The Silver Bough (24 page)

T
he afternoon was full of sunlight. From his pillows he looked through the window to the ridge which ran its course against the blue sky. His skin was so sensitive that he reckoned he had a touch of fever, but nothing of any consequence because he was quite certain his lungs were clear. He had inflated them powerfully several times and found them resilient as footballs. This added to the pleasure that had come out of dreamless sleep and stayed with him, for he was delighted at having come through what he had come through, and secretly proud, for it should have done for him; a still delight, like the secret life in the sunlight, which was everywhere without going anywhere. He was particularly proud of having leapt into the boat. A fellow did a lucky thing like that once or twice in a lifetime. The gods could be kind—in spite of themselves! Hearkening, he heard the muted sea, and his memories rode the waves to that fantastic shore. He also heard a foot on the stairs. How differently Anna mounted! He smiled as Mrs Cameron came in with the tea tray.

Yes, he was feeling grand, he told her. “How's Anna?”

“Fine. She's out with the bairn a walk.”

“You'll be blessing me for upsetting your household.”

“About that—I don't know,” she said.

He laughed and glanced at her as she arranged the tray on the bedside table. “The post has been,” she said.

“So I see. Is that a wedding present?” he asked as she laid a long narrow packet by the tray.

“It might be better for you if it was.”

“Instead of consorting with wild characters at all hours of the night. Perhaps you're right.”

“It's no laughing matter. I'll say what's on my mind: we don't like you going out like that at night.”

“I am sorry, Mrs Cameron, to have troubled you so much; I really am.”

“It's not the trouble to us at all: that's nothing. But I'll be open with you, for I have never been happy at the thought of you being out after Andie in the night. In the day it's different, with his mother there. But we have no right to expect from him what God didn't put there.”

“You think he might turn on me?”

“He might. It's not my place to say what you should do or should not do, but I could not have it longer on my conscience that I didn't warn you.”

“I appreciate that,” he said solemnly, for he could see that she was moved and uncomfortable. “But he wasn't out last night, was he?”

“He was out, and out late,” said Mrs Cameron. “And his poor mother was in a state, and she's had too many trials in her life to get into a state easy.”

“Did he defy her?”

“He takes turns, though seldom, and when he's in one of them she has to deal with him as best she can, for if he's crossed he becomes violent as an enraged bairn. You know his strength.”

“He seems very good-natured.”

“So he is. And she never knew him so happy as in the first days with yourself.”

“Perhaps all these people spying on them?”

“There was that, it's true.”

He looked at her. “You are thinking that if I came on him when he was secretly visiting the crock of gold, he might go for me?”

“I am sure of one thing: he would never let you take it from him.”

“But how am I ever going to get it then?”

“You'll have to find out where it is and then take it away when he's not there. But you cannot do that alone by yourself at night.”

He thought for a moment. “Very well,” he said.

She began pouring the tea. “There's another thing.” Her constrained manner drew his eyes.

“What?”

“His mother was telling me that he's taken a fancy for the girls.”

“No!” He spontaneously chuckled.

“Oh yes,” she said. “There was that Lizzie Duncan that dresses herself, and he went up to her on the road and he was twisting and smiling, she said. So she walked away, but he walked after her, and then she began to run. There was no harm done, but Lizzie said she knew what he meant.”

He tried to keep his laughter in and shook the bed. “They're not blaming the crock of gold for that?”

“No. It was that one with the little short trousers on her that started him off “

“Oh no!” he cried. His laughter took control of him immoderately and his head waggled.

“Goodness knows what she did to him,” said Mrs Cameron.

“I wish I knew,” he cried, beyond control. “I would like to see him t-tackle her.”

His laughter was infectious. “Is she a bold one then?” she asked.

“Bold as brass. Always trying to get a story for her newspaper.”

“If she comes back this way and is not careful, she might get more than a story.”

Presently he wiped his eyelashes and the door closed on a happier Mrs Cameron. When he had drunk two cups of tea, he tried to unknot the string on the long stiff parcel, but his fingers were still shaking, so he tackled his letters. “Dear Sir, The recent reports in the press about your remarkable find of a gold hoard have a particular interest for me as I am——” He slit the next envelope—and four more. Only six about the crock today. The spate was definitely drying up. He idly thumbed out the flap of an envelope bearing a penny stamp and unfolded an account:

 

 

Never before had an account seemed miraculous; he was out of bed and fumbling through his trousers for his knife; back in bed with the knife and slitting the string on the parcel. There emerged a polished oak case that might once have held cutlery. He pressed a small bright knob and the lid opened. Lying on velvet and over two feet long was a silver bough with nine golden apples pendent. He removed soft packing-paper and lifted the bough out by its simple handle. The golden apples hung along the slight curve of the bough, increasing in size from the small one at the tip to the largest by the handle. He struck one of them with a fingernail and it rang like a tiny gong. He struck another and another; then he transferred the bough to his left hand and found he could run up nine consecutive notes as on the white keys of a piano.

He started on the
Home Sweet Home
of an early piano lesson. He was utterly enchanted.

Out of enchantment came an eye that went over the workmanship and material with microscopic care. The craftsman, the artist!—and the fellow hadn't even written saying he would do it! Where on earth did he get these apples of sound with their cloverleaf openings underneath? Straight out of some medieval hoard, beyond doubt! In his original letter—the only one in the whole transaction—he, Grant, had suggested a fiver as the limit. To one Silver Bough:
£
4 5
s
. But the thing was too deep for laughter. He poked at the velvet—and saw a tiny rod, with a knob at each end, clipped to a side of the case. It came away with a click. One knob was covered with washed leather; the other was silver-bright metal. Lifting the Bough in his left hand, he struck the apples with the leather knob and the notes came soft and muted; he struck them with the silver end and they leapt on the air in a dancing gaiety. For one long moment he grew still and solemn, and from the spaces of the air came the remarkable words, chiming in his mind: “Dear God, there's hope for the world.” But the next moment he was up in the air himself and his fist was knocking strongly on the bedroom wall.

Mrs Cameron came round the door with a face prepared for the worst.

“Come here!” he called.

“What is it?” she asked, looking at what his hands covered as though it might jump out at her.

“Remember the Silver Bough?”

But she was bewildered, so he had to explain how he had listened to her telling the story to Sheena and singing the song, how he had written to a great craftsman who lived in a little shop in the city of Edinburgh, and how lo! here was the Silver Bough itself. He pushed the closed case towards her over the bedclothes, saying, “Press the button.”

Her astonishment was so great that it was comical.

“Lift it out.”

She lifted it out.

“Now, strike the golden apples with this,” and he handed her the soft end of the striker. She caught the soft end and struck with the hard.

“Dear me,” she said, “dear—dear—me!”

She stood so helpless and entangled in the witchery that his delight swayed him, his blue-striped pyjama-jacket jerked from its moorings, and his navel had a quick bird's-eye view of the whole scene.

“‘Now!” he said. “Here, give it to me!” She handed it carefully to him. “Clear away that table and sit down.”

When she had done this—for he had a very imperious manner when roused—he said, “Now I want you to sing the Silver Bough for me.”

“But——”

“No excuses! Just as you sing it to Sheena.” He had the Bough in his left hand and the soft striker ready.

She gathered herself, and cleared her throat, and gathered herself. Then she began.

“That's it!” he cried, interrupting her. “Wait now!” When he got the right starting apple, he sounded it steadily, humming “Ah-h-h . . . Ready!”

She started to sing again, and now the notes went with her, missing the way occasionally but tripping quickly on to it again.

“Not bad!” he declared. “Once more!”

By the third time, she had lost self-consciousness and was as interested as himself that there should be a full and harmonious rendering. Moreover the clarity that rang out from the hard end of the striker inspired her to a performance that recalled the Kinlochoscar hall where she had sung as a young woman. Her mouth opened, and her eyes opened too, and she looked far through the window.

“Splendid!” he declared. “I think I've got it!” And he went right through the tune on his own to make sure.

“You have it indeed,” she said. “And beautiful you make it sound.”

“Now for the last verse!”

“Dear me!” she said, but she got her hands on her lap again, looked through the window, and, as if time itself were no more than the sheet of glass, she sang to her own childhood.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Just perfect. The next thing is to arrange about presenting it to Sheena.”

“Is it for Sheena it is?”

“Well of course!” His eyes flew merrily upon her. “Did you think it was for yourself?”

Her eyes fell to the hands on her lap and through her smile he saw tears glisten.

Embarrassed, his own eyes dropped and he tucked in his pyjama jacket. Sounds came from the world outside. Sheena cried to the cat.

“That's them!” said Mrs Cameron. “And goodness me! I forgot the pot on the fire; it will be over!”

He laughed.

She stopped at the door. “I would like Anna to see it.”

“Send her up!”

Anna appeared and stood.

“Please sit down,” he said, pointing to the chair.

She came quietly and sat down, a faint warmth in her cheeks.

“How are you feeling today?” he asked.

“Fine, thanks. I hope you are well?”

“Never better. Have you heard about the others?”

“Yes. Norman spoke to me. They're all right.”

“Perhaps it's more than we deserved to be!”

She smiled but said nothing. Her presence affected him deeply, so he began at once, laughing lightly, as if it were now a matter of no great moment, to tell how he used to listen to the Silver Bough and how he had ordered one. “This is it here,” he said, and added. “It's the only one in the world. Press the button.”

She pressed the button and opened the lid, and it might have been jewels for her wedding from the way she looked and forgot him. Then her eyes rose.

“Take it out.”

She lifted it out, but he took it from her. “Listen!” With the muted end of the striker he played the melody flawlessly.

“That's lovely,” she said; her body seemed to burgeon; a brightness came from her on the air; her tawny hair had deeps like the music; in her eyes the yielding tenderness, so perilously characteristic of her, shone like stained glass in an inner place; but the firm smooth bone, that had faced the storm, held it all quietly.

“Try it!”

She took the Bough and the striker, and struck. He saw the reserve, the slight awkwardness, the deference, fade away, melt, and the country girl who was Anna come through with the smile which opened on a delicious little laugh. Her colour deepened to match the brightness in her eyes.

“Start here,” he said. “Hit that one.” He leaned over to instruct her.

She did not rush at it, but she was apt; there was a certain slowness, as though tenderness and strength needed time to mix. He felt a draught amidships and pushed down his pyjama ends, realising with an upsurging fondness that his hands could hardly be trusted to keep to themselves, for it would be good to tell this young woman how highly he thought of her.

He could see how moved she was as she went out, and felt strangely excited as he lay back. When the grey matter began to stir, he said to himself: I am not deceived; this is not being romantic: this is the enduring goodness of life itself. But even the words were opaque. The vision itself was everything.

It was outside him, and went on through the grey wastes. There came upon him an access of extraordinary assurance. His body grew still and his eyes were lost beyond the green ridge.