Beneath the Cypress Tree Read online

  ‘Yes.’ Kate had already imagined her father’s alarm if he was to attempt the impossible and try to find a place as small as Kalamata on a map of Crete. ‘I’ll go along with that.’

  Her glass of lemonade was now empty, but Andre didn’t come rushing out of the cafe to take an order for another one. She knew why. It was because he and Lewis were in deep discussion about where she was to be lodged. She tapped a sandalled foot, hoping that when they came to a solution it would be one she could go along with.

  Fifteen minutes later, when Lewis and Andre emerged, they were accompanied by a small-boned woman wearing a traditional bodice, a near ankle-length skirt kilted up to show a heavy underskirt, and with a black head-kerchief covering her hair. Her skin was sun-weathered and wrinkled, but her eyes were bright and full of interest and welcome.

  ‘My wife, Agata,’ Andre said as Kate rose to her feet. ‘She has a room she wishes to show to you. It is a good room. The room of our daughters who work in Athens.’

  From behind her, Kate heard Kit breathe a sigh of relief.

  ‘Welcome.’ Agata took Kate’s hands in hers as if Kate was a child. ‘Pleased I am to meet thee.’

  ‘And I thee,’ Kate said, responding in the Greek familiar, as if they were family or old friends.

  While Kit and Lewis remained seated and Andre went back inside the cafeneion for another coffee for Kit, Agata led her around the side of the cafeneion to an outside staircase.

  It led up to the Stathopoulos’s living quarters. The interior was sparsely furnished, as Kate had expected it would be. It was also scrupulously clean.

  ‘And this is the bedroom,’ Agata said with pride, opening a door, after the stairs inside the house had been climbed.

  The walls were whitewashed. The wooden floor was swept and scrubbed. There were two narrow beds with a small crucifix over each iron bedhead, two ancient sets of drawers and hooks in the wall for clothes to be hung on. From the window the mountain range of Mount Ida could be seen in the distance, and below the window hens roamed happily between rows of vines.

  It was perfect, and Kate said so.

  As they went back down the stairs, her thoughts were on Ella. It had always been her intention that once she had secured a place for herself on a dig, she would set about securing a place for Ella as well. She had imagined this would have had to wait a few weeks, until she had become settled. Now, having seen the two beds in the little room and knowing how short of professional help Lewis was, she saw no reason at all why she shouldn’t immediately suggest Ella joining the team at Kalamata.

  As she walked back across to Lewis and Kit’s table, Kit said, ‘Everything okay, Kate?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She sat down and, without wasting a beat of time, said to Lewis, ‘The bedroom has two beds in it. I have a friend who has a first-class honours in classical archaeology and who is as passionate as I am about Bronze Age Greece. She’d be a huge asset here. What d’you say to me writing to her?’

  At her presumptuousness, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘It would mean no local gossip about my being the only woman on the team,’ she said swiftly, hoping to give him something to think about, before he refused out of hand, ‘and although Ella hasn’t already spent time in Greece, her classical Greek will be sufficient for there not to be any problems.’

  ‘Is your friend an Oxford graduate?’

  ‘Yes. St Hugh’s.’

  He hesitated, and then he said, ‘You have to understand that if she doesn’t work out, she’ll be on the first plane back to Britain.’

  ‘Oh, Ella will work out all right.’ Kate felt as gleeful as the children had sounded when scooping up his shower of sweets. ‘I’ll write to her now. Kit can post the letter when he gets back to Knossos.’

  Chapter Six

  Ella was in Somerset when she received Kate’s letter. The redirected address on the envelope was in her father’s carefully laborious handwriting and, as the letter had been sent airmail from Greece, she knew the kind of anxiety it must have awoken in him. Until Kate’s year in Athens, no airmail letters had ever arrived at their little home in Wilsden, and since they had begun doing so they had always aroused in her parents the kind of foreboding that a letter from a government department would have aroused.

  The letter didn’t arouse a similar sensation in Ella. She snatched it happily from the letter-rack above the reception desk of the bed-and-breakfast she was staying in and, instead of joining other members of the team for an end-of-day drink in the B&B’s small bar, hurried off to her bedroom where she would be able to read it uninterrupted.

  Dearest Ella,

  Wonderful news! I have a place on a Bronze Age dig. In Crete! Accommodation for two is above the village cafe. I’ve spoken to the site director, who is short of professionals, and there is a place for you on the team. When you write back, address the letter c/o the Villa Ariadne, Knossos, Heraklion. Kit will act as postman. The village – Kalamata – is too remote for dependable postal deliveries. Please, please, please ditch Somerset Romans and come out here as fast as you can!

  Best love, Kate

  Excitement spiralled through Ella until she felt almost sick with it. The dig she was on was coming to a close and she would have had to be looking for something else, with or without Kate’s letter. The prospect of addressing a letter to the fabled Villa Ariadne, accepting the offer of work on Crete, was so wonderful as to be almost unbelievable.

  Shrugging herself out of her outdoor jacket and kicking off her work boots, she scrabbled in the dressing-table drawer for pen and paper.

  Dear Kate,

  My job comes to an end here at the end of the month. Please tell the site director I will be joining the team the first week of June. As for travel – is the cheapest way train through France and Italy to Brindisi, and then steamer to Piraeus and from there a steamer to Crete? I seem to remember that was the route you took. Where do I go after that? The site? (You haven’t said just where it is.) Or the Villa Ariadne?

  Love, Ella

  When she had finished the letter and written the magical words ‘The Villa Ariadne’ as part of the address, she ate a peppermint, flicked through her diary, paused for thought and then began another letter.

  Dear Sam,

  I’ve just been offered a position on an excavation in Crete. The dig here is coming to an end and I will be beginning work in Crete the first week in June. I’ll be in Wilsden on the first and second to say goodbye to Mum and Dad, and if you can get time off from the Infirmary and can be in Wilsden, it would be nice to see you. I expect it will be several months – if not longer – before I’ll be back in England again.

  She paused, not knowing quite how to continue. Since their date at the Rialto to see The Scarlet Pimpernel, their relationship had changed. Although still not a full-blown romance, it was no longer mere friendship. How could it be, after he had kissed her long and deeply, and after she had surprised herself by how willingly she had responded?

  They hadn’t met since then because there had been no opportunity to do so. The next day Sam had been back on-duty at Leeds Infirmary, where he was in the final stages of his medical training, and she had travelled down to the Somerset dig, only to discover that it was soon to be wound up. What hadn’t happened in the short time in between was either of them writing to each other.

  So how did she sign the letter? ‘All best, Ella?’ ‘Love, Ella?’

  ‘Affectionately, Ella?’ In the end, she simply wrote ‘Ella’, adding a little cross for a kiss next to it.

  Five days later, when she returned back to the bed-and-breakfast with the rest of the team, Sam was waiting for her by the half-moon reception desk.

  ‘I’m here until tomorrow,’ he said. ‘This B&B is full to the rafters, but I’ve managed to get a room in a guest house not too far away.’

  ‘But why have you come?’ Sheer shock made Ella clumsily blunt. ‘It isn’t as if it’s the weekend tomorrow. It’s just an ordinary day for me, and I’ll be working.
’

  The reception area was small, and all the time they were talking people were squeezing past them to get to the stairs, or to the door leading into the lounge.

  ‘I need to talk with you, Ella. About Crete. About us.’

  ‘Why don’t you both come in the bar for a drink?’ one of her male colleagues asked, dropping a friendly hand on Ella’s shoulder.

  ‘Perhaps later,’ she said, knowing Sam wouldn’t want to spend the time he had with her in a bar with other people.

  Sam put a hand beneath her arm. ‘Let’s get some air.’ He steered her in the direction of the door she had just come in by. ‘Forget having your evening meal here. We’ll find somewhere quiet to eat.’

  As they stepped outside on to the pavement, he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and shot her his easy smile. ‘You are pleased to see me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I am.’ It was true, although she’d had to get over her stunned surprise first, and wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he’d come such a distance to have. ‘There’s a fish-and-chip shop nearby that has a restaurant attached to it,’ she said, trying to behave as if the evening was just one of their normal evenings out together. ‘The fish and chips aren’t up to Yorkshire standards – they do their batter differently down here – but they’ll come with peas, bread and butter and tea, just as they do up north.’

  ‘It sounds just the ticket.’ Taking his cue from her, until in the restaurant he could bring up the subject he so urgently wanted to speak to her about, Sam said, ‘Somerset countryside is far different to Yorkshire’s, isn’t it? It’s a lot gentler and the high-hedged lanes take a bit of getting used to.’

  ‘Are you telling me you came down here from Leeds on your motorbike, Sam Jowett?’

  ‘Every single mile – and there’s two hundred and thirty-three of them. You didn’t think I’d come by train, did you?’

  ‘Of course I did! What if it had been raining? What if it’s raining when you ride back? You’ll get saturated.’

  ‘I’ve got waterproofs,’ he said, her concern for him giving him hope. ‘Is this the fish-and-chip shop?’

  They walked in and past the line of people queuing for takeaways and into the little room beyond, where there were a handful of tables with salt cellars and bottles of malt vinegar on them.

  ‘What’s it to be?’ he asked as they sat opposite each other at one of the tables. ‘Cod, as usual?’

  She nodded, and when he’d ordered he reached across and took her hands in his. ‘This Crete thing,’ he said, not wasting any more time. ‘Did your friend Kate arrange it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me, Sam. The Minoan civilization discovered by Sir Arthur Evans on Crete pre-dates any other known Western civilization, and there are still sites and artefacts waiting to be discovered.’

  ‘What’s wrong with excavating British Roman sites?’

  ‘Nothing – but right now the most exciting place for an archaeologist to be is on Crete.’

  At the enthusiasm in her voice and the fervour in her eyes, he knew his journey was going to prove fruitless.

  She squeezed hold of his hands. ‘Please be happy for me, Sam. Kalamata is going to be a wonderful start to my career.’

  ‘Kalamata?’

  ‘The village closest to the dig.’

  The waitress came, putting a plate of bread and butter on the table and two mugs of steaming tea. When she’d walked away from them, he said, ‘How many months is the Kalamata dig likely to be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sam. You may as well ask how long a piece of string is.’

  ‘But you’ll be back by the end of the summer?’

  For the first time it occurred to Ella that he knew nothing whatsoever about archaeology, or of her feelings, where Greece was concerned.

  In an effort to help him understand, she said, ‘Hopefully the dig will prove to be a long one and, if it is, I doubt I’ll be coming home between seasons. Once I’m in Greece I’m not going to want to leave it. And if the dig proves to be a short one, lasting only a few months, then I know what Kate’s attitude will be. It will be that we find work on another dig in Crete and, if that isn’t possible, that we look for work on another of the Greek islands, or on the mainland.’

  Although she hadn’t meant to do so, she couldn’t have made it clearer that in the ranking of what was truly important to her, their romance had low priority.

  Sam felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach, hardly able to believe that a girl who looked so feminine and fragile could be so single-minded and tough, where her career was concerned. Then he remembered how extraordinary it was that a girl from her background should have gained a place at Oxford and, on gaining it, had left with a first-class honours degree. Of course Ella was tough. She had to be, to have achieved all that she had.

  Aware of the blow she’d dealt him, she said gently, ‘If it was the other way around, Sam – if my place of work was in Yorkshire and never likely to be anywhere else, and if you were offered the chance of a position in a top-flight hospital in Boston, or New York – you would do the same thing, wouldn’t you? It would surely be an opportunity you would leap at?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I would have asked you to marry me first. I would only have gone if you were to come with me.’

  Her throat closed with such emotion she couldn’t speak. It didn’t matter, for there was nothing she could say. Realizing it, Sam didn’t say anything further, either.

  The waitress came with their fish and chips: fish and chips they no longer had an appetite for. Sam pushed his plate away, saying, ‘I don’t think we need stay here any longer, need we, Ella? I wouldn’t mind a bit of a walk, though.’

  ‘I’d like a walk as well, Sam.’

  He paid the bill, assuring the waitress there was nothing wrong with their fish and chips and that they were simply no longer hungry.

  ‘Although, to tell the truth,’ Sam said, as they stepped outside into a street hazed with the dusk of a summer evening, ‘I probably wouldn’t have cared for them if I had been hungry. My fish still had its skin on.’

  ‘It’s the way battered fish is served in the south.’

  Sam grinned, determined to get things back on to some kind of an easy footing before they said goodbye. ‘Then it’s another good reason to be grateful for having been born in Yorkshire. Battered fish with skin on! What on earth would your granddad say?’

  ‘He’d say, “Southerners know nowt”,’ she replied, laughter in her voice. ‘And where fish and chips are concerned, he would be right.’

  Companionably they walked along the street, hand-in-hand. By letting Ella know that where their future was concerned he had marriage on his mind, Sam had, he hoped, given her plenty to think about. He thought of her spending months, or even a year, in Greece; and he thought that, too, could work to his advantage. After all, Ella was a Yorkshire girl. By the time she returned home she wouldn’t want to spend another night outside Yorkshire, and she wasn’t likely to become romantically involved with anyone. How could she, when the only people she was likely to meet were Greek villagers?

  The deep despair he had felt in the restaurant vanished. Ella’s time in Crete would put things in perspective for her. By the time she returned she would know what it was she wanted; and it would be him. When they said goodbye he was going to give her a kiss she wouldn’t forget, no matter how long she was away; and he was going to tell her that even if she didn’t yet love him, he loved her – that he would always love her.

  ‘Ella! Ella!’

  Ella had barely stepped foot on Heraklion’s quay when she heard her name being shouted and saw Kate weaving a way towards her through the crowd of disembarking passengers.

  With her suitcase banging against the side of her leg, she broke into a run.

  Seconds later they were hugging each other tightly.

  ‘Isn’t this wonderful?’ Kate’s face was radiant. ‘Isn’t this just the best thing ever?’

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sp; ‘It’s stupendous! All the way through France and Italy I’ve felt as if I were dreaming. I still can’t quite believe I’m actually here, Kate. In Greece! On Crete!’

  ‘And about to leave your suitcase at the Villa Ariadne’s lodge and see the fabled Palace of Minos ruins and reconstructions for the first time.’

  ‘Is that what we are about to do?’

  They were crossing a busy road to a bus stop.

  ‘It is. Unless we go to the Palace of Minos before Kit and the Squire know you have arrived, it’s doubtful I’m going to have the chance to show you around it. They’ll think it more important that we head off straight for Kalamata; and once we’re at Kalamata it could be days, or weeks, till we’ll be at Knossos again. And you are absolutely itching to see the palace, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m desperate to see it. Ever since I was a little girl and first read of how the site was found, I’ve longed to see it for myself. Today is a fairy tale come true.’

  As always, the bus to Knossos was crammed with tourists and they had to push and shove their way to the back of the bus to get a seat.

  ‘What’s new on the home front?’ Kate asked as they finally found room in which to sit down. ‘Have you heard from Daphne lately? Is she still seeing Sholto Hertford? Did you know he’s a viscount? I don’t think she told us, when we all had lunch together in Oxford. I only found out myself when I rang her to say I was leaving for Crete.’

  ‘I had a postcard from her in the middle of May. She’d sent it from Cornwall and didn’t mention Sholto, so whether or not they are still together I don’t know.’

  As the bus continued bumping and jolting its way through Heraklion’s outskirts, Kate said, ‘And you? How is Sam? Is he still the hopeful suitor?’

  Ella was used to Daphne and Kate teasing her about Sam and usually she barely reacted. This time, though, her cheeks warmed. ‘Things have changed slightly between Sam and me. Not hugely,’ she added hurriedly, ‘but we are on more romantic terms than we used to be.’