Legend Of Lexandros

Mrs. Jennings looked annoyed. ‘All these new-fangled ideas! When I was a young girl, I would have been delighted to have a roof over my head, let alone anything else. A big house like this, going to waste!’

‘I know, I know, but naturally I want to buy the things we will use; our furniture, our curtains, our own home!’

‘You’re an ungrateful girl,’ exclaimed Mrs. Jennings. ‘I expect it’s that flighty young sister of yours putting ideas into your head!’

‘Let’s leave Jane out of this,’ began Dallas hotly.

‘Why? She has to do with it, hasn’t she? Running around with that Stavros boy! Well, she needn’t think she’ll get away with that kind of behaviour once she’s living here!’

It was one thing for Dallas to find fault with Jane, but quite another for a comparative stranger like Mrs. Jennings, and Dallas felt her blood boiling at her prudish remarks.

‘I doubt whether Jane will want to live here,’ she said, controlling her temper with difficulty. ‘In any case, the wedding is still four months away. There’s plenty of time for more discussions nearer the date.’

Mrs. Jennings grunted, but was forced to change the subject when Dallas refused to say any more. But Dallas herself felt a rising sense of frustration. Were she and Charles always going to have to adhere to rules made by his mother? And did Charles want things differently, anyway?

In the week that followed Dallas was tempted many times to question Jane as to the reason for her not meeting Paris, but she knew she could not do this. She had to wait until Jane was ready to tell her herself. The only time Jane did go out was to the cinema with a girl-friend, and she was home soon after ten as expected.

Dallas was relieved, and yet she could not believe it could be as easy as all that. Jane had been too adamant before to give Paris up without a fight, and Paris himself, from what she had heard, did not sound like the kind of boy to be intimidated by threats.

She was concerned, too, about Jane, in another way. Her sister did not look well, and her appetite was practically non-existent. At first Dallas had put it down to the enforced separation from Paris, but after a while she began to wonder whether that was all it was. Jane looked so tired in the mornings, and seemed to have lost the vitality she had possessed in such abundance.

Dallas was worried, and could not hide her feelings entirely from Charles, but when he managed to gain her confidence sufficiently to be told the reasons for her concern, he scoffed at her.

‘Heavens, Dallas, what do you want? A couple of weeks ago you were worried because she was going out with Paris Stavros. Now you’re worried because she’s not! You don’t make sense!’

‘I know, I know. It’s just … oh, Charles, I have a premonition. Things aren’t as simple as you’d have me believe.’

‘Rubbish! The child has been brought to her senses, that’s all. Your talks to her must have borne fruit. I must confess I was surprised at first, but now I can accept it, why can’t you?’

Dallas flushed. She had told no one of her visit to Alexander Stavros, not even Charles, for she feared his anger about her intervention.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, now. ‘Maybe it just seems too good to be true!’

The following weekend Dallas was awakened early on Sunday morning by a loud knocking on the door of the flat. Drowsy with sleep, she slid out of bed and as she did so she saw that Jane’s bed was empty. She frowned. That was strange. Jane never rose first on a Sunday morning.

Pulling on a turquoise quilted housecoat, she brushed back the tumbled cloud of her hair and walked through the lounge to the front door, trying as she did so to register the events of the previous evening.

She had gone to Maidenhead with Charles as usual, and when she came home Jane was in bed again, as she had been the previous week. She had thought nothing of it and respecting Jane’s silence assumed she was asleep. So where was she now? Had she got up early and gone out and forgotten her key?

She pulled open the door and blinked at the man who stood on the threshold. He was tall and dark, like Alexander Stavros, she thought unwillingly, but there the resemblance ended. This man had a black moustache and beard, and was typically Greek in appearance. He was dressed in a thick fur-lined coat, and looked broad and muscular.

Dallas shivered involuntarily. ‘Yes? What do you want?’

‘You are Miss Dallas Collins?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Will you get dressed and come with me, please. Mr. Stavros wishes to see you. Mr. Alexander Stavros!’

Dallas swallowed hard. ‘I … I don’t understand. Why should Mr. Stavros want to see me?’

‘That is for him to tell you,’ replied the man solemnly. ‘I will wait.’

‘Now look here,’ began Dallas hotly. ‘I want to know what all this is about. You can’t expect me to walk out of here with you without any kind of explanation whatsoever.’

The man half smiled. ‘Mr. Stavros thought you might say that. Very well. I am Myron Saravanos, secretary to Mr. Stavros. He wishes to speak to you concerning your sister and his son Paris. They ran away together last night.’

‘What!’ Dallas was horrified.

‘You have not missed your sister?’

‘No. At least … not until just now. I saw she wasn’t in bed.’ Dallas felt near to tears suddenly. ‘Oh, please come in. I must get dressed. Does Mr. Stavros know where they’ve gone?’

‘He will explain,’ said Myron Saravanos calmly. ‘Do not be alarmed. They will be found and brought home. It is unfortunate, but not irrevocable.’

‘You’re so … so … detached!’ Dallas closed the door as he entered the room, and then hurried into the bedroom to dress.

She did not stop to think what she was putting on, and found herself wearing the green tweed dress which she had worn the previous evening and her sheepskin jacket.

‘I’m ready,’ she said, after she had hastily run a comb through her long hair. ‘Shall we go?’

A low red limousine awaited them outside, chauffeur-driven and luxurious, but Dallas had no thought to give to her surroundings. Her mind was in a turmoil, her tired brain alive with the knowledge that she had been right all along. It had been out of character for Jane to submit so easily. But what now?

Alexander Stavros was waiting in the suite of the hotel. Dressed in close-fitting dark blue pants and a navy blue knitted shirt, he looked restless and arrogant, pacing about the cream-carpeted floor. He stopped at their entrance and said:

‘So, Miss Collins, it seems your fears were justified.’

Dallas nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and without asking her whether she wanted a drink or not he poured out a generous measure of brandy, added a little water, and said:

‘Drink that. It will restore your confidence as well as your voice.’

Dallas took the drink, accepted a cigarette, and sank down into a low armchair.

‘Wh … where have they gone?’ she asked, after she had taken a few sips of the spirit and felt it burning its way into her stomach.

‘Of that I am not certain,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Knowing Paris, I doubt whether he is positive himself of his destination.’

‘But … I mean … don’t you think they may be making for Scotland?’

‘For Scotland?’ He stared at her. ‘Ah, yes, you mean Gretna Green, yes?’ and at her nod, his face assumed a strange expression. ‘I confess I doubt whether my son has marriage in mind,’ he said harshly.

Dallas’s cheeks paled, and he gave an ejaculation. ‘Oh, really, Miss Collins, don’t pass out on me. Surely even you are not so old-fashioned as to imagine that every couple who run away make for Gretna Green!’

‘No, but how can you be so sure?’

He shrugged. ‘My son and I had a short conversation on the subject of English girls,’ he said. ‘Paris told me then that he had no intention of becoming seriously involved with anyone here. He is perfectly aware of his obligations to me and to his fiancée in Lexandros.’

‘His fiancée?’ echoed Dallas weakly.