by Mary Stewart
I managed a laugh that was, I hope, convincing. ‘Oh, Betsy dear! Let me get home first, before I start looking round!’
‘Here’s your tea.’ She pushed a steaming cup towards me. ‘And you did ought to take sugar in it, not a foreign black mess like that. And let me tell you that if you didn’t sleep last night you’ll only have yersel’ to blame, with soup, and coffee, not to mention whisky and such, as I know by the glasses left in the kitchen bold as brass for me to find. Not that I’m one as concerns meself in things that are none of my business, but – oh, here’s Mr Con.’
Con, I noticed sourly, looked attractive and wide awake even with last night’s stubble on his chin, and in the clothes, carelessly hustled-into, for his before-breakfast jobs. He threw me a look of surprise as he took a cup of tea from Mrs Bates. ‘Good God. What are you doing up at this hour?’
‘Taking a walk, she says,’ said Mrs Bates, spooning sugar into his cup. ‘I thought she’d been riding, meself, but she says no.’
His eyes flickered over my trousers and yellow shirt. ‘Weren’t you? I should have thought Forrest’s colt would have tempted you long ago.’
I sipped my tea without replying. Already the scene in the meadow was growing dim, dulled, fading . . . The hot tea was a benison, a spell against dreams. The day had started. Life goes on.
‘Those things suit you,’ said Con. His glance held undisguised admiration, and I saw Mrs Bates eyeing him with a sort of sour speculation. She pushed a plateful of buttered rolls towards him. ‘Try one o’ these.’
He took one, still watching me. ‘Are you coming out to lend a hand today?’
‘That she is not,’ said Mrs Bates promptly.
‘I might,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure. I – I slept badly.’
‘You’re not worrying about anything, are you?’ asked Con. The blue eyes held nothing but mildly solicitous curiosity.
Mrs Bates took his cup from him and refilled it. ‘She’s worrying herself about her Granda, I shouldn’t wonder, which is more than you seem to be doing, Mr Con, which I may say you can think shame on yourself, for asking her to work in this heat, when you’ve as much help as you want up in the field, and that’s the truth and no lie!’
‘Well,’ said Con, with the glint of a smile, ‘I doubt if we’ll get Bill Fenwick over today, so if you could relieve someone on one of the tractors some time, it would help. The weather’ll break soon, you see if it doesn’t. We’ll have thunder before dark.’
‘I’ll see,’ I said. ‘Will you be up there all day yourself?’
‘As soon as I’ve had breakfast. Why?’
‘I told you last night. I want to talk to you.’
‘So you did. Well, tonight, maybe.’
‘I’d rather see you before. I may come up to the field, at any rate when you stop to eat.’
‘Oh, sure,’ said Con unconcernedly, setting down his cup. ‘Be seeing you.’
I went up to my room to change. If he hadn’t been in his working-clothes, I thought, he’d have smelled the horse on me. There were chestnut hairs on the grey trousers, and one or two on the shirt where Rowan had rubbed his head against me. I went along and bathed, got into a skirt and fresh blouse, and felt better.
I couldn’t eat breakfast when the time came, but there was no one there to remark on the fact. Con wasn’t yet in, Grandfather wasn’t up, Mrs Bates was busy elsewhere, and Lisa was invariably silent at breakfast-time. Julie was taking hers in bed – this at my insistence, and more to keep her out of Con’s way than for any other reason. She seemed to have completely recovered from last night’s experience, and only accepted my ruling about breakfast because, she said, she had no desire to see Con again so soon, and certainly not before she had seen Donald.
Donald rang up shortly before half past eight, to ask for news of last night’s truants. I told him only enough to reassure him – that Bill Fenwick’s car had been involved in a mishap, and that Julie was unhurt, and wanting to see him some time that day. If, I added with a memory of the colleague from London, he was free . . .
‘Mphm,’ said Donald. ‘I’ll be along in half an hour.’
‘Donald! Wait a minute! She’s not up yet!’
‘Half an hour,’ said Donald, and rang off.
I warned Julie, who hurled herself out of bed with a shriek and a ‘What shall I wear?’ that reassured me completely as to her well-being and her feelings. I didn’t see Donald arrive, but when, some half-hour later, I saw his car in the yard, I went to tell him that Julie wouldn’t be long. He wasn’t in the car, or indeed, anywhere to be seen; on an inspiration I slipped through the half-door of Blondie’s stable, and there, sure enough, he was, stooping to prod a gentle finger into the pile of fur deep in the manger, while Tommy, sitting unconcernedly on top of the partition (which was at least half an inch wide), watched composedly, in the intervals of washing a back leg.
Donald straightened when he heard me come in. ‘She really is all right?’ It was an unceremonious greeting, and I hoped it was symptomatic of his state of mind. He certainly betrayed no other outward signs of deep emotion.
‘Perfectly. She’ll be along in a minute or two.’
I told him then rather more fully about the accident, but without mentioning Con, or (of course) what had happened later last night. If Julie chose to tell him, that was her affair, but I hoped she wouldn’t. I wanted no more trouble until I had managed that overdue interview with Con, and after that, I hoped, all would be clear.
It was six minutes, in sober fact, before Julie came. She certainly looked none the worse for the stresses of last night. She wore her blue skirt and white blouse, and looked composed and immaculate, not in the least as if she had rushed shrieking for the bathroom only thirty-six minutes before.
She greeted Donald with a composure that amounted almost to reserve, and, when I made a move to go, held me there with a quick, imploring look that filled me with forebodings. These weren’t diminished by Donald’s attitude; he appeared to have retreated into silence, and, I noticed with exasperation, was even groping in his pocket for his pipe.
I said quickly: ‘You can’t smoke in a stable, Donald. If you two are going off now—’
‘Oh,’ said Julie, ‘are these Tommy’s kittens? Aren’t they adorable!’
She stooped over the bundle in the manger, exclaiming delightedly over the kittens, with every appearance of intending to remain there for some time. ‘And look at their tiny paws! Two black,’ she cried rapturously, ‘and three black-and-white, and two ginger . . . isn’t it a miracle?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, rather sharply, ‘it’s the ginger tom from West Lodge.’
Julie had detached a ginger kitten from the tangle of fur, and was cuddling it under her chin, crooning to it. ‘How old are they? Oh, I’d adore to keep one! But they’re far too tiny to take, aren’t they? Six weeks, isn’t it, till they can lap? Oh, isn’t it a darling? Annabel, d’you suppose either of the ginger ones is a he?’
‘They both are,’ said Donald.
‘How do you – I mean, they’re too small to tell, surely?’
‘I should have said,’ amended Donald, carefully, ‘that the probability of both ginger kittens being male, is about ninety-nine and nine-tenths per cent. Possibly more. The ginger colour is a sex-linked characteristic.’
The nearest we were going to get to romance today, I thought bitterly, was a discussion of genetics. And while there could, admittedly, be said to be some connection, it was getting us no further with the matter in hand. I sent Donald a quelling look, which he didn’t see. He was watching Julie, who, with the kitten still cuddled close to her, was regarding him with respectful wonder.
‘You mean you just can’t have a ginger she?’
‘No. I mean, yes.’ Donald’s uncertainty was only momentary, and of the wrong kind. He stood there like a rock, pipe in hand, calm, slow spoken, and undeniably attractive. I could have shaken him.
‘Isn’t that marvellous?’ said Julie awe
d. ‘Annabel, did you know that? Then I shall keep this one. Oh, lord, it’s got claws like pins, and it will try and climb up my neck! Donald, look at it, isn’t it utterly adorable?’
‘Adorable.’ He still sounded infuriatingly detached and academic. ‘I’d be inclined to go further. I’d say beautiful, quite beautiful.’
‘Would you?’ Julie was as surprised as I was at this sudden plunge into hyperbole. She held the kitten away from her, looking at it a shade doubtfully. ‘Well, it is the sweetest little love, of course, but do you think the pink nose is quite the thing? Cute, of course, with that spot on the end, but—’
‘Pink?’ said Donald. ‘I wouldn’t have said it was pink.’
He hadn’t, I realised suddenly, even glanced at the kitten. Unnoticed at last, I began to edge away.
‘But, Donald, it’s glowing pink, practically shocking pink, and quite hideous, actually, only so terribly sweet!’
‘I was not,’ said Donald, ‘talking about the kitten.’
There was a second’s open-mouthed pause, then Julie, her poise in flinders, blushed a vivid scarlet and began to stammer. Donald put his pipe back into his pocket.
I said unheeded: ‘We’ll see you both this evening some time,’ and went out of the stable.
As I went, Donald was gently unhooking the kitten from the shoulder of Julie’s blouse, and putting it back into the manger.
‘We don’t want to squash the poor little thing, do we?’
‘No – no,’ said Julie.
Later that morning, after I had done the chores which I had taken on as my contribution to the housekeeping, I went to hunt up my gardening tools from the corner of the barn where they had always been kept. I had, of course, taken the precaution of asking Lisa where they were. The tools looked almost as if they hadn’t been used since I’d last had them out more than eight years ago. It was queer to feel my hand slipping in such an assured way round the smoothed wood of the trowel, and to feel the familiar knot-hole in the handle of the spade. I carried the tools along to the tractor-shed and put in a little first-aid on the shears, and the blades of spade and hoe, then threw the lot into a barrow, and went to see what I could do with the neglected garden.
I worked there all morning, and, since I started on the basic jobs of grass and path, it wasn’t long before the place looked as if some care had been spent on it. But work, for once, didn’t help. As I sheared the grass, and spaded the edges straight, and then tackled the dry, weedy beds with fork and hoe, memory, far from being dulled by the rough work, cut back at me ever more painfully, as if I had sharpened that, too, along with the garden tools.
That spring and summer, eight years back . . . the March days when the soil smelt strong and damp and full of growing; May when the lilac was thick on the tree by the gate, and rain lay in each cup, scented with honey; June, with the robin scolding shrilly from the waxy blossoms of the syringa bush, as I dug and planted with my back to the house, dreaming of Adam, and our next meeting . . .
Today, it was June again, and the soil was dry and the air heavy. The lilac was done, and the syringa bush wasn’t there, dead these many years.
And Adam and I were free, but that was over.
My fork turned up a clump of bulbs, autumn crocus, fat globes covered with onion-covered crêpe paper. I went on my knees and lifted them out carefully with my hands.
Then suddenly I remembered them, too. This clump had been in flower the last day I’d been at Whitescar. They had burned, pale lilac flames in the dusk, as I slipped out to meet Adam that last, that terrible evening. They had lain, drenched ribbons of silk, under the morning’s rain when, with the first light next day, I had tiptoed down the path and away, across the bridge towards the high-road.
I found I was sitting back on my heels with the tears pouring down my face, and dripping on the dry corms held tightly in my hands.
It was still an hour short of lunch-time when Betsy’s voice called me from the house. I thought there was some urgency in her voice, and when I stood up and turned, I could see her, in what looked like considerable agitation, waving for me to hurry.
‘Oh, Miss Annabel! Oh, Miss Annabel! Come quickly, do!’
The urgency and distress could only mean one thing. I dropped my weeding-fork and ran.
‘Betsy! Is it Grandfather?’
‘Aye, it is that . . .’ Her hands were twisted now into her apron, and, with her face paler than usual, and the red of the cheeks standing out like paint, and the black eyes at once alarmed and important, she looked more than ever, as she stood bobbing in the doorway, like a little wooden figure from a Noah’s Ark. She was talking even more rapidly than usual, almost as if she thought she might be blamed for what had happened, and had to get her excuses in first.
‘ . . . And he was as right as rain when I took his breakfast up, as right as a trivet he was, and that’s the truth and no lie. “And how many times have I tell’t you,” he says, “if you burns the toast, to give it to the birds. I’ll not have this scraped stuff,” he says, “so you can throw it out now and do some more,” which I did, Miss Annabel, and there he was, as right as rain . . .’
I took her breathlessly by the shoulders, with my earthy hands. ‘Betsy! Betsy! What’s happened? Is he dead?’
‘Mercy, no! But it’s the stroke like before, and that’s how it’ll end this time, Miss Annabel, my dear . . .’
She followed me up the passage, still talking volubly. She and Lisa, I heard, had been together in the kitchen, preparing lunch, when Grandfather’s bell had rung. This was an old-fashioned pulley-bell, one of a row which hung on their circular springs in the kitchen. The bell had jangled violently, as if jerked in anger, or some sudden emergency. Mrs Bates had hurried upstairs, to find the old man collapsed in the wing-chair near the fireplace. He had dressed himself, all but his jacket, and must have suddenly begun to feel ill, and just managed to reach the bell-pull by the hearth as he fell. Mrs Bates and Lisa, between them, had got him to bed, and then the former had come for me.
Most of this she managed to pour out in the few moments while I ran to the kitchen and plunged my filthy hands under the tap. I had seized a towel, and was roughly drying them, when a soft step sounded in the lobby, and Lisa appeared in the doorway. She showed none of Betsy’s agitation, but her impassive face was perhaps a bit sallower, and I thought I saw a kind of surreptitious excitement in her eyes.
She said abruptly: ‘There you are. I’ve got him to bed and got him covered up. He collapsed while he was dressing. I’m afraid it looks serious. Annabel, will you telephone the doctor? The number’s on the pad. Mrs Bates, that kettle’s almost hot enough; fill two hot-bottles as soon as you can. I must go back to him. When you’ve got Dr Wilson, Annabel, go and fetch Con.’
‘Lisa, I must see him. You do the telephoning. I can—’
‘You don’t know what to do,’ she said curtly. ‘I do. It’s happened before. Now hurry.’
She turned quickly away, as if there was no more to be said. I flung the towel down, and ran to the office.
The doctor’s number was written there, largely, on the pad. Luck was in, and he was at home. Yes, he would be there as quickly as possible. What was being done? Ah, Miss Dermott was with him, was she, and Mrs Bates was there? Good, good. I was to try not to worry. He wouldn’t be long. Smooth with professional assurances, he rang off.
As I went back into the hall, Lisa appeared at the head of the stairs.
‘Did you get him?’
‘Yes, he’s coming.’
‘Good. Now, will you go—?’
‘I want to see him first.’ I was already starting up the stairs.
‘There’s nothing you can do.’ She did nothing to bar my way, but her very stolidity, as she waited for me in the middle of the way, had that effect.
I said sharply: ‘Is he conscious?’
‘No.’
It wasn’t the monosyllable that halted me, three steps below her, it was the tone of it. I looked up at her. Even t
hrough my agitation I caught the surprise in her look. Heaven knows what she could read in my face and eyes. I had forgotten what lay between me and Lisa; now it whipped back at me, stinging me into intelligence, and caution.
She was saying: ‘There’s no point in your seeing him. Go and get Con. He’s in High Riggs.’
‘I know.’
‘Well, he must know straight away.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said, and went on, past her, straight into Grandfather’s room.
The curtains had been half drawn, and hung motionless, shading the sunny windows. The old man lay in bed, his only movement that of his laboured, stertorous breathing. I went across and stood beside him. If it hadn’t been for the difficult breathing, I might have thought him dead already. It was as if he, the man I knew, had already gone from behind the mask that lay on the pillow. It, and we, were only waiting.
Lisa had followed me in, but I took no notice of her. I stood watching Grandfather, and trying to calm my agitated thoughts into some sort of order.
Lisa had been in the kitchen when it happened, with Betsy. It had been Betsy who had answered the bell. All that Lisa had done had been correct, and obviously genuine. And Con was far enough away, in High Riggs; had been there since early morning . . .
I turned to meet Lisa’s eyes. If I had had any doubts about the naturalness of this crisis, coming, as it had done, so pat upon the signing of the Will, they were dispelled by the look on Lisa’s face. It was still, as before, obscurely excited, and she made no attempt to hide the excitement from me. And it was now, also, thoroughly surprised and puzzled as she stared back at me.
I could hear Betsy chugging upstairs now, with the hot-bottles. Lisa had moved up to my elbow. Her voice muttered in my ear: ‘It’s a mercy, isn’t it?’
‘A mercy?’ I glanced at her in surprise. ‘But he was perfectly all right—’
‘Ssh, here’s Mrs B. I meant, a mercy it didn’t happen yesterday, before Mr Isaacs came. God’s providence, you might even say.’
‘You might,’ I said drily. Yes, I thought, it was there, clear enough to see: Lisa, single minded, uncomplicated, initiating nothing. The stars in their courses fought for Con; Lisa need only wait. Efficient, innocent Lisa. No doubt at all, when Dr Wilson came, she would help him in every possible way.