Lark in an Alien Sky

by Rebecca Stratton

  `But what I mean is,' Corinne tried to explain, 'that it can't ever be quite the same again.'

  He held her hand tightly and there was a look in his eyes that told her he regretted the truth as much as she did herself. 'It is the way of things, my lark, that honeymoons have to come to an end and lovers return to earth. But as long as we have one another it is still enough, is it not?'

  'I hope so.'

  Not only her words but the sound of her voice made him put a hand to her cheek and turn her face towards him while he frowned over her slightly apprehensive expression. 'Oh, Corinne, you are not still doubtful that you have done the right thing by marrying me? How can you doubt it after these past few days, eh?'

  'I love you, but there's still an awful lot about you that I feel I don't know.' She looked at him with large serious eyes and hoped he knew what she was trying to say. 'We've known each other a very short time, Gregori, and Oh, of course it will be all right!' She delivered herself a swift scolding, while Gregori held her hand and obviously found her lingering doubts cause for concern. 'I'm being idiotic making so much of it! Lots of people marry after even shorter affairs than ours ! It's just that —to your family I'm still an outsider and it's that that makes me so reluctant to go back. I can understand their point of view in one way—'

  'You are my wife,' Gregori insisted firmly, and kissed her so determinedly that a stewardess hastily changed her mind about offering them drinks and moved on. 'Young as you are, my love,' he whispered as he held her hand

  tightly and close to his heart, 'you must learn to take your place as my wife and not allow yourself to be—overshadowed. Mama will soon love you. I know it,' he added with a quick smile, 'because she already admires the way you stand up to me! That is the right phrase, is it not?'

  Corinne nodded, but found it hard to believe his assessment of his mother's opinion. 'I find that hard to believe,' she said. 'I would have thought she was a staunch supporter of tradition. The dominant role of the male included!'

  `Papa was traditional,' Gregori informed her with a gleam of mischief in his dark eyes because he was enjoying her obvious surprise. 'He kept a very tight rein on all his family, but since he died Mama has—what is it?—taken the bit in her teeth. She .likes to rule us all with a firm hand, just as Papa did, and I do not always make myself popular by going my own way. She had placed so much faith in my brother Dimitri's ability to take over Kolianos and Company, you see, and she was distraught when he died.'

  But she still has one son. She still has you.'

  She reached up to stroke a hand down his cheek and the touch of his smooth dark skin sent little shivers of excitement through her. Taking her hand and turning his mouth to her palm he pressed his lips to it, his head bent while he kissed her lingeringly, his eyes close and holding hers steadily.

  `And God willing, she will soon have a grandson also,' he whispered. 'Then Mama will worship you as a goddess, my beautiful love, you will see!'

  CHAPTER SIX

  USUALLY Corinne was up in the morning before Gregori left for his office in Piraeus, but occasionally it happened that she was a little late, like this morning, and when that happened she hurried over bathing and dressing with one eye on the time. Madame Kolianos had an intense dislike of people staying too long in bed, other than when they were ill, and too long lingering was likely to produce an enquiry if the latecomer to the breakfast table was unwell.

  Their return to Greece seemed to Corinne rather an anti-climax, but as Gregori had pointed out to her, even lovers had come down to earth some time. Despite his assurances on the plane coming home, there had been no sign that Madame Kolianos was any more kindly disposed to the idea of her as a daughter-in-law, and she doubted if she ever would be, although Irine, was un-failingly pleasant and kind. It was possibly her awareness of being a stranger in a foreign land that lent an added sense of loneliness when Gregori was not there with her.

  It was so hot as she bathed and dressed that she began to think longingly of the Pont Neuf in Paris and shady walks beside the river, and small cafes under the leafy spread of plane trees. Whatever else happened during her married life, those four days honeymooning in Paris with Gregori would remain the happiest of her life.

  Still sunk in nostalgia, she made her way along the landing, and gasped aloud when a door opened suddenly just as she was passing, snatching her relentlessly back to

  the present. The room was Iole's and she saw the girl hesitate in the doorway for a moment, unresponsive to her smile. Then she noticed that the normally glowing dark skin was pale and sallow and there was a look in Iole's eyes that drew her sympathy, even though they were hastily averted.

  Reaching for her hands, Corinne looked at her anxiously. lole, whatever's the matter? You look ill!'

  `I am not ill!'

  The swift denial made Corinne frown at her curiously, for very obviously it was not the truth. Whatever her reasons, her paleness and seeming uncertainty concerned Corinne enough for her to take advantage of her few years' seniority for once, and she took Iole by the hand and led her back into her room, sitting her down on the bed.

  'You're definitely not well,' she stated firmly. 'Have you got a pain somewhere?'

  'No pain,' Iole insisted.

  `Then what is it?' Corinne urged, placing a hand on the girl's slightly damp forehead. 'You don't seem to have a temperature.'

  Iole's eyes were still evasive and she shook her head. 'I have been a little sick, that is all.'

  She made the admission so reluctantly that Corinne frowned at her again, still puzzled by her attitude. Quite clearly Iole would much rather she was not there, and looking as she did it would have made more sense if she had welcomed company, whoever it was.

  'I'd better fetch your mother.' Corinne grasped at the obvious solution and stared in surprise when, far from expressing relief, Iole showed signs of panicking.

  'No, no, no!' She pulled her hands free and scowled like a disobedient child at her. 'I do not wish Mama to

  be informed, nor Yaya; especially Yaya! I forbid you to tell anyone, Corinne!' Her huge eyes were raised briefly in appeal and they reminded her so much of Gregori's that Corinne found the appeal irresistible. 'Please, Corinne, I do not wish them to know.'

  `All right, but it doesn't seem very sensible to me.' Corinne was horribly unsure whether she should succumb to the plea, but there was a little more colour in Iole’s cheeks even though she still looked much too pale, and she was obviously troubled by something, for it showed in her eyes.

  `What made you so ill?' she asked, trying to establish a possible minor stomach upset, even though such a cause was unlikely to make Iole so edgy.

  `It is nothing.'

  The reply was as evasive as the dark eyes that looked anywhere but at her,- and Corinne was unconvinced. `Maybe you should see a doctor to be on the safe side,' she suggested, but that suggestion too was blocked, with such vehemence that it startled her.

  `I will not see a doctor!' Once more that trace of panic aroused Corinne's suspicion and she frowned. 'I will not, Corinne!'

  A persistent suspicion niggled at Corinne's mind as she tried again to hold that evasive gaze and she sat down beside Iole on the edge of the bed, regarding her steadily while she spoke. 'How often has this happened before, Iole?'

  Iole made no reply but kept her head downcast after one brief, burning glance of dislike, but her expression said it all. The air of mingled defiance and pathos and the determinedly averted eyes strengthened her suspicion until Corinne could no longer doubt it. Putting a hand to the side of Iole's face, she turned her to face her, but

  Iole jerked her head and defeated her.

  `How often, Iole?' she asked, as gently as she knew how, but still the girl said nothing, and she sighed inwardly. ' Are you pregnant?' she insisted, and Iole nodded.

  In the circumstances it was strange, Corinne thought, that her first thought, her first sympathy was for Gregori. He had cared for Iole ever since his brother died, and pro
tected her as if she was his own; loved her just as deeply, and she could imagine just how hard this would hit him. He was a proud man as well as a loving one and he valued his family's good name; a good name that Iole, by her folly, had put in jeopardy.

  `Your boy-friend?' Corinne pressed for the rest now that she knew this much, and once more Iole admitted it.

  'I want his child because I love him!' she declared with childish stubbornness, but her bottom lip was slightly unsteady when she said it, and it brought out all Corinne's protective instincts.

  `Will he be prepared to marry you?' she asked, and a sudden flush of colour in Iole's cheeks reminded her of how quickly the other girl was recovering.

  'I am not allowed to marry him,' Iole said with a thrust of her bottom lip. 'They have arranged that I marry Costas Menelus!'

  Corinne was in fact aware that the arrangement was not as definite as that. Both families hoped for a match when Iole was a little older and everything was being done to move things along in that direction, but so far it was no more definite than that.

  Corinne had met Costas a couple of times and liked him. He was quite good-looking and rather shy and he adored Iole unreservedly, but it was perhaps because of his obvious devotion that Iole, with the perverseness of

  her sex, refused to even countenance him as a future husband. Whoever the father of her baby was he had made certain that the families' marriage plans did not include Costas Menelus, and Corinne wondered if Iole was perhaps feeling a lot less certain of herself at the moment.

  `Surely things will be different now,' Corinne suggested. `Now that you're—the way you are, the situation is quite different.'

  'Do you think so?' The bright dark gleam in Iole's eyes made her uneasy, and Corinne thought for a moment before she answered.

  `I don't know for certain, of course,' she said cautiously, 'but I would think it made a difference.'

  `You would say so to Thios Gregori?'

  The question took Corinne by surprise and she stared at her for a moment, made more uneasy by the obvious glint of appraisal in the dark eyes that watched her. 'I don't know about that,' she admitted after a second or two. 'I really don't want to get involved in anything like this so soon after I've joined your family, Iole. This is something you should discuss with your mother and get her to put your case to Greg—your uncle. You must tell her, Iole.'

  'No, not yet,' Iole insisted firmly.

  She was on her feet now and pacing up and down with the nervous energy of a young tigress, her bright dark eyes fully alert now and challenging in the brief glance they gave in the direction of Corinne, who still sat on the edge of the bed and watched her uneasily. She was much different from the girl that Corinne had found pale and unsteady in the doorway of her room, and of the two of them she was far more sure of herself.

  `Will you promise not to tell my secret to anyone?'

  She had stopped in front of Corinne and stood looking down at her, and Corinne hesitated, horribly uncertain. 'Iole, I don't know '

  Tor just a little while longer,' Iole insisted.

  It was difficult to see what use it would be to delay the moment when it would soon enough become .imperative to tell someone. Glancing at that youthfully angular figure she recalled her speculation on the day of her wedding, that Iole would not always be so gauntly slim, but she could have had no idea then just how soon her speculation would be a fact.

  `There is time enough yet,' Iole assured her, almost as if she had followed her train of thought. 'In the meantime you will not tell anyone else, eh?'

  How difficult it was, Corinne thought despairingly, to resist the demanding appeal of those dark, compelling Kolianos eyes, and she heaved a sigh of resignation as she shook her head. 'I ought not to,' she said, but I'll promise to keep your secret as long as I'm able, Iole. But only on condition that you do not wait too long—for your own sake.' Iole nodded and smiled, but Corinne was already wondering, as she got up from the edge of the bed, how long it would be before she regretted making her promise.

  Both Zoe and lole were out somewhere and the big salon was unusually quiet. Madame Kolianos sat reading and she frowned her dislike at the sudden shrill interruption of the telephone. Irine got up to answer it while Madame Kolianos removed her spectacles and sat' listening to her monosyllabic answers and frowning. Eventually she got up from her chair, and it was obvious to Corinne that something was wrong.

  Seeing Irine's face when she turned, Madame Kolianos

  hugged her close before putting her at arms' length to eye her questioningly. 'Tell me, pethi,' she said. 'Tell me what has happened.'

  Her quietness inspired courage, and after a moment or two Irine did as she was bid, although her voice was still noticeably unsteady. 'There has been an accident,' she said, and only extreme politeness and consideration for Corinne could have made her speak English at a moment like this. 'Iole has been injured and also the young man who was driving the car she was in.'

  Madame Kolianos muttered in her own tongue while she piously crossed herself, then she turned and picked up the house telephone. 'I shall come with you to the hospital, naturally,' she said in her firmest voice, and broke off to speak rapidly in Greek, obviously giving orders. 'While we await the arrival of the car,' she went on, turning back to her daughter-in-law, 'you will tell me about this accident, eh? How badly is the child injured?'

  The dark eyes gave the clue to her anxiousness, but the firm voice betrayed nothing, and Irine told her as much as she knew herself. 'I know only that she is hurt, Mitera, not badly, I think, but she must stay in the hospital.'

  `Ah !' Satisfaction at her granddaughter's escape was overshadowed by a bright curious glitter in her dark eyes. 'And who was this young man, Irine, eh?' she asked. 'Not Costas Menelus who loves her so devotedly —I will gamble my life on it!' She used her hands in a dismissive gesture of such violence that Corinne jumped. 'Ohi, ohi, that foolish girl would not have the sense to be with someone as dependable as Costas Menelus! She was with Takis Lemou, we may be sure of it!'

  Irine knew it too, Corinne could see, but she sought to deny it because she could not bear to admit her

  daughter's duplicity, and it was for Irine that she felt most pity. 'She was forbidden to see him long ago, Mitera. Not for many months has she seen him— she would not deceive her mama so!'

  `She would see him!' Madame Kolianos insisted, seeing no unkindness in her persistence. 'I warned Gregori that to forbid her was of no use, but—Agh ! ' She dismissed her son's attempts to break up Iole's affair scornfully. 'She will follow her own way as the Kolianoses always do, and you see what her disobedience has brought her to! A hospital bed, with her mama and her yayti weeping for her!' She looked out of the window and frowned impatiently. 'Epiph! Where is that chauffeur?'

  It had been Gregori who spent half the night at the hospital with Irine, returning in the early hours of the morning. Madame Kolianos had stayed only a short time at the hospital, then left Irine with her daughter, but Gregori was the strong right arm that Irine needed in a crisis, and he was willing to take his brother's place when he was needed.

  Quite obviously nothing had been mentioned about the baby before Madame Kolianos left, or she would never have returned home looking so blithely confident of her granddaughter's swift recovery. Perhaps Iole was managing to keep her secret, or perhaps she could not bring herself to tell anyone else but her mother at this stage. Either way it was rather like sitting on a volcano, waiting for the news-to break.

  But anxious or not, Corinne had become so sleepy by one o'clock in the morning that she had gone to bed, and fallen asleep, despite all her efforts to stay awake. When Gregori eventually came home she had merely

  stirred and opened a sleepy eye, not even remembering why he had been gone so long, then turned into his arms and slept again, content to know he was there. It was not until the following morning, when she woke to find him already dressed, that she learned how closely affected she was to be.

  'Kalimera
, my love.' Gregori came to her the moment he realised she was awake, bending to take her in his arms and hold her close while he kissed her mouth, lifting her, warm with sleep, from the pillows. 'You slept so soundly you did not even wake when I came to bed.'

  'I tried to stay awake,' she confessed, and let him go only reluctantly when he gently disengaged her arms from his neck. There was something about him this morning that was subtly different, and she knew the minute her sleep-dazed brain cleared that he had learned about Iole's baby. 'You were a long time at the hospital,' she ventured. 'Is everything all right with Iole, darling?'

  Sitting up in bed she could watch his reflection in the dressing-table mirror while he leaned forward and fashioned a knot in the new silk tie she had given him. And in those few moments she regretted more than ever not having told him about the baby. He was usually so amiable and good-tempered in the mornings, but today there was an air of restraint about him that she found unnerving.

  He said little, but the quick impatient movements of his hands gave an indication of the stress he was under, and she watched him with growing anxiety. He had probably slept little last night, for there were shadows beneath his eyes and a downward curve to his mouth that was not usually there, and she longed to comfort him.

  'She is with child!'

  He made the announcement so suddenly and unexpectedly that Corinne had no time to fake her reaction. Instead of looking blankly shocked as he probably expected, she obeyed her first instinct and hastily avoided his eyes, making no verbal comment at all. Only when she saw his head come up slowly and his dark eyes narrow when they met hers briefly via the mirror did she realise too late how much she had betrayed simply by not saying or doing anything at all.

  'I said that Iole is expecting a child.' He turned from the mirror and faced her, his dark eyes still narrowed. `Are you not even a little surprised to learn that my niece is pregnant, Corinne?'