Free Dark inheritance by Roberta Leigh Page B

Canal. As they moved along the land rose more and more steeply until the concrete sides were high above the masts of the ship, while far above them on a bridge linking the island to the mainland, trucks and buses scurried along it like arts.
    "They might have made the Canal a bit wider," Barabra said disparagingly. "It surely wouldn't have meant very much more work."
    "It would certainly have meant a great deal more expense," Rockwood replied. "Anyway we're nearly out now." He took her arm and turned her round. "Look back."
    She did so, surprised to see that the Canal behind them looked as if it were on a steep gradient, the ex treme narrowness creating an optical illusion of their having gone uphill.
    As the Gulf widened out before them, small Greek fishing craft could be seen riding the choppy water, their multiple square sails billowing in the wind.
    "How quaint their rigging looks!" Aunt Ellie said, "like miniature pirate vessels." It was an apt com parison, for the skull and crossbones would not have looked out of place Dying at their masts.
    The countryside was broken up into tiny patches of cultivated land, and Rockwood told them that the darkest ones were fields of grapes, from whose low vines came the tiny seedless raisin whose name "Corinth" had degenerated into "currant."
    The air was growing colder now and Barbara's hair whipped against her cheeks as the boat gathered speed in the face of the wind.
    "Come along, Aunt Ellie, or you'll catch cold," she said, suppressing a shiver.
    "It seems a shame to have to go down, but I dare say you're right." The old woman turned to Rockwood. "Do you think I might stay up for dinner this evening, Dominic?"
    "No," he said shortly, "you need all the rest you can get."
    Crestfallen, Miss Bcrresford allowed herself to be led down to the cabin and prepared for the night, and when she was settled with her supper on a tray Barbara went into her own room to change, wishing she knew why her employer treated his aunt so unkindly. Before their visit to Athens she had assumed it was his nature to be cruel, but the insight she had gained during their hours together made her sure this was not the case. The softening of his face as he had looked at the Acropolis, his loving familiarity with so much of the majesty around them spoke of a passionate appreciation of beauty that he was obviously holding in check, and once again she wondered why he condemned himself to a life of loneliness and frustration.
    At dinner that evening no trace of Rockwood's irri tation with his aunt remained, and the hours she spent in his company passed quickly, for his dry humour was infectious and he encouraged her to talk about her self, interested when she told him about her parents, their untimely death and. her subsequent unhappy years with the two maiden cousins in the Midlands.
    "It must have taken courage to break out of a rut like that," he said reflectively.
    "I suppose so."
    "What did you do?"
    Remembering the promise she had given Aunt Ellie never to tell her nephew she had worked in the theatre, she resisted the temptation to tell him about her training as a singer. "I went to London and changed my job completely," she said casually.
    "Sometimes the wisest policy. If you're going to break away, break clean. Slip your moorings and set sail on an uncharted sea."
    Barbara laughed. "I can assure you it wasn't as dra matic as that. It was a long, tedious struggle, with precious little excitement" She looked around the luxurious lounge, at the well-dressed people and opulent furnishings. "This is about the nicest thing that's ever happened to me so far. Oh, I don't mean only this, but everything that's gone with it—the thrill of travel, Aunt Ellie's kindness and companionship and, of course, lovely Wales."
    He regarded her quizzically. "Have you deliberately omitted to mention me, or don't I count as one of the nice things?"
    Not sure whether he was teasing her or trying to flirt, she hardly knew what to say.