Mrs. Lillitos laughed softly. “The more I hear of her
the more I admire her! Now, Marc, go away, and let me
talk to Kate alone for a while. You are too disturbing.”
He made a violent grimace, but did not argue. When
he had gone, his mother smiled at her. “He was, even as
a boy—it was like having a hurricane permanently in
the house.”
Kate laughed. “I can imagine!”
Mrs. Lillitos leaned back. “Tell me about yourself, my
dear. Do you like teaching music?”
“I like teaching anyone as talented as Pallas,” she said
frankly. “It’s a great pleasure to feel that one is able to
help someone with her gifts.”
Mrs. Lillitos did not reply directly. After a pause she
said, “And yourself? Are you musically talented? Did you
ever want to be a professional pianist?”
“How did you know I was a pianist?” Kate asked in
surprise.
“I heard you playing to my son last night. It was very
pleasant. You must play for me again some time. Did you
enjoy exploring the island today?”
Kate blinked. “I ... I didn’t go with Pallas and Sam,”
she said slowly. “I went to the temple.”
“To Angkistri?” repeated Mrs. Lillitos. “Are you
interested in archaeology? We have a young man here
now, studying the temple.”
“He is my fiancé,” Kate explained, smiling in surprise.
Why hadn’t Marc told his mother that she and Peter were
engaged?
Mrs. Lillitos stiffened and stared at her. “Fiancé?” she
repeated. “Fiancé?”
Kate would have thought she did not know the word,
but she remembered that Mrs. Lillitos was French and
must be perfectly familiar with it.
“Didn’t Marc tell you?” she asked. “Surely Pallas must
have mentioned it to you?”
Then she saw that Mrs. Lillitos was very pale. Her frail
hand was groping for the stick which stood propped
against her chair.
Feebly she stood up, refusing Kate’s offer of help with a
silent shake of the head.
“I do not feel very hungry tonight,” she said. “I think I
will go back to my room. Will you call my son?”
Kate obeyed and Marc came in quickly, looking at his
mother with natural anxiety.
“Give me your arm, my son,” she said heavily.
He moved to her side at once and they left the room
slowly. Kate sank back into her own chair, baffled. Why
had Mrs. Lillitos suddenly altered? Was it just that she
had begun to feel ill, or had something Kate said upset
her?
Before she could think too closely about it, Pallas and
Sam had come in together, talking loudly.
“Oh, you’re alone,” said Pallas, with obvious relief. “I
thought Marc might be in here. Heavens, Kate, if you had
seen his face when he discovered we had let you go up to
To Angkistri alone! He practically burst a blood vessel.
Marc has such set ideas about women. He likes to wrap
them in cotton wool for safe keeping.” She grinned at
Sam. “Although these days he does seem to be making an
effort to turn a blind eye to my new clothes and hairstyle.
So perhaps he is improving.”
“He’s a throwback to the knights of old,” Sam teased.
“His recipe for life starts, first catch your damsel ...”
Pallas giggled. “Club her,” she suggested, “and throw
her over your horse.”
Sam played up. “Gallop away with her to your castle,”
he added, twirling an imaginary moustache, “and shut
her up in an ivory tower.” He sighed exaggeratedly. “Ah,
those were the days!”
“Nowadays,” said Marc’s cool tones from the door, making
them all look round guiltily, “your knight
would have a hard time telling the damsels from the other
young men.”
“But think what fun he would have trying to find out!”
Sam countered impudently.
Marc’s brows rose. “Really? Shall we go in to dinner
now? Mama does not feel well enough to stay down,
Pallas. She has one of her headaches.”
They had moussaka for dinner—aubergines thinly
sliced, rich dark minced lamb and a thick cheese sauce
covering it all. Kate enjoyed it very much and determined
to make it when she got home.
Marc peeled an apple slowly, his long slim fingers deft
in all their movements. Kate watched him, remembering
the gentleness of those fingers on her face earlier.
“By the way, Pallas, Helene cabled today. She arrives
at the end of the week,” he said without looking up.
His sister looked up, frowning. “Alone?”
He shook his head and shot her a quick glance. “She is
bringing Marie-Louise and Jean-Paul with her.”
Pallas dropped the fork with which she was eating a
confection of chocolate and cream. “Jean-Paul?” she
repeated breathlessly. “Oh, why did you have to invite
him here?”
“Why shouldn’t he come here?” Marc demanded. “He is
our cousin, after all. And he usually visits us once a year.”
She pushed back her chair, standing up suddenly. “It
isn’t fair!” she wailed, like a child, and ran out of the
room.
Sam stared after her, then looked at Marc, who calmly
went on peeling his apple, the rings sliding from between
his fingers in symmetrical spirals.
Silently, Sam followed Pallas out of the room. Kate felt
curious, yet nervous. She wanted to know why Pallas so
much disliked the idea of a visit from this cousin of hers,
and yet she was tensely aware of being left alone with
Marc once more.
He cut himself a slice of the apple, bit it with relish,
and then smilingly offered her half. She shook her head.
But before she could ask him about his sister’s reaction to
his news, he had said lazily, “Did you know that Spiro
Pyrakis lived near here?”
She dragged her mind back from the thoughts which
had been absorbing it.
“Spiro Pyrakis? No, I didn’t. I have all his records at
home. He’s my favourite pianist. I went to all his London
concerts last year, and I found his playing even better
than I’d dreamed. Of course, a recording is never the
same as the real thing.”
“He’s a friend of mine,” he said casually.
She stared at him, too awed to speak.
“I was talking to him on the telephone this morning,”
he said lightly. “He asked me to sail over there tomorrow.
Would you like to come?”
“I couldn’t,” she stammered, torn between delight and
awe. “He wouldn’t want to meet a stranger ...”
“I told him about you,” Marc went on, “asked if I might
bring you. He said it would be delightful to meet a pretty
girl.” He grinned at her, his grey eyes alight with wicked
amusement. “Spiro loves the company of pretty girls and
he has been shut up on Epilison for weeks, writing a new
concerto. He jum
ped at you like a hungry trout jumping
at a fly.”
Kate flushed. “I’m sure he didn’t,” she protested.
“Wait until you meet him. You’ll see I am telling the
truth. You’ll come?”
“If you’re sure ...” she said nervously. “Are Pallas and
Sam going, too?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Too many people would irritate
him. He hates a crowd.”
“Pallas is a pretty girl,” she suggested innocently, her
eyes on his face.
He grinned at her. “Spiro has known her since she was
knee-high to a cicada—he would squabble with her. There
is something childlike about him, you know. He and
Pallas always quarrel, but they are fond of each other.”
Kate excused herself early, pleading fatigue, and he
stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching her. “If your
back is aching I have some liniment that might help,” he
offered, seeing her involuntarily holding her back.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Thank you.”
“I promise not to kiss the sore place again,” he offered
teasingly.
Red and furious, she did not answer, but ran quickly
up the stairs.
Next morning she was downstairs early for breakfast,
wearing blue denim jeans and a loose matching jacket.
Her thick, white ribbed sweater gave her a boyish look,
emphasised by the fact that she had tied her blonde hair
at the back into a ponytail. The severe style gave a new
vulnerability to her face, of which she was unaware.
Marc was sitting at the table, eating rolls and dark
red jam. He eyed her lazily. “You look about seventeen,”
he commented.
Kate took a boiled egg from the silver covered dish and
came to sit down opposite him.
He leaned over and teasingly cut a slice of toast into
thin strips for her. “Little girls like to have soldiers to dip
into their eggs, don’t they?”
She gave him a dignified frown. “What time do we
leave?” she asked forbiddingly.
He laughed aloud, his mood clearly relaxed and
carefree this morning.
They walked down to the small quay a quarter of an
hour later. Marc helped her to climb aboard his neat little
yacht, cast off and jumped on board himself. The wind
took the sails and Kate looked up at them with pleasure
as, white and free, they slapped to and fro above her.
“Watch your head,” Marc ordered curtly, and she
ducked down at once as the beam swung round.
The wind blew behind them all the way to Epilison, the
neighbouring island on which Pyrakis lived. They made
the crossing in an hour and a half.
The island looked beautiful as they skimmed closer.
Blue, shadowy hills, golden sands, white houses,
shimmering in the early morning sun, in an unreal
beauty which reminded her of a postcard come to life.
They tied up at a small jetty and walked up, along
narrow village streets, past the untidy white houses
whose doors all seemed to stand permanently open. Old
women in black sat on some of the doorsteps, shawls over
their grey heads, their wrinkled, tanned faces smiling at
Marc as he walked past. He paused to speak to each one,
gallantly, teasingly, and they giggled at what he said.
Fishermen mending nets waved to him, little boys
begged for drachmae. Everyone seemed to know him and
like him.
They paused at the very top of the hill and he pushed
open high iron gates set in a flinty wall which ran around
a charming, untidy garden, set with cypress and gnarled
old olive trees.
The house was of an ornate, oriental design, the
windows all curves and arches, the stonework fretted.
Kate was so nervous that when Marc, with a sharp
glance, smiled and held her hand as if she were five years
old, she did not protest, but clung to his protection.
“Suppose he’s angry because you brought me?” she
whispered. “He probably prefers his privacy, like most
famous people.”
He squeezed her fingers comfortingly. “Goose! I told
you, he loves pretty blonde girls!”
She giggled, and then the door opened and a fierce old
man, his thick grey moustaches quivering, glared at them
from flashing black eyes.
Marc spoke to him, in Greek, grinning affectionately,
and the old man answered in a low, grumbling voice, his
hands moving in vivid emphasis. Kate saw him shooting
those black eyes at her, and looked nervously up at Marc.
He laughed, slipping an arm around her shoulders. “He
says he does not like young ladies coming here because
Pyrakis always falls madly in love with them, especially
when they are blonde and beautiful, like you!” And his
grey eyes glinted wickedly.
She blushed and stammered, “I don’t believe he said
anything of the sort!” She moved away, so that his arm
slid off her shoulder.
Marc’s eyes continued to laugh at her. He spoke again
to the old man, grinning, and the old man laughed, deep
in his throat.
He talked gutturally, gesticulating, and Marc laughed.
Then they walked into the cool, shadowy hall and the old
man shuffled away, his great hooked nose like an eagle’s
beak, in profile.
Kate stared around her in fascination. The floor of the
tub stood in one corner, full of tall waving ferns, and
opposite her hung a gilded mirror in which her own face
swam, like a translucent mermaid’s, against the dim
background of the hall.
“That is Kyril. He has been with Spiro for years and is
devoted to him, in a fierce, scornful way. They shout at
each other and swear to kill each other, but they are
inseparable.” Marc came up behind her, staring over her
shoulder at her face in the mirror.
Their eyes met. Hers fell away, shyly, at something
odd in his. Then Kyril came back and led them down the
hall. The room they entered was long, austere and as
shadowy as the hall. Beyond open french windows she
could see a cluster of bushes and tall cypress, whose
branches darkened the room, giving it an undersea look,
a cool greeny light filtering through and spilling over
books, tables, chairs.
In a shabby old armchair sat Spiro Pyrakis, his
leonine head turned towards them.
He rose, holding out his powerful fingers, first to Kate.
Kate. “Mia kyria,” he murmured, his slightly protruding
blue eyes appraising her. Then his polite smile widened.
“Marc,” he said, in charmingly accented English, “you lied
to me, you dog!”
Marc raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“You told me she was pretty,” said Pyrakis. “She is
enchantingly lovely!” And the blue eyes gleamed down on
her. She was not so inexperienced that she could not
recognise the glance of desired possession, and a hot
blus
h rose to her cheeks.
Marc moved restlessly, but said nothing. Pyrakis
raised her fingers, very very slowly, and kissed each one
separately, his eyes still fixed on her pink face.
“What innocence, what delicacy!” he murmured. “To
see her blush is like seeing a rosebud open.”
Marc moved to the window and stood with his back to
them, his hands jammed into his pockets. “She is a
pianist, Spiro, and an admirer of yours.”
“Of course,” purred Pyrakis, smiling. He turned Kate’s
hands over, inspecting them. “Your fingers told tales to
me,” he said, softly. “These little tips work hard. Either a
typist or a pianist. I suspected a pianist, because of this
...” and he delicately touched the pulse which beat at the
base of her slender throat. “Sensitive, responsive little
creature! Ah, if I were younger! To see that tell-tale beat
stir at my touch!” He sighed romantically.
Kate looked helplessly at Marc’s unresponsive back. “I
... I teach, Mr. Pyrakis, I’m not an artiste ...” she
stammered, trying to withdraw her hands without
seeming rude.
His face relaxed and a great charm flowed out towards
her. “A good teacher is the bounty of heaven,” he said
gently. “I had a wonderful teacher!” He released her
hands and waved her to a chair. Much relieved, she sank
into it, and Marc turned round and also took a seat.
Pyrakis glared at the door. “Where is that fellow, that
thief, that rascal?” he bellowed in rapid Greek, and from
somewhere in the house a loud voice replied in fierce
tones.
Soon the old man reappeared, carrying a little table.
They sat around it, drinking black coffee and nibbling
slices of honey-drenched pastry sprinkled with almonds.
Marc mentioned Pallas and Spiro Pyrakis bared his
teeth.
“Has she begun to work yet, the lazy, idle girl?”
“Miss Caulfield is her teacher. Ask her,” said Marc
lightly, leaning back, his hands on the arms of his chair.
Pyrakis looked at her, one thick brow raised. “What do
you think of her?”
“She is beyond me,” Kate confessed. “I think she has
great promise.”
He gestured impatiently. “Of course, but the
temperament! She will not work. A musician needs tena-
city, humility, stamina. Pallas lacks them all.”
“Kate has great confidence in her!” said Marc.
“Kate?” Pyrakis stared at her, his blue eyes caressing.