Ivy Tree (37 page)

Before he spoke, I knew the answer. The truth was in his face. "Letter? What letter?"

"I wrote from London," I said, "almost straight away."

"I got no letter." I saw him pass his tongue across his lips. "What did it... say?" For eight years I had thought of what I would have liked to say. Now I only said, gently: "That if it would give you even a little happiness, I'd be your mistress, and go with you where-ever you liked." The pain went across his face as if I had hit him. I saw him shut his eyes. He put up a hand to them; it was disfigured and ugly in the clear sunlight. He dropped it, and we looked at one another. He said, quite simply, as if exhausted. "My dear. I never even saw it."

"I realise that now. I suppose I should have realised it then, when I got no answer. I should have known you'd not have done anything quite so cruel."

"Christ," he said, without violence, "I think you should."

"I'm sorry. It never even occurred to me that the letter might have gone astray. Letters don't, as a rule. And I was so unhappy, and alone, and—and cutoff... girls aren't at their most sensible at such times. Adam, don't look like that. It's over now. I waited a few days; I—I suppose I'd really only gone to London to wait for you; I'd never intended, originally, to go abroad. But then, when I telephoned—did she tell you I'd telephoned?" At his expression, I gave a little smile. "Yes, I telephoned you, too."

"Oh, my dear. And Crystal answered?"

"Yes. I pretended it was a wrong number. I didn't think she'd recognised my voice. I rang again next day, and Mrs. Rudd answered it. She didn't know who I was; she just told me the house was shut, and that you and Mrs. Forrest had gone abroad, ^definitely. It was then that I—I decided to go right away. I went to a friend of mine who was emigrating. I had some money. I went along to look after her children, and—oh, the rest doesn't matter. I didn't write to you again. I—I couldn't, could I?"

"No." He was still looking like someone who has been mortally hurt, and hasn't known it till he sees the blood draining away into the grass. "No wonder you said what you did, the other night. It seems there's even more than I thought, to be laid at my door."

"You couldn't help it, if a letter went astray 1 It was hardly— Adam!" His eyes jerked up to mine. "What is it?"

I licked my lips, and said, hoarsely: "I wonder what did happen to that letter? We're forgetting that, I said a minute ago, letters just don't go astray, not as a rule, not for eight years. Do you suppose—" I wet my lips again—"she took it?"

"Crystal? How could—oh my God, no, surely? Don't look like that, Annabel, the damned thing's probably lying in some dusty dead-letter office somewhere on the Continent. No, my dear, she never knew. I'll swear she never knew."

"Adam, you can't be sure 1 If she did—"

"I tell you she didn't know! She never gave any sign of knowing ! And I assure you, that if she could have found a whip like that to use on me, she'd have used it."

"But when she got so much worse—"

"She was no worse than neurotic for years after you went away. It was only after the fire—after I'd taken her to Florence —that you could have called her really 'mentally ill', and I had to take her to Vienna. She never once, in all that time, mentioned any sort of suspicion of you."

"But, Adam, you don't know—"

"I know quite well. Stop this, Annabel!"

"Adam, no one's ever told me—how did Crystal die?"

He said harshly: "It was nothing to do with this. You can take my word for it. For one thing, no letter turned up among her papers after her death, and you can be sure she kept everything there was." I said: "Then she did kill herself?"

He seemed to stiffen himself like a man lifting a weight, only able by stark courage to hold it there. "Yes." Another of those silences. We were standing so still that a wren flew on to a hazel close beside me, chattered a stave of shrill and angry-sounding song, then flew away. I was thinking, without drama, well, here was the end of the chapter; all the threads tied up, the explanations made. There was nothing more to say. Better say good-bye, and go home to breakfast, before tragedy dissolved in embarrassment, and the lovers who had once been ready to count the world well lost, should find themselves talking about the weather.

The same thought showed momentarily in Adam's face, and with it, a sort of stubborn resolution. He took a step forward, and the maimed hands moved.

I said: "Well, I'd better be getting back before Con sees I've been on Rowan."

"Annabel—"

"Adam, don't make me keep saying it's finished."

"Don't make me keep saying it isn't! Why on earth d'you think I found myself trusting you against all reason and judgment, liking you—oh, God, more than liking you—if I hadn't known in my blood who you really were, in spite of that bag of moonshine you handed to me so convincingly?"

"I suppose because I was like her."

"Nonsense. Julie's the image of what you were, as I knew you, and she never makes my heart miss a single beat. And tell me this, my dear dead love, why did you cry when you saw my hands?"

"Adam, no, you're not being fair!"

"You care, don't you? Still?"

"I... don't know. No. I can't. Not now."

He always had known what I was thinking. He said sharply: "Because of Crystal?"

"We'll never know, will we? It*d be there, between us, what we did." He said, grimly: "I could bear that. Believe me, I made my reparations." He turned his hands over, studying them. "And this was the least painful of them. Well, my dear, what do you want to do?"

"I'll go, of course. It won't be long, you know. Grandfather's looking desperately frail. Afterwards . . . afterwards, I'll see things straight with Con, somehow, and then I'll go. If he knows I'm leaving, there'll be no danger for me. We needn't meet, Adam."

"Neither we need."

I turned away abruptly. "I'll go now."

"Take your bridle."

"What? Oh, thanks. I'm sorry I spoiled your ride, Adam."

"It doesn't matter. Rowan would much prefer it with you. I've a heavy hand." He picked his own bridle from the post, and heaved the saddle up over one arm. Then he smiled at me.

"Don't worry, my dear. I won't get under your feet. But don't go away again, without saying good-bye."

"Adam," I said desperately; "I can't help it. I can't help the way I feel. Life does just go on, and you change, and you can't go back. You have to live it the way it comes. You know that." He said, not tragically, but as if finishing a quite ordinary conversation: "Yes, of course. But it would be very much easier to be dead. Good-bye."

He let himself through the wicket, and went away across the field without looking back,

I lean'd my back unto an aik,

I thocht it was a trustie tree; But first it bow'd and syne it bra

Sae my true love did lichtlie me.
 

Ballad: Jamie Douglas.

LIFE goes on, I had told Adam. When I got back to the farm the men were arriving for the day, and the cattle were filing into the byres. I managed to slip into the stables and hang the Bridle up again without being seen, then went into the kitchen.

Mrs. Bates was there, waiting for the ketde to boil. She cast me a look of surprise.

"Why, Miss Annabel I You're up early. Have you been out riding?"

"No. I just couldn't sleep."

Her bright black eyes lingered on my face. "What's to do now? You look proper poorly."

"I'm all right. I had a bad night, that's all. I'd love a cup of tea."

"Hm." The piercing, kind little eyes surveyed me. "Piece o' nonsense, getting up at all hours when you don't have to. You want to take care o' yerself."

"Nonsense, Betsy, there's nothing the matter with me."

"Never seen anything like you the day you came back." Here the kettle boiled, and she tipped it, dexterously jetting the boiling water into the teapot. "If you hadn't 'a' told me you was Miss Annabel, I'd hardly 'a' knowd you, and that's a fact. Aye, you can smile if you like, but that's the truth and no lie. Depend

* on it, I says to Bates that night, depend on it, Miss Annabel's had a bad time of it over in America, I says, and I'm not surprised, I says, judging by what you see on the pictures."

"It was Canada," I said mildly.

"Well, they're all the same, aren't they?" She slapped the teapot down on the table, which was laid ready for breakfast, whipped off the lid, and stirred the tea vigorously. "Not but what you look a lot better than what you did, and you've begun to put a bit of weight on, aye, and get some of your looks back, and I'm not the only one that's noticed it. Have you noticed, says Bates to me the other day, that Miss Annabel's almost her pretty self again when she smiles. Which isn't often enough by a long chalk, I says. Well, he says, if she'd but get herself a husband and get herself settled, he says. Go on with you, I says, and her hardly home yet, give her time, I says, not but what men always thinks that's all a woman needs in her life to make her happy, so no offence meant, but all the same, he says to me—"

I managed a laugh that was, I hope, convincing. "Oh, Betsy dear! Let me get home first, before I start looking round I"

"Here's your tea." She pushed a steaming cup towards me. "And you did ought to take sugar in it, not a foreign black mess like that. And let me tell you that if you didn't sleep last night you'll only have yersel' to blame, with soup, and coffee, not to mention whisky and such, as I know by the glasses left in the kitchen bold as brass for me to find. Not that I'm one as concerns meself in things that are none of my business, but—oh, here's Mr. Con."

Con, I noticed sourly, looked attractive and wide awake even with last night's stubble on his chin, and in the clothes, carelessly hustled-into, for his before-breakfast jobs. He threw me a look of surprise as he took a cup of tea from Mrs. Bates. "Good God. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Taking a walk, she says," said Mrs. Bates, spooning sugar into his cup. "I thought she'd been riding, meself, but she says no."

His eyes flickered over my trousers and yellow shirt. "Weren't you? I should have thought Forrest's colt would have tempted you long ago."

I sipped my tea without replying. Already the scene in the meadow was growing dim, dulled, fading . . . The hot tea was a benison, a spell against dreams. The day had started. Life goes on.

"Those things suit you," said Con. His glance held undisguised admiration, and I saw Mrs. Bates eyeing him with a sort of sour speculation. She pushed a plateful of buttered rolls towards him. "Try one o' these." He took one, still watching me. "Are you coming out to lend a hand today?"

"That she is not," said Mrs. Bates promptly.

"I might," I said, "I'm not sure. I—I slept badly."

"You're not worrying about anything, are you?" asked Con. The blue eyes held nothing but mildly solicitous curiosity.

Mrs. Bates took his cup from him and re-filled it. "She's worrying herself about her Granda, I shouldn't wonder, which is more than you seem to be doing, Mr. Con, which I may say you can think shame on yourself, for asking her to work in this heat, when you've as much help as you want up in the field, and that's the truth and no lie I"

"Well," said Con, with the glint of a smile, "I doubt if we'll get Bill Fenwick over today, so if you could relieve someone on one of the tractors some time, it would help. The weather'll break soon, you see if it doesn't. We'll have thunder before dark."

"I'll see," I said. "Will you be up there all day yourself?"

"As soon as I've had breakfast. Why?"

"I told you last night. I want to talk to you."

"So you did. Well, tonight, maybe."

"I'd rather see you before. I may come up to the field, at any rate when you stop to eat."

"Oh, sure," said Con unconcernedly, setting down his cup. "Be seeing you." I went up to my room to change. If he hadn't been in his working-clothes, I thought, he'd have smelled the horse on me. There were chestnut hairs on the grey trousers, and one or two on the shirt where Rowan had rubbed his head against me. I went along and bathed, got into a skirt and fresh blouse, and felt better. I couldn't eat breakfast when the time came, but there was no one there to remark on the fact. Con wasn't yet in, Grandfather wasn't up, Mrs. Bates was busy elsewhere, and Lisa was invariably silent at breakfast-time. Julie was taking hers in bed —this at my insistence, and more to keep her out of Con's way than for any other reason. She seemed to have completely recovered from last night's experience, and only accepted my ruling about breakfast because, she said, she had no desire to see Con again so soon, and certainly not before she had seen Donald.

Donald rang up shortly before half past eight, to ask for news of last night's truants. I told him only enough to reassure him— that Bill Fcnwick's car had been involved in a mishap, and that Julie was unhurt, and wanting to see him some time that day. If, I added with a memory of the colleague from London, he was free ...

"Mphm," said Donald. "I'll be along in half an hour."

"Donald! Wait a minute! She's not up yet!"

"Half an hour," said Donald, and rang off.

I warned Julie, who hurled herself out of bed with a shriek and a "What shall I wear}" that reassured me completely as to her well-being and her feelings. I didn't see Donald arrive, but when, some half-hour later, I saw his car in the yard, I went to tell him that Julie wouldn't be long. He wasn't in the car, or indeed, anywhere to be seen; on an inspiration I slipped through the half-door of Blondie's stable, and there, sure enough, he was, stooping to prod a gentle finger into the pile of fur deep in the manger, while Tommy, sitting unconcernedly on top of the partition (which was at least half an inch wide), watched composedly, in the intervals of washing a back leg.

Donald straightened when he heard me come in. "She really is all right?" It was an unceremonious greeting, and I hoped it was symptomatic of his state of mind. He certainly betrayed no other outward signs of deep emotion.

"Perfectly. She'll be along in a minute or two."

I told him then rather more fully about the accident, but without mentioning Con, or (of course) what had happened later last night. If Julie chose to tell him, that was her affair, but I hoped she wouldn't. I wanted no more trouble until I had managed that overdue interview with Con, and after that, I hoped, all would be clear.