Ivy Tree (26 page)

As if it had been a signal to wake us both, he said: "Don't be absurd." But his voice had slackened with uncertainty.

"I meant it, oddly enough. I think I know Con Winslow a little better than you do."

"That's very probable," he spoke with (I thought) a quite undue dryness. "If this—fantasy—is true, do I take it that you expect to stay on in safety at Whitescar?"

"I'll face that when the time comes."

"You think he'll marry you? Are you playing for that, too?"

"Look here— I" I began hotly, then stopped and bit my lip. It was an obvious conclusion, after all. "I am not," I said clearly, "anything to Con Winslow, or he to me... except accomplices."

"I beg your pardon." His apology was surprisingly prompt, and sounded genuine. "Then am I to take it that you are protecting Julie... for a 'competence'?"

"You can take it how you like. I've assured you that no one will be harmed by what I'm doing, but I don't expect you to believe me. Why should you? I can only beg you to keep out of what doesn't concern you . . . at least until you sec wrong being done."

He said, ail at once sounding very tired, "I don't understand you."

"Why should you? But I mean what I say, remember that. And I'm telling you the truth about this. I'm playing this game for my own advantage, that's obvious; I saw a chance to get out of poverty and hard work, to grab what they call a place in the sun, and I took it. It's wrong, I admit that; I'm unscrupulous, I admit that. But I'm not bad, and I wouldn't do it if anyone was going to surfer for it. Believe me, they'll have plenty, and the little I'll get will mean a lot to me, and nothing to any of them." He said, angrily: "That's immoral nonsense. It's also quite beside the point"

"I know that." I laughed. "But all the same, you think about it, Mr. Forrest. This is one of those cases where to do the right thing, will be to do nothing but harm. So let well alone, will you? Stifle your conscience, and keep away from Grandfather. It's none of your business, after all."

"If I could believe you. If I knew what you were playing at."

"Don't worry about that, or about my future. It has nothing to do with you." He let out a breath like a sigh. "No. All right. I'll keep out of it, for a while at least. But watch your step . .

. Annabel." As I caught my breath, he added, roughly: "If I'm to play your game, or even watch from the touchlines, I can hardly call you 'Miss Winslow'."

"Then you will. . . play my game?" I said breathlessly.

"I think so. Though heaven knows why. Let's say I'll go away and think about it, and hold a watching brief. But I promise you that if I plan to—what was it?—'blow the gaff, I'll warn you first," I said huskily: "I don't know why you should do this for me." "Nor do I," he said wearily. "But... be careful."

"I intend to. And I—I'm sorry I said those things to you." "What things?"

"About your dismissing Annabel and then wanting to take up your—your love-affair again. It was unkind, but—well, I was.

scared. You must see that I'd have said anything to . •. make you let me go." "Yes, I see." I hesitated. "Good night.. . Adam." He didn't answer. I turned away and left him. Just before the dark leaves of the rhododendrons hid him from me, I thought I heard him say "Good night."

Why should not I love my love?

Why should not my love love me? Why should not I speed after him,

Since love to all is free?

Traditional.

THE days went by, warm and cloudless. Haymaking was in full swing, and the mown fields smelt Elysian, lying in ribbed gold under a blue sky. Wild roses tumbled anyhow through all the hedges, and Tommy, the fat black and white cat, startled everyone by confounding the experts and having seven kittens. And Adam Forrest did nothing.

I had got the passport away to the bank, which made me feel a little better, but it was a day or two after that moonlit meeting before I stopped watching the road between West Lodge and Whitescar. When two days, three days, passed, with no sign from him, I began to think that perhaps, having 'thought it over,' he had decided to take me at my word, and, for Grandfather's sake, to hold his tongue and await developments. I had not seen him again, though Julie had once or twice persuaded me to walk through the river-meadows to look at the a horse, Rowan: and I had gone, realising that, whatever Adam Forrest's intentions, I might as well behave as normally as possible, and naturally Julie expected my interest in the colt to be intense.

I had made no further attempt at confidence with Julie, and she had offered none, but I could not help suspecting that all was far from well between her and Donald Seton. How far her own feelings were settled, it was impossible to guess. She was young, volatile, perhaps a trifle spoiled, but from what little she had said to me—perhaps because she had said so little—I believed her affections to be seriously engaged. I had, on my first sight of Donald, decided that here was a man one could both like and respect; since then he had been down to Whitescar two or three times, and I had liked him better each time, though I thought I could see the cause of the tension that appeared to exist, if not between the two of them, then in Julie's mind. I could see that his quietness, his steady reserve, might appear daunting and even formidable to a nineteen-year-old extrovert accustomed to the easy and outspoken admiration of the young men of her own London "set. Still waters run deep, but at nineteen one can hardly be expected to appreciate the fact. The complaint she had made in jest, on that first evening, had its foundations firmly in the truth. Donald Seton would not "fit into any romantic context". And Julie, for all her gay sophistication, was young enough still to want her love-affair sprinkled with Stardust, and vulnerable enough to be hurt by a reserve which she must mistake for indifference, or at best a reluctance to pursue. Donald was, in other words, a disappointment. Liking, affection, comradeship, all growing steadily from the first seed of love—these were not what Julie, at nineteen, was looking for. Not happiness, but intensity, was what she craved. As a lover, the quiet Scot by no means measured up to the standards of Julie's favourite reading, or (more immediately) to those of the unhappy man who, eight years ago, had left notes for his mistress in the old ivy tree. Poor Julie, if she only knew ... I found myself hoping, with quite startling fervour, that Donald would emerge soon from his Roman preoccupation, and Speak.

Meanwhile, he called at Whitescar in the evenings, after work had packed up, and on one occasion, Julie went up to West Woodburn to see what was going on there, and even, possibly, in a genuine attempt to learn something about the job.

Although in this, it seemed, she was not successful, it did appear as if Donald had moved at least a little of the way towards her. He had brought her back in the evening, and stayed to dinner, listening silently and in apparent amusement to her lively—and malicious—account of the way he occupied his time.

"Sitting in a hole," said Julie, "my dears, I mean it, sitting all day at the bottom of a little pit, scraping away at mud, and with a thing the size of a teaspoon! Nothing but mud, honestly 1 And every spoonful preserved as if it was die Grand Cham's jewels. I never was so disillusioned in my life!"

"No gold coins? No statues?" I asked, smiling.

"My dear, I think there was a Roman bootlace."

Donald's eyes twinkled. "That was our big day. You mustn't expect excitement all the time." She opened her lips, and then shut them again. I thought her

smile was brittle. I said quickly: "Just what are you doing, anyway?"

"Only a preliminary bit of dating."

"Dating?" Grandfather looked up from his cheese.

I saw Donald glance at him in that diffident way he had, and affirm that this was genuine interest and not mere civility, before he replied. "Yes, sir. It does consist, as Julie says, of just scratching at the earth. We've dug a trial trench through the wall and rampart of the fort, and we're going down layer by layer, examining the successive ramparts, and whatever debris—in the way of pottery shards and so on—comes to light as we work down. In that way, we can determine what building was done in the fort at different times. Eventually it sorts itself out into a picture of the general history of the place, but at present—" the glimmer of a smile at her—"Julie's quite right. It's nothing but scraping at earth, and must seem deplorably dull."

"You seem to find it terribly absorbing, anyway," said Julie. I don't think she had meant the words to have an edge, but they sounded almost pettish, like the retort of a piqued child. Donald didn't appear to notice. "Well," he said, "it's like most jobs, I suppose, masses of dull routine most of the time; but the good moments, when they come, can be pretty exciting."

"Oh?" said Julie, then suddenly laughed, with an attempt at her normal sparkle of good-humour. "Well, for goodness' sake tell us when that's likely to happen, and we'll all come and watch! At least—" this to me—"he's coming up out of the mud on Wednesday. Did I tell you? And so am I. We're going into Newcastle, to the Royal."

"The theatre? How lovely. But, darling, Wednesday ... it's Grandfather's birthday, had you forgotten?

We're making rather an occasion of it, since we're all here—"

"Oh yes, I know, that's why we're going to the matinee. Donald says he can usually only manage Saturdays, but there weren't any seats left, and it's John Giclgud's new play, and I simply cannot miss it. So Donald's sneaking Wednesday off, after lunch, and we're going. Grandfather knows, and we'll be back in good time for the party. Donald's staying for that, too."

"Very sensible of him. I know Lisa's got something wonderful laid on, but she won't tell me what it is." Lisa smiled, but rather absently. I knew she was fidgeting until she could get out of the dining-room and back to the kitchen, where she could start to prepare Con's supper. When he worked late, she gave him this in the kitchen at whatever hour he came in, and I knew that, for her, this half-hour, when she had him to herself, was the peak of her day.

"Look," Donald was saying, in that pleasant, unemphatic voice of his, "it's very nice of you to have asked me, but I hadn't realised it was a family party. I think perhaps I'd better say—"

"Now, don't go crying off," said Grandfather. "We'll be thankful to have you. Never known a family gathering yet where the presence of a stranger didn't do a lot of good. Families arc usually pretty damned grim when they get together, especially Winslows. We'll have to behave ourselves if you're here." Donald laughed, "Well, if you put it like that . . ."

"I do indeed. Anything I have to say to the family as such, can be said in three minutes precisely, on the way to bed." The fierce, faded old eyes went round the table, lingering momentarily on Con's empty chair.

"And better so. There's been too much talk already, and I can't stomach post-mortems before I'm dead." The sheer unfairness of this took my breath away, and I saw Julie open her eyes wide. Donald, to whom these last remarks had been addressed, said rather faintly: "Oh, quite." I rescued him. "Then we'll see you on Wednesday? That'll be nice. What's the play, Julie?" Julie, her face lighting, her pique forgotten, plunged happily into an account of it, unaware of the fact (or perhaps uncaring) that she was betraying with every word how far her heart lay from Whitescar and the quiet island of Forrest Park. I saw Grandfather watching her, an odd expression on his face. Ah well, I thought, this was best, I stole a glance at Lisa, to see if this was being stored up for Con, but she was looking at her watch, and murmuring* something about coffee in the drawing-room.

"Well," said Grandfather, a little drily, as he pushed back his chair, "enjoy yourselves."

"We will, be sure of that! But till then," said Julie, dimpling at Donald, "I'll let you get on with your mudlarking in peace, and put in a bit of work for Con instead. In any case, I think haymaking's more fun, and far more profitable to the human race."

"Very probably," said Donald equably.

•••

Sure enough, Julie spent the next two or three days in the hay-field, driving the tractor for Con. Here I watched her rather more anxiously. It was just possible that Julie (provoked, restless, and already slightly bored with the country holiday that wasn't answering its purpose) was hoping to try out the age-old romantic device of making Donald jealous. She had two strings to her bow: Bill Fenwick from Nether Shields, who came over now and again, ostensibly to 'give a hand' in the hayfield when he could be spared from home, but in reality, it was obvious, for a chance to be near Julie; and Con. Bill I dismissed without a thought, except to hope that he would not be hurt; but Con was a different proposition. He was not a man who could be used in this sort of way, or in any sort of way that he didn't initiate. Besides, he was extremely attractive, and older and more sensible girls than Julie had rebounded before now into far less exciting arms. And if Con suddenly decided that three-thirds of the Winslow money was even better than two, and seriously turned his attention to Julie . . .

I need not have worried. At any other time, I suppose, Con would have flirted with her as a matter of course, a purely automatic reaction, as instinctive as that of a cock bird displaying to the female; but, just at present, Con had more important things on his mind. Mr. Isaacs, the lawyer, had been duly summoned to see Grandfather, and had spent Friday morning closeted with him in his office. The old man had said nothing whatever about this interview, but had allowed it to be known that Mr. Isaacs would call again in a few days' time, that is, on the morning of his, Grandfather's birthday. The inference was obvious, and, to my eyes, the effect on Con was obvious, too. The tension in him had increased perceptibly in the last few days; he was quieter than usual, and seemed edgy and strained. We saw very little of him; he rarely even ate with us, but spent all his time in the hayfield, working with an energy and fierce physical concentration that were remarkable, even for him. This was partly, I thought, due to a genuine passion for hard work, partly to work off the tensions he was feeling, and partly, also, to keep out of old Mr. Winslow's way. The die was cast, one way or the other; it seemed likely that it was cast in Con's favour, and Con was taking no risks. In this he may have been wise. Since the lawyer's visit, there had been a perceptible change, too, in Grandfather. Where Con had grown tense and wary, turning that diamond-hard concentration of his on his job, old Mr. Winslow became daily more difficult and less predictable, prone to sudden irritabilities, and even (what was new in him) fits of vagueness and absence of mind. The continued hot weather seemed to trouble him. He was very easily tired, but as he did less, so his fretfulness increased, and it seemed, wherever possible, to be directed at Con. His decision now finally made, it was as if the abdication of that will-to-power, which had been his driving force, had slackened something in him. He even seemed, physically, to have grown smaller. Where before he had been formidable, he now seemed merely fretful, and his resentful nagging at Con (over matters which previously he had been quite content to leave to the younger man) were the grumblings of a pettish old man, no longer the storms of a tyrant. Lisa was the only person who seemed unaffected by the tensions that snapped the nerves at Whitescar. It was as if she, too, had abdicated. It was increasingly obvious to me that Lisa, a determined enough personality in her way, lived only for Con —or, indeed, through Con. His energy and ambition charged her batteries; he steered her into a path, and along that path she ploughed steadily, undeviating, un-judging; but the decisions— and the rewards—were all his. She was more than content to help him to success, as long as she could watch him enjoying it. Her unremitting worship had certainly helped to make him" what he was, but sometimes I found myself wondering if, in fact, Lisa wasn't also his prison. It was all he had had, that mothering, smothering love of her that had driven him so much in upon himself. Con was for Con, and Lisa saw nothing wrong, or even out of the way, in such an attitude.