The Beads of Nemesis (19 page)

Morag stared at her as though she had never seen her before, and, in a way, she hadn’t. She had always thought of Delia as being beautiful and easy to love, but she wasn’t. She was merely brittle and grasping and - and rather tedious! How odd, Morag thought, to find out now that Delia was scarcely worth the trouble of disliking, for she wasn’t anything very much.

She most certainly wasn’t good enough for Pericles!

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Morag turned to her mother-in-law as though she were emerging from a dream. “I - I wasn’t listening!”

“That, my dear, was quite obvious!” Dora rasped her. “You ought to have something better to do than day-dreaming at the dinner table! As Pericles’ wife you have a duty to help entertain your guests! Takis is still waiting to be introduced to your sister!”

Morag gave a little shrug of her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Dora shook herself irritably. “In Greece we prize hospitality very highly. You must learn to be a better hostess than that! My husband would have had something to say to me if I hadn’t waited on his guests with my own hands! Pericles is too soft with

I”

you!”

Morag was not as afraid of her mother-in-law as she had been at one time. She smiled, tongue in cheek, “But you are still the

hostess here!”

Dora picked up her knife and rapped her smartly over the knuckles. In this mood, it was easy to see why Peggy sometimes disliked her. “This house belongs to Pericles, not to me -”

Pericles leaned across the table and took the knife from his mother. “Leave Morag alone, Mama,” he said. He smiled straight at Morag, with such a look that her breath was taken away. “If anyone beats her, I shall!” he added. The glint in his eyes grew more pronounced. “I see you found your pendant,” he added.

“Morag never took care of anything,” Delia put in. “She would have turned my whole room upside down if I hadn’t found it for her. My mother would never allow her to have anything of value in case she lost it. If she didn’t lose it, she’d give it away! David said she’d have given away her engagement ring if he’d given her one!”

“Would you give away my ring?” Pericles asked Morag.

She fingered her wedding ring and shook her head. “Of course not!”

“She’ll probably lose it!” Delia sighed.

“If she does I’ll definitely beat her,” Pericles drawled. His eyes lingered on Morag’s hot face with a faint smile, then he turned away from her and gave all his attention to Delia, drawing her out with a charm that made her seem suddenly nicer and added a sparkle to her replies.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m taking you to Eleusis tomorrow,” he reminded her. “You’ll have to ask Morag to tell you about the place, if you don’t already know about it. She has all the old legends at her fingertips - an interest she shares with my mother.”

“Are you taking the children?” Dora asked, obviously still

annoyed at the way Pericles had taken her knife from her.

“I don’t think so,” Pericles answered.

“It’s good for them to see these places!” their grandmother declared. “You needn’t think I’m going to look after them all day tomorrow, because I’m painting in the morning and playing bridge in the afternoon.”

“Morag will look after them,” Pericles said smoothly. Morag looked up quickly. “But I’d like to come,” she protested. “They

say it isn’t much to look at now, but it must have had terrific atmosphere at one time. The rites of Demeter and Persephone meant everything to such a lot of people. Persephone was the first one to come back from the dead, even in legend, as an ordinary person!”

“You can see it some other time,” Pericles told her. “It will be too long a day for the children, and anyway, I want some time with Delia by herself.”

Morag blinked. “The children will be disappointed - ” Pericles threw back his head in an arrogant gesture. “But neither they nor you have been invited to come with us tomorrow. They won’t be

disappointed if you don’t tell them about it.”

But she did know, Morag thought resentfully. He might have married her to look after the children, but he didn’t have to fling it in her face in front of Delia. And she was more than ever determined that Delia would have to go, and go quickly. The only thing she didn’t know was how she was going to get rid of her.

CHAPTER ELEVEN MORAG went to bed before her husband. She heard him come in almost an hour later and pretended to be asleep. When he turned on the light she almost gave herself away, flinching away from the sudden glare in her eyes. Her heart pounded, for she was almost sure that he wouldn’t spare her feelings if he were to guess she was awake. When he came over to the bed she held her breath. He stood for a long time, looking down at her, but he said nothing. He bent down and pushed a lock of her hair away from her mouth with gentle fingers. Almost then she gave way to the urgent desire within her to open her arms to him and to whisper her love for him, but the thought of how he had snubbed her when she had asked him if she, too, could go to Eleusis restrained her. Yet she might have changed her mind if he had touched her again, but he did not. He turned out the light and lay down on the bed beside her, pulling her into the hard circle of his arm. He must have known then that she was awake, but he still said nothing, and he was asleep long before she could still the loud beating of her heart and relax

against him sufficiently to fall into slumber herself.

Her dreams when they came were muddled and confused. Dora had made her tell her stepsister the story of Demeter’s long search for her daughter, and how she had served the royal family at Eleusis as nursemaid to their child and, becoming fond of the child, had decided to make him immortal by toughening him in the flames. Not surprisingly, the queen had thought she had intended to burn the child to death, and Demeter had been forced to reveal herself as a goddess. In return for the royal family’s kindness, she has made Eleusis the centre of her worship. It was there too that Persephone came back from the kingdom of the dead, no longer a goddess because she had eaten the seeds of the pomegranate during her time under the earth and she was now fated to spend four months of the year with her husband, Hades, and the remaining eight in the service of her mother. Hence her new name of Kore, or Maiden, in token of her new position in the first sacred family of Greece. Morag had once seen a statue of Demeter, her arms outstretched, her face grieving for her loss, and she saw the heavy stone figure again in her dream and she knew exactly who she was, but the other figure, also a woman, came right up to her, a look of vengeance in her eyes, but when she saw the necklace of shells around Morag’s neck she faded away again, changing her shape into that of a man, a man Morag recognised as Pericles, though it didn’t really look much like him.

“Who are you?” she cried out.

“Hush, who do you think I am? I’m Pericles!”

It was Pericles all right, but she didn’t know if she were waking or sleeping. “It was Nemesis,” she said firmly.

“How do you know that?”

“She recognised my shell necklace.”

“I think, my dear, that you have been dreaming.”

“I suppose so, because she turned into you!”

“Into me?” He pulled her close and kissed her. “I hope that gave you joy!”

She hid her face against him. “Yes, it did,” she said. “I’m sorry I woke you, Perry.”

He pulled her closer still. “I’m not,” he said.

In the morning her dream seemed very far away. Delia, on the other hand, was a very present reality. Morag saw her coming down the path to the beach, a little unsure in her fashionable platform shoes.

“I hope you aren’t allowing that silly child out of her depth today?” Delia panted. She looked very pleased with herself and Morag thought she knew why.

“Have you come down to swim?” she returned.

“Dressed like this? Really, I don’t know how you can be so stupid! I’m waiting for Pericles!”

“Oh yes?”

Delia almost laughed out loud. “Poor Morag, but you didn’t think he was in love with you, did you? You weren’t as stupid as that? That was quite a snub he gave you yesterday, but you never learn! You ought to know by now why he wants to be alone with

I”

me!”

Morag kept her temper with difficulty. “Should I?” “What have you to offer a man like Pericles? I can’t think how you persuaded him to marry you.”

Morag wasn’t sure either, but she had no intention of sharing her doubts with her stepsister. “I don’t suppose you can,” she said quietly.

“I thought you might have flattered him into it, but, knowing you, you probably haven’t told him that you’ve fallen in love with him. He’s very Greek, isn’t he? Having a name like that would be ridiculous for most men, but it suits him in an extraordinary way. I suppose that’s why he took you on. He can’t have found it very lively living with his mother in semi-exile here. Anything would be better than nothing under the circumstances!”

Morag gave her a mocking look. “It’s hard to tell!”

Delia frowned, for once uncertain how to deal with her stepsister. “Any man will take what’s offered to him.”

“You should know!”

Delia's cold eyes glazed with anger. “You’ll regret that! You’re a fool, Morag! I hold your happiness in the hollow of my hand.

You didn’t mind when I took David, did you? But Pericles? You won’t like losing him to me!”

“Pericles goes his own way!”

“My way,” Delia rejoined. She stared long and hard at Morag. “Why, I believe you’re even afraid of him!” she laughed, and there was very little of the tinkling bell about it. “So I’ll be doing you a favour by taking him from you!” “But why?” Morag asked. “Why do you want to hurt me?”

Delia turned away, putting one foot on a loose stone that slipped underneath her. If Morag had not held her upright, she would have fallen. “Don’t you know why?” she said in a low and deadly voice. “I hate you, Morag Grant. I hate you for always being right and for doing all the right things! If I took your favourite toy, you’d offer me your next favourite after I’d broken it for you! The less you had, the less you needed. Even David -you couldn’t be content with handing me him on a plate, but you had to sacrifice yourself to his memory and my good name. Who asked you to? Who asked you?”

“But I thought you wanted me to!”

“Well, you shouldn’t think!” Delia pulled away from Morag, examining her shoes. “Why are you afraid of Pericles?”

“I’m not.”

“But you said you were!”

“If you say so.” Morag’s face was controlled.

“Well, there you are, then! What’s the difference? I’ll bet he knows it too and thinks he can treat you how he likes! I wouldn’t put up with it! In fact I shall quite enjoy teaching him a lesson. Of course, he’s madly attractive too. I like a man who doesn’t mind taking the initiative. And I don’t think there’s any danger of his not liking me, do you?” Morag stopped herself from giving Delia a shove that would have sent her flying on those ridiculous shoes. That, she told herself, was not the way to deal with her. There had to be a better more civilised way, if only she could think of it! “Pericles is a married man,” she said, seething inwardly, because if that was the best argument she could find, she might just as well hand him over on a plate to Delia here and now.

“Oh, hardly, darling!” Delia’s laugh was well in control now and sounded more bell-like than ever. “I don’t suppose you’d have put so much as a foot in his room if I hadn’t happened to be coming! It’s obvious that he doesn’t think of you in that way at all!”

Morag clenched her fists. “Why do you say that?” she asked quietly. A fine thing it would be if she were to burst into tears now and give Delia such an easy victory!

Delia smiled, savouring the moment. “Well, dear, David always said that you were too nice to be much of a temptation, and, if you’re very inexperienced, it’s so easy to mistake good manners for anything warmer. I’m sure Pericles has lovely manners!”

“I don’t see how you could know that,” Morag protested. The laugh came again. “Pericles and I had a lovely long talk together last night. I don’t intend to waste my time while I’m here!”

Morag was scarcely aware of the cries of the children as they chased each other along the length of the beach. She watched them for a long pregnant moment, but she didn’t see them at all. She took a deep breath. “I think it would be better if you went back to England, Delia,” she said at last.

“I’m sure you do, sweetie, but I’m having too nice a time here. Life has been frightfully dull since David died - and he was rather dull too, or he would have been if he hadn’t got involved with you.”

“I don’t think you understand me,” Morag went on quietly. “I’m telling you to go. I’ll see about your ticket myself, and my mother-in-law will drive you to the airport.” Delia’s laugh was not quite so well under control this time. “And what will Pericles say to that?” Delia demanded. “He’ll take my side! You know he will, just as he did last night!”

“My husband won’t know until you’ve gone.”

“Your husband? My God, that’s rich! Don’t you think

that I might tell him? It was he who invited me here.”

“Did he?” Morag asked coolly.

Delia’s eyelashes flickered. “I wrote to him in the first place, but he wrote straight back and told me to come!” “And now I’m telling you to go!”

Delia sat down hard, almost as though her knees had given way underneath her. Morag regarded her cautiously. It would be a mistake to think that after all these years Delia could be as easy to deal with as that.

“Aren’t you afraid what Pericles will do to you?” Delia demanded.

She was, but there was no need to dwell on that, Morag told herself. “Perry won’t hurt me,” she said.

“He might, if that old woman is to be believed. She goes on as if Greek husbands were little tin gods and do exactly as they like to their wives!”

Morag smiled slowly. “Well, I don’t see myself making Perry do anything he doesn’t want to do, can you? Why should I? I like it very well that he’s the boss and holds the reins, but he wouldn’t hurt me. He’s too big a person for that.”

Delia gave her a condescending look. “You never knew anything about David. What makes you think you can read Pericles any better?”