd given birth to three daughters, all grown and out of the house now. Without the burden of childrearing, she had turned her attention to her husband's work, at first trying to aid him, though when he brushed off her ideas as "women's fantasies" she had quickly decided to act as his rival, going so far at times as to steal papers, or interview sources and buy their silence before Dr. Oakes ever had a chance. Only in field work did he outmatch her, as she could hardly run off to Greece on her own without his endorsements from Oxford and Cambridge.
"But he could never reach the island anyway," Elinor remarked over another cup of tea some weeks later. "All the ancient writings say 'no man may step upon Hera's sacred island, nor may he sail the waters that surround it'."
We let the idea hang between us for a moment. "No man may," I repeated.
Elinor nodded. "But a woman…"
"A woman indeed."
And now here we were, ready to try it. George wasn't stingy, and was happy to provide me with whatever money I liked so long as I didn't demand his presence along with it. He was even fond of the idea that I should take a holiday with a suitable female companion. At first he had recommended my sister Marianne—poor Marianne, whose black-hearted husband made mine look like a saint—but upon hearing of Dr. Oakes' professional reputation he thought the idea of Mrs. Oakes accompanying me a splendid one, being unaware of the state of their marriage. "Just be sure to hire a reliable guide," he insisted. "I'll ask for some recommendations." He then forgot the matter completely.
Luckily, I already had a guide in mind. As a child, I had been close friends with Lydia Falkirk, youngest daughter of the Duke of Panshaw. She had made an ill-advised match with a handsome gentleman who considered himself an "explorer," and spent away Lydia's youth gallivanting around the world, and spending her inheritance on nearly every kind of drink and game of chance in existence. Twenty years later, Lydia Braedon insisted she was still in love with her husband, but could not stand to be around him for longer than perhaps forty minutes at a time. She now lived with her brother, teaching his children several of the languages she had picked up in her travels (Greek among them, it should be noted) as well as besting all the visiting gentlemen at games of shooting.
When we shared the opportunity with Lydia, she was overjoyed at the prospect and quickly agreed to join us. Not only that, but she could even recommend a woman who might be able to help us sail to the island from Samos. Frances Cromer, or "Fanny" as we affectionately called her, was married to a sailor of questionable repute, and on more than one occasion had been forced to pilot her husband's small skiff through treacherous waters. She too had adult children, boys, all in the military now in the hopes of redeeming their family name, and Fanny had been wasting away in a cottage on the coast. When we called on her she seemed a bit less excited than Lydia had allowed us to expect, however with her husband finally in jail and debtors pressing in, she ultimately agreed with the promise of compensation for her time.
The plan was that the four of us would travel first to Italy by train, then take a ship across the Mediterranean to Athens, where a ferry could bring us the rest of the way to Samos. Lydia was sure with enough money we could purchase our own skiff on the island, and Fanny would pilot us to Hera's Island, as we began to call it. We even went so far as to begin making half-joking, half-serious prayers to the goddess, asking her to bless our journey. In return we would make some grand sacrifice if we could reach her temple unharmed.
The night before I was set to depart for London, I was surprised at a late-night visit from my sister, Marianne. She arrived clutching a small bag, wearing a torn dress, and bearing a black eye. There was no doubt in my mind who had given it to her, and were the journey not so close at hand I might have taken one of Lydia's pistols and attended to the matter myself.
But Marianne wanted to dismiss it entirely. "I think after all I would like to join you, if you'll have me," was all she said, not meeting my gaze. Naturally, I assented.
The other ladies met us in London (I did not mention the circumstances of Marianne's joining us, but they were glad to have her all the same) and we crossed the Channel with all the merriment of schoolgirls on holiday. We boarded the train to Rome in Paris, a group of middle aged women claiming an interest in painting and sketching old ruins (not inaccurate; Marianne had been an accomplished artist before her wretch of a husband had burned all her canvases and sketchbooks). Men blissfully ignored us, though we took tea with more than a few curious ladies who encouraged us further on our journey.
We reached Athens with little trouble, and when we boarded the ferry to Samos, Elinor insisted she could see Hera's Island off in the distance, a small speck of promise on the horizon. At that time a dreadful storm kicked up, forcing us all below, and we suspected it was because we were the only women on board the crowded boat.
Purchasing a boat on Samos proved to be more difficult than we thought. Not because of a lack of funds, but because the fisherman on Samos refused to even rent us a boat without male accompaniment. Especially not after Marianne foolishly let it slip that we were intending to visit the small island north of Agios, which everyone believed to be cursed.
Ultimately, Lydia was the one who made the deal for us. We had met one old gentleman with a small boat who had heard our story with curiosity, if not more than a little incredulity. Lydia took the liberty of getting him stinking drunk and insisting he teach her the local dice game, betting a good deal of our money in the process. But she'd learned from her husband the exact art of throwing dice to produce a desired outcome, and when our host jokingly bet his boat against us, he was dismayed to find it now in our hands.
Of course, we insisted after our journey we would return it unharmed, with interest even should the journey prove fruitful. And if he denied our victory, then Lydia would be force to inform the island that Yanni Cosmelis was a stinking liar and cheat at dice.
Mr. Cosmelis chose to oblige us.
It was sunny the morning we set sail, and with no other boats daring to follow us, we found the crossing smooth and even pleasant. We reached a safe harbor on the western side of the island around midday, and had a delightful lunch on the warm golden sands. Before we attempted to ascend the hill rising out of the middle of the island, Elinor dumped a full bottle of wine onto the sand in thanks to Hera's safe deliverance.
Then we set about scrambling over the rocks towards a collection of broken sun-bleached columns, singing self-composed hymns to the Goddess (Elinor was sure Hera could understand English, being a goddess and all). At the top of the hill were more rocks and and ruins, some clearly man-made, while others may just as likely have been worn away by winds and high-rising sea-spray.
We spread out amongst ourselves to explore, and Elinor and I got in a friendly disagreement over what a certain brown-stained block before a headless statue might have been: an altar, stained with millenia-old wine? A byre, where dead bodies were lain out to receive the goddess' blessing? Or something else?
While we continued this line of discussion, I noticed Marianne approaching with her carpetbag in hand. When we left, all it had contained were two sets of clothes and a few grooming tools. And apparently something else.
My sister laid a red-stained knife on the marble and dropped to her knees. Her eyes were fixed on the statue, and began to stream with tears as she struggled to speak. When she did so, the words were directed at me, scarcely more than a whisper. "I killed him, Jane. I could bear it no longer."
Hera had her sacrifice after all. And she would reward us.
I don't know if any of the others heard my sister's confession, or merely thought her overcome by emotion at achieving our goal. Regardless, Marianne's silent sobs were soon drowned out by a shout from Lydia.
"Jane! Elinor! Marianne! Come look! By the Goddess, it's a fortune!"
There had been another stone block behind the statue, one assumed to be one solid piece. Lydia, unaware of my sister's revelation, had been running her fingers along a groove that ran around the top, and found that, while it was heavy, the block was actually a box with a movable lid. With Fanny's help, she'd managed to open it, and inside were hundreds, if not thousands, of sparkling jewels, a rainbow in the afternoon sun.
"Hera truly has blessed us…" Elinor gasped, eyes wide as she fingered an emerald the size of a pear. Lydia was already mentally appraising the value of the treasure, while Fanny was trying to determine how much we could feasibly bring back to the ship and possibly sell in Athens or Rome.
"Not all of it. We can't take it all," Marianne insisted after she'd collected herself and silently appeared behind me. She looked at each one of us. "There may be other women, like us. We need to leave some for them, if they can make the journey as we did."
Thought it seemed to pain some of us more than others (Lydia, primarily), eventually we came to agreement on that point. In the end we took a little less than half the treasure, dumping out the rest of the wine in thanks to Hera and spending the rest of the evening in improvised prayer to her. Under a full moon we returned Mr. Cosmelis' boat to him, and slipped him an apple-sized ruby in exchange for his never telling anyone about us.
Only Fanny would ever return to England, and only to visit her sons. The rest of us spent our remaining years traveling the Mediterranean on Hera's bounty. Some went further, to India, and America, but Marianne and I remained in Greece, where we spent many happy years running a small inn for traveling ladies. To this day, we keep good correspondence with our friends, and occasionally sail out to Hera's Island, not to take more of her treasure, but to give.
Marianne's knife is there still, resting on the stained marble block.
This was an audacious idea considering I had never left England, save for the few weeks of my honeymoon in France. My husband George was in the House of Lords, a respectable politician who, while never violent or cruel-spoken with me, seemed utterly uninterested in anything to do with his home life. To him, a wife was a necessary accoutrement to his position, such as a carriage or a house in town. In the dawn of our marriage he made the few expected attempts to sire an heir, but after three unproductive years, he seemed to give up entirely. I pleaded with him to consider his legacy; who would be the next Viscount Rochdale? He merely informed me (by letter, a dictated one at that) he would arrange for his nephew to inherit and not to worry further about the matter.
So I was left alone, both in the country and in town, for weeks or months at a time. After aging out of the glittering world of balls and parties, I decided to focus on improving my mind, attending various lectures on history and geography in London, where the first sparks of interest began to catch in my imagination.
It was at one such lecture, given by the celebrated archaeologist Dr. Arthur Oakes, that I made the acquaintance of a handsome woman of about my own age, who had listened to the speech with a notebook in hand, abbreviating various sentences in a mysterious shorthand while making scoffs and grumbling noises beneath her breath. The subject of the speech was a lost temple of Hera, located somewhere in an isolated island near Samos, Greece. By the end of the lecture it was quite clear to me that the woman disagreed with nearly every point Dr. Oakes said. She even went so far as to look at me through gold-rimmed spectacles at the end and say "Can you believe that nonsense? Lost to time indeed. Why just last year, a fishing boat got within sight of the island—they even charted it on a map!—before a sudden storm capsized the poor vessel and killed almost all the men on board."
"Really?" I asked with unveiled interest. My eyes shifted over to Dr. Oakes, who was standing with a lovely young lady at his side and speaking to another academic looking fellow. His wife, or so I assumed her to be, was looking at him with utmost awe, and every now and then the scholar would beam down at her, his eyes full of love and light.
The woman beside me followed my gaze and snorted. "Old philanderer. Can you imagine what the man might discover if he stopped chasing young girls for five minutes?" She let out a bitter laugh.
I stared back at her, aghast. "You mean, she isn't his wife?" I asked.
"No, madam. The unfortunate creature shackled to that idiot for life would be me. Elinor Oakes, at your service." Despite her rough speech, she did do me the courtesy of curtsying as I introduced myself as the Viscountess Rochdale, though afterward she invited me to take tea in a nearby hotel just as she might have with any contemporary. "If you're interested in the lost temple, I've gathered quite a few of my own reports I'd be happy to share with you."
Over the following weeks, Elinor had shown me a wealth of research regarding the lost temple. Like myself, she had traveled a bit in the early years of her marriage, before Dr. Oakes had lost interest and sought company of a younger sort. At first, it hadn't troubled Elinor too badly. She'd given birth to three daughters, all grown and out of the house now. Without the burden of childrearing, she had turned her attention to her husband's work, at first trying to aid him, though when he brushed off her ideas as "women's fantasies" she had quickly decided to act as his rival, going so far at times as to steal papers, or interview sources and buy their silence before Dr. Oakes ever had a chance. Only in field work did he outmatch her, as she could hardly run off to Greece on her own without his endorsements from Oxford and Cambridge.
"But he could never reach the island anyway," Elinor remarked over another cup of tea some weeks later. "All the ancient writings say 'no man may step upon Hera's sacred island, nor may he sail the waters that surround it'."
We let the idea hang between us for a moment. "No man may," I repeated.
Elinor nodded. "But a woman…"
"A woman indeed."
And now here we were, ready to try it. George wasn't stingy, and was happy to provide me with whatever money I liked so long as I didn't demand his presence along with it. He was even fond of the idea that I should take a holiday with a suitable female companion. At first he had recommended my sister Marianne—poor Marianne, whose black-hearted husband made mine look like a saint—but upon hearing of Dr. Oakes' professional reputation he thought the idea of Mrs. Oakes accompanying me a splendid one, being unaware of the state of their marriage. "Just be sure to hire a reliable guide," he insisted. "I'll ask for some recommendations." He then forgot the matter completely.
Luckily, I already had a guide in mind. As a child, I had been close friends with Lydia Falkirk, youngest daughter of the Duke of Panshaw. She had made an ill-advised match with a handsome gentleman who considered himself an "explorer," and spent away Lydia's youth gallivanting around the world, and spending her inheritance on nearly every kind of drink and game of chance in existence. Twenty years later, Lydia Braedon insisted she was still in love with her husband, but could not stand to be around him for longer than perhaps forty minutes at a time. She now lived with her brother, teaching his children several of the languages she had picked up in her travels (Greek among them, it should be noted) as well as besting all the visiting gentlemen at games of shooting.
When we shared the opportunity with Lydia, she was overjoyed at the prospect and quickly agreed to join us. Not only that, but she could even recommend a woman who might be able to help us sail to the island from Samos. Frances Cromer, or "Fanny" as we affectionately called her, was married to a sailor of questionable repute, and on more than one occasion had been forced to pilot her husband's small skiff through treacherous waters. She too had adult children, boys, all in the military now in the hopes of redeeming their family name, and Fanny had been wasting away in a cottage on the coast. When we called on her she seemed a bit less excited than Lydia had allowed us to expect, however with her husband finally in jail and debtors pressing in, she ultimately agreed with the promise of compensation for her time.
The plan was that the four of us would travel first to Italy by train, then take a ship across the Mediterranean to Athens, where a ferry could bring us the rest of the way to Samos. Lydia was sure with enough money we could purchase our own skiff on the island, and Fanny would pilot us to Hera's Island, as we began to call it. We even went so far as to begin making half-joking, half-serious prayers to the goddess, asking her to bless our journey. In return we would make some grand sacrifice if we could reach her temple unharmed.
The night before I was set to depart for London, I was surprised at a late-night visit from my sister, Marianne. She arrived clutching a small bag, wearing a torn dress, and bearing a black eye. There was no doubt in my mind who had given it to her, and were the journey not so close at hand I might have taken one of Lydia's pistols and attended to the matter myself.
But Marianne wanted to dismiss it entirely. "I think after all I would like to join you, if you'll have me," was all she said, not meeting my gaze. Naturally, I assented.
The other ladies met us in London (I did not mention the circumstances of Marianne's joining us, but they were glad to have her all the same) and we crossed the Channel with all the merriment of schoolgirls on holiday. We boarded the train to Rome in Paris, a group of middle aged women claiming an interest in painting and sketching old ruins (not inaccurate; Marianne had been an accomplished artist before her wretch of a husband had burned all her canvases and sketchbooks). Men blissfully ignored us, though we took tea with more than a few curious ladies who encouraged us further on our journey.
We reached Athens with little trouble, and when we boarded the ferry to Samos, Elinor insisted she could see Hera's Island off in the distance, a small speck of promise on the horizon. At that time a dreadful storm kicked up, forcing us all below, and we suspected it was because we were the only women on board the crowded boat.
Purchasing a boat on Samos proved to be more difficult than we thought. Not because of a lack of funds, but because the fisherman on Samos refused to even rent us a boat without male accompaniment. Especially not after Marianne foolishly let it slip that we were intending to visit the small island north of Agios, which everyone believed to be cursed.
Ultimately, Lydia was the one who made the deal for us. We had met one old gentleman with a small boat who had heard our story with curiosity, if not more than a little incredulity. Lydia took the liberty of getting him stinking drunk and insisting he teach her the local dice game, betting a good deal of our money in the process. But she'd learned from her husband the exact art of throwing dice to produce a desired outcome, and when our host jokingly bet his boat against us, he was dismayed to find it now in our hands.
Of course, we insisted after our journey we would return it unharmed, with interest even should the journey prove fruitful. And if he denied our victory, then Lydia would be force to inform the island that Yanni Cosmelis was a stinking liar and cheat at dice.
Mr. Cosmelis chose to oblige us.
It was sunny the morning we set sail, and with no other boats daring to follow us, we found the crossing smooth and even pleasant. We reached a safe harbor on the western side of the island around midday, and had a delightful lunch on the warm golden sands. Before we attempted to ascend the hill rising out of the middle of the island, Elinor dumped a full bottle of wine onto the sand in thanks to Hera's safe deliverance.
Then we set about scrambling over the rocks towards a collection of broken sun-bleached columns, singing self-composed hymns to the Goddess (Elinor was sure Hera could understand English, being a goddess and all). At the top of the hill were more rocks and and ruins, some clearly man-made, while others may just as likely have been worn away by winds and high-rising sea-spray.
We spread out amongst ourselves to explore, and Elinor and I got in a friendly disagreement over what a certain brown-stained block before a headless statue might have been: an altar, stained with millenia-old wine? A byre, where dead bodies were lain out to receive the goddess' blessing? Or something else?
While we continued this line of discussion, I noticed Marianne approaching with her carpetbag in hand. When we left, all it had contained were two sets of clothes and a few grooming tools. And apparently something else.
My sister laid a red-stained knife on the marble and dropped to her knees. Her eyes were fixed on the statue, and began to stream with tears as she struggled to speak. When she did so, the words were directed at me, scarcely more than a whisper. "I killed him, Jane. I could bear it no longer."
Hera had her sacrifice after all. And she would reward us.
I don't know if any of the others heard my sister's confession, or merely thought her overcome by emotion at achieving our goal. Regardless, Marianne's silent sobs were soon drowned out by a shout from Lydia.
"Jane! Elinor! Marianne! Come look! By the Goddess, it's a fortune!"
There had been another stone block behind the statue, one assumed to be one solid piece. Lydia, unaware of my sister's revelation, had been running her fingers along a groove that ran around the top, and found that, while it was heavy, the block was actually a box with a movable lid. With Fanny's help, she'd managed to open it, and inside were hundreds, if not thousands, of sparkling jewels, a rainbow in the afternoon sun.
"Hera truly has blessed us…" Elinor gasped, eyes wide as she fingered an emerald the size of a pear. Lydia was already mentally appraising the value of the treasure, while Fanny was trying to determine how much we could feasibly bring back to the ship and possibly sell in Athens or Rome.
"Not all of it. We can't take it all," Marianne insisted after she'd collected herself and silently appeared behind me. She looked at each one of us. "There may be other women, like us. We need to leave some for them, if they can make the journey as we did."
Thought it seemed to pain some of us more than others (Lydia, primarily), eventually we came to agreement on that point. In the end we took a little less than half the treasure, dumping out the rest of the wine in thanks to Hera and spending the rest of the evening in improvised prayer to her. Under a full moon we returned Mr. Cosmelis' boat to him, and slipped him an apple-sized ruby in exchange for his never telling anyone about us.
Only Fanny would ever return to England, and only to visit her sons. The rest of us spent our remaining years traveling the Mediterranean on Hera's bounty. Some went further, to India, and America, but Marianne and I remained in Greece, where we spent many happy years running a small inn for traveling ladies. To this day, we keep good correspondence with our friends, and occasionally sail out to Hera's Island, not to take more of her treasure, but to give.
Marianne's knife is there still, resting on the stained marble block.