Second-Best Bride

by Margaret Rome

  'What? Already ...?' Angie's eyes focused upon Lira's excited face. 'Surely it's much too soon.'

  The maid's face fell, ‘it is ten o'clock and the ceremony is due to take place at noon.'

  'Exactly,' Angie affirmed quietly, it will not take me two hours to slip into a dress and comb my hair.'

  Lira's eyes swivelled towards the simple white cotton dress laid out on the bed. For a reason her simple mind could not fathom, the Anghlika had insisted that the subject of her wedding gown was not to be mentioned in the presence of the kirios who, with typical male indifference to the import­ance of dress, had seemed to have overlooked the fact that the girl he was about to marry had ar­rived on the island unprepared for a whirlwind courtship, and still less for a swiftly arranged mar­riage. And yet, she reasoned, a mere hint of what was required would have been sufficient to have him order from Rhodes the entire contents of one of the many fabulous shops that abounded in the town, thereby averting the need for the bride to make do with a dress which, though spotless, was limp with many washings.

  Then suddenly her brow cleared. But of course, how stupid of her! What did it matter to the bride what she wore to her wedding when her bride­groom could not see!

  Nikos frowned when, after permission to enter followed his quick knock upon the door, he stepped inside Angie's room. Every servant in the villa, every inhabitant of the island, was in a furore of excitement, yet both the bride and bridegroom seemed surrounded by an atmosphere of gloom. Something was wrong, he could feel it in his bones. Of all the women that had passed through the kirios's life—and there had been many—only this one had met with his unqualified approval. The slen­der, honest-eyed girl, calm of mood, gentle of voice, who had drifted like a wraith across the sea to Karios, had seemed to him to carry the antidote to the poisonous moods, the spirited temper of the man whom fate had seen fit to deprive of vision, to topple like a god from his pedestal.

  Why then, as the day of the wedding crept nearer, had the kirios grown more and more morose? And why, now that the day had actually dawned, did his bride have the look of a lamb being led to slaughter ...?

  'The kirios would like to speak to you in his study as soon as is convenient,' he told Angie gravely.

  'Oh, but he mustn't! It is unlucky for the bride­groom to see the bride just before the ceremony,' Lira burst out. Then, appalled by her gaffe, she clasped horrified hands to her mouth and fled the room.

  'Thank you, Nikos.' The calmness of Angie's voice surprised him. 'Please tell the kirios that I will join him almost immediately.' Seconds later she entered the study and found that, as usual, it was shrouded in darkness. Her heart jerked at the sight of Terzan's figure seated behind his desk, looking formal and very bus­inesslike in a suit of sombre grey. He was twirling

  a silver pen between lean fingers, as she had often seen him do when he was impatient to begin dictating. ]

  He's going to tell me to take a letter! The hysterical thought popped into her mind. A letter beginning: To whom it may concern:: From this day onward the property known as Angelina Mary Rose shall come under the complete jurisdiction of Terzan Helios, hereinafter to be known as Helios Matrimonial Inc.... '

  Though her movements had been quiet, he was aware of her presence. Rising to his feet, he invited, politely, 'Sit down, won't you?'

  She obeyed, feeling helpless as the subject of some minor company about to be taken over by a major concern.

  'As you may already know,' he continued austerely, resuming his seat, 'today is the last day of Holy Week, the final week of Lent, which in Greece is traditionally one of mourning.'

  Angie nodded, then remembering that he could not see, cleared her throat before replying. 'I've realised during the time I've spent on the island that the meaning of Easter to your people is as strong as, if not stronger than Christmas is to mine.'

  ‘It is the most important feast day in the Greek religious calendar,' he nodded. 'The lead-up to this spring festival is taken very seriously. First of all we have a carnival period, a month-long celebra­tion that lasts until the beginning of Lent, which is a time of rigorous self-denial. During the final week of Lent, Holy Week, music, singing, and all other kinds of entertainment are banned, the only permissible activities being house-cleaning, white- washing, sweeping, and generally preparing for Easter. Two days ago the islanders began baking the traditional Easter buns and dying the red eggs that are an integral part of the Easter celebrations. Easter Saturday is the day when the gloom begins to lift, which is why I was able to make special ar­rangements for our wedding to take place today.'

  What, response is he expecting of me? Angie wondered wildly. Am I supposed to jump with joy and shout hurray when for the past days I've been plagued by the suspicion that once more I've been manipulated, this time by a man who is a past master at getting his own way!

  'After having been granted such a great conces­sion, however,' he continued to enlighten her, I felt I had to bow to the islanders' wishes that the feasting should not commence until after mid­night, which time represents to them the demise of the old year and the dawning of the new.'

  ‘I don't mind in the least,' she told him stiffly, in fact, I feel it's hypocritical to have a wedding feast of any kind when we have nothing to cele­brate. Our marriage is simply a business proposi­tion, made necessary because of unique circum­stances. You need a secretary and I feel I'm under an obligation to carry out that role. Marriage of­fered the solution to two problems,' she concluded with a tinge of bitterness, 'its vows bind me to you far tighter than any contract of employment, and the fact that I bear your name will act as a sop to your islanders' strong sense of propriety.'

  'You speak as if you consider that the contract had been drawn entirely in my favour?' The silken accusation was threaded with steel. 'You make no mention of the benefits that accrue to you, the benefits of position, security, and a not inconsiderable fortune.'

  He could not have missed her sharply-indrawn] breath, the rustle of her skirt as pride drove her to] her feet.

  ‘It seems to me that one of the main drawbacks of wealth is the fear of losing it,' she told him quietly, ‘I would much prefer to remain as I am—poor yet seldom unhappy.'

  The dignity of her stance must have been communicated to him. His lips curled upwards in a derisory smile, then he made plain his disbelief, confirmed that he had placed her in the same category as the host of women who had written offering their services in exchange for the benefits he had just outlined, by mocking coldly:

  'You surprise me, Miss Rose—I had imagined that every little caterpillar yearned to be a butterfly.'

  It would have been so easy for her to have lost her temper, to have stormed out of the study, away from the island for ever. Terzan was using his blindness as an excuse for giving rein to the nasty impulses that everyone possessed but which most people made an effort to suppress—sarcasm, ill-temper, aggressiveness, were not symptomatic of blindness but were basic traits which since his affliction had been allowed to become ex­aggerated.

  As she stumbled back to her bedroom only one thought stopped her from throwing her few pos­sessions into a suitcase and demanding to be trans­ported from the island—to be blinded by tears was bad enough; what must it be like to have to grope forever through an impenetrable, black-velvet world?

  She just had time to repair the damage done by her spurt of tears before Lira erupted into the room. Obviously bursting with excitement, she half-bobbed a curtsey before urging:

  'Crisulla has just finished arranging the bridal suite, you must come and see the sperveri, it looks splendid.’ she sighed, clasping her hands together in an excess of fervour.

  'Bridal suite . ..?' Angie repeated stupidly, flick­ing a glance around her room and finding it reas­suringly familiar. 'Sperveri—what's that, for heaven's sake?'

  It caught her eye immediately as she stepped inside a room dominated by a huge bed completely shrouded by a silk curtain, its hem gathered into a ringed support suspe
nded from the ceiling, its pleats cascading outwards so that the occupants of the bed would be screened by folds of shimmering, hand-embroidered silk.

  ‘It is the bridal curtain!' Eagerly Lira pulled her forward. 'Every Greek bride has one, usually they are handed down from generation to generation, but as you are foreign, and the kirios has no family to speak of, the women of the island decided upon this as their wedding present. Every hour of the day and night since the announcement of your betrothal they have worked in shifts so that it could be finished in time. See,' she urged Angie's leaden feet forward as a smiling Crisulla drew the curtain aside, 'even your pillowcase has been embroidered and edged with lace!'

  Angie stood stricken, absolutely bereft of words. It had simply never occurred to her that she would be expected to share a room with her boss-husband. Granted, the bedroom was en suite, with an adjoining sitting-room, bathroom, and dressing-room behind connecting doors, but the spare bed she had glimpsed while on a wandering tour of the villa was by no means long enough to accommodate Terzan's length and she could not imagine the fiery-tempered Greek suffering nightly cramp without complaint.

  Interpreting her stunned silence as a fitting tribute to the islanders' beautifully-worked gift, the two women smiled broadly. Then Crisulla bit out a sharp exclamation, her eyes pinpointing upon a small clock.

  'Ohi! Entheka . . .!' she shrieked, throwing her hands up in the air.

  ‘It is eleven o' clock,' Lira hastily interpreted. 'We must hurry, for there is still a great deal to be done.'

  Angie wanted to argue that so far as she was concerned ten minutes would suffice to allow her to bath, slip into her dress, and flick a comb through her hair. But neither Crisulla nor Lira seemed prepared to listen as they whisked around her bedroom, running her bath, laying out a change of underwear, and making sure that she had everything she needed before scurrying out of the room.

  She sighed, exasperated, then deciding that it would be a shame to waste the water she took a leisurely bath before reluctantly donning her wedding finery—plain, untrimmed briefs and bra, a simple slip, then finally the white cotton shirt-waister that had seen service through three sum­mers. Luckily, her sandals were new, and as she fastened the straps around slender ankles she con­gratulated herself on having for once given in to extravagance by plumping for slender heels and dainty straps instead of her usual choice of service­able flatties.

  Pale silver hair curled damply around her comb as she tried to achieve a more sophisticated hairstyle, but finally she abandoned the comb in despair, defeated by short curls that had a natural, tendency to riot.

  Five minutes later, feeling intensely strung up, she hastened across the room to answer a knock upon the door. When she opened it she saw Nikos standing on the threshold, his usually impassive expression replaced by one that looked remarkably like indignation.

  ‘The kirios wonders if you could spare him a minute?' he croaked apologetically, sounding strangulated.

  Angie was amused almost to the point of smil­ing. However infuriated he might be by his master's demands, Nikos seldom betrayed outrage,

  'Of course,' she soothed lightly, wondering what fresh crime the kirios had committed—or was about to commit. ‘I’ll come immediately.'

  She stepped inside Terzan's study and found him exactly where she had left him, seated behind his desk twirling a pen through impatient fingers.

  'You've come! Good, that old fool Nikos was getting on my nerves, threatening an apoplectic fit simply because I want your help with a job that has cropped up. I told him you would not mind.'

  'Quite right,' she tilted, still unaccountably agi­tated by the memory of the sperveri and all it im­plied, 'but shouldn't you try looking at the situa­tion from Nikos' point of view? Unlike yourself, he possesses his full quota of Greek romanticism— ‘he, together with the rest of the islanders, is con­vinced that in,' she glanced down at her watch, 'approximately fifteen minutes he will be witnes­sing the tying of a love knot, the uniting of two people in love. He is not to know,' she finished coolly, 'that what he will actually be witnessing is the merging of a typewriter with a dictating machine.'

  During the pause that followed she wilted be­neath the scrutiny of dark, blank lenses.

  'Are you being sarcastic, Miss Rose?' Terzan finally clenched.

  'No, not at all,' she blushed, unused to telling untruths.

  'Then let us get on,' he continued tersely. 'A short while ago I received an urgent business en­quiry transmitted by wireless, that needs a written reply. A man is standing by ready to take the letter across to Rhodes by motorboat, therefore you can appreciate the need for haste if we are to get the letter despatched before the damned silly charade begins.'

  The term he had used had supplied no hint of the ceremony that erupted the moment they emerged from his study. Everyone of his servants was lined up in the hallway, the women and girls dressed in traditional fashion with brightly-coloured, full-skirted costumes under hand-em­broidered aprons and strings of gay, bright beads, and the men in baggy trousers gathered into the tops of knee-length boots, embroidered waistcoats over colourful shirts, gay neckerchiefs, and soft pillbox hats perched jauntily on one side of each head.

  Terzan's response to their hail of welcome was a curse muttered beneath his breath, yet when a broadly-smiling Nikos approached with a tray holding a glass of wine, a ring-shaped cake and a silver spoon, he managed with a show of good grace to drink the wine, drop some coins into his empty glass, then swallow a morsel of the cake that had been cut in half with symbolic precision".

  Crusilla then moved forward to present Angie with an olive garland to ensure that she was blessed with fertility, and a sprig of sweet basil for luck, before miming the instruction to transfer some of the remaining half of the cake to her mouth with the spoon.

  With good-humoured tolerance Angie obeyed; playing her part in what was obviously a time-honoured marriage ritual designed to encourage happiness and many children. Then as broad grins and an air of expectancy warned her of worse to come she tensed, and had her suspicion confirmed when reluctantly Terzan turned sideways towards her, his hands searching, then digging into the soft flesh of her shoulders.

  Even before his dark head began to lower she guessed his intention. Instinctively, her only thought to save him from embarrassment, she homed her mouth directly on to his. The touch of his lips was as cooling as a douche of spring water, yet heady as full-bodied wine. For the benefit of their audience he allowed his lips to linger, pro­longing the kiss until her senses reeled against the impact of a sweet, confusing agony.

  It was then, with his hands holding her fast, with pulses pounding and the beat of her heart drumming like the noise of a thousand flapping wings in her ears, that she stopped pretending— faced up to the fact that, in spite of his tyrannical ways, his searing wit and biting tongue, in spite of the fact that he seemed almost to dislike her, she had fallen in love with the autocratic master of Karios . ...

  CHAPTER SIX

  So far as Angie was concerned the marriage cere­mony passed in a meaningless blur. Afterwards, when she strove to remember, only isolated inci­dents were projected jerkily as picture slides upon the blankness of her mind; being driven from the village in a gaily beribboned donkey cart with the iron-jawed Greek by her side; the banter of a pro­cession of servants following behind; the roar of welcome from islanders crowded in the plaka in front of the church; the interior of the church itself, filled with solemnity, its gloom—so be­loved, yet so contradictory to the nature of the sun-loving Greeks—pierced by flame from tall candles flickering fitfully over dark panelled walls, rows of carved wooden pews, and icons and pic­tures left shrouded in purple cloth because al­though Easter was due to begin at midnight, today was still a day of mourning.

  Only the tall, bearded bishop dressed entirely in black made a lasting impression upon her mind when, after a series of unintelligible words and prompted responses, he raised his hands to bless the ring sliding cold as
a manacle upon her finger—the broad gold band that acted as a stamp of possession, telling the world that she was now part of the assets of the Helios business empire.

  She carried out her first duty as a wife by piloting her husband back along the aisle, outside the church, and into the crowded plaka, guiding him with words alone, making no effort to touch him or to remove obstacles from his path, bolstering his confidence with clear directions murmured in a soft undertone.

  As Terzan moved, seemingly at ease, through the throng of excited well-wishers, only Angie was aware of the tremendous effort being expended by the man who, since his accident, had shunned the company of all but servants. Only she, with her deep well of compassion, came anywhere near to guessing the strain involved in stepping blindly forward, keeping a smile pinned to his lips, while dozens of unseen hands patted him on the shoul­der, pumped his arm, while dozens of pairs of dis­embodied lips swooped through his darkness to plant congratulatory kisses upon his cheek.

  Conscious of his desperate need, his complete dependence upon her ability to see him through his nightmare, she stuck firmly to his side, smiling and somehow managing to look completely relaxed as, with his hand resting lightly upon her shoulder, she progressed gradually towards the cart where a broadly grinning Nikos was waiting to drive them back to the villa.

  'Not long now,' she soothed in a calm under­tone. 'Take two more paces forward and you'll find the cart directly in front of you.'

  She could have cheered when, in response to her directions, Terzan positioned himself in front of the steps at the side of the cart, but instead she warned off Nikos with a shake of her head, then followed up with the further instruction:

  ‘If you lift up your foot you'll feel the first of two steps, once you've negotiated those the bench seat of the cart will be to your immediate right.'

  Nikos' eyes swivelled from her, then back to his master, watching with pride and admiration the apparent ease with which he negotiated the obs­tacles she had stroked with a few clear words upon the canvas of his mind.