They came here in the hope that it would be good for her. She was a wonderful manager. “

” And so you take after her.” His eyes were full of sympathy now and I was pleased out of all proportion that he should understand how I felt. I thought then that I had imagined that streak of mischief in him. Perhaps mischief was not the right description; but the fact was that while I was becoming more and more attracted by this man, I was often conscious of something within him that I could not understand, some quality, something which he was determined to keep hidden from me. This often made me uneasy, while it in no way decreased my growing interest in him, but rather added to it. Now I saw only his sympathy which was undoubtedly genuine.

” I hope so,” I answered. ” I think I do.”

” She must have been an excellent business woman.”

” She was.” I still could not control the pain in my voice as I remembered, and pictures of the past flashed in and out of my mind. I saw her—small and dainty, with the brilliant colour in her cheeks which was so becoming and a sign of her illness; that tremendous energy which was like a fire consuming her—until the last months. The island had seemed a different place when she was in it. In the beginning she had taught me to read and write and to be quick with figures. I remembered long lazy days when I lay on one of the little beaches or swam in the blue water or lay on my back and drifted; all the beauty of the place, all the echoes of ancient history were the background for one of the happiest existences a child could know. I had run wild, it was true.

Sometimes I talked to the tourists; sometimes I joined the boatmen who took visitors to the grottoes or on tours of the island; sometimes I climbed the path to the villa of Tiberius and sat looking over the sea to Naples. Then I would come back to the studio and listen to the talk going on there; I shared my father’s pride in his work, my mother’s joy when she had succeeded in making a good sale.

They were so important to each other; and there were times when they seemed to me like two brilliant butterflies dancing in the sunshine, intoxicated with the joy of being alive because they knew that the sun of their happiness must go down quickly and finally.

I had been indignant when they told me I must go away to school in England. It was a necessity, my mother pointed out, for she had reached the limit of her capabilities, and although I was a tolerable linguist (we spoke English at home, Italian to our neighbours and, as there were many French and German visitors to our studio, I soon had a smattering of these languages) I had had no real education. My mother was anxious that I should go to her old school which was small and in the heart of Sussex. Her old headmistress was still in charge and I suspected that it was all very much as it had been in my mother’s day.

After a term or two I became reconciled, partly because I quickly made friends with Esther McBane, partly because I returned to the island for Christmas, Easter and summer holidays; and as I was a normal uncomplicated person I enjoyed both worlds.

But then my mother died and nothing was the same again. I found out that I had been educated on the jewellery which had once been hers; she had planned for me to go to a university, but the jewellery had realised less than she had hoped (for one quality she shared with my father was optimism) and the cost of my schooling was more than she had bargained for. So when she died I went back to school for two more years because that was her wish. Esther was a great comfort at that time; she was an orphan who was being brought up by an aunt, so she had a good deal of sympathy to offer. She came to stay with us during summer holidays and it helped both Father and me not to fret so much with a visitor in the studio.

We said that she must come every summer, and she assured us she would. We left school at the same time and she came home with me at the end of our final term. During that holiday we would discuss what we were going to do with our lives. Esther planned to take up art seriously. As for myself, I had my father to consider, so I was going to try to take my mother’s place in the studio although I feared that was some thing I should never be able to do entirely.

I smiled, remembering that long letter I had had from Esther, which in itself was unusual for Esther abhorred letter-writing and avoided it whenever possible. On the way back to Scotland she had met a man; he was growing tobacco in Rhodesia and was home for a few months. That letter had been full of this adventure. There had been one more letter two months later. Esther was getting married and going out to Rhodesia.

It was exciting and she was wonderfully happy; but I knew it was the end of our friendship because the only bond between us now could be through letters which Esther would have neither time nor inclination to write. I did have one to say that she had arrived, but marriage had made a different person of Esther; she had grown far from the long-legged untidy-haired girl who used to walk in the grounds of the little school with me and talk about dedicating herself to Art. I was brought out of the past by me sight of Roc Pendorric’s face close to mine, and now there was nothing but sympathy in his eyes. ” I’ve stirred up sad memories.”

” I was thinking about my mother and the past.”

He nodded and was silent for a few seconds. Then he said: ” You don’t ever think of going back to her people … or your father’s people?”

” People?” I murmured.

” Didn’t she ever talk to you about her home in England?” I was suddenly very surprised. ” No, she never mentioned it.”

” Perhaps the memory was unhappy.”

” I never realised it before, but neither of them ever talked about . before they married. As a matter of fact I think they felt that all that happened before was insignificant.”

” It must have been a completely happy marriage ” It was. “

We were silent again. Then he said: “Favel! It’s an unusual name.”

” No more unusual than yours. I always thought a roe was a legendary bird.”

” Fabulous, of immense size and strength, able to lift an elephant … if it wanted to.”

He spoke rather smugly and I retorted: ” I’m sure even you would be incapable of lifting an elephant. Is it a nickname?”

” I’ve been Roc for as long as I can remember. But it’s short for Petroc.”

” Still unusual.”

” Not in the part of the world I come from. I’ve had a lot of ancestors who had to put up with it. The original one was a sixth-century saint who founded a monastery. I think Roc is a modem version that’s all my own. Do you think it suits me?”

” Yes,” I answered. ” I think it does.”

Rather to my embarrassment he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. I stood up hastily. ” It really is time I was getting back to the studio,” I said.

Our friendship grew quickly and to me was wholly exciting. I did not realise then how inexperienced I was, and imagined that I was capable of dealing with any situation. I forgot then that my existence had been bounded by school in England with its regulations and restrictions, our casual unconventional studio on an island whose main preoccupation was with passing visitors, and my life with my father who still thought of me as a child. I had imagined myself to be a woman of the world, whereas no one who could lay a true claim to such a description would have fallen in love with the first man who seemed different from anyone else she had met.

But there was a magnetism about Roc Pendorric when he set himself out to charm, and he certainly was determined to charm me. Roc came to the studio every day. He always took the statuette in his hands and caressed it lovingly.

” I’m determined to have it, you know,” he said one day. ” Father will never sell.”

” I never give up hope.” And as I looked at the strong line of his jaw, the brilliance of his dark eyes, I believed him. He was a man who would take what he wanted from life; and it occurred to me that there would be few to deny him. That was why he was so anxious to possess the statue. He hated to be frustrated.

He bought the bronze Venus then.

” Don’t think,” he told me, ” that this means I’ve given up trying for the other. It’ll be mine yet; you see.”

There was an acquisitive gleam in his eyes when he said that and a certain mischief too. I knew what he meant, of course.

We swam together. We explored the whole island and we usually chose the less well-known places to avoid the crowds. He hired two Neapolitan boatmen to take us on sea trips and there were wonderful days when we lay back in the boat letting our hands trail in the turquoise and emerald water while Guiseppe and Umberto, watching us with the indulgent looks Latins bestow on lovers, sang arias from Italian opera for our entertainment.

In spite of his dark looks there must have been something essentially English about Roc, because Guiseppe and Umberto were immediately aware of his nationality. This ability to decide a person’s nationality often surprised me but it never seemed to fail. As for myself, there was little difficulty in placing me. My hair was dark blonde and there was a platinum-coloured streak in it which had been there when I was born; it had the effect of making me look even fairer than I was. My eyes were the shade of water, and borrowed their colour from what I was wearing. Sometimes they were green, at others quite blue. I ‘had a short pert nose, a wide mouth and good teeth. I was by no means a beauty, but I had always looked more ‘like a visitor to the island than a native.

During those weeks I was never quite sure of Roc. There were times when I was perfectly happy to enjoy each moment as it came along and not concern myself with the future; but when I was alone—at night, for instance—I wondered what I should do when he went home. In those early days I knew the beginning of that frustration which later was to bring such fear and terror into my life. His gaiety often seemed to be a cloak for deeper feelings; even during his most tender moments I would imagine I saw speculation in his eyes. He intrigued me in a hundred ways. I knew that given any encouragement I could love him completely, but I was never sure of him, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why every moment I was with him held the maximum excitement. One day soon after we met we climbed to the villa of Tiberius, and never had that wonderful view seemed so superb as it did on that day. It was all there for our delight as I had seen it many times before—Capri and Monte Solaro, the Gulf of Salerno from Amalfi to Paestum, the Gulf of Naples from Sorrento to Cape Misena. I knew it well, and yet because I was sharing it with Roc it had a new magic. ” Have you ever seen anything so enchanting? ” I asked. He seemed to consider. Then he said: “I live in a place which seems to me as beautiful.”