The Judas Tree (6 page)

‘Oh, yes,' Mary said cheerfully. ‘ Let's go to Lang's. There it is, quite handy.' She indicated a modest but promising-looking restaurant across the road.

‘My dear,' Walter said, ‘I wouldn't dream of taking Dr Moray to Lang's. Or you either, for that matter.'

‘We always go there when we come with Father,' Willie remarked dourly. ‘They have rare hot mutton pies. And Comrie's lemonade.'

‘Yes, let's, Walter dear.'

He stilled her with a raised, gloved hand and calmly produced his
pièce de résistance
of the day.

‘We are going to lunch at the Grand.'

‘Oh, no, Walter. Not the Grand. It's so … so snobby … and expens …'.

Walter threw an intimate, confidential smile at Moray, as though to say, These women!

‘It's the best,' he murmured. ‘ I have reserved a table in advance from my father's office.'

They began to climb the hill towards the Grand, which towered majestically, high above them. The footpath was long, through woods carpeted with bluebells, and steep, in parts excessively so. Occasionally between the trees they caught sight of expensive cars flashing upwards on the main driveway. Moray perceived that the ascent, which Stoddart led like a deerstalker, was tiring Mary. To allow her to rest he stopped and picked a little bunch of bluebells which he tied with a twist of dried grass, and handed to her.

‘Exactly the colour of your dress.' He smiled.

At last they reached the summit and Walter, sweating, breathing heavily, brought them on to the broad terrace of the hotel where a number of guests were seated in the sunshine An immediate silence fell as the little party appeared, some curious stares were turned towards it, and someone laughed. The main entrance was on the opposite side of the hotel and Walter had some difficulty in finding the terrace door. But finally, after some wandering, they were in the rich, marble-pillared foyer and Stoddart, having asked directions from an imposing figure in a gold-braided uniform, led the way to the restaurant, a huge, overpowering affair done in white and gold with enormous crystal chandeliers and a rich red pile carpet.

It was absurdly early, only just gone twelve o'clock, and although the waiters were on duty, gathered in a group round the head waiter's desk talking amongst themselves, no one else was in the room.

‘Yes, sir?'

The head waiter, a stout, red-faced man in striped trousers, white waistcoat and cutaway, detached himself and came dubiously forward.

‘Lunch for three, and a boy,' Stoddart said.

‘This way, please.'

His hooded eye had taken them in at a glance: he appeared to lead them off to a distant alcove in the rear, when Walter said pompously:

‘I want a table by the window. I have a reservation in the name of the town clerk of Ardfillan.'

The major domo hesitated: he smells a tip, thought Moray satirically, and how wrong he is!

‘By the window did you say, sir?'

‘That table over there.'

‘Sorry, sir. That table is specially reserved for Major Lindsay of Lochshiel and his party of young English gentlemen.'

‘The one next to it then.'

‘That is Mr Menzies' table, sir. A resident. Still, as he rarely comes in before one fifteen, and you'll doubtless have finished by then.… If you care to have it…?'

They were seated at Mr Menzies' table. The menu was handed to Walter. It was in Anglicised French.

‘Potage à la Reine Alexandra,' he began, reading it through to them, slowly, remarking complacently, in conclusion:

‘Nothing like French cooking. And five courses too.'

While they sat in solitary state the meal was served, rapidly, and with veiled insolence. It was atrocious, a typical Grand Hotel luncheon, but below the usual standard. First came a thick yellowish soup composed apparently of flour and tepid water; next, a bony fragment of fish which had probably travelled from Aberdeen to Gairsay by the long way through Billingsgate, a fact only partially concealed by a coating of glutinous pink sauce.

‘It's not fresh, Mary,' Willie whispered, leaning towards her.

‘Hush, dear,' she murmured, struggling with the bones, sitting very straight, her eyes on her plate. Moray saw that under her apparent calm she was suffering acutely. For himself, he did not, in his own phrase, care a tinker's curse – he was not personally involved – but strangely it worried him to see her hurt. He tried to think of something light and gay that would cheer her but it would not come to him. Across the table Walter was now chewing his way through the next course, a slab of stringy mutton served with tinned peas and potatoes which cut and tasted like soap.

The sweet was a chalky blancmange accompanied by tough prunes. The savoury, which followed swiftly, for now they were really being rushed, took the shape of a stiff, spectral sardine, emitting a kind of bluish radiance, and impaled on a strip of desiccated toast. Then, though it was not yet one o'clock and no other guests had as yet appeared, the bill was brought.

If Stoddart had paid this immediately and they had departed forthwith all would have been well. But by this time Walter, through his unfeeling hide, had become conscious of a sense of slight, scarcely to be tolerated by the son of the Ardfillan town clerk. Besides, he had an actuarial mind. He withdrew one of the pencils with which his waistcoat was invariably armed, and began to make calculations on the bill. As he did so a tall, rakish-looking, weatherbeaten man, grey-haired, with a clipped moustache, wearing a faded Black Watch kilt, strolled in from the bar. He was followed by three young men in rough tweeds who had all, Moray immediately perceived, had more than a few drinks. As they took possession of the adjoining table they were noisily discussing how they had fished a beat on the River Gair – apparently the property of the man in the kilt. One of the three, a flashy-looking article, with blond hair and a slack mouth, was rather less than sober, and as he sat down his eye fell on Mary. Turning, he lolled over the back of his chair, began ogling her while the waiter served their first course, then, with a nudge and a wink, diverted the attention of his companions.

‘There's a nice little Scotch trout, Lindsay. Better than anything you landed this morning.'

There was a general laugh as the other two turned to stare at Mary.

‘Come now, get on with your soup,' said Lindsay.

‘Oh, hang the soup. Let's have the little lady over to our table. She doesn't seem too happy with her Scotch uncle. What do you say, chaps? Shall I do the needful?'

He looked at the others for confirmation and encouragement.

‘You'll never chance it, Harris,' grinned one of his friends.

‘What do you bet?' He pushed back his chair and got up.

Walter, disturbed at his mathematics, had been nervously aware of them from the moment they entered the room. Now, extremely grey about the gills, he averted his head.

‘Take no notice,' he muttered. ‘They won't let him come over.'

But Harris was already advancing and with an exaggerated bow he leant over Mary, took possession of her hand.

‘Pardon me, my dear. May we have the pleasure of your company?'

Moray saw her shrink back. She had at first blushed deeply but now all the colour had drained from her face. Her lips were colourless and quivering. She looked pleadingly at Walter. Willie too was staring at Stoddart with wide, frightened, yet indignant eyes.

‘Sir,' Walter stammered, swallowing with difficulty, ‘ are you aware you are addressing my fiancée? This is an imposition. I shall be obliged to summon the manager.'

‘Quiet, Uncle. We're not interested in you. Come along, dearie.' He tried to draw her to her feet. ‘ We'll give you a ripping time.'

‘Please go,' Mary said in a small, pained voice.

Something in the tone struck home. He hesitated, then with a grimace released her hand.

‘No accounting for tastes.' He shrugged. ‘Well, if I can't have you, I'll take a lee-itle souvenir.' He picked up Mary's flowers and, pressing them affectedly to his lips, wavered back to his place.

There was a hollow silence. Everyone seemed to be looking at Walter. In particular the man in the weather-stained kilt was observing him with a cruelly satiric twist of his lip. Walter, indeed, was pitifully agitated. Forgetting his intention to query the bill, he fumbled in his pocket-book, hurriedly threw down some notes, and rose like a ruffled hen.

‘We are leaving now, Mary.'

Moray got up. There was nothing heroic in his nature, he had no strong leanings towards mortal combat, but be was angry – most of all perhaps at his own wasted day. And a sudden nervous impulse, almost predestined, sent him over to the other table, down at Harris, who did not seem greatly to relish his appearance.

‘Weren't you told to get on with your soup? It's a little late now. But let me help you.'

Taking him by the back of the neck, Moray pushed him forward, ground his face hard once, twice, three times into the plate of soup. It was the thick soup, the Potage â la Reine Alexandra, which in the interim had nicely set, so that Harris came up for breath dripping with yellowish glue. Dead silence from the others while, with a swimming motion, he groped for his napkin. Moray picked up the bunch of bluebells, gave them back to Mary, waited a minute with a fast beating heart, then as nothing seemed to happen, except that now the man in the kilt was smiling, he followed the others from the restaurant. Outside, on the steps, Willie was waiting for him. The boy wrung his hand fervently again and again.

‘Well done, Davie. Oh, man, I like ye fine.'

‘There was no need for you to interfere,' Walter broke out, as they started down through the woods. ‘We were completely within our rights. As if decent people couldn't have a meal in peace. I know about that Lindsay – a kailyard laird – not a fish or a bird on his property, he'll rent to the lowest cockneys from London, but I'll … I'll report the matter … to the authorities. I won't let it pass, it's a public scandal.' He continued in this strain until they reached the pier, dwelling largely on the rights of the individual and the dignity of man, and concluding with a final vindictive burst. ‘I shall certainly put the entire affair before my father.'

‘And what will he do?' Willie said. ‘Turn off your gas?'

The return journey was sad and silent. It had started to drizzle and they sat in the saloon. Nursing his injuries, Walter had at last ceased his monologue, while Mary, who gazed fixedly ahead, uttered scarcely a word. Willie had taken Moray away to show him the engines.

At Ardfillan, Walter, with a forgiving air, offered his arm to Mary. They walked to the bakery and into the yard, where Moray started up his bike.

‘Well,' Walter moodily extended his hand, ‘I don't suppose we'll meet again …'.

‘Come again soon,' Willie cut in quickly. ‘Be sure and come.'

‘Goodbye, Mary,' Moray said.

For the first time since they left the hotel she looked at him, breathing quickly and with moist eyes. She remained silent, quite silent. But in that steady glance there was something lingering and intense. He saw too that she was no longer holding the little bunch of bluebells: she had pinned them to her blouse and was wearing them upon her breast.

At the end of the following week Moray had a real stroke of luck. By special favour of the registrar he was moved from the out-patients' department of the Infirmary and given a month's appointment as house assistant in Professor Drummond's wards, which meant, of course, that he could leave his wretched lodging and live in hospital until his final examination. It was Professor Drummond who, after listening to Moray interrogate a patient, had once remarked, though somewhat dryly: ‘You'll get on, my boy. You've the best bedside manner of any student I've ever known.' Moreover, Drummond was one of the examiners in clinical medicine, a significant fact that did not escape Moray and which he intended to make the most of during the next four weeks. He would be alert and assiduous, available at all hours, a demon for work, a regular fixture in the ward. For an eager and willing young man there seemed little hardship in this prospect. Yet in one sense it caused Moray an unaccountable vexation: he would be unable to take sufficient time off to make the journey to Ardfillan.

Ever since that moment of departure after the return from Gairsay, strange forces had been at work in his absorbed and ambitious soul. Mary's final glance, so quiet and intense, had struck him like a wounding arrow. He could not escape the vision of her strained little face, nor – and this was most ominous – did he wish to do so. Despite all his precautions, at odd moments of the day, in the ward or the test room, he would discover himself gazing absently into space. It was she, whom he saw, in all her sweetness and simplicity, and he would then be seized by a longing to be with her, the wish to win a smile from her, to be acknowledged as her friend – he did not so far permit himself to frame a stronger and more compromising word.

He had hoped there might be news from her, or from her father, perhaps another invitation which, though he could not accept it, would give him the opportunity to get in touch with the family again. Why did he not hear from them? Since all the attentions had come from their side he had no wish to impose himself further without some hint that he would be welcome. Yet surely he must do something … something to clear up this … well, this uncertainty. At last, after ten days, when he had brought himself to a state of considerable tension, a postcard, showing a view of Ardfillan, arrived for him at the hospital. Its message was brief.

Dear David,

I hope you are well. I have been reading more about Africa. There's been some ructions here. When are you coming to see us? I've been missing you.

Yours ever, Willie.