Beneath the Cypress Tree Page 6

  She wondered whether to tell Kate that Sam had let her know he’d never accept a job outside the country without first asking her to marry him; but, as it would raise questions she didn’t yet know how to answer, she decided not to.

  Instead she said, ‘Did Sir Arthur visit Knossos on the anniversary of the dedication of his bust? Were you introduced to him?’

  ‘No such luck. I’m not too sure he ever did make a definite arrangement to be at Knossos. I think everyone at the Villa Ariadne was just living in hope. He was eighty-five this year, and privately I rather think Sir Arthur’s days of travelling to Crete are over.’ She looked out of the dusty window and rose to her feet. ‘Come on. We’re nearly at the lodge gates. The driver will drop us off at them, if we ask nicely, and it will save you carrying your suitcase fifty yards back down the road.’

  Fifteen minutes later, and minus the suitcase, they were walking along the sandy tree-shaded path that led into the Palace of Minos’s West Court.

  There was no need for Kate to give any explanations as to the layout of the palace to Ella. Ella, she knew, already had a detailed plan of it in her head. All the same, she couldn’t help saying, ‘Reading that the full extent of the excavated site extends over six acres, and actually physically experiencing the size of it, is always a slam to the heart.’

  The first slam to Ella’s heart as, beneath a hot sun, they stepped on to the paving stones that had served the palace as a ceremonial entrance court was the sight of a head-high pillar mounted by a bronze bust of Sir Arthur Evans.

  She stood before it, feeling something close to reverence, trying to imagine what it must have been like to have discovered not only the palace, but a civilization. Then, hardly able to breathe for the excitement of the moment, she turned and looked towards the vast, labyrinthine remains that he had, over a period of thirty years, excavated and, in parts, controversially reconstructed.

  A maze of walls – some discernible only enough to show the outlines of rooms, chambers and hallways; others shoulder-high; and still others showing where the palace had originally been two and three storeys high – sprawled in a vast interconnected complex. Supporting scarlet pillars, banded in black, glittered in the sun. A raised walkway, its purpose to allow the ceremonial processions of more than three thousand years ago to be seen easily by throngs of spectators, led across the paved court they were standing on.

  ‘Today you have less time here than even the most cursory visitor,’ Kate said apologetically. ‘An hour is the most we can hope to get away with, before starting for Kalamata. Don’t panic about it. There’s always some member of the team driving to and from Heraklion, and you won’t have much problem getting here on your days off. For now, though, what is to be? What is your most urgent priority? The Throne Room? The bull fresco at the North Entrance? The Shrine of the Double Axes?’

  ‘The Great Courtyard. I want to be able to imagine it as it was, when bulls thundered across it and young men with ringleted hair raced headlong towards them and then leapt high, somersaulting down the length of a bull’s back. And don’t tell me that Minoan bull-leaping may only be a myth. The palace frescoes tell a different story.’

  In jewelled light they made their way into the shade of the court’s porch, its plastered floor the same dull red as the room’s supporting columns.

  ‘You would think that from here there would be a direct route into the centre of the palace,’ Kate said, as they left the porch from its eastern end and continued along what Sir Arthur had named the Corridor of the Procession, ‘but nowhere in the palace is there a direct route to anywhere. Lewis Sinclair believes the labyrinth in the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur is the palace itself.’

  ‘In the legend, the Minotaur’s labyrinth was underground.’

  ‘He has an answer for that as well.’

  They walked up shallow steps and past an altar base.

  ‘Which is?’ Ella was curious about the site director for whom she had come to work. So far, Kate had told her next to nothing about him.

  ‘Many parts of the palace must have had very little light and could very well have seemed to be underground. And then there are the earthquakes Crete suffers from. Lewis thinks that, to the Minoans, the rumbling in the earth would sound like the bellowing of a bull.’

  At the top of the steps was a low retaining wall and they sat down on it.

  ‘Is Lewis easy to work for? You haven’t said.’

  ‘He’s efficient and the Cretans like him.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘We’re politely civil to each other, but I suspect he thinks Kit was out of order asking him if he’d give me a place on the team, and I don’t think he liked the fact that he was so short-handed he couldn’t afford to turn the offer down.’

  ‘He sounds difficult to get on with. Is he very old-school?’

  ‘No. He’s twenty-eight, the same age as Kit, only he doesn’t look like Kit. He’s dark-haired and dark-eyed enough to pass for a Greek.’

  Though Kate’s voice was studiedly neutral, Ella knew her too well to be fooled.

  Her eyebrows nearly shot into her hair. ‘You’re smitten, Kate Shelton! Does he feel the same way about you?’

  ‘Of course I’m not smitten! And he certainly isn’t smitten with me. He’s in a relationship with a Cretan girl.’ She jumped to her feet, not wanting to think about Nikoleta Kourakis. ‘Let’s cut straight to the Great Courtyard before we run out of time. Three thousand years ago it was flagged with blue schist stone. There’s no paving there now, just plain earth, but self-seeded flowers have made it just as colourful as it must have been originally.’

  Ella, who was sensitive enough to know when a subject was best left alone, rose to her feet. Unlike Daphne, who was always falling in love, Kate had never, to her knowledge, ever done so. That she might have done so now – with the site director they were both working for, and with whom they would be living in unavoidable close proximity, and who apparently was already in a relationship – threatened all kinds of uncomfortable problems.

  She gave herself a sharp mental shake. There was no need to anticipate problems that might never happen. Kate was far too level-headed and sensible to allow her private feelings to affect the close-knit spirit that was essential to a successful dig. The next few months weren’t going to be full of problems; they were going to be amazing.

  She hooked her arm into Kate’s, knowing that if a Minoan palace was found at Kalamata, the next few months would be more than amazing. Where their careers were concerned, they would be the most important months of their lives.

  Chapter Seven

  Daphne was in Berlin. It was the first week of August and she wasn’t there out of any particular liking for the city, but because the Olympic Games were being held there and her father had expressed the desire that she accompany him to them.

  After a long day at the Reichssportfeld, where they had seen Jack Lovelock of New Zealand make a heroic dash to the tape to win the 1,500 metres event, she was walking with her father towards the Adlon Hotel, where they were staying.

  ‘I must say that nothing is as grim here as some of our news chappies have been trying to make out,’ her father said, waving an ebony-knobbed walking cane in a way that indicated he wasn’t only talking about the street they were on, but the city as a whole. ‘I don’t see any signs forbidding Jews entry, or forbidding them from sitting on park seats, do you?’

  ‘No, Daddy. And that’s because all such signs have been removed for the duration of the Games.’

  ‘And who told you that?’

  ‘Sholto.’

  The earl gave a rude snort. The trouble with Sholto Hertford was that he was a Foreign Office diplomat and so his opinions on foreign affairs couldn’t easily be discounted. All the same, he didn’t agree with Sholto, where Germany was concerned. The country had been in a shambles ten years ago. It wasn’t in a shambles now. Thanks to Hitler, there were no more running battles in the streets between splinter-party groups and Com
munists, because Hitler had refused to tolerate them. The Communists had been rounded up and incarcerated in a new kind of prison on Berlin’s outskirts and there were no longer any splinter-party groups, just one central party: Hitler’s Nazi Party.

  ‘And there’s no unemployment,’ he said stubbornly as they walked through one of the Brandenburg Gate’s monolithic arches. ‘That’s a miracle that Britain and America are nowhere close to achieving.’

  Daphne rolled her eyes to heaven, unable to summon up the energy to say that the reason for German employment was that jobless men were drafted to work on government projects for few or no wages. Her father, who harboured a passionate fear of Communism, saw Hitler’s Germany through rose-coloured glasses. Sholto didn’t and, thanks to Sholto, neither did she.

  The instant they stepped into the Adlon’s baroque reception area she saw Miranda Seeley.

  ‘Excuse me, Daddy.’ She slid her arm from his. ‘There’s a friend of mine at the reception desk. I must say hello to her.’

  With a wide smile on her face, she ran across to Miranda.

  At the sight of Daphne, Miranda’s eyes widened: first with surprise at so unexpectedly meeting up with her in the middle of Berlin, and then with consternation. ‘I’m here with my mother,’ she said instantly, as if it should mean something.

  Daphne, to whom it meant nothing, laughed. ‘And I’m here with my father. Anyone would think we were still children. Have you only just arrived? We’ve been here two days already. Sholto is somewhere in the city as well, although as one of the official guests and he’s not staying here, worst luck.’

  ‘We arrived two hours ago.’

  ‘Spiffing. I’d count it a huge favour if we were all to meet up for a drink before dinner. My father can be an awful drain when there’s no one to share the load with, and half an hour in your mother’s company is bound to perk him up.’

  Taking Miranda’s acquiescence for granted, Daphne gave her a hasty kiss on the cheek and darted back to her father, saying as she again hooked her arm in his, ‘You’re in luck, Daddy. We’re having pre-dinner drinks with Miranda and her mamma this evening. Mrs Seeley is French and, by your standards, young. She is also elegant and very chic.’

  Her father made another of those sounds in his throat that were never easy to interpret. As they moved towards the lift, he said, ‘We have the opera tonight. Tristan und Isolde. I don’t think social chit-chat with a Frenchwoman will put me in a good mood for it.’

  ‘Of course it will.’ A uniformed attendant rolled back the door of a caged lift for them. ‘If you’re not careful, you’re going to turn into an old fuddy-duddy. All you need to put a spring in your step is a long, deep bath and a large whisky and soda.’

  Stepping into the lift, the attendant closed the door and began operating it upwards.

  Daphne looked across at her father. There was a mutinous look on his face and she knew that if she wanted a little light relief before enduring Wagner, she was going to have to give him more encouragement.

  ‘Mrs Seeley is a friend of Wallis Simpson’s,’ she said, knowing he would be unable to resist inside gossip about King Edward’s mistress. ‘There are rumours she is seeking a divorce.’

  ‘Who? The Seeley woman?’

  ‘No.’ Daphne quelled rising exasperation. ‘Mrs Simpson.’

  ‘Is she, by God? That infantile young pup can’t be thinking of marrying her, can he?’

  ‘The young pup is forty-two – and he can’t marry her. If she divorces, it will be her second divorce. Do be reasonable, Daddy. How can a woman who has been divorced twice become Queen of England?’

  ‘Tiens! But she wouldn’t merely be Queen of England!’ Francine Seeley said an hour and a half later. ‘She would be Queen of the United Kingdom and all her Dominions over the Seas, and she would also be l’impératrice de l’Inde – Empress of India!’

  ‘A consort,’ Lord St Maur said, not overly happy at being told by a Frenchwoman the titles held by the wife of a British king. ‘She wouldn’t be queen in her own right, Mrs Seeley. She would be a queen consort.’

  Francine Seeley gave a Gallic shrug of her shoulders. If Wallis married David – Wallis never referred to the King as anything other than David – then she would wear a crown and even she, Francine, would have to curtsey to her. It would be a great achievement for any woman born a commoner, and an even greater achievement for a twice-divorced American.

  Her eyes flicked from Percy St Maur – who must have been in his late forties when Daphne was born, and who was certainly nearer seventy than sixty and therefore of no interest to her – to Daphne. Francine had only ever seen her twice before, and both times only briefly. The first time had been at Buckingham Palace on the day Miranda and Daphne had been next to each other in line, on being presented to the late King George and Queen Mary. The second time had been at Miranda’s birthday party, and on that occasion she had only exchanged the most cursory of pleasantries with her.

  Sholto, however, had exchanged far more than pleasantries with Daphne St Maur – and was, she knew, still doing so.

  Francine’s first instinct, when Miranda had told her that Daphne and her father were staying at the Adlon, was to leave the hotel immediately and find accommodation elsewhere. Parisian common sense had swiftly kicked in, ensuring that she hadn’t done so. There would be no accommodation elsewhere, or certainly not suitable accommodation. Berlin was bursting to the seams with visitors to the Games.

  Besides, she was curious. Although Sholto’s romance with Daphne didn’t perturb her at a deep level – she knew he had only embarked on it in order to try and make her jealous and because he hadn’t been able to handle the knowledge that she had, aeons ago, had an affair with his father – it was a romance now in its fourth month. For an impulsive tit-for-tat gesture, four months was a long time. She wanted to know what it was about Daphne St Maur that had held Sholto’s interest for so long; she wanted to know if she should, perhaps, have concerns.

  ‘At present King Edward is on a cruise in the Adriatic with Wallis and a few friends,’ she said, wondering if Sholto shared this type of information with Daphne. Her narrow, dark eyes regarded the girl thoughtfully. ‘But then you perhaps know that already?’

  Daphne didn’t. She leaned forward a little in her chair. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Do tell me who the friends are, Mrs Seeley.’

  Francine, gratified that Sholto didn’t share gossip about Edward and Wallis with Daphne, made a careless gesture with a heavily beringed hand. ‘The Coopers. You know the Coopers, bien sûr?’

  Although they were a generation older than her, Daphne did know the Coopers. As well as having distant royal relations, Duff Cooper was a government minister. He was also a notorious womanizer and, as Daphne didn’t find him remotely physically attractive, she had always given him a wide berth. His wife Diana was, though, a delight and one of the most fun-to-be-with people she knew.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know the Coopers. Who else is sailing the Adriatic with the King and Mrs Simpson?’

  ‘The usual group of intimate friends: Lord and Lady Dudley, Lord and Lady Brownlow, Lord Sefton, Lord Beaverbrook’s sister-in-law Helen Fitzgerald, Mr and Mrs Herman Rogers.’ Seeing that the last two names meant nothing to Daphne, she said, ‘When Wallis spent a year in Peking, she lived with Katherine and Herman. Wallis and Katherine have been friends for over twenty years.’

  Startled by the mention of Peking, Daphne was about to ask what it was that had taken Wallis to China, when the carefully maintained neutral expression in Francine’s eyes slipped, revealing such dislike of her that Daphne was robbed of breath.

  Miranda said, ‘Mummy would have been aboard the Nahlin, too, if it hadn’t been for having arranged to be in Berlin for the Games. We’re here at the special invitation of a friend of hers, Count von Ribbentrop, who has just been appointed German Ambassador to Britain.’

  Aware that some kind of response was needed, Daphne’s father said, ‘Has he, indeed? Jolly good show.’ />
  Daphne was too shocked by the knowledge that, in twenty minutes of conversation – conversation in which she had said nothing that could possibly have caused offence – she had aroused such a feeling of dislike. It occurred to her that perhaps Miranda’s mother was one of those women who, no longer in their twenties, was fiercely jealous of those who were.

  Whatever the reason, the knowledge that she was disliked was not pleasant, and she was glad when Francine Seeley rose to her feet, bringing their little pre-dinner drinks party to a close.

  Later, with the incident forgotten and as the second act of the opera got under way, Daphne’s thoughts were all of Sholto.

  Ever since she had arrived in Berlin, the fact that Sholto was in the city and unable to spend time with her had been an irritation of mega-proportions; now it was beginning to be more than irritating. It was beginning to be depressing. She loved her father dearly, but spending time with him, especially when the two of them were on their own together, was always an effort. One of the reasons she had allowed him to persuade her to accompany him to the Games was that Sholto was going to be attending them as a representative from the Foreign Office, and she had liked the idea of the two of them being in Berlin at the same time.

  It hadn’t, though, worked out as she had imagined it would. Instead of being able to leave her father safely tucked up in bed at the Adlon, while she and Sholto went out on the town, all Sholto’s time had been taken up with official duties and, as he had told her on the one and only time she had managed to make telephone contact with him, it was a situation that wasn’t going to change – which meant that for all she had seen of him, he could have been on another planet.

  ‘I might as well be having a romance with someone who’s in trade,’ she’d said in comic exasperation.

  He’d cracked with laughter. ‘I must tell the Foreign Secretary how you regard his diplomats,’ he’d said, still chuckling.

  ‘Enjoy the Games, Daphne. I’ll be in touch when I’m back in