Menelaus Finds Out about Helen ⋆ Evergreen Stories, Retold from Classical Sources

This is a chapter of Evergreen Stories by W. M. L. Hutchinson. It includes the following stories: King Midas and His Strange Adventures — Alcestis, the Noble Wife — The Real Helen — Cupid and Psyche — The Vision of Er

As the palace doors closed behind her, Helen went forward with a beating heart to the tall figure that stood dejectedly by the tomb of Proteus. But — could that be Menelaus — that gaunt, weather-beaten man with unkempt, grizzled hair, and a single discolored garment hanging in tatters around him? Menelaus, who went ever sleek and splendid, loving to deck his florid comeliness in purple and fine linen!

“Oh, Father Zeus, have pity on me!” she exclaimed, involuntarily.

Menelaus raised his head and eyed her curiously.

“Are you a Greek, lady?” he asked. “One would think so from your speech and your fair complexion, but a Greek in this den of barbarians——”

“Menelaus!” she cried, coming nearer. “Do you not know me?”

“Strange, by the gods,” he muttered, as he looked at her more narrowly; but he shook his head.

“My lord,” said she, in a voice that quivered, “am I so changed? I am Helen, your wife.”

“You are like her,” said Menelaus, slowly, “now I look at you, you are amazingly like her… I believe I should take you for her, only, you see I happen to know she is elsewhere.”

In her agitation, Helen had forgotten her phantom double for a moment.

“Ah, I see,” she cried, with a pang of recollection, “but that is not your wife. Listen, Menelaus — I never went to Troy; the Helen you found there is a wraith — a counterfeit. The gods cheated Paris with her and wafted me here, that day I disappeared.”

“You talk like a mad woman,” he replied, angrily. “What you mean, or who you are, I cannot imagine.”

“I am the woman you wedded,” said Helen, passionately. “You cannot have forgotten me utterly… Look, do you not remember this?”

And she bared one snowy shoulder, pointing to a tiny, cinque-spotted mole. Menelaus stared at it with a puzzled frown.

“All this is beyond me,” he said. “You are Helen’s very image — even to that mark she has — Aphrodite’s seal, I used to call it. And you know me, and my story, though that is not so strange. But I do not know you — and I have had enough of this imposture.”

Helen was at her wits’ end. Her husband’s life depended on his escaping from the island without loss of time. It was hopeless, she saw, to try and make him recognize her; then what remained but to warn him of his danger and let him go — alone? But could she endure to do that? Like a picture instantaneously disclosed by lightning came the vision of herself in future years — lonely, loveless, dependent on the bounty of that strange, cold princess who had never liked her — a heart-broken exile, pining for the grey hills of Sparta under the unchanging, hateful blue of Egypt’s sky. And then she saw that other —mysteriously one with her, yet her deadliest foe— usurping her rightful place, the happy, honored wife of Menelaus.

“Never, never!” she said in her heart. “Rather will I see him slain before my face…”

And the next instant, her mind violently recoiled from that thought; and she knew that, come what might, she was going to save her husband. She turned to him with a smile. “Forgive the jest, Menelaus,” she said, “it was a sorry one, and ill-timed, but I could not resist trying whether my likeness to your wife would deceive you. Now I will speak in earnest; I am a Greek in exile here, and come to warn you, you must fly at once, for this house belongs to the king of Egypt, and, if he finds you here, he will kill you.”

“Kill the king of Sparta!” cried Menelaus. “He would never dare. Besides, why should he? The Egyptians have no quarrel with the Greeks.”

“Because he is bent on marrying me,” said Helen, forgetting her new character in her eagerness, “and I have told him a thousand times I will never consent until I know you are dead.”

“By all the gods,” exclaimed Menelaus, “what my being dead or alive has to do with your marriage I cannot imagine. Stay, I have it… You have made this Egyptian believe you are Helen. Shameless impostor, what web of deceit have you woven, and for what end?”

Helen wrung her hands with vexation at the slip she had made.

“Oh, waste no more time,” she cried. “Nothing matters now but to get you away. Tell me quickly, why are you in this wretched plight? Where is your ship?”

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“At the bottom of the sea,” replied Menelaus gloomily. “A fearful tempest arose as we sailed from Troy, and we were driven for days not knowing whither. At last we sighted land, and heard from folk in fisher boats that it was Egypt; so we steered northward again, but headwinds beat us back to these shores continually. And this morning our ship struck some hidden reef and sank almost before we could leap overboard. By the mercy of Zeus, this isle was close by, and we all swam ashore. But I have lost everything — my Trojan spoils, my arms and splendid apparel, all went down with the ship. It half distracts me to think of it!”

“And is your wife safe, too?” asked Helen, quickly.

“Oh, yes, I brought her to shore myself,” said Menelaus. “I am a magnificent swimmer, you must know, and felt her weight no more than a feather. I left her and the crew in a cave by the shore while I went to seek help — and how yonder savages received me you doubtless know already.”

Just then Helen espied a man running towards them along the beach, and waving his arms as he ran.

“Look there,” she cried, “we are seen! Into the chapel, quick! No one dare touch you there.”

“Nay, it is only my wife’s old slave,” said Menelaus, and he called out imperiously. “How now, sirrah? Did I not bid you stay with your mistress?”

“Alas, lord,” panted the slave as he came up, “I bring tidings — dreadful tidings——” He paused and stood open-mouthed, staring at Helen with eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets.

“What tidings, fool?” said his master angrily. “Why do you stand there gaping? Speak, will you!”

But the old man suddenly seized Helen’s hand and began to kiss and fondle it, chuckling delightedly.

“Ah, my darling mistress,” he babbled, “what a trick to play your poor old Lydus! How could you frighten him so, my Queen? But was it some witchcraft, or were we all dreaming?”

Menelaus seized him by the shoulder and dragged him from Helen’s side.

“Have you gone mad?” he shouted. “Your tidings, this instant.”

“Why, noble master,” said Lydus, gleefully, “I came to tell you my lady had vanished — but she’s here, praise the gods, so all’s well again.”

“Dolt!” thundered Menelaus. “This is not Helen — but a cunning impostor. But what do you mean by saying she has vanished? Tell me what has happened this moment, or it will be the worse for you.”

“Yes, yes, my king,” said the bewildered old man, “I will tell you. We were all sitting outside the cave, drying our clothes in the sun, when my lady rose up and looked on us with a most singular smile. Then said she, ‘Ah, hapless Greeks and more hapless Trojans! Ah, royal city of Priam, fallen for naught! Now am I free to roam the fields of air, for the phantom Helen’s task is done, and the gods restore the true Helen to her lord.’ And then with outspread arms she fluttered upwards like a bird — and vanished out of our sight.”

Menelaus heard this like a man thunderstruck. “The phantom Helen! She that we fought for — a phantom,” was all he could gasp out. But the true Helen, radiant with joy, flung herself into his arms, crying—

“Did I not tell you so? My husband, my dearest, will you not own me now?”

“I do, I do,” he said, clasping her; “you are my Helen, my queen. But this is too sudden — too amazing — I am overpowered!”

“I know, I understand,” she said, tenderly; “but you must collect yourself and think how we are to escape, for the king may return from hunting at any moment.”

“Let him return,” answered Menelaus haughtily. “I shall know how to deal with him. When he hears who I am, and that it was the conqueror of Troy his servants insulted, he will be glad enough to make me any amends I ask. I shall require the villains to be well whipped — and when he has feasted me handsomely, and given me suitable raiment, I shall demand a ship to take us home. He ought to make me some rich present as well——”

“Oh, hush, and listen to me,” broke in Helen; “you do not know the man. I tell you, he is utterly ruthless, and of a furious temper when thwarted. No one can make him hear reason but his elder sister, who has always befriended me. He is afraid of her because she is the holiest and wisest of women, and so gifted with second sight that nothing is hidden from her. She knew you would come today; she sent me to warn you of your danger and plan our escape.”

“Then why does she not help us with it?” said Menelaus. “You had best go and beg her for a ship, for how else we are to get one I do not see.”

“I cannot do that,” answered Helen. “Theonoe hates deceit, and once I heard her say that if ever she spoke a false word, her gift would leave her. She will not betray us, but I know she will have no hand in our plot to outwit the king.”

“But what plot can we make?” asked her husband, disconsolately. “Myself, I see nothing for it but to defy this tyrant openly and die as a brave man should.”

“And leave me at his mercy?” exclaimed Helen, reproachfully.

“Fear not that,” he replied. “I mean to kill you first. This savage shall never boast he has married the widow of King Menelaus.”

And folding his arms, he scowled majestically at the palace. But a thought had flashed on Helen as he spoke.

“I have the plot, I have it,” she cried, clapping her hands; “he shall think I am your widow. I shall say news has come that you are drowned at sea——”

“And what good will that do us?” interrupted her husband. “Besides, he will ask how you heard of it and then, where is your messenger?”

“You are the messenger, of course,” she said, impatiently. “You are a sailor, the only survivor from the wreck… Oh, I see it all; leave me to tell the story, and bear me out if you are questioned… Lydus, you must steal back to the cave and bid the rest lie close for the present… And you, Menelaus, sit here by the tomb till I come back — I shall not be long.”

Low and rapidly she spoke, but in a new tone of command; her languid grace was transformed to alertness; her soft eyes sparkled with resolve. After an astonished glance at her, both men silently obeyed; and with quick, light steps, she reentered the palace.

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