by Anne Hampson
‘I’m her husband,’ he shouted in answer to that, and Gale’s eyebrows lifted a fraction.
‘Isn’t it a bit late to remember that?’
He glared at her, crimson colour fusing his face. ‘Cynical as ever, aren’t you? Well, miss, just because you’ve a private war on against all men it doesn’t mean that you’re going to aid and abet your mother in rebellion against me. If I thought for one moment she was with a man,’ he said again between his teeth, ‘I’d strangle her!’ ‘You make my blood boil! She must lead a blameless life while you yourself carry on the way you do? I don’t know how you have the nerve to talk like this!’ Temper was high; nevertheless, Gale’s chief emotion was anxiety, for it did seem that her mother had a man friend. And as it would be too much of a coincidence that some man should have conveniently turned up three weeks ago Gale could not help wondering if her mother had previously met someone she could care for, but whom she had resolutely kept at a distance owing to her own high ideals of fidelity.
And now, convinced that her daughter had let her down, as her husband had been doing for years, she had thrown ideals to the winds and was herself indulging in an affair. ‘I’ve a good mind to follow her!’
Gale slanted her brows.
‘Mother might be simple — by your standards - but she’s not so simple that she’d allow you to follow her.’
Mr. Davis went out at last, after repeatedly glancing at the clock. Plainly he had a date, thought Gale, her contemptuous gaze following him as he went past the living-room window on his way to the garage. How many times had her mother ridden in that car? Gale estimated they could be counted on one hand. The car disappeared with unnecessary noise and Gale sat down on the couch, brooding over her mother’s changed ways and the rift which had resulted from Gale’s own action in going to the lodge and remaining there the night. Mrs. Davis had scarcely spoken to her daughter during the past three weeks, so the atmosphere in the house was one of tension, with man and wife not speaking, mother and daughter speaking only when necessary, and father and daughter quarrelling every time they found themselves alone.
Gale felt she could not endure it much longer and she had in fact already considered changing her job - going to work at the other side of town and sharing a flat with a friend who rented one which was too large for her. But although the idea appealed one moment she flung it aside the next. Her mother would be even more unhappy if she went; and in any case, Gale was ever telling herself that this phase in their relationship would be bound to pass, and the old comradeship would then be resumed. If only she knew what her mother was doing, though. She must be somewhere!
Gale’s melancholy reflections were abruptly broken into by the ringing of the doorbell and she went into the hall to see who it was.
‘Julius!’ she gasped, stepping back immediately upon opening the door. ‘What—?’
Smiling urbanely, he said, eyes flicking over her as if he
just could not help stealing an admiring glance,
‘May I come in? You’re quite alone, so we can have a nice friendly chat.’
She frowned at him, uncomprehendingly. But she stood aside and gestured; he passed her and she closed the door.
‘In here.’ Gale pushed open the living-room door and he preceded her into the large, tidy apartment. ‘Please sit down.’
‘Thank you. Will my car be all right out there - on the road?’
‘Of course.’ She felt awkward in spite of her innate confidence. But then both she and he were dwelling on what had happened the last time they met. ‘Why are you here, Julius? I understood you were not coming to England for some time yet?’
‘You didn’t ask me how I knew you were alone,’ he remarked, ignoring what she had said.
‘I expect I was too taken aback by your appearance to grasp what you said. How did you know I’d be alone?’
He said, a pleasant smile hovering on his lips,
‘Your mother told me.’
‘My—!’ She gave him a startled glance. ‘When have you seen my mother?’
‘Several times lately—’
‘But - have you been in England all the time?’ Gale eyed him suspiciously and digressed for a moment, asking in a very soft voice, ‘Did you tell Trevis that I was at the lodge that night?’
His wide staring gaze was censure in itself and she lowered her lashes.
‘I don’t know Trevis,’ curtly and with the accent more pronounced, the result of anger. ‘And if I did, do you honestly believe I’d tell him about your being at the lodge?’
She shook her head, but went on to say,
‘Someone told him.’
‘We’ll come to that later,’ he decided crisply. ‘The important issue is that you’ve shocked your mother by your wicked ways — but of course you’re aware of this.
She’s given you her opinion in no uncertain terms, I believe?’
She looked across at him before sitting down on a chair facing the window.
‘Hadn’t you better begin at the beginning?’ she invited, crossing one slender leg over the other and leaning back in a manner of deceptive ease. The last rays of sunlight fell on to her face and hair, highlighting contours and colours. Her violet eyes were wide and curious, her full wide mouth slightly open - invitingly.
Julius’s attention was wholly with the lovely picture she made and on noting his changing expression she felt the blood rush to her cheeks, warming them rosily. He smiled to himself and ... could it be imagination, she wondered, or was there actually a gleam of triumph in those dark disturbing eyes? She swallowed, recalling with stark clarity that scene in the bedroom before the anticlimax of the burst pipe. She had been left in a void of - of ... Was it really disappointment? At the time the question had risen, and been shelved, but now.... The man sitting there was still intently watching her and she lowered her head, hoping it was not too late to conceal her thoughts but very much afraid that the astute Greek would miss nothing.
‘At the beginning,’ he mused at length, his strong
‘You were in love with him, all the time?’ she que
‘At the beginning,’ he mused at length, his strong angular features settling into thoughtful lines. ‘Where does one begin, I wonder?’ However, he immediately went on to explain. Gale learned that her mother had cabled the message that she wanted to see him. ‘I came over at once,’ he said, and continued, ‘Your mother is heartbroken—’ ‘Only because she absolutely refuses to believe my story,’ cut in Gale indignantly.
‘Can you blame her?’ he queried with a hint of sardonic amusement. ‘It entirely lacks credibility.’
‘It does not!’ she retorted angrily. ‘How can the truth lack credibility?’
‘Let’s get back to where we were,’ he said quietly. ‘Your mother’s heartbroken because, she says, you’ve taken after your father.’
‘You mean - Mother told you all about my father?’ She stared at him in disbelief.
‘I’m sure she didn’t tell me all,’ he rejoined with humour, ‘but she did tell me sufficient for me to understand how she came to be feeling as she did about you.
She tells me the only thing that will restore her peace of mind is marriage. She can forgive your - er - indiscretion if I make an honest woman of you. Rather antiquated, I must confess, but while your mother’s generation is with us these ideals will remain.’ He spoke with such unruffled calm -without expression almost - that Gale could only stare in stupefaction for a while, trying to dismiss the incredible idea that was crowding in on her mind.
‘Why have you come here?’ she managed at last, and Julius lifted one eyebrow admonishingly as he replied,
‘This air of mystification is out of character, Gale. You know full well why I’ve come.’
‘I think I must be dreaming.’ Dazedly she shook her head, but her heart was acting strangely - beating far too rapidly. Julius laughed and assured her that she was very wide awake. ‘Then you are quite mad,’ she declared, and again he laughed. How inordina
tely handsome, with that laugh crinkling the corners of his basalt eyes, and that thick grey hair — so dark, like iron for the most part but a little lighter at his temples so that there was an attractive contrast with his brown skin. Gale braked her thoughts and waited for him to speak.
‘What is your answer?’ he asked, and leant back, stretching out his long legs in front of him.
‘I’d like to hear the question first.’
‘Romantic? But you always gave me to understand that you weren’t.’ Humour lit his eyes, and he paused a moment, absorbed in her expression which was one of derision at his use of the word romantic. ‘Will you marry me, Gale?’ he ended briefly.
In this unreal situation there seemed to be only one course: to laugh the whole thing off. But Gale knew this was no laughing matter; Julius was in deadly earnest. He had come here especially to propose marriage to her - but surely not merely to mollify her grieving parent?
‘I’m interested in the reason for this sudden proposal?’ she said at last.
‘Damned cool customer you are, Gale - and I like you for it.’ Several seconds elapsed as he regarded her with distinct admiration. ‘I wonder if any woman has received a proposal of marriage with more cool composure than you?’ ‘Not this sort of a proposal,’ she responded with a certain amount of pride.
‘I should imagine these circumstances are unique, and that no woman has ever found herself in your position.’
She had nothing to say to this and for a short spell her mind was busy with reflections of comments Julius had made on various occasions. She was tempting and desirable. Perhaps the most significant remark had been that concerning marriage. He hadn’t given it much thought until recently, he had said. Until recently ... Until he met her? Incredible as it seemed Gale knew it was true. But of course his only interest in her was the pleasure her body would afford him. Greeks were like that; few of them married for love - and certainly it wasn’t love that had prompted this proposal. She said, throwing him a level glance,
‘You haven’t told me the reason for wanting to marry me.’
‘Gallantry,’ he rejoined promptly, looking over her shoulder to the trees in the garden outside. ‘Greeks put a high value on it,’ he added, still avoiding her eyes.
‘Rubbish! You don’t care a rap for Mother’s feelings.’ ‘No? Then perhaps you have your own ideas as to why I wish to marry you?’
Gale eyed him without betraying what was in her mind. ‘You’ve deliberately avoided giving me an answer to my question,’ she reminded him.
Impatience edged his tones when he said,
‘I believe I’ve given you a perfectly valid reason for my desire to marry you. Your mother is most intense about this whole thing. You’re a fallen woman in her eyes—’
‘Gut out the humour! And perhaps you’ll be a little more explicit about the whole business! Who, for instance,
informed Mother of my being at the lodge?’
‘That? If you remember, I called you Gale.’ Julius gestured with his open palms to indicate that this was explanation in itself, but added, ‘That bloke from the big house mentioned this name to Trevis and as your friend Tricia had mentioned you to her fiance he naturally knew who you were - or at least he had a clue to go on. A few inquiries would soon put Trevis in possession of your surname. For sheer spite he phoned your mother, and hence you and I find ourselves in this mess.’
‘Mess?’ with a lift of her brows. ‘You’re not in a mess.’ ‘Not exactly,’ he conceded. ‘All the same, I do feel responsible, in some small way, for how your mother is feeling. She and I talked a long while and it was not difficult for me to gather that she has been unhappy for a number of years. Her only comfort seems to have been that which she derived from her two children. She had a most high opinion of you and this escapade of yours has shattered her. As I’ve just said, nothing will eradicate her hurt except our marriage. I finally promised I’d propose to you.’
Gale’s eyes narrowed - an almost unconscious action. But deep down inside she sensed a flaw in this seemingly transparent situation.
‘Did it not occur to you to give strength to my story by telling her the truth - that we didn’t - didn’t - that we occupied separate rooms?’ Colour naturally rose, pink colour that fused her cheeks, and she averted her head with swift anger as she noted the gleam of amusement enter his eyes.
‘The idea did most certainly occur to me. But I saw at once that it would carry no weight with your mother in the mood she happened to be in at the time. She would undoubtedly have accused me of conspiring with you to deceive her. No, Gale, it would never have worked.’
The flaw remained, in spite of Julius’s easy and feasible explanation. For one thing, Gale could not conceive of her mother asking Julius to propose marriage to her daughter. Mrs. Davis was by nature exceedingly shy, especially with men ... and Julius Spiridon was not even an ordinary man. His personality would overwhelm a woman of the world, so certainly Mrs. Davis would never have gathered the courage to suggest he marry her daughter. But even if she had, the suggestion should, in the ordinary way, have been flatly turned down. This was the picture as Gale saw it ... but a very different picture had emerged.
‘There’s a great deal I don’t understand,’ she sighed at length, glancing up at him and expressing inquiry, even while convinced that he would pass lightly over her puzzlement, which he did.
‘It’s all quite simple, Gale. Your mother’s peace of mind depends on our marriage — because as far as she’s concerned we did spend the night together. I’m willing to marry in order that she shall have that peace of mind, and now the rest is up to you.’
She moistened her lips, amazed to feel excitement throb in her veins, astounded to discover that the contemplation of marriage to this god-like Greek with the stern set features presented no distasteful reactions. On the contrary. ... Colouring, she automatically put a cool hand to one cheek. No use pretending; she desired him even as he desired her. Frail foundation for a marriage. Of course, she had no intention of marrying him; the desire would be extinguished once he and she said goodbye forever. Or would it ... ?
‘I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying,’ she told Julius at last. ‘You know my feelings on the subject; I made up my mind five years ago, and nothing has happened to make me change it.’
Very slightly his jaw tightened. There was no other indication that her answer disappointed him. With smooth urbanity he inclined his head and seemed for a space to accept her decision with equanimity. He even rose from his chair and stood, looking down at her with the merest hint of amusement curving the full sensuous mouth. But then he said, right out of the blue,
‘You’re obviously unaware of the repercussions this decision will cause. Your mother intends — if I don’t make an honest woman of you - to leave you and your father to go your own wicked ways. She will go and live with her man friend.’
An electric silence fell on the room. Gale stared at him in stupefaction, her nerves taut as if ready to snap.
‘This isn’t true,’ she whispered at last, white to the lips. Her mother ... to do that! Impossible! ‘My — my mother hasn’t got a man friend.’ Forced words; Gale had known all along that her mother must be meeting a man. ‘And — and if she had,’ continued Gale inconsistently, ‘she wouldn’t tell anyone about it. And she’d never, never live with a man. Why, you’ve just said yourself that she has ideals about such things.’ Gale’s face was still drained of colour. She couldn’t see Julius lying about so profound a matter as this. ‘She’s always been horrified at people flaunting their immorality the way they do.’
Julius glanced at his wrist watch.
‘I’m afraid I shall have to go. As for your mother and her intentions - I suggest you have a talk to her about them.’
Gale stared through the window for a long while after the departure of the Greek. He seemed in a hurry to leave at the end, yet somehow Gale could not accept that he was forced to go. She felt instinctively that had her ans
wer been what he wanted then he would have stayed with her throughout the entire evening. She now felt lost, drained ... missed the presence of a man whose desire for her had prompted the offer of marriage, a man whose desire had awakened something in her she had never known before. With selfdisgust she tried to crush the truth, to tell herself that women were different from men anyway - they never experienced desire merely by being with a man, in his company. It was only the male of the species that knew these primitive urges.
Getting up from the chair which she had occupied since his departure, Gale went into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Did she think this prosaic action would restore her sanity? Julius Spiridon had aroused certain emotions in her on their very first meeting — the only man to do so since the break with Malcolm five years previously. Gale had fully believed herself to be immune; it had come as a shock to discover this immunity could be broken down, by a Greek of all people. But then he was so vastly different from all other men, with that air of superiority and that dictatorial masculinity which she had already admitted could thrill even though it spelled an ability to subjugate entirely.
Taking the tea back to the living-room, she sat down again, musing on what Julius was doing and knowing for sure that he was thinking of her and seeing her in this turmoil of indecision— Indecision? Certainly not! She hadn’t the slightest intention of marrying Julius. Why, they would scrap every single moment ... no, not quite....
She shuddered at her own mind-pictures. What a life - to be in harmony only when they were making love! Gritting her teeth with impatience at her meditations, she put down the cup and saucer and began walking about the room, rather like a caged bear she had once seen at the zoo, she thought, coming to a halt at last. If only her mother would come in, so that she could find out a little more than Julius had told her. But her mother didn’t come, and Gale paced the room again, made herself more tea, sat down — and after what seemed an eternity her father’s key was heard in the lock and he entered the room where Gale had spent the entire evening, the greater part of it alone, torn by her confusion of mind and her indecision. Yes, she admitted it at last, because in all honesty she was forced to do so. Marriage to Julius. Fiery and emotional life would always be; quarrels and making up - then love. And perhaps in the end each going their own chosen way, simply because there was nothing but the brittle cord of passion to bind them — nothing spiritual, nothing mental, even ... just a physical attraction that must surely weaken, and finally die owing to lack of other supporting interests which those in love inevitably must share.