Realm of the Pagans

by Anne Hampson

  Chapter Eight

  Kelvin looked at her blankly and Martine averted her face and stared through the window of his sitting-room, absently noting the tangled shrubs and the wild fig tree lifting its branches above the trellis which was dripping with colour from bougainvillaea of various shades ranging from rose pink to magenta. The warm Grecian sun cast its golden light over the whole garden and the sky above was sapphire blue and cloudless.

  'I don't understand.' Kelvin broke the silence at last, his voice accusing and angry and baffled all at one and the same time. 'You can't want to stay with him!'

  She swallowed the saliva collecting on her tongue. 'I'm sorry, Kelvin, but—but—yes, I do want to stay with my husband.' She felt miserable at hurting him, this man whom she had so recently loved… or believed she had loved. She was now half convinced that Luke had been right all along and that she had never been in love with Kelvin. Nor had he been in love with her, Luke had asserted. Well, he had not been in love with Sophia either, it would seem.

  'You promised—and it's only since talking to him that you've changed your mind!'

  'We did talk, yes.'

  Kelvin looked at her with suspicion in his eyes, and a shade of contempt, Martine noticed.

  'It's the physical side of it.' Half question, half statement and to her chagrin Martine felt the colour mount her cheeks. A sneer caught Kelvin's underlip. 'They do say the Greeks are the world's greatest lovers—no, not the greatest,' he amended, flicking her a glance of scorn, 'the most amorous. So he gets you going, does he?'

  'Don't be vulgar!' flashed Martine, her cheeks hotter than ever.

  'I'm stating a fact. You never seemed that hot-blooded to me—but perhaps I, as a mere Englishman, do not have what it takes.' Turning his back on her he walked over to the drinks cabinet and lifted the lid.

  She turned towards the door but was only halfway there when he said, 'Don't make a hasty decision, Martine, please. I love you and you love me. Sex won't keep a girl like you interested forever, not without something deeper to strengthen it.' He paused, bottle and glass held aloft. 'You're dishonest if you argue with what I am saying, darling. Give him up and come away with me as we arranged. Why, that scar is enough to tell you what sort of man he is! As I mentioned before, every time you look at it you're going to be reminded of how he came by it.'

  She nodded even though she did not mean to. She could not verbally agree with him, though, but something in her expression caused him to add confidently, 'You don't deny anything, so in your heart you agree with all I have said.'

  'The scar will fade—' She stopped, feeling foolish at the inanity of the remark.

  'But the memory won't. Always there will be the knowledge of the damage he did to that girl.' Vehement the tone… but the eyes avoided hers and something quivered along Martine's spine.

  She was profoundly conscious of the fact that, previously, she had sensed a mystery surrounding that scar. She heard herself say slowly, her eyes never leaving his face, 'Are you absolutely sure he received the scar in a brawl with Litsa's brothers?'

  Kelvin seemed absorbed in pouring out his whisky. His eyes no longer avoided her scrutiny when he said at length, 'Of course I'm sure. In any case, you've spoken to Litsa so you know for certain that the little boy is his.'

  She pursed her lips, still uneasy, still conscious of something that was not open and above board. 'Yes,' she said presently, 'I have spoken to Litsa. Nevertheless, I somehow cannot associate my husband with a dastardly act like that. He is a Greek and knows full well the harm he would be doing to that lovely girl. And she is lovely, Kelvin. You haven't ever met her, it would seem?'

  He shook his head. 'No, I haven't.'

  'Then you should.'

  'Any particular reason?' he inquired with sudden interest.

  'No…' Martine shrugged her shoulders, not knowing just why she had said what she had. 'It was just that I thought you should know what she is like.'

  He frowned at her from above the glass he held. 'I have not the least desire to know what one of your husband's pillow friends is like.'

  Martine set her teeth, and her eyes flashed fire. 'Don't talk about my husband like that!' she fumed. 'Nor should you talk about Litsa that way.'

  'You appear to be strangely sympathetic towards Litsa.' He was puzzled yet still scornful in spite of the little interlude when he had begged Martine to reconsider and go away with him as they had previously arranged.

  'She isn't bad just because she's had a baby out of wedlock!'

  'In Greece she is.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'You agree with the affair then—the affair between your husband and this village girl?'

  'Agree is an odd word for you to use, Kelvin.'

  'Condone, then? Overlook?'

  'I have to overlook it, seeing that it has already happened—and you have to remember that it happened a long while ago when Luke's affairs had nothing to do with me any more than mine had anything to do with him.'

  'But you never had any affairs—or so I concluded.'

  'By affairs I do not mean anything physical. I am speaking generally.' Martine suddenly realised that this was an inane conversation, getting them nowhere, and she edged further towards the door.

  'Don't go yet.' He put down the glass and came across the room. 'Martine, you're out of your mind to throw away the happiness of two people —yours and mine, darling.' He had almost reached her but she frowned and warded him off with outstretched hands, palms facing him. It was an instinctive, protective kind of gesture which had the desired effect of stopping him in his tracks.

  'I'm leaving, Kelvin—goodbye, and good luck.'

  'You can't go like this!' It was a desperate, pleading cry which seared her soft compassionate heart, and she did not remember, as many would have done, that Kelvin had treated her even more heartlessly than this.

  'I must, dear Kelvin,' she said gently, touching his sleeve in a tender little gesture. 'It's best for us both—'

  'How can it be best for us both?' he broke in wildly. He was as a drowning man grasping at a straw… but there was no straw there.

  Martine was compelled to say, a little catch in her voice caused by the tightness in her throat, 'There is more to my marriage than you think, Kelvin. You see, although you are right in thinking that Luke does not love me, you are wrong in thinking I do not love him.' She was pale and knew it. But Kelvin was paler still; in fact, he was grey about the mouth and cheeks, ashen grey. The look in his eyes hurt Martine abominably, but now she did think of what he had done to her, recalling the pain, the black misery of that drive when all the time she was looking for the headlights that would tell her that Kelvin had come and that he was sorry and wanted nothing more than to make up and be happy with her again, just as if Sophia had never existed for him.

  'You—you're telling me the truth?' he managed at last, moving backwards and reaching for the glass he had put down. 'You love him?'

  She nodded slowly. 'Yes, Kelvin, I do. So you see, it would never have worked for you and me—'

  'But I don't understand,' he broke in swiftly. 'Only a few hours ago your mind was made up; you were coming away with me.' He shook his head bewilderedly. 'You can't possibly have fallen in love with him since leaving me.'

  She smiled then, a wise and yet enigmatic smile, rather like that of the Mona Lisa, thought Kelvin, fascinated now as he awaited her reply.

  'It doesn't take long for the fact that you're in love to hit you,' she said gently. 'I knew it before I left you this morning. I said I'd come away with you for that reason, and not because of what I had learned about him and Litsa.'

  'For that reason?' He frowned at her in puzzlement.

  'I felt I could not live with Luke once I realised I was in love with him. You see, I know he can never love me.' Her lip trembled and Kelvin's frown went deeper into his forehead.

  'So you were, in effect, going to use me,' he gritted, ignoring her last sentence although she felt sure it was in t
he forefront of his mind. What a fool he must think her, loving a man who by her own admission would never love her. 'My word, Martine, I have had a narrow escape! You'd have come to me, let me marry you, and all the time you'd have been in love with another man—'

  'You need not stare at me with contempt like that!' she could not help breaking in to say, her eyes flashing with anger and indignation. 'You seem to forget that this whole thing has come about owing to your breaking off our engagement!'

  'It would seem that it was a wise decision on my part! You have never loved me—never!'

  'Perhaps not, but neither have you loved me—' She broke off and opened the door. 'There's no profit in this kind of quarrel so I'll say goodbye again. I hope you will accept this as final.' Her voice was cool because of the ache in her heart. If only Sophia had not appeared on the scene-She stopped her thoughts, for she realised that the girl's intrusion into their lives had actually been for the best. As both Luke and Kelvin said, she had never really loved Kelvin… nor had he loved her. They had found something attractive in each other, but that was not love. She supposed that, had they married, they would have been happy for a time, but eventually it would have dawned on one or both of them that there was a great deal missing and, like so many others, they would, sadly, have agreed to a divorce.

  Martine could not bear to think of that, for in her subconscious there was the strong conviction that she and Luke would part one day since such a relationship as theirs had not sufficient strength to survive the normal hazards which appear even in the happiest of marriages. Deep dejection spread over her as she made her way back to the villa. Even her appreciation of the landscape was half-hearted—the painted fields of soft green and the darker green of olive groves, the banded gold and brown of the river bank, the blue of the flowing water, its ripples tinted with sunlight so that myriad diamonds danced upon its surface. Oleanders nodded, their perfume wafting across to her on the zephyr of a breeze, and higher up she saw the incredibly beautiful gardens of her husband's home—her home. But for how long?

  It was inevitable that Luke should notice her dejection and a frown darkened his brow. 'What did he have to say?' he asked, having met her on the terrace where he had been giving instructions to one of the gardeners who had now moved some distance away.

  'Nothing much,' she returned non-committally, but her husband was not to be put off so easily and he repeated his question as if she had not spoken at all. She glanced antagonistically at him and saw his mouth compress at her action. Resignedly, she said, 'He was upset and said I was a fool, that I ought to go away with him—At first he said that,' she amended, then wished she hadn't because she had obviously given Luke food for thought.

  'At first? You mean, he changed his mind after awhile?'

  'Yes, he realized I had never loved him.'

  Her husband regarded her with an odd expression. He was above her, toweringly tall and self-possessed and infinitely superior. Martine wished she had half his self-confidence, wished her nerves would not throb so whenever she was being questioned like this by him. He looked so stern and forbidding and she wondered what kind of father he would make and whether he would terrorise his children.

  'There must have been a good reason why he changed his mind so suddenly?'

  'I can't remember—er—we were talking and I think he—he suddenly felt that what we'd had between us wasn't love after all.'

  'I told you that,' abruptly and with a deepening of his frown. 'You're keeping something back,' he accused and to her annoyance she felt the colour rise in her cheeks. 'What is it?'

  She shook her head, for this was one question she had no intention of answering no matter how he coerced her. It would be unbearably humiliating to confess that she had fallen in love with him. He would ridicule her, laugh in her face while admonishing her, reminding her that he did not believe in love between a man and a woman.

  'Is there any necessity for this cross-examination, Luke?' she queried at length.

  'I have a right to cross-examine my wife.'

  'What a pompous, arrogant man you are!'

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. 'Don't prevaricate,' he snapped. 'What exactly passed between you and Kelvin just now?'

  'I've told you everything that passed between us.' It was her own secret which she was keeping back, and perhaps something in her expression convinced him that no matter how hard he tried there was something within her that she would never divulge to him.

  But he was angry, and for the rest of the day this anger was evident. However, while they were having their coffee after dinner he said curiously, 'Did you talk with Socrates as you intended doing?'

  She nodded, eyes brightening. 'Yes—yes, I did. Is he going to marry Thoula without a dowry?'

  'He is, and that means you've effected a miracle. Perhaps this will eventually catch on in this area and dowries will become a thing of the past. You're a clever girl to have succeeded in breaking a custom, for custom dies much harder than law where such old established ideas are concerned.'

  Her eyes still shone as she said, on a little note of satisfaction not untinged with triumph, 'I'm thrilled that Socrates has seen sense. It was so absurd for him and Thoula to wait until they were well into their thirties—as I know many people here do—and for Thoula to then begin raising a family. She doesn't want to be having children when she's forty…' Martine's voice trailed away because of the sudden gleam of amusement which had appeared in her husband's eyes.

  'She will still be having children when she's forty,' asserted Luke with a confidence that grated on her mind and her ears. 'Greek wives resign themselves to the fact that their main function is to produce children—and it is boys who are wanted, not girls.'

  Martine's pleasure of a moment ago became submerged by anger. 'Boys!' she scoffed. 'A fine thing it would be if you men all had your wishes fulfilled. Where would all your boys be then?'

  He laughed at her anger, laughed as if he could not help it. 'Don't get so up tight, my dear. Nature will ensure that there are enough females to go round—'

  'And this question of women bearing children into their forties! It's high time they were educated!' She paused, but to her annoyance Luke was still laughing, though mainly with his eyes this time. She glanced away, determined not to be affected by the attractiveness of him in this mood. 'I sincerely hope you are not expecting me to be having children when I'm forty!' She stopped rather abruptly, colour infusing her cheeks as embarrassment swept over her.

  'If I decided that you should, my dear,' he remarked softly and with emphasis, 'then you'd have no choice. However, I am not desirous of having a vast army of children around me.' He paused to look into her eyes and suddenly there seemed to be a deep and dense emotion between them and the atmosphere was charged electrically.

  Why should this be such an intimate moment? It was almost as if love, strong and secure, were passing from one to the other… Strange sensations, impossible dreams… Martine's heart contracted and sadness filled her eyes, moistening her lashes.

  Luke stared at her strangely before saying, in tones almost tender, 'How many children do you want, Martine?'

  She shook her head and glanced away, still embarrassed. But presently she answered, almost able to see her children playing in these wonderful gardens… there'd be a swing and a climbing frame, a paddling pool… children's laughter… she could hear it echoing all around her, and she and her husband were watching the activity, pride in their eyes, love in their hearts. 'Three… I'm an idealist.' She spoke what was in her mind regardless of the fact that her wild impossible thoughts had no bearing on what she and Luke were talking about. For the love she had pictured had been love for each other as well as love for then-children.

  'Three?' He lifted an eyebrow enquiringly. 'What kind?'

  'Two girls and one boy.' She spoke challengingly and a smile touched the chiselled outline of his mouth.

  'The males will be outnumbered—that is what you want?'

  'I like l
ittle girls,' she said. 'They're as adorable as kittens.'

  'All kittens grow into cats.'

  'I agree that some girls grow into cats,' she said and knew at once that the subtlety of her words had come through to him.

  'Sophia?'

  'And her sister.' It was out before she could prevent it and for one anxious moment she awaited his reaction. But no frightening expression appeared on his face—just a nerve pulsating along the length of the scar, nothing else.

  'You do not know Odette well enough to pass an opinion like that,' was all he said and changed the subject, saying that if she wanted three children then that suited him.

  'And you don't mind having two girls?'

  'What makes you so sure you can choose?' he said with a glimmer of amusement. 'We might have all boys—or all girls. However, I expect we shall be both happy and grateful so long as they are born perfect.'

  She looked swiftly at him. How unpredictable he was! For at this moment he was so very human, his expression softened by the look in his eyes, the relaxed mouth which, though still sensuous, was compassionate too… and she longed for him to kiss her…

  He said softly, 'You're very tempting at this moment, Martine. I could spend the rest of the day making love to you.'

  She coloured but the sharp retort which she was sure he felt was forthcoming never even entered her mind, much less left her lips. Instead, she turned away and announced her intention of going on to the Sanctuary for an hour or so.

  'I'll come with you,' he said.

  Was he afraid of her meeting Kelvin, or did he really have a desire to be with her in that sacred place where all was so peaceful and quiet—a legacy from those ancient times when not the least element of friction was allowed to intrude into the sanctity and inviolability of the holy precincts?