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Isabella woke with the conviction that Cecilia Arkwright had lied to Gawen Tarrant. The metal snick that she’d heard must have been the door shutting when Nigel Arkwright had slipped into his room, long before Madoc Tarrant came back to the house. Cecilia had lied, and Prof. Tarrant’s responding lie had been equally smooth.
Secret visits to the dig. Treasures worth stealing. Lies and counter-lies. She had tumbled into a mystery. How disappointing if it were only conflicting scientific theories.
She didn’t dawdle over dressing, but she wavered over what to wear. Their view of her this morning might form the backdrop for her time here. If she wanted the artist’s job, she should dress with an artist’s flair. Yet Harcourt-Smythe’s blotting dismissal required a modest dress. She settled on a pleated linen dress and tied a sash of her favorite blue for a splash of color against the white. She gathered her hair back with a matching ribbon.
All the doors of the sitting room were opened to the courtyard. At the far end the others had gathered for breakfast along the dining table. Isabella felt the battery of eyes as she passed a corner desk and clustered chairs on her way to join them.
Madoc Tarrant scraped back his chair as he stood to welcome her. “Here she is now.” He indicated the empty chair beside him, against the wall and between him and Frederick Petrie.
Gawen Tarrant had also risen to greet her. He offered neither smile nor scowl, and she could not tell if his brother had mentioned the illustrations idea. Surrounded by strangers, she was too shy to broach it herself.
“I told you a governess is no slug-a-bed,” Cecilia declared, sitting on her husband’s right at the table’s head. She offered a welcoming smile. This morning she looked elegant in cream silk and navy linen. Around her dark cap of hair she wore a cream band tied with a flamboyant bow. Matched to such casual dash, Isabella felt like an ingénue. Seated at the table’s center, Mrs. Standings was a splash of bright florals with ruffles, pretty but not stylish.
While she slipped to her appointed chair, Arkwright stood more tardily and took it upon himself to introduce everyone. “You will remember Prof. Standings.” He indicated the man across from him. “And his wife.”
Isabella smiled and nodded. Madoc reached across her to pour coffee into her cup, and she had to peek over his arm as Arkwright introduced the four students. At the dinner Saturday evening, she had sat squeezed between her chattering charges and had scarcely noticed them. Her employer had dominated the conversation, drawing out the other women with his reminisces of London parties and mutual acquaintances. With golden curls that claimed kinship with a sun-kissed god or an angel, Richard Lamb outshone everyone at the table, including Cecilia Arkwright. Seated on Prof. Arkwright’s left, he scarcely acknowledged the introduction. Isabella smiled at Frederick Petrie, dapper as a British cricket player. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown suit, nothing set him apart except his thin, loose limbs. Young Hamilton Matthews’ gangling arms revealed his age more than his freshly scrubbed face did.
“And Phillip Castlereagh here,” Arkwright added, “beside my wife.”
With last night’s lies and secrecy echoing clearly, Isabella was intrigued by the territory each person had staked around the table. Only Prof. Arkwright retained his seat from last weekend. Everyone else had changed, and she wondered if that were due to Prof. Tarrant’s return. He had supplanted Cecilia from the foot of the table. She had shifted to her husband’s right. Opposing armies, with allies drawn up for defense. And Isabella was caught in no man’s land, between Madoc Tarrant and Frederick Petrie. She preferred the open side between Katherine Standings and Richard Lamb.
Under cover of passing the toast, Madoc said, “I’ve spoken with Gawen. He wants to see your work. After breakfast.”
“Madoc, don’t monopolize our visitor,” Mrs. Standings chided. “How long do you stay, Miss Newcombe?”
That question struck with an arrow-straight aim into her dilemma as well as pointing out her position as a stranger to these people. Isabella had no answer.
Prof. Tarrant leaned back and propped on his chair-arm. “I’ve offered her a breathing space. After the Harcourt-Smythes, she needs it, don’t you agree?”
“Where did you meet them?” Petrie asked, his gaze on the toast he over-buttered. “I never saw them before this week’s invasion.”
“They’ve lurked on the fringes of the archaeology community since before the war. Marmalade, Isabella?” Cecilia offered the jam jar. As Isabella took it, the woman added, “I believe he deals in antiquities.”
“Is that right, Miss Newcombe? Harcourt-Smythe sells antiquities?”
“I was merely the governess, Mr. Petrie.”
Nigel Arkwright cleared his throat. “He salts his collection with a few artifacts.”
“Treasure hunter,” Gawen snorted.
“Treasure hunters are needed,” Standings said blandly. “Universities cannot fund every dig. We need funding from wealthy collectors as well. And public interest at museums also raises funds. If every little trinket winds up hidden in university archives, no dig will ever be funded.”
“What I know of him, Tarrant, is all aboveboard. I knew him before the war,” Arkwright said. “He’s had several lean years with most of the archaeological digs suspended. Now we have Armistice, there will be more for him to sell. Trinkets, mostly. Nothing museum quality. He’s no blackmarket dealer.”
“It is curious,” Standings said with a blandness ironic in relation to his words, “that an antiquities dealer appears as we begin having thefts of recovered artifacts.”
“Not thefts.” Petrie lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the air. “Misplaced. We found a couple of them.”
“A couple found when I can list a half-dozen more of finer quality that are still missing,” Tarrant snapped. “Museum quality.”
“Keep your hat on, Professor. When we catalog the storeroom, I’m certain we’ll find them. Not every one of us understands the significance of our work.” Petrie flicked a glance at the gangly student.
Hamilton Matthews didn’t look up from his eggs.
Cecilia lifted her coffee cup and left it suspended in the air. “What did you think of Mr. Harcourt-Smythe when you met him at Knossos, Gawen? Kat and I found him charming. His wife as well.”
“I had no dealings with him. Petros gave him the tour.”
“What work did you accomplish at Knossos, Professor?” Lamb injected.
“Since you three had finished the interesting work, I drudged. We cleared the debris from the past winter and rebuilt the roof protecting the throne room.”
“You think Evans is planning a more extensive excavation? That was the rumor at the British School when we stopped in Athens, that he wanted the site brought to a workable state before he returned.”
“That would explain the British School’s proviso in our excavation contract with Crete. Why else would the BSA request a measured layout of the site and the adjacent areas?”
As he and Lamb discussed the major site, Cecilia around Petrie. “Isabella, you have untainted eyes. How does our excavation compare to Knossos?”
Isabella swallowed her bite of egg. “How can I compare them? I’m not trained.”
“Do give us your honest opinion,” Castlereagh prompted. “Which site do you prefer?”
Isabella looked for malice in his eyes but saw none. Older than his fellows, he had served his time in the trenches. She didn’t remember who had said those words to her, but the information didn’t excuse the slight she heard in his voice.
Madoc Tarrant had heard it as well, for he set down his coffee. He had to lean forward to glare up-table at the man. “I wouldn’t answer that, Miss Newcombe. No matter how you couch your answer, you will offend one of these archaeologists. They have different interests and different theories, different everything.”
She glanced at him. His eyes, very blue and clear, smiled at her, and she knew he remained the same man who had offered help last evening. He hadn’t changed. She set her fork down and swept her gaze around the table. “Then I will offend no one. I do not see any true answer. Without an understanding of archaeology, I cannot understand what I am seeing.”
Petrie whistled. “A woman who admits to ignorance. Now there’s a rare object.”
“I will not let you sidestep my question. You are the public with untainted eye, Isabella. You must have some opinion.” Cecilia swirled her coffee. “You toured Knossos, did you not? And you have not only toured our excavation, but you sketched it yesterday and this past weekend. Come, tell us what you think.”
“Ask my opinion of the Coliseum or the Parthenon, Mrs. Arkwright. There I know what to judge. I can only tell you that Knossos is archaeology on a grand scale, and here you are compact, tightly-focused. I can see the energy of your work and its scientific elements; at Knossos I see the remnants of such work. I do not know what else you wish me to say.”
“Did you explore the Grand Staircase?” Lamb asked.
“Mrs. Harcourt-Smythe did not wish her daughters to venture down the steps. After we heard that it had once fallen, she was afraid that it might do so again. Was that you, Prof. Tarrant, on the far edge of the site?”
“We were repairing a drainage trench in preparation for the winter rains.”
“Nigel has heard that Evans wishes to reconstruct the palace as he did the staircase.”
“A desecration of the science,” Gawen Tarrant grumbled.
“Restoring the first glories of Greece,” Arkwright countered.
“Exactly,” Isabella interjected. “If you call my eye ‘untainted’, then this public thinks both need to be seen, the one to reveal history as it was, the other to explore history as it was, and through both to understand archaeology and the origins of civilization.”
Lamb laughed and shoved away from the table. “Miss Newcombe, you’re a diplomat. You’ve removed the bone before our debate could degenerate into an argument.”
She blinked. “I have?” Had he just provided the reason for last night’s lies?
Lamb crossed one leg over the other and dug into his pocket. “Archaeology is a science of balances. To preserve we must reveal, and to reveal we must destroy. What we destroy, we cannot restore. As scientists, our difficulty is deciding how much to reveal. Too much destroys the site; too little does not uncover all the site can teach. If you stay a few days, you will hear this argument several times. To reach the layer that interests Prof. Tarrant, we must dig deeply. Prof. Standings wants to preserve every layer above. Prof. Arkwright wants to find everything in the ground.” He shook tobacco from a pouch into his pipe.
“While Harcourt-Smythe,” Madoc slipped in, “wants any artifact unaccounted for. Isn’t that what he was asking you, Arkwright?”
Discomfited, Arkwright cleared his throat. His resemblance to the god Apollo had dimmed since yesterday. “They wanted a tour. He wanted to discuss purchasing—.”
“Nigel informed him that our artifacts are shared between St. George’s University and the Heraklion museum.” Cecilia’s calm interruption acted like a warning touch on her husband. He retreated to his coffee.
Isabella remembered Arkwright’s hotel dinner with the Harcourt-Smythes. Secrets, lies, valuable artifacts, and an antiquities dealer. This mystery had indeed turned interesting.
Gawen Tarrant tapped his fingers on his chair-arm. “This Harcourt-Smythe obviously believes archaeologists are an unethical lot. I suppose we should thank the pantheon of gods that he did not remain camped on our doorstep.”
“Several of our best artifacts would fund a small dig next season.”
“We have no right to dispose of them, Petrie. Madoc, would you be so kind?” Cecilia handed her coffee cup down-table to be refilled. “The artifacts belong to the university and our Cretan hosts.”
“History owns them,” Gawen murmured, “not any one person.”
“History returned to the present,” Mrs. Standings added. “That’s what Isabella said,” and Isabella hoped her jaw hadn’t dropped. What had dissipated the woman’s earlier malice? “I wish I had said it, but after weeks of sorting potsherds, I can muster little wit. I’m seeing pottery bits in my dreams.”
“Nightmares, surely?” Lamb suggested, and she laughed and agreed.
The talk turned to their plans for the day, and Isabella divined that this was the only day no active digging occurred. They began with no immediate plans, but by the time she finished her egg and toast and two cups of bracing coffee, the Arkwrights had decided to visit the French archaeologists excavating Mallia. Mrs. Standings planned to go with them. Prof. Arkwright muttered, not quietly, “At least there I will see proper respect for Minoan remains.”
“I’d like to go as well,” the skinny Matthews said. “See what they’ve dug up since I stayed there after my week at Knossos. When we’re digging, I forget how isolated we are from each other. You coming, Lamb?”
Puffing to light his pipe, he didn’t answer until it burned to his satisfaction, then he declined. “My camera has a date with a meadow. I’ll enjoy your gossip this evening.”
“And our taskmaster,” Cecilia said. “Come with us, Gawen. I don’t think you’ve spent one Sunday away from this village.”
“Last weekend, driving to Knossos.”
“That was work. Don’t slave in that study all day.” Her tone made it a prison cell.
“I’m going to the dig later, to see how you’ve progressed this week. I didn’t really have a chance to look it over yesterday afternoon.”
“We’ve had no progress at all,” Arkwright growled. “Nothing new uncovered.”
“After a week’s absence, my eyes may see what yours missed. And Lamb has offered his notes, so I can update my journal. That will consume most of my day. Offer my regrets, Cecilia.”
“With the motorcar we can squeeze in one more. Madoc, I know better than to ask you. I’ve never determined exactly how you spend your Sundays.”
“I fish. I swim. I hone a taste for the local wines.”
“Isabella, come with us to Mallia. Those French archaeologists will charm you.”
Madoc leaned forward. “After her faint yesterday, she needs to rest.”
They stared at her, and she wanted to sink. Or stomp Madoc Tarrant’s foot.
“I said you were wilting, didn’t I?” Cecilia said lightly. “Rest today. Regain your bloom. Our housekeeper will be delighted to coddle a foreign lady. She’s disappointed with Kat and me. Kat, will you ask for wine and a luncheon from Dorcas? And please manage to convey to her that we will not return for dinner. Nigel, will you fetch the motorcar? We’ll have a good day for our drive.”
Since the others rose as well, Cecilia Arkwright had quickly disposed the table. Isabella wondered if she would ever manage it as gracefully.
Although he was standing, Madoc poured another cup of coffee. Gawen eyed it then him. “Rough night, brother?”
“Up late,” he returned and saluted with the cup. “I have to be sharp for all the ragging I’ll get today.” Gawen snorted and strode off, leaving Isabella alone with Madoc. He slid her chair back as she stood. “Wait until the others leave before you come to Gawen’s study.” Then he stepped through the opened doorway and disappeared as well.
She found her room tidied and her window opened. Isabella went to drink the view. Besides the cedars and the ancient olive grove climbing the hill, she had the god’s mountain, painted in shades of blazing white, as if age had leached the living color from the earth. A hawk spiraled in the cloudless sky, a blue so pristine no artist could imitate it.
Voices soon reached her through the open door. Had they not yet discovered how sound carried along a passage of stone walls and stone floor?
“You shouldn’t have suggested Mallia.” In no way did Gawen Tarrant sound like a dour professor. “You know he’ll come back angry.”
“Where then?” Cecilia demanded. “Gurnia? Or let him sit drinking all day in a café in Sitía or Agios Nikólaos? I’d rather hear the argument than deal with him too drunk to walk straight. Or think straight.”
“You don’t have to field the other side of the argument. No, go on to Mallia. You were right to choose it. We’re in a damnable situation, Cess.”
“I’m trying, Gawen. Believe me.” Her voice lightened with a clear teasing note. “You should come. That would give him the chance to show you up with the French.”
“I thank you,” he said dryly. “No, Cess, I know what you meant. Better if I don’t go. Enjoy yourself. The French will certainly delight in your visit. You may have a different argument than the one you expect.”
“I’d rather deal with that one. Gawen—.” Yet whatever she’d started to say remained unspoken. Her heels clicked away. Isabella didn’t hear Gawen Tarrant leave.
She hadn’t planned to eavesdrop. Her door stood open, and his door was right beside hers. If they didn’t want anyone to hear, they could have shut the door.
Her mystery had just spun another coil, one that had spiraled deeper than she would have imagined.
Trying not to speculate on that intimate conversation, Isabella waited at the window for the cranky automobile to sputter away. Richard Lamb, burdened with a heavy pack and tripod, climbed the hill. He stood silhouetted against the mountain as he gauged his path. Then he disappeared down the other side, off for his date with a meadow. She heard an engine roar as it was revved, but she didn’t move. Apprehension pinned her to the window. The future she wanted was close to her grasp—would it vanish when she reached for it, an elusive illusion?
“Back at your window, I see.”
Madoc stood in her doorway, slouching against the jamb. Hands in the pockets of his khaki drills, shirt collar opened, he looked like the reckless adventurer who broke the heroine’s heart in dime store novels. Tall, dark and too handsome for an out-of-work governess. Rather than answer, she looked back at the azure sky. His blue eyes also wouldn’t translate to paint.
“It’s the best view in the house.”
“Nothing like England or home,” she said. “In no way comparable.”
“But beautiful.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Even by moonlight.”
Yes, he had seen her last night. Isabella faced him. The sunlight behind her gave the advantage of shielding her face. “Why did you follow Nigel Arkwright to the dig?”
She didn’t think he would answer that straight question. His honesty surprised her. “I thought he was going to the site, but he never appeared. I lost him on the hillside. Nor did I hear him come back. I was awake a long time, listening, thinking.”
She wondered why he gave her the truth, then she wondered why she was surprised. Once again that strange connection had thrown them beyond new acquaintance. A stranger would have parried her question with a charming lie. She owed Madoc Tarrant the same honesty. “Could he have come back before you?”
“This morning Gawen said not. He went to bed after I came back, and Cecilia stopped him to ask if he’d seen Nigel.”
“Yes, I heard that conversation. Before that, long before I saw your return, I heard a door catch or a lock.”
That startled him. Mindful of the echoes along the balcony and the courtyard, he eased the door shut, even though the others had left the house. “What’s this?”
Isabella repeated what she’d heard last night.
“That was before Cecelia spoke to Gawen? Well, well. She was covering for him.”
“Covering for him? While you were trailing him?” She had indeed tumbled into a mystery. Isabella planted herself on her bed. “Mr. Tarrant, what is going on here?”
“I wish I knew. Artifacts go missing then turn up, or they get displaced from where they were left. For two weeks, every morning when we got to the dig, the quartering ropes were unstrung. I never found any tracks to lead to the culprit. The mudslip stopped that, but then the potsherd trays started being mixed. The sorted trays were dumped with the rubble.”
“Accident? Someone blundering through your work? Or sabotage?”
Those blue eyes flashed as if her questions pleased him. “Or someone looking for something they expect us to find or to have found. Or are afraid we’ve already found.” He shook his head. “Gawen says it’s nothing. During the war I learned to look askant at orders and men and—well, I’m alive and other men, better men aren’t. Maybe I’ve not been demobbed long enough to get over my—my—. I don’t know what to call it. My waiting for trouble.”
“Inklings of trouble,” Isabella substituted. “This, though, this is more than intuition. You have evidence, either of sabotage or attempts to cover theft.”
“I’m glad you agree. I think my brother’s blinding himself. I don’t know enough archaeology to pinpoint the problems. As small as this site is, everyone still works separate locations. I don’t have eyes watching everywhere, and I have to be away sometimes. This past week, with Gawen at Knossos and my work on the landslip, my instinct tells me that things weren’t just disrupted; they also went missing. But I have no evidence.” He plucked her sketchbook from the low chest and handed it to her.
She took the cue but said, “Explain your brother’s week at Knossos. I thought archaeologists only worked a particular site, but your brother, Mr. Lamb, and Mr. Petrie, all of them spoke of spending a week there.”
“Arkwright went as well.” He shut the door behind them. Their voices and footsteps echoed. “A peculiarity with the dig contract, which the university was lucky to be awarded.”
“Your brother is a professor at St. George’s?”
“Natural History. Both Arkwright and Standings are in the Classics. According to the contract with the British School, each archaeologist and student must provide a week’s service at Knossos. Gawen scheduled the earliest weeks. He hoped to be going at top speed by now.”
“Instead of dealing with sabotage covering theft in time for the arrival of a shady antiquities dealer.”
“Miss Newcombe, I like the way your brain works.”
Isabella wasn’t sure that was a compliment.
