Touch Not The Cat (28 page)

The moon was bright. I slipped out of bed and went to the window. The striped print curtains hardly kept the moonlight out. The lattice was open. Feeling half silly for doing so, I kept carefully behind one of the curtains and looked out.

The window faced on the orchard. The moon was full on the blossoming trees. At the near corner, tallest of them all, the old pear tree lifted its graceful boughs, etched as black and symmetrical as the leads across a white window where moonlight poured. The bloom was like a cloud, piled shapes of light, and shadow that wasn't shadow, but just a dimmer moonwhite. It was a tree in a dream.

A shadow moved under it, intercepting the moon. Someone was standing there.

No, I was wrong. The pear tree's clouded shade was still again, and empty. It had been a trick of the moonlight, nothing more, something conjured up by moon and blossom, and a silence that should surely have been filled with nightingales. Lovers' time; Juliet at her window; Romeo under the orchard trees in the moonlight:

Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear,

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops . . .

But it was not. It was an ordinary, empty night, where I dared not even summon what I had been used to of comfort. No lover to lure back like a bird on a silken thread. If I were to play Juliet at all, it would be Brooke's Juliet, with her hugy heap of very prosaic fears and her hithering-thithering torments of indecisive love.

I went back to bed. But not to sleep. The hugy heap was as oppressive as a heavy quilt. I lay and watched the ceiling and thought about James, and all the uneasy tangled skein of what had happened.

I could not believe, even with the evidence, that he was guilty. But Rob had said—and it was true—that we none of us know what we are capable of. . . . And if he was guilty, what then? Was I to deny this powerful tie between us? Was I to believe it was only an accident of blood, of family, rather than a natural—God-given?—indication that we were sides of the same complete human being, that we had to be mates? Was it both arrogant and foolish to pretend that I was any better than, or indeed any different from, him? We are all capable, Rob had said. Not of killing my father, no, that I would never believe. But if it had been an accident, and the rest the result of natural panic afterwards

. . . I had said that I would forgive. And if I could extend that charity to strangers, how much more to my cousin?

I sat up, hugging my knees. I put my forehead down on them, pressing it hard against them as if that would clear my thoughts. Was I, like so many of my generation, so afraid to condemn, so fearful of

"priggishness," that I was in danger of letting the good things slide, and accepting the far-from-best, till it became the norm, and excellence was forgotten? Society kept him and protected him. Was it priggish in me to want him to obey its laws?

I lifted my head again. No, it was simpler than that. Panic after an accident was forgivable; to use it for profit was not.

But there was nothing I could do until the answer came back from Herr Gothard. I was still on my own. And I must stay that way until the mystery, such as it was, was solved.

It sounded easier than it was. I lay down again in my quiet airy bedroom, and watched the moonflung shadow of the pear tree move imperceptibly across the ceiling, and so strong was his insistence at that darkened door that I could have sworn that I saw his very shadow move with it, more substantial than the image of the blossoming boughs.

For one weak second I took my hand from the bars, and felt him close beside me, so close that . .

.

Close beside me. I sat up like a pulled puppet. It had been so near, so insistent, so powerful and instinct with protection, that I knew he was here in the flesh as well. And I knew where. In the same moment's flash my opened mind had received another pattern: the pear tree's blossoming boughs, between my eyes and the moon.

He was in the orchard, under the pear tree. And whatever he had done, whoever he was, he meant me no harm.

I flung back the bedclothes and reached a coat down from behind the door. It was a soft light fur fabric, with a high collar and a tie belt. I fastened it round me, then, barefooted as I was, ran lightly down the stairs and out into the orchard.

The collie met me before I had gone two steps past the gate. I stopped dead.

Rob came out from under the pear tree into the moonlight.

I managed to speak, but it came out like a croaking whisper. "What are you doing here? It must be two o'clock."

I thought he hesitated, but his voice sounded quite normal. "I said I'd keep an eye on you, remember? Are you all right?"

"Yes, thank you. But—do you mean to stay here all night? I'm sure there's no need."

"It's a nice night. I was thinking."

"What-what about?"

"As a matter of fact I was thinking about New Zealand."

"New Zealand?" It was so improbable that I found my voice. "Oh, I remember—those brochures in the cottage kitchen."

"Aye." He hadn't moved. He seemed to be waiting. The collie was jumping up at me. I fended it off absently, and went slowly towards him over the wet grass.

"What about New Zealand, Rob?"

"I was thinking that's where I'd like to go when I leave here. Up to the North. I was thinking about the Ninety Mile Beach."

I said shakily: "So was I."

I took another step towards him. He moved as fast as the collie had, and took hold of me, pulling me tightly against him. As he began to kiss me, the hugy heap of trouble melted like snow, and above us in the pear tree a nightingale began to sing.

If the laden arches of pear blossom had suddenly sprung to life like a fountain, tossing a plume of bright water as far as the moon, it would hardly have seemed surprising, so great was the release, the flood of joy that swept through me. Through him, too. I felt light and happiness pouring through his mind into mine, and back again, like a tide race meeting the outflow of a river, clashing and doubling and throwing up drowning waves of pleasure. We were both perhaps a little mad. We clung and kissed and clung again, wordless. I doubt if either of us could have spoken.

Everything had already been said, everything shared. This was the end of the courtship, and not the beginning. Even my body seemed already to know his. This was how I had thought it would be, this complete knowing, this spontaneous melting and meeting. This was why, when James had made love to me, and I had found myself shrinking from him, I had been puzzled and afraid, no longer trusting the bond between myself and my secret friend.

Now it was I who held fast, and murmured: "It's been so long, so long. No, don't let me go."

"I'll never do that. Not ever, not now." His voice was muffled and husky, the country accent sounding stronger than usual. I was shaken yet again by a wave of love so powerful that it seemed to tear me apart to take him in.

"Rob, oh, Rob." I ran my fingers into his hair, tilting his head back so that the moonlight, intercepted faintly by the blossoming boughs, lit his face. "How on earth I didn't guess it was you . . . All the time, all the time I'd been thinking it had to be James or Francis, and yet it never seemed right. And all the time it's been you: it was you I ran to when I wanted help or comfort; it was your house that was home. And then this last few days, it was always you. . . ."

"Bryony." It came out on a long breath, fierce with relief and the pent frustration of years.

"Bryony . . ."

It wasn't returning sanity, but the chill of the soaking grass on my bare feet, that made me draw away eventually and say: "Rob, let's go in now."

"Go in?" He repeated it as if he had hardly heard me, then shook his head like someone surfacing from deep water, and said it again, understanding. "Go in?"

"Yes. The grass is wet, and my feet are like ice."

"The more fool you for not putting your shoes on." His hold on me was relaxed now, affectionate.

His voice was his own again, and he was smiling. "All right, you'd better go in. High time you did, if you ask me. Come along." He picked me up as easily as if I were a sack of meal, and began to carry me back across the grass to the cottage.

"Actually," I said, "I meant both of us. Won't you stay?"

There was a pause of seconds, then he shook his head. "No. I've waited all my life for you, and I reckon I can wait a bit longer. We'll leave all that for its right place."

"Which is?"

"After we're married." Then, as I took a breath: "Tomorrow night."

"Oh, Rob, be your age. You need a license, and a special costs twenty-five pounds, and where do you think we can raise that? And if
you
start on at me about breaking the damned trust for a bit of ready money—"

Rob said something rather rustic about the trust, and stopped to kiss me again.

I pulled my mouth away. "It can't be tomorrow night. It can't be for ages."

"Why not?"

"Well, even if you could get a license tomorrow, the Vicar probably wouldn't consent to marry us on the spur of the moment."

"Spur of the moment nothing. I told you I've waited all my life, and so have you. Anyway, I've talked to the Vicar. He thinks it's a good thing."

"Does
he? But he didn't know that I—"

"Oh, yes, he did. He's known for a long time how I felt about you, and then after you'd talked to him yesterday I reckon he saw the whole thing. He never told me anything you'd said to him, but he did let on to me that your dad had said he'd sooner see you wedded to me than to anyone else he knew."

"Daddy
did?"

"So the Vicar told me. Better ask him yourself. But I don't think he'll worry much if we ask him to marry us straight away."

"N-no. Perhaps not. I did tell him about—well, about what we had together. And if Daddy really said that, and if the Vicar knew all the time that it was you—"

"Seems so," said Rob. "Well, I'll see him first thing, shall I? All he can do is refuse, but I think he'll consent."

"But the license!"

"I've had a license burning a hole in my pocket for two weeks now. It cost six pounds," said my lover. "Farsighted and thrifty, us peasants. Do you think I'd spend twenty-five quid on getting a woman when I can get one for six?"

"You could have one for nothing right now."

"Marriage or naught," said Rob austerely, and set me down laughing on the cottage step.

Ashley, 1835

It was cold. Shivering, he dragged his clothes on, and flung the fur-lined cloak round himself. His hands were shaking again. Defiance ebbed. He tried to recall his earlier mood of courage, but the cold hour before daylight was not the time for bravery. This was the hour when men were executed; the hour when they were least resistant, cared less. He supposed there was some mercy in it; but for the condemned, as for lovers, dawn always came too soon.

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

—
Romeo and Juliet,
III, v

Next morning I was up early, so early that the dew was still thick on the fruit blossom, and the orchard grass shone and glittered as if newly hosed down.

I sang as I got my breakfast ready. When I opened the back door I found a milk bottle standing on the step, and propped against it a package wrapped in brown paper. I knew the neat, slightly over-careful writing. And I guessed what I would find in the package; the books about New Zealand. I carried them into the kitchen and propped them against the milk jug and read them with my breakfast.

It already seemed as if the idea of New Zealand had been in my mind for a very long time; I wondered if, all unknowing, I had been sharing Rob's thoughts about it. Certainly, as I turned the pages, I found here and there pictures which seemed familiar, and names which came like echoes of something already spoken. Already I had accepted the idea of going there; of leaving Ashley, perhaps not exactly without a backward look, but without any of the heart-tearing that until yesterday I would have thought inevitable. I suppose that I was so much a part and product of this old, old place that I had never really envisaged life outside it, but now it seemed as if this had always been a foregone conclusion. My feeling was one of release rather than of loss. If this escape from old ties was what my lover had in mind, then by definition so did I. . . . A shared mind—and how well I knew this—was a shared desire.

I could see clearly, now that I knew him, the reasons for his doubts and hesitations, and for his long-drawn-out refusal to reveal himself. Perhaps he would not, even now, have nerved himself to come into the open, had it not been for my father's death. That had left me homeless and alone; it had also left me, perhaps no worse off than I had been before, but without Ashley itself at my back. It had, so to speak, brought me into Rob's orbit.

So much became clear, and with it the whole pattern of my lover's actions. The night I had come home to Ashley church, it had been Rob, waiting and watching for me, whose thoughts had come to meet me; and the mixture of exhila ration and nervousness, which I had misconstrued as guilt, was now explained. Later, the curtness which I had ascribed to his hurt hand could well have been because he had been held a helpless witness to my scene with James. Rob could never have doubted

"what we had together," but I could see that he might well have doubted the outcome.

And what he had feared most of all—I could see it now—had been my first reaction to the discovery that my beloved secret friend was only Rob, the boy from the home farm.

But now it was done, and here we were, and this bright morning with its dew and day-song could not dispel one stranded cobweb of last night's spell. "Tomorrow," he had said, and now tomorrow was "today," and it did not feel a day too soon.

Rob, where are you?

The signals were perceptibly fainter, like batteries beginning to fade. I stepped the query up and got the answer. He was in the greenhouses.

As I approached I saw him through the glass. He was up on a tall stepladder, mending the hinge of one of the ventilators. He saw me coming, gave me a smile and a sideways lift of the head, and went unhurriedly on with the job. He looked just the same as ever, his movements as he fitted the screwdriver to the thread and began to turn it, quite deliberate and relaxed. If I had not been receiving from him a current of excitement something akin to a burst of a thousand volts or so, I would have thought him unmoved. Nor did I have to ask him what the Vicar had said; I had known, roughly since breakfast time, that this was really and truly my wedding day.