The Honey Is Bitter

by Violet Winspear

  "Kiss your new sister, Kara." Paul spoke in English, and the girl stepped nervously towards Domini. "Welcome to Andelos and to our family, Domini," she said, flushing shyly as she felt the soft touch of Domini's lips against her brown cheek. Then she stepped back against Paul, and with a slight laugh he twined an arm about her boyish waist.

  "How is everyone, Kara?" he asked. "Aunt Sophula keeps well?"

  "Yes, but she has been very snappy with me." Κara twisted to look up at him. "I have bad nerves, she says and she is going to ask you to send me to see a nerve specialist."

  "What nonsense!" he exclaimed, though Domini saw him frown. "What have you been getting up to?"

  "Well—sometimes I scratch." Kara was doing it as she spoke, reddening her left forearm with the rough-edged nails of her right hand. Paul frowned down at her and gave her hand a slap. Then he glanced up and said dryly to Domini: "Kara is not really a monkey, my dear. She merely acts like one."

  Kara gave a shamed little laugh, then she drew one of her brother's hands to her lips and kissed it. She searched his face with her quick dark eyes. "I think you like being married, Paul," she said naively, and he responded to this by giving her tilt of a nose an affectionate tweak.

  “You will make Domini blush with your remarks," he chuckled. "She is British, you must remember, and not used to our way of speaking from the heart." But I am so happy you are married and settled down, Paul," his sister said impetuously. Then she gave Domini her elfin smile. "I began to think he never would, and it is not good for a man to be without a wife. I am pleased until I could sing that my dear and only brother—" she paused and crossed herself in the Greek way "has found for himself such a beautiful wife."

  "Thank you, Kara." Domini felt rather humbled before the touching innocence and faith of this girl, and she grew afraid in her heart in case Kara should come to realise that her brother and his wife were less in love than she believed.

  She watched Paul with his young sister, and she saw the flash of appeal in his eyes when as the three of them were about to enter the house, Kara suggested that he kiss Domini on the doorstep so that the blessing of their love would enter with them.

  "Well, don't just stand looking at me, Paul," Domini laughed, and he took her in his arms, held her close against him and kissed her lips with unexpected tenderness.

  They had come to spend a weekend at this old Greek mansion above the harbour of Andelos. His aunt had telephoned and insisted on it, and now here she was in the hall of her house, greeting her nephew and his bride with the grape jelly and iced water of Greek custom.

  Kara then asked eagerly if she could show Domini to her bedroom. "Yes, yes, you fidget of a child!" Her aunt laid a hand on Paul's sleeve. "Come, nephew, you and I will talk on the terrace. I have some things to say—"

  "Some of them about me, I bet!" Kara wrinkled her nose and caught at Domini's hand. Together they cros­sed the hall to a staircase with wrought-iron balus­trade and went upstairs and along a gallery.

  "Aunt Sophula despairs of making a lady of me," Kara laughed. "I was expelled from my school in Athens a few months ago, you know."

  "Oh dear!" Domini cast a side glance at Kara. "Whatever for?"

  "Playing my zither at a local taverna. It was fun, but the principal of my school said I was precocious and impudent, and when Paul came to collect me they had a fearful row. Paul knows that I do not mean to be wild —I am not really wild."

  "You're at the mixed-up stage?" Domini suggested."

  "Exactly so! I am half a child, and half a woman, and rebelling against being both. Ah, I knew you would understand." Domini's hand received a squeeze. "I saw it in your eyes right away — this is your room and Paul's." „

  As Kara threw open the door of an old-fashioned double room, Domini felt a pulse flutter in her throat. Her weekend case had been brought upstairs with Paul's; the maid had unpacked them and laid her chiffon wisp of a nightdress close beside his dark silk pyjamas.

  Kara went over and bounced on the big carved bed. "Yes, you will both be comfortable in this," she an­nounced, and she touched Domini's night wear with shy fingers. "Are you not cold in this cobweb—ah, but of course not!" She gave a laugh and gazed with innocent pleasure at Domini. "Perhaps after all it is good to be a woman, no?"

  "It has its joys and tears," Domini agreed dryly, and she tossed into Kara's lap a small package she had taken out of her handbag.

  "Now what is this?" Kara murmured, and was smilingly told to unwrap it and see. Kara did so with excited fingers and caught her breath as she lifted the lid of the square box and exposed a wafer-thin compact with an embroidered egret on the front. There was also a lipstick case with the same motif. Kara gazed at her sunburned scrap of a face in the compact mirror and grinned. "I wish I was pretty to match your gift, Domini," she said. "Efharisto many times over."

  "Parakalo," Domini smiled.

  Kara stroked the egret on her compact, then she said, "What does it feel like to be beautiful—really beautiful, as you are?"

  Domini's smile faded and she gazed at Paul's sister in a rather stricken way. The truth was too stark; she could not reply: "I've learned that beauty is a snare. I hate it, for it has made me your brother's possession, and because I am his mere possession I am driven to hurt him. I can't stop hurting him. I've become cruel and small because I have this face—this body!"

  "Beauty is only skin deep," she said stiffly.

  "Meaning that you might not be beautiful under your skin?" Kara's glance was speculative. She, who was young in some of her ways, was older in others, and Domini tautened there at the foot of the bed in case Kara should sense her lack of love for Paul.

  "Paul wrote to tell me that you were like a Medici painting," Kara said. "I thought he must be exaggerating."

  "Α-a what?" Domini stammered.

  "A Medici painting. And now I see that he was not exaggerating. You do have the cool, patrician glamour of a Medici—and I expect Barry Sothern will want to paint you. Barry lives in a cottage on the beach—my aunt calls him a scamp, but all the same he is brilliant. He also is English, like you, Domini."

  Domini had gone as white as a sheet. Barry was here —here in Greece, living in a cottage on the island of Andelos! She swayed, and Kara scrambled off the bed and came quickly to her. "What is the matter, kyria?” The girl put an arm around her. "Are you faint?"

  Domini pulled herself together. "It's probably the heat," she said shakily. "I-I haven't quite got used to your Greek sunshine."

  "You will feel better when you have had a cup of tea." Kara gazed with concern at Domini's pale face. "Shall I have tea brought here, or would you prefer to join the others on the terrace?"

  "Let's go to the terrace." Domini felt in need of some air after the shock of learning that Paul—of all people — had brought her to the one place where Barry was. It was like destiny, she thought, as she went to the mirror to comb her hair. But there, as she gazed into her own wide eyes, she saw that she was afraid as well as eager to see Barry.

  She was afraid of Paul, who had reminded her only the other day that honour was included in the vows she had made when she became his wife.

  She was retouching her mouth with rose lipstick when knuckles rapped the door and Paul strolled into the room, one hand in the pocket of the light slacks he wore with a sand-coloured sports shirt. "Don't you two girls want any refreshments?" he asked. "Tea is now being laid on the terrace."

  "I'm just tidying up, Paul." Domini hoped that his sister wouldn't mention her weakness of a minute ago, and she watched in the mirror as he bent over Kara and cradled her face in his hands. "Why the pensive ex­pression, little one?" he smiled. "I thought you were pleased to see your brother home again. You were most generous with your kisses when we met in the forecourt by the car."

  Kara gazed up at him and lifted a hand to his black hair and his scarred temple. She spoke to him in Greek, and Domini, who was beginning to pick up a little of the language from Paul, was fairly certain that Ka
ra said something about his headaches.

  Domini could not make out his reply, but his tone of voice was light, and he added in English: "Well, Kara, what did you think of the present I sent you from Athens?"

  The girl's face lit up. Domini knew from Paul that his sister had a passion for folk music; she collected old songs, mainly Greek, as other girls might collect baubles or boys. She had stacks of music in her room, and she could play several musical instruments. Paul had discovered a really lovely mandolin in a shop tucked away in the Plaka and had had it sent to Kara.

  “It has a gorgeous lilting tone," Kara enthused. "I will play it for you and Domini after dinner tonight. It is an instrument to be played under the stars."

  “We will look forward to that," he smiled. "Domini is musical herself. She plays the piano extremely well."

  “Domini likes music?" Kara's eyes were sparkling like black diamonds. "Oh, the Fates are being so good to me today. Domini is as nice as she is beautiful — and she plays the piano!" Kara gave her brother a hug. "Thank you for my mandolin and for my sister-in-law, big brother."

  "I am happy they both please you." A grin slashed s brown cheek as he glanced at Domini. "Are you ready, my dear?"

  She nodded, cool and composed again, a smile in her eyes for Kara's youthful enthusiasm. How blissfully fond of Paul she was, and amusingly wasp-like in her striped amber shirt and black play-pants, with the warm, frank gaze of a child. She had never been face to face with the tyrant in Paul, and Domini envied her.

  Up on the terrace the Venetian-like aspect of Andelos harbour was unrolled before Domini like a colourful tapestry, and she stood at the balustrade with Paul and Kara as they directed her attention to the fishing caiques with their painted sails, and the white stone convent with purple bougainvillaea trailing over its walls. To smaller, nearby islands set in the blue Ionian like brilliant clumps of coralline.

  Domini gazed around her with interest, while the sun shone brightly on her hair and her shantung dress clung softly to her slender body, which always assumed a look of fragility when close to the power and strength of her husband's.

  She was unaware that she was being stared at by the man who lounged in a basket chair adjacent to the one in which Paul's aunt was sitting. It was Kara who caught his stare as she turned in her quick way from the balustrade. "Hullo!" she exclaimed. "I had no idea you were coming to tea, kyrie."

  "I wanted to help lay out the ‘welcome home' mat," he replied, and at the sound of his voice Domini we very still, then slowly she turned around . . . and found herself face to face with Barry Sothern again! He had hardly changed at all, except for the slight touches of increased prosperity. His lazy sorrel eyes gazed straight into hers, and she remembered so well that wide, gay mouth and crooked smile — that mane of lion-gold hair!

  She wondered wildly if he would admit to knowing her, then feminine instinct told her that he wouldn’t and the knowledge both excited and troubled her as he rose loose-jointedly out of his chair and said to Paul: "You certainly have the luck of Apollo, old man." His smile was ironical. "If you fell in the sea, I bet you’d come up with an oyster in your ear — an oyster with pearl in it!" -

  "I can see, my friend, by the gleam in your artistic eye that my 'pearl' appeals to you." And as Paul escorted Domini to the terrace table and introduced Barry to her. she felt the possessive clasp of his arm about her waist.

  “Kara informs me that your work is quite brilliant, Mr. Sothern," Domini said, knowing from the moment she accepted Barry as a stranger that she was playing a rather dangerous game.

  "I’ll be happy to show you some of my work one of these days—Domini," he replied, little glints in his sorrel eyes.

  Beware! warned her heart, as she saw Paul slant one of his keen looks at Barry. And yet at the same time she wanted to say: "I knew this man long before you walked into my life, my handsome tyrant. He came with laughter, not with threats, and he went away because I was so young when we met and he had to find his footing as a painter."

  I shall look forward to seeing some of your work, Mr. Sothern," she said. "I should imagine that the crystal quality of the light here in Greece must be mar­vellous for an artist to work by. Colours and lines must take on an added enchantment."

  "They certainly do—Madame Stephanos." He bore down meaningly on the name, and his eyes raked the delicate symmetry of her face framed in the sunlit honey hair. Her eyes were a cool, still blue, and Barry, who remembered so well their sparkling gaiety, was disturbed as he watched her take a chair beside Paul's aunt. She answered questions about her wedding and her honeymoon as Aunt Sophula poured tea from a fluted pot. Kara handed round cakes and fruit, and finally perched herself on the arm of her brother's chair, her small teeth nibbling at a large fig.

  "I take it you visited the Acropolis while you were in Athens?" Barry remarked.

  "Both in daylight and in the evening," Domini re­plied. "I liked it with the cicadas hidden in the trees, and the Temples of Jupiter and Victory cloaked in the violet dusk."

  "Domini is one of those women who prefers the masked to the unveiled," Paul said with a dry smile. "Those scarred columns worried her in the broad light of day."

  "Most women are romantic," Barry said, and he was looking at Domini as he bit into a cake. "I wonder, Monsieur Stephanos, if you will permit me to paint your wife? I see her as Britomartis, the virgin goddess."

  Domini flushed when Barry said that, for all eyes were upon her—Paul's unreadable behind the smoked lenses of his sunglasses. "Don't, Barry," she wanted to say. "Don't make things harder than they are for me."

  "What a lovely idea!" Kara smiled across innocently at Domini, then she looked at Paul. "You must let Barry paint Domini," she urged excitedly. "Ooh, that will make Alexis jealous. She thinks there is no one as attractive as she."

  "Where is Alexis, by the way?" Paul asked, with a hard look to his mouth that told Domini he had not liked Barry's request. Alexis, his sister-in-law, provided a handy change of topic.

  "She has gone sailing with some people who have taken a house nearby," Kara told him. "They are stay­ing for the summer. They are rich Americans, so Alexis is cultivating them—naturally."

  "That will be enough, Kara!" her aunt put in sharply. "It is Alexis' own business if she prefers civilised com­pany to that of fisherfolk and beachcombers."

  "I think Aunt Sophula is referring to you, Barry, because you have a beach cottage," Kara laughed, her glance dwelling on his bare, tanned feet in Roman-type sandals.

  He nonchalantly crossed his legs and brushed crumbs from his slacks. Domini knew from his grin that he was thinking of the old days, his lion-mane of hair to the rolled collar of his fisher-jersey and the turn-ups of his paint-splashed slacks above sandals that had not been hand-tailored. One evening on an upturned boat on that English beach he had hinted that he must go away ... his lips had brushed her cheek, and yet she had not felt sad, for she had known they would meet again ...

  There Domini tore her thoughts away, and when she looked at Paul she saw that Kara had curled down into his arms like a kitten. His aunt shook her grey head in its black snood as she regarded the pair of them. "Paul, you are spoiling her," she reproved. "Kara is almost seventeen and must begin to learn a little restraint. You treat her like a kitten, and not all men like their women to make of them the comfortable armchair."

  Laughter ran like a wave to Paul's mouth and he and he smoothed his young sister's seal-dark hair. It was oddly cut, as though she might have been having a go at it with the scissors. "Ah well," Paul smiled, "we have not seen each other for almost three months and I owe her a little pampering."

  Kara blinked her tilting dark eyes and she seemed almost to be purring as she rubbed her cheek against his sports shirt. That deep note of indulgence in his voice caused Domini to remember—almost too vividly—the right she had lain in his arms at the Cornish villa where they had started their honeymoon. That deep, warm voice had lured her into a fool's paradise . . . how it had hurt,
how it still hurt, finding out that Paul had tricked her.

  "How strange that I must now think of Paul as the husband of another girl," Kara smiled across at Domini.

  "I hope you don't mind that I use your husband as an armchair?"

  "You're welcome to him," Domini said lightly, and she didn't miss the narrowing of Paul's eyes, or the long look that Barry gave his wristwatch ... as though he had detected something in her manner that caused a flare in his eyes that had to be hidden until he had controlled it. Her pulses raced as she felt the danger in the atmosphere.

  "Thank you for tea, Madame Stephanos." Barry rose to his feet and gave Paul's aunt a polite bow. Then he glanced at Domini. "I hope you'll enjoy life on the island. Perhaps you and Kara will call on me one of these days."

  "That would be nice." And to tease him, Domini added: "I'll think about it."

  "And will you think about letting me paint your wife, Monsieur Stephanos?" Barry's glance swung to Paul.

  Domini felt that Barry's question was a challenge and she waited with bated breath for Paul's reply. "Yes, you may paint my wife, Mr. Sothern," he said, "but not yet. I take it you will not mind waiting a few months?"

  "I take it that I must wait?" Barry gave a shrug and a laugh. "It's a good thing I've taken a year's lease on the cottage."

  "I shall not keep either of you waiting a year," Paul drawled, and at the side of her Domini heard his aunt catch her breath as her lace-needle jabbed her finger.

  "Clumsy—so clumsy in my old age," she muttered, meeting Domini's side glance. "There, I have marked the lace!"

  "What a shame." Domini spoke with automatic politeness, her eyes following Barry as he strolled to the terrace steps, tall, loose-jointed, the sun on the raw gold of his hair. Even yet Domini could hardly believe that Barry was back in her life . . . but as a stranger, some­one she must treat distantly when she longed to run her fingers through that crisp mane of hair, and to say his name openly, Barry, so gay and British . . .