Under Greek Skies. Ioulia D. Dragoume
the Kyria is out.”
“Then pull that little table close to my bed. Ah! How it hurts my head! Scarcely can I open my eyes.”
“Close them,” said Mattina; “I will tell you when it boils.”
Deftly she pulled forward the little table, straightened the tumbled sheets, and closed the open shutters so that the hot afternoon sun should not pour on the bed. Then she stood by the spirit lamp, and watched the frothing mixture.
“It boils,” she announced at last.
The young woman opened her eyes.
“Ah, the glare is gone!” she said, “how well that is for my poor eyes. But you are a good fairy, my little one! Now bring the cup from that shelf. … No; bring two! There is plenty of chocolate, and I am quite sure you like it also.”
“I do not know,” said Mattina. “It smells good but I have never tasted it.”
“Never tasted chocolate! Oh, the poor little one! Quick! Bring a cup here, and bring also that box of biscuits from the lower shelf! I am sure you are hungry. Is it not so?”
“Yes,” assented Mattina, “I am always hungry. My mistress,” she added gravely, “says that I eat like a locust falling on young leaves.”
“Like a locust! But what a horror! It is a sign of good health to be hungry. Come then, my child, drink, and tell me if it be not excellent, my Paris chocolate?”
So Mattina tasted her first cup of French chocolate, and found it surpassingly good.
And the next day, and for three days after that, in the afternoons, when she might have sat down to rest on the doorstep, Mattina would lift the latch of the room in the courtyard, while “Madmazella” was out giving lessons, and sweep, and dust, and tidy, and put fresh water into the pretty vase with the flowers, and clean the trim little house shoes, and fill the spirit lamp.
But on the fifth day, a carriage came to the door of the next house, and the coachman went into the ground floor room and brought out a trunk, which he lifted to the box, and “Madmazella” came out also in a dark blue dress, with a gray veil tied over her hat, and a little bag in her hand, ready to go away to her own country.
Mattina stood outside on the pavement looking on, and there was a lump in her throat.
“Madmazella” got into the open one-horse carriage and beckoned to her.
“Come here, my little one! You have been of a goodness—but of a goodness to me that I do not know how to thank you; I shall bring you a whole big box of chocolates from Paris when I return; and now take this very little present, and buy something as a souvenir of me! Is it not so?”
She smiled and waved her hand as the carriage drove off, and only when it was quite out of sight did Mattina look at what had been pressed into her hand. It was a crumpled five drachmæ note and Mattina looked at it with awe. She wondered whether it would be enough to buy the picture with the boat, in case the New Year present should be something else. In the meanwhile where should she keep it?
Suddenly she thought of the pocket Kyra Sophoula had stitched into her brown dress. She ran up to the little dark room, half way up the stairs, reached down her bundle from the nail on which it hung, pulled out a much crumpled brown dress, shook it out, found the pocket, and placed the five drachmæ note in it, pinning up the opening carefully for fear the note might fall out.
V
It had been agreed that Mattina should be allowed to go to see her uncle and aunt every other Sunday, in the afternoon. But it had happened lately that Sunday after Sunday her mistress had said, “I have to go out myself, a friend expects me,” or, “My head aches; I cannot be troubled with the children; you can go out another day.” But the “other day” never came. An older serving maid, or one who knew town ways better, would have asked for the outing on a week day; but Mattina did not know. She cried a little over her lost holiday and stayed in week after week, in the narrow street and the close rooms that always smelt of stale smoke.
It was a blazing hot Sunday morning in September, and the fifth since Mattina had last been out, when as she was sitting in the small kitchen listlessly peeling and slicing a pile of purple aubergines21 which seemed as though it would never lessen, someone shuffled along the street outside and stopped at the little window which was level with the pavement.
It was Kyra Polyxene, the old washerwoman who lived on the top floor of the next house, and who went out washing to nearly all the houses of the neighborhood. Mattina knew her quite well. She had been engaged two or three times to help for a day when the big monthly wash had been an extra heavy one. The brown old face and the gray hair made Mattina think a little of Kyra Sophoula when she looked at her, except that Kyra Polyxene was taller and stouter and wore no kerchief on her head.
She put her face close to the window bars and peered in.
“Good day, Mattina, what are you doing in there?”
Mattina let drop the slice she was holding, into the basin of cold water beside her, and came close to the window.
“Good day to you, Kyra Polyxene; I am cutting up aubergines to make a ‘moussaka.’ ”22
“How is it you have so many aubergines?”
“We have people to-day for dinner. The Kyria’s sisters are coming, and Taki’s godfather also.”
“And your mistress does not help you?”
“She is upstairs dressing the children to take them to hear music in the square. When I first came here she showed me, but now I can make ‘moussaka’ all alone and it tastes as good as hers.” There was a certain pride in Mattina’s voice.
“Shall you go with them to the music?”
“I? No! There is this to finish, and the dining room to sweep, and the table to lay, and if the dinner be not ready at twelve, the master is angered.”
“And after they have eaten?”
“There will be all the plates to wash.”
“And then?”
“Do I know? There is always something.”
“Listen to me, my girl! Yesterday I washed at a house up at the Kolonaki, and they sent me for a loaf to your uncle’s oven, and he was saying that they had not seen you for many days; and he told me to tell you that you must go there this afternoon and that if your mistress makes difficulties, you are to tell her that if she keeps you always closed up, he, your uncle will come and take you away, and find another house for you.”
Mattina opened her eyes widely.
“Did he say so to you, Kyra Polyxene?”
“Just as I tell you, my daughter.”
Mattina wiped her hands on her apron and ran upstairs to her mistress’s bedroom. She found her struggling with Taki’s stiffly starched sailor collar, while Bebeko sitting on the unmade bed, with unbuttoned boots, was howling for his hat which had been placed out of his reach.
“How many more hours are you going to be, cleaning those aubergines, lazy one? How do you want me to dress two children and myself? Have I four hands do you think? Fasten the child’s boots and make him stop that crying.”
Mattina lifted the heavy screaming boy off the bed, and sat down on the floor with him.
“Why does Bebeko want his hat?” she whispered. “Now in a minute after I have fastened his little boots for him, I shall tie it on his head and he will go with Mamma and Babba and Taki, and hear the pretty music; and when he comes back. …” The child stopped crying and looked at her, “and when he comes back, if he be a good child, I shall have such