The Judas Tree (20 page)

After a considerable interval the door was opened, and by the minister himself, a small sallow man with extremely short legs and an oversized head topped by a bush of grey hair. His old black suit and the frayed edge of his clerical collar gave him a disheartened appearance, confirmed by the cast of his features, A pen in one hand and a heavily corrected manuscript in the other suggested that he had been disturbed in the preparation of his sermon, but his manner was civil enough.

‘What can I do for you, sir?'

‘If I may trouble you, I am seeking a lady by the name of Urquhart.' Now the new name came more easily to Moray; at first it had wounded him to think of her as other than Mary Douglas. ‘I understand she lives in your parish.'

‘Ah, you must mean our excellent district nurse.' The little man's expression cleared, showed willingness to assist. ‘She lives above the welfare centre you've just gone by. She is a very busy young person but if she's not at home you will find her in the dispensary from five until six.'

‘I'm much obliged to you,' Moray said, well satisfied. ‘ You are obviously speaking of my friend's daughter. I presume that her mother lives with her?'

‘Her mother?' The minister paused, studying the other. ‘You are a stranger in these parts?'

‘I've been away for many years.'

‘Then you'd no idea how ill she had been.'

‘Ill?'

The minister made a gesture of affirmation.

‘I fear I must prepare you for sad news. I buried Kathy's mother in our churchyard just nine months ago.'

The words, spoken with professional condolence, were reinforced by the church bell which now, like a passing knell, struck the hour with a harsh cracked note. There could be, there was, no mistake … it was the finish of his seeking, the end. Not disappointment alone but actual shock must have shown in Moray's face, painful shock, that drove the blood from his heart and forced him to lean against the lintel of the door.

‘My dear sir … come in and sit down for a minute. Here in the lobby.' Taking Moray's arm he led him to a chair in the hall. ‘I see it has affected you deeply.'

‘I had hoped so much to see her,' Moray muttered. ‘A very dear friend.'

‘And a truly worthy woman, my dear sir, among the chosen of my flock. Don't grieve, you will meet her in the hereafter.'

The afflicted man had not much confidence at that moment in the promise of the hereafter. She was gone, carrying with her to the grave the memory of his unfaithfulness. To the end, he had remained for her despicable, a festering wound in her memory. And now he could never redeem himself, never break the hateful complex which perpetually threatened his peace of mind, must continue to bear the burden of his guilt. Bowed with sorrow, disappointment, and a welling self-pity, he heard the parson run on, extolling the dead woman.

‘Her daughter, too,' the other continued, ‘has the same high standards, a most devoted girl. But now, if you're more composed, perhaps my wife could offer you a cup of tea.'

Moray straightened and, though still not master of himself, had the wisdom to decline.

‘Thank you, no.'

‘Then I feel sure you would like me to show you where she lies.'

They went to the graveyard behind the church. The grave, marked by a simple Celtic cross, was indicated, and the minister, lingering a moment, between sympathy and curiosity, said:

‘You are of our persuasion, I trust. If so I hope we may see you at divine service on Sunday. The Word is a great healer. Are you residing in the neighbourhood?'

‘At the Marine,' Moray mumbled.

‘Ah, an excellent hotel – Miss Carmichael, the manageress, is a good friend of ours.' The credentials of the stranger thus established, he introduced himself with an almost pathetic eagerness to be of service. ‘My name is Fotheringay – Matthew Knox Fotheringay, B.A. of Edinburgh, at your disposal, sir, should you require me further.'

With a bow, he moved discreetly away. Alone, Moray still gazed down upon the green sward of which a long rectangle, the turf annealed yet still slightly elevated, presented a sad, significant outline. There lay that sweet body which in youth he had caressed. And in the form of sweet youth he now visualised her – as on that day upon the moor, while the lark sang above the heather, and the stream rippled over its fretted, pebbled bed. Clearly he saw her, fresh and glowing, with her trim figure, her red-brown hair and peat-dark eyes, with youth, youth pulsing through her, alive. Overcome, he supported himself against the granite monument and closed his smarting eyes.

How long he remained bent and motionless he never knew. A slight sound, a footstep on the gravel path, disturbed him. He turned, raised his head; then almost collapsed. There, risen from the grave, Mary Douglas stood before him, Mary, exactly as he knew her, as he had dreamed of her a moment ago, the fearful, ghostly illusion heightened by the spray of white flowers clasped to her breast. He tried to cry out, but he could make no sound. Dizzily, with swimming head, he realised that it was Mary's daughter, the mortal image of her mother.

‘I must have startled you.' She came towards him, concerned. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes,' he said, confusedly. ‘But thoroughly ashamed of myself … behaving so stupidly.' And seeking an excuse, he added: ‘I – was quite unprepared … You see …'.

She look at him understandingly.

‘I met our minister, on the way in. You were a friend of my dear mother's.'

He inclined his head, indicating respectful sadness.

‘And of all your family. They were very good to me when I was a poor … and homeless student.'

Her face expressed sympathy and kindness. It was evident that his grief at the grave had strongly predisposed her in his favour.

‘Then you knew James, my grandfather?'

‘A wonderful man … I could see that, though I was a heedless young fellow then.'

‘And Uncle Willie?' she asked, with a warmer sympathy.

‘Willie and I were the best of friends,' he said, with a half sigh of recollection. A sudden inspiration led him to validate their association. ‘ We often bunked together. Long talks we had at night. He was a fine boy.'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I can believe that.'

There was a pause, during which he could not bring himself to look at her. His mind was not yet clear, not fully adjusted to this extraordinary turn of the wheel. He still regretted the mother and all that her loss entailed, yet it had begun to dawn on him that in the daughter he might still find the opportunity he sought. Perhaps, after all, it wasn't the end of his journey; at least, in sudden anxiety, so he fervently hoped. With an effort he maintained an air of calm.

‘I must introduce myself. My name is Moray – David Moray.'

Her expression did not change. As she took the hand he held out to her, he could barely suppress a sharp breath of relief. She did not know of him, nor of his unedifying history. Why had he doubted? Mary would never have told her, the secret was still locked up in that poor broken heart, now stilled for ever, down there, six feet under his expensive hand-made shoes.

‘You have my name,' she was saying shyly, while he still held her hand. ‘Kathy Urquhart.'

He gave her, though still with quiet sadness, his most winning smile.

‘Then, if I may, as an old friend of your dear mother, and of all your family, I shall call you Kathy.' He said it kindly, almost humbly, anxious to put her at ease, to make her feel at home with him. Then, standing aside in subdued fashion, with a sense of compunction and responsibility, conscious of his defects and deficiencies, of all his misdeeds of the past, he watched her as she placed her few chrysanthemums in a green enamelled vase before the Celtic cross and began, with a few touches, to move some fallen beech leaves from the sward.

She was bareheaded, wearing a dark blue, noticeably shabby coat over her denim nurse's uniform of lighter blue, and one of her shoes, he observed with a pang, was patched, a neat patch to be sure, yet an actual cobbler's patch. These little economies, so apparent to his expert examining eye, moved him. We will change all that, he told himself, with a sudden burst of feeling. Yes, his opportunity
was
here, certain and predestined, he felt it in his bones.

‘There!' she exclaimed, straightening herself with a confiding smile. ‘ We're all tidy for the Sabbath. And now,' she hesitated shyly, scarcely daring, yet venturing to say it, ‘… would you like to come away home with me for a nice cup of tea?'

They walked down the pathway of the graveyard together.

Seated by the window in the room above the dispensary while she went into the kitchenette to infuse the tea, he glanced about him, surprised by the want of comfort, the bareness of all that met his eye. Not even a rug on the scrubbed and polished wooden floorboards, the furnishings scanty, little more than a square deal table and some horsehair covered chairs, the fireplace blackleaded yet lacking coal, the walls white-distempered, relieved by only one picture and that a religious subject, a reproduction from the
Christian Herald
of a bad copy of Valdez Leal's
Transfiguration.
There were a few books, mainly nursing manuals and a Bible, on a shelf. A hart's-tongue fern in an earthenware pot stood on a blue saucer on the window-sill beside a work basket holding a piece of knitting, ready to be picked up. But while admitting its spartan neatness, and the touch of brightness which a vase of wild asters on the mantelpiece, caught in the yellow light of sunset, gave to it, he saw in the room, as in the little alcove bedroom, the door of which on entering she had quickly closed, disturbing evidence of straitened circumstances. On the tray, too, which hospitably she now brought in, the china was of poor quality and the single plate held nothing more than buttered slices of cottage loaf. He could not altogether understand it, yet with a sudden lift of mood he reasoned that the more help she needed the more would he be able to give her.

‘If only I'd known you were coming,' a little flustered, pouring the tea, she reproached herself as she handed him his cup, ‘I'd have had something nice. When I'm busy I don't bother about shopping till the Saturday. But never mind me, tell me about yourself.… You've been abroad.'

‘Yes, for many years. You may imagine what it's meant to me, coming home.' He sighed, then smiled. ‘Now that I am here I mean to make an extended stay.'

‘Where were you?'

‘Mostly in America.'

‘I almost hoped you'd say Africa.' She half smiled to him, though her gaze, passing beyond, was remote. ‘Uncle Willie is out there – at Kwibu, on the border of northern Angola.'

Although he gave no sign, he nevertheless experienced a strong sensation of relief. Willie would certainly have known him; any premature meeting might well have induced a most undesirable crisis.

‘You don't surprise me a bit,' he said pleasantly, with a light note of interest. ‘Even as a boy Willie was wild about Africa. Why, he and I walked practically every mile of the way with Livingstone, to Lake Victoria. And when Stanley found him you should have heard us cheer. But Angola, isn't that rather primitive country?'

‘It's all that. Since Uncle went out he's had some terrible rough years. But things are going better now. I've all sorts of interesting snaps I can show you. They give a good idea of the conditions out there.'

At this stage he thought it wise not to enlarge on the question of Willie's pioneer activities – whether mining or engineering he could not guess – so he refrained from pressing the matter.

‘When you've time I'll enjoy seeing the photographs. But what I really want to hear about is your own work here.'

She made involuntarily a shy, disclaiming gesture.

‘Oh, it's nothing much. Just the usual run of district nursing, health visiting, and the like. I go round the countryside on my bicycle, sometimes on foot. Then there's the Welfare Centre for pre- and post-natal care, with a clinic – we call it the milk bar – for the babies. And odd times I do a turn at the Cottage Hospital in Dalhaven.'

‘All that sounds as if they work you much too hard.' He had already noticed that her hands were rough and badly chapped.

‘It's nice to be busy,' she said cheerfully. ‘And they're very decent. I have Thursday afternoons off and three weeks' holiday in the year – I still have two weeks of it to go, in fact.'

‘Then you like your job?'

She simply nodded, with a reserve more convincing than any outburst of enthusiasm. ‘At the same time, there isn't quite enough scope here. But – well, I have something much better in view.'

At this remark, and the reserve with which she made it, a disconcerting thought crossed his mind. Although he knew it to be bad taste, he had to say it.

‘You mean to get married?'

She laughed outright, showing even white teeth against healthy pink gums, a wonderful laugh that fell sweetly, reassuringly on his ears.

‘Good gracious, no,' she exclaimed, composing herself at last. ‘Who would I find round here but a few farm laddies that think of nothing but their Saturday night dances and the movies in Dalhaven? Besides,' she continued, slowly and very seriously, ‘ I'm– well, so set on my work, I scarcely think I could ever give it up for anything – or anyone.'

All this was exactly as he would have wished it. Quite alone and without encumbrances, sensibly though not permanently attached to a worthy but dull and unrewarding profession, she could not have been a more perfect subject for his affectionate and philanthropic attention. His thoughts flashed ahead. Unacquainted with the law, he wondered if she might be made his ward: adoption seemed to him unfeasible, reminiscent of orphanages and partaking of frustrated parenthood. Be that as it may, his heart swelled with genuine feeling. He was, always had been, a most generous man, no one could deny him that slight virtue. What couldn't he do for her! He mustn't force things unduly least he alarm her, since it was apparent that she had taken him for a man of moderate means. Yet this was an aspect of the situation which struck him as being rich, in the double sense of that word, with the most delightful possibilities of revelation and fulfilment.