A Green Bay Tree

by Margaret James

  ‘As prepared as I shall ever be.’ As melancholy as the surgeon was jaunty, Ellis was nevertheless relieved to see such a strongly–made, self–confident young man. One whose manner, even though it did not soothe, at least inspired some faith in his abilities.

  ‘Will you have a draught of something?’ Rolling up his sleeves to display tough, brawny forearms, the surgeon shrugged a general enquiry. ‘Half a pint of rum, sir? Whisky? Believe me, a glass or two of spirits — ’

  ‘No.’ Ellis took his wife's hand. ‘I don't want anything.’

  ‘I see. Well, as you wish.’ The surgeon glanced around the room. ‘Now,’ he muttered. ‘A table. Or a suitable chair. Ah — this chair here, with wide elbow rests. It looks ideal. May we use it?’

  Ellis shrugged agreement.

  ‘Good. What's become of my assistant? I told him to take some porter, then ask to be shown up here directly.’

  But now Simmons and Gerard were heard coming down the passage. The operation could begin.

  * * * *

  ‘Is the lady staying?’ Unwrapping his instruments, the surgeon eyed Rebecca's swollen belly. ‘You know, sir — I don't honestly recommend — ’

  ‘I wish to remain.’ Rebecca met the surgeon's eyes. ‘My husband would like me to stay.’

  ‘Are you prone to fainting?’ The doctor whetted his knife. ‘Because if you are, I must warn you — ’

  ‘I've never fainted in my life. I don't propose to begin now.’

  ‘Good.’ The surgeon spread his hands ‘Well then, Mrs Darrow. You stand behind the chair here. Gerard, you know your duty. Yes, I think one strap will certainly be required. Maybe even two. Mr Simmons, have you a bowl ready? Some cloth?’

  ‘Sir.’ Co–opted to assist and already a faint shade of green, Simmons nodded. ‘Here they are.’

  ‘Splendid.’ The surgeon flexed his fingers. ‘So, Mr Simmons. You must hold the hand quite steady. Gerard will show you how. Well, ladies and gentlemen? Shall we begin?’

  * * * *

  Taking his newly sharpened knife, the doctor repeated his instruction to hold the patient's hand steady. He also told Simmons to keep his own fingers well out of the way. ‘I wouldn't want to slice off more than is necessary,’ he remarked, in a facetious manner which Rebecca found offensive indeed. He checked that the tourniquet was tight. Then, he cut deep into the flesh some four inches above the wrist.

  Set on the edge of the bone, the knife was drawn round in a matter of seconds. Now, with the muscle cut and bleeding freely, the surgeon forced up the flesh to expose the bones. Picking up his saw, he started to use it.

  Teeth gritted, sweat beading his brow, Ellis fixed his eyes on a point in the corner of the room. His face ashen, his breathing became harsh. Harsher still. Soon, he was literally gasping for air.

  Simmons kept his eyes tightly closed. Eventually, even Rebecca found she could look no more. She shut her eyes. But nothing could cut out the sound of the saw. Of the awful grating, rubbing and grinding, as the metal blade parted living tissue.

  ‘Excellent!’ The surgeon pushed the discarded hand to one side. He was perspiring freely now. Taking ligatures of catgut, he began to tie off the arteries. Finishing this most delicate of tasks, he grinned. ‘Worst part over, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Not long now. Gerard, support Mr Darrow's shoulder. Mr Simmons, do open your eyes. To your mopping directly, if you please.’

  Simmons mopped with a will. Then, as he was dropping a third or fourth blood–soaked cloth into the bucket provided, the doctor began to draw the flesh down again. Carefully, he eased the skin over the ends of the bones.

  He smiled to himself. He'd done a very good job. The flaps of skin met just so. There was no need even for trimming. Nor — as sometimes happened with beginners at this game — was there any need to cut off more bone. That was a great relief. On those occasions, patients sometimes went mad with pain, never to recover their reason.

  Applying sticking plaster then neatly bandaging the limb, the surgeon was almost singing to himself. Ellis, however, was deathly silent. His eyes were closed. Rebecca prayed he'd fainted at last.

  ‘There, sir. It's done.’ The surgeon patted his patient's shoulder. ‘All finished. In good time, too.’

  Good time? Through unshed tears, Rebecca looked at the clock. Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes of torture. Eighteen whole lifetimes of pain.

  Now Ellis groaned. He slumped forward. As Simmons caught his master, Rebecca began to sob.

  From earliest childhood, she had been conditioned to forgive all injuries. To turn the other cheek, to love her enemy as herself. So well had she learned her lessons that she had even forgiven the man who'd taught them to her. She'd long since made her peace with the memory of Jeremy Searle.

  But now, hatred for Lalage rose up and overwhelmed her. In this instance, there would be no forgiveness. Ever. Rebecca was Lalage's enemy now, and a fearsome one she would prove to be.

  Chapter 21

  Three weeks after Ellis's operation, Rebecca was delivered of her first child, a blonde, blue–eyed daughter. Recovering her strength with remarkable rapidity, she was out of bed and walking around her room a mere two hours after her confinement.

  She had no time to spare for lying in. The following day, she was up, dressed and taking charge again. Behaving in fact as if she were fully recovered and in perfect health – which, indeed, she was.

  ‘A name, Ellis?’ Taking the child from her nurse, Rebecca carried the infant into the sitting room of the Dower House, where Ellis stood gazing out of the window. ‘Well, my dear? What shall we call this pretty daughter of ours?’

  ‘Whatever you please,’ Ellis replied.

  Following his ordeal, Ellis had taken a fever. After lying delirious for five anxious days, he had at last begun to mend. But slowly. He was still very weak. Sitting down beside his wife, he looked at his child. Blank indifference glazed his eyes, and wretchedness furrowed his brow. ‘Anything,’ he muttered. ‘Call her anything. You decide.’

  ‘I thought perhaps Eleanor. Eleanor Jane.’ Rebecca looked at him. ‘Ellis?’

  ‘That's rather stiff. Too formal. It sounds — ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh. Nothing. It's fine. It sounds very well.’

  ‘You like the names, then?’

  ‘I don't dislike them.’ Ellis glanced at the baby once again. ‘She's very like you,’ he observed. ‘Not a Darrow at all.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Rebecca. She thought, thank God for that. A child who'd looked at me with Lalage's eyes would have made me sick. ‘Ellis, will you hold her?’

  ‘I may let her fall.’ Glancing down at dressings which still bound his right wrist, and would do so for some weeks yet, Ellis groaned in anguish. ‘I can still feel my hand,’ he cried. ‘I can clench my fist. Pick up a pencil, hold a pen. I think I'm going out of my mind. Soon, I'll be mad indeed. Like her!’

  ‘You're not mad.’ Aching with pity for him, Rebecca laid her baby in her cradle. She took her husband in her arms. ‘It's quite normal to feel as you do,’ she said. ‘To imagine the limb, the hand — or whatever — is still there. Mr Steele told me so. Truly, Ellis, he did. My dear, you're not going out of your mind. Not at all.’

  ‘Aren't I?’ Ellis sighed. ‘When I was ill, I kept seeing her. She stood at my bedside, laughing. She called me a fool. She promised to come back. To complete what she'd begun.’

  ‘She can't hurt us.’ Rebecca stroked his hair. ‘She's miles away. She won't come back.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘She can't. She dare not.’ Rebecca shrugged. ‘Anyway, we are two. Three, now. She's only one.’

  ‘I'm not able to protect you.’ Wretchedly, Ellis rubbed his eyes. ‘I can't even look after myself. When the surgeon came, I almost cried. Like a child. I wanted to weep and wail, like this poor infant here. I'm not even half a man.’

  ‘Anyone would have wept.’ Remembering, Rebecca's own eyes filled with tears. ‘Please, Ellis,’ she whispered. ‘Don't
fret. Especially about her. She's not worth it. I doubt if she ever thinks of us.’

  Rebecca was wrong. Lalage thought of Ellis all the time. The days lengthened into weeks, into months, into a whole year — and still she longed for him. Yearned for him.

  Why hadn't he killed her? He had wanted to. She'd have died happy then. But now, she would die wretched. For she would never look upon his dear face again.

  Why had Alex brought her here, to this horrible, dreary, desolate place? Why couldn't they have settled nearer home? Would she ever see Warwickshire again?

  ‘Oh, madam! You're so melancholy today.’ Lacing her mistress's gown that chilly autumn morning, Betty gazed with concern at Lalage's ash–white complexion, gaunt cheeks and heavily shadowed eyes. ‘Is it Mr Lowell?’ she asked.

  ‘Mr Lowell?’

  ‘Yes, madam. Is he making you unhappy?’

  ‘That's no concern of yours.’ Sourly, her mistress grimaced. ‘No concern at all.'.

  ‘I just wondered, madam.’ Calmly, Betty went on with her work. ‘I meant no offence.’

  ‘I hope not.’ Lalage picked at her finger nails. ‘I hate this gown,’ she muttered. ‘It hangs like a sack.’

  ‘Will you change it for your blue stripe, then? Or your green silk?’

  ‘No.’ Shrugging her thin shoulders, Lalage sighed. ‘As if it matters what I wear.’

  Betty sighed too. Lalage was right. This particular garment did hang badly, for it was much too big. But then, all her mistress's clothes were too big for her these days.

  Always very slim, Lalage had declined dramatically, and now she was nothing but bones. Thin, bird bones. Betty had to force herself to touch her. She hated seeing her naked, and felt sick when she undressed her at night.

  The maid reached for more pins. By making big pleats at the back of the gown, she contrived to make Lalage look presentable. Just about. But the garment had been cut to fit a woman with curves. With a neat little bottom and small but firm breasts. It hung like a limp, silken rag on this walking corpse.

  Perhaps Lalage would give it to her soon. She hoped so. It was beautiful material, and the style would certainly suit Betty. She fingered the cloth. Covetously, she smoothed the pleats she'd made.

  ‘What were you saying about my husband?’ Lalage's sharp voice broke into Betty's daydreams. ‘Were you being impertinent? I don't seem to remember — ’

  ‘I asked if Mr Lowell was making you sad. That's all.’ Betty picked up Lalage's cap. ‘He spends so much time out of the house, leaving you all alone. I know how fond you are of company.’

  ‘I'm not pining for his!’ Derisively, Lalage sniffed. But then her features relaxed, crumpling into misery. ‘Oh, Betty!’ she cried. ‘He doesn't love me! He thinks more of his moths and butterflies than he ever did of me!

  ‘He hardly speaks to me now. All through dinner, he has his nose in some book. I might as well be a ghost, for all the heed he takes of my presence. At night, it's worse. He never — well, we're not man and wife any more!’

  Lalage began to sob. ‘Betty,’ she wailed. ‘Speak to me! Advise me. What shall I do?’

  ‘Dear madam! Don't cry.’ Betty took her lady in her arms. ‘Don't upset yourself,’ she crooned. ‘He's not worth it. No man deserves all these tears.’

  ‘I hate him.’ Lalage sobbed harder. ‘I hate him like poison. I do!’

  ‘You don't, madam. You know you don't.’ Betty smoothed her mistress's long, black hair. ‘Soon,’ she said, ‘it will be winter. He won't be out chasing butterflies or picking posies then. He'll be here, by his own fireside, with you.’

  ‘You think that prospect cheers me?’ Lalage ground her teeth. ‘I don't want him here at all,’ she muttered. ‘I wish him gone.’

  ‘No, madam, you don't.’ Betty shook her head. ‘You're not at all well today,’ she said. ‘Come downstairs. Sit in the parlour, by the fire. I'll bring you a dish of tea, with something in it that will soothe you.’

  * * * *

  But Betty's soothing draughts could have no effect at all on a woman in Lalage's state of mind. The desire to rid herself of Alex haunted her.

  She went over and over the things he'd said, the things he'd done. Always, always, she arrived at the same conclusions. He'd bought her, he'd used her, and now he was discarding her. She was of no more account than a walking stick, a snuff box, or a cheap tin tray. She was an object of desire. Or not, as it would seem nowadays.

  He had never considered her needs. When she had wanted a child, had begged for one — had lain on the cold floor, beseeching him to give her a baby — he had denied her. Even her abject submission had not melted Alex Lowell's stony heart. Her vulnerable, naked body had disgusted him.

  But he had not always despised her. At the beginning, he'd been mad for her. So mad, he had raped her. He had candidly admitted it. ‘That was rape,’ he had said. As if rape were a minor matter, of no real consequence at all.

  Lalage made up her mind. Taking Sukey aside one evening, she told her that Mr Lowell had recently developed a liking for cinnamon in his hot chocolate. Since Lalage kept the keys to the spice cupboard, she would in future make his evening cordial herself.

  This suited Sukey. Relieved of her last task of the day, she could now keep an eye on Caspar. More to the point, she could see Bronwen Powell kept away. Overheated Welsh bitch, she was still poaching after the boy's virginity. Virginity which Sukey meant to have for herself.

  On her next visit to Swansea, Lalage visited a druggist. There, she bought everything she needed. As he wrapped bottles, phials and packets of powder, the druggist grinned. Madam would have no problems with rats or mice this winter.

  Madam did not use her purchases straight away. But, a few weeks later, as the really cold weather set in, Alex began to complain of stomach cramps.

  * * * *

  It was easy to begin, and easy to go on. Too easy. But yet, in a way, it was very difficult as well. As Alex wasted and sickened, Lalage suffered too. As she measured powder into his cup and stirred it round, she even felt pity. Why was he taking so long to die?

  She wished she had the courage to administer a fatal dose. Then, instead of suffering this long agony of slow murder, he could die at once. But if his pains worsened, he might overcome his long–standing distrust of physicians and call in a doctor. That would never do.

  Finally, Lalage lost her nerve. As the year turned, she stopped adulterating his chocolate. She gave him a reprieve. Alex must recover, and live.

  ‘Do you feel any better today?’ she asked one winter morning. Watching him sip tea, she winced as a spasm of pain shook him and made him catch his breath in distress. ‘Alex?’

  ‘A little, I think. I'm maybe a little better today.’ White–faced, Alex replaced the teacup on its saucer. ‘Lally, my dear? I wish to speak to you. It's important. May we talk now?’

  ‘Certainly.’ A tingle of apprehension rippled down Lalage's spine. Putting down her own cup, she willed herself to remain calm. ‘What did you wish to discuss?’ she enquired.

  ‘It's about the Hall.’

  ‘Oh. That.’ Relief flared like a secret beacon deep inside her heart. Lalage's colour returned. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Lally, tell me honestly. When you paid those men to fire the Hall, did you mean us all to die?’

  ‘No!’ Wide-eyed, Lalage met his gaze. ‘Of course not. I didn't know you would be there.’

  ‘Did you intend to kill Rebecca, then?’

  ‘Don't be so silly.’ Lalage shrugged. ‘I wanted to frighten her. That's all.’

  ‘Thank God.’ Reassured, Alex leaned back in his chair. ‘We may do something,’ he muttered, as if to himself. He looked at his wife. ‘Are you happy here?’ he asked.

  ‘Happy enough.’ Lalage sighed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, if you're not — and there's anything I can do to make you so — you have only to say.’

  ‘There's nothing.’ Pushing back her chair, she stood up. ‘Come along,’ she said. ‘I'll he
lp you dress.’

  ‘Caspar can do that.’

  ‘He's gone into Swansea with Sukey. They won't be back until nightfall.’ Lalage held out her hand. ‘Come upstairs, Alex. I'll look after you today.’

  * * * *

  For a few days more, Alex remained reasonably well. But then, a week or so after asking Lalage if she was happy, he sickened again. Lalage had resumed dosing him. ‘He used me,’ she told herself, as she measured the powder into the cup. ‘He let me plead and grovel and abase myself, but still he denied me a child. He cares about that bastard, too. What's it to him, if Rebecca lives or dies?’

  A few days more, she thought. A week. Surely he couldn't last far beyond that? Taking the supper tray into the parlour, she put it on the table. ‘Chocolate?’ she enquired brightly, smiling.

  ‘Thank you, darling.’ Eyes glazed, his face haggard, Alex took the cup. With a teaspoon, he stirred the liquid round and round. He tasted it. Looking at Lalage, he made a face. ‘You should have added more sugar,’ he told her. ‘If you don't put in plenty of sweetening, the stuff leaves such a bitter aftertaste.’

  For a moment or two she stared at him. All the colour left her face. ‘W–why do you drink it?’ she managed to stammer, at last. Her throat dry, she could hardly articulate. ‘Alex, if you know, why — ’

  ‘Why, darling?’ Alex sighed. ‘I really don't know why,’ he replied.

  ‘When did you first realise?’

  ‘Almost at once.’ Alex met her eyes. ‘The first time must have been — let me see — about the middle of November, was it?’

  ‘Good God!’ Lalage stared. ‘Then — ’

  ‘Why didn't I say anything?’ Alex shrugged. ‘Perhaps I thought it was my fate.’

  ‘But how did you know what it was?’

  ‘I was sick. Very sick. I realised then.’ Languidly, Alex yawned. ‘When I was a child, I ate some poisoned bait. My nurse made me vomit. The taste in my mouth was the same.’ He smiled. ‘It's odd, isn't it, how memories of smells and tastes linger? When visual images have long since faded away?’

  Thoughtfully, he took another sip of chocolate. ‘I know you want revenge,’ he said, calmly. ‘I denied you a child. You hate me for that. So you turned Ellis against me. For a while, I thought that might satisfy you. But it didn't, did it?’