The Singing Tree

by Anne Weale

  ‘They weren’t people who needed much money,’ he answered. ‘My father took up painting. After my mother’s health forced her to give up gardening she took to needlework. But I suspect she always missed the gardens here. If it hadn’t been for her medical expenses they would have been comfortably off in Arizona.’

  Momentarily forgetting that his father would not have inherited the manor if his brother hadn’t been killed in the war, she asked, ‘Were your parents only children, or do you have other relations?’

  ‘My father’s elder brother died of wounds in Italy in 1944, but my mother had three younger sisters, so I have three middle-aged aunts.’

  ‘If I were to agree to marry you, what would they think about it?’

  ‘Having met you, they’d think me a very lucky guy,’ he said smoothly.

  ‘I doubt that. They’d be horrified that you weren’t marrying someone of your own kind.’

  ‘In the States there are only two kinds of people... rich and poor, and it’s possible for the poor to become rich if they have intelligence and drive. When your grandfather was a boy it was hard to do that in England but he succeeded. I don’t aspire to make his kind of money, but by the time I hit forty I expect to have repaid all the loans and to be able to keep you in comfort if never in luxury.’

  ‘That’s sidestepping the issue. Your aunts and their husbands aren’t going to approve of your marrying me.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn whether they approve or not, and you shouldn’t either. You don’t know my aunts and you may not like them when you meet them. The only people whose opinions matter are the people one cares about and even they don’t always know best. I’m the only judge of the right girl for me to marry, and the same goes for you. Outsiders’ opinions are totally unimportant.’

  ‘You can hardly classify your aunts as outsiders ... unless you have nothing to do with them. With three aunts you must have quite a few cousins.’

  ‘Eleven cousins, but I don’t have much contact with them. I’ve been to some of their weddings and godfathered a few of their children. When am I going to meet your brother?’

  ‘I’ll ask him and Sharon to have dinner with us tonight.’

  She wanted to find out what her brother thought of Roderick. Although she and Stephen were not much alike, either in looks or temperament, sharing a childhood blighted by their parents’ rows had forged a strong bond of affection between them. There were many things about Stephen which irritated her, but she loved him in spite of them and knew that he loved her and was shrewd enough to see through Roderick if her own vision of him was distorted by the strength of the physical attraction he exerted on her.

  There was no chance to ask Stephen discreetly what he thought of Roderick before he and Sharon went home that night.

  But when, soon after their departure, Flower went to bed she allowed enough time for them to drive back to their house, and then dialled her brother’s number.

  It was her sister-in-law who answered the telephone.

  ‘It’s Flower. May I speak to Stephen, please?’

  ‘He’s still in the garage. I’ll call him.’

  After a short pause Stephen’s voice said, ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I just wanted to know what you thought of Roderick?’

  ‘Seemed OK to me.’

  ‘Oh, Stephen ... that’s not an answer. I want a considered opinion... a potted reading of his character. How far would you trust him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Why d’you want to know? Do you fancy him?’

  After a slight hesitation, she said candidly, ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Well, it seems to be mutual—at least, Sharon thinks he fancies you. So where’s the problem?’

  ‘He hasn’t any money. I’m what the tabloids call an heiress. Maybe that’s what attracts him.’

  ‘Maybe... but that’s a chance you’ll always have to take with guys... the same way I took a chance with Shar. The old man seems to like him, and he’s always been paranoid about fortune-hunters.’

  She had already decided not to tell Stephen about the scheme her grandfather and Roderick had cooked up between them. If she told her brother he would be bound to tell Sharon and she would tell her mother and then it would be all over the neighbourhood.

  ‘Anyway, it’s early days to be worrying about that aspect, isn’t it?’ said Stephen. ‘You’ve only just met him. Time enough to worry about whether he’s after your money when you’ve been to bed with him. When you’ve had him you may go off him.’

  ‘I don’t jump into bed as freely as you used to when you were single. I have other priorities,’ said Flower. ‘Night, Stephen.’

  A few minutes later she used the house telephone to call her grandfather’s room, although he might still be downstairs, talking to Roderick.

  ‘Yes?’ For some reason the telephone always emphasised the latent aggression in the old man’s voice.

  ‘There’s something I want to talk about, Dodo. May I come now?’

  Abel was already in bed when she entered his room. He must have come up very soon after she had.

  ‘Have you seen the sense of it?’ he asked expectantly.

  Flower shook her head. ‘It’s not possible to make a snap decision on something as important as marriage. I came to ask you not to tell Stephen about it. He has no secrets from Sharon and she has none from her parents. If I do decide to fall in with this crazy scheme I don’t want everyone knowing it’s a marriage of convenience.’

  ‘You’re right: it’s better kept quiet. I shan’t say nowt.’ Often, when they were alone, her grandfather reverted to the speech of his youth.

  ‘The only person I shall tell is Emily,’ she continued. ‘If it’s convenient for her I’ll drive up there tomorrow morning and spend a few days with her.’

  ‘What, and leave Rod here on his tod?’ Abel also often used rhyming slang and Flower had learnt long ago that ‘tod’ was a reference to Tod Sloan, a jockey, Sloan rhyming with alone.

  ‘He has things to do in London. I shall see the whole situation in sharper perspective from a distance.’

  ‘I don’t know why you don’t say yes to him straight off. The more I think about it, the better the idea strikes me. He’s the way I was at his age... he’s got guts and the cheek of the devil. He hasn’t a penny to his name, but he’s not afraid to tell me to my face that there wouldn’t be room for the two of us under one roof.’

  ‘I’m surprised that didn’t annoy you. You were furious when Sharon wanted a place of her own.’

  ‘Only because your brother hid behind her skirts. I wouldn’t have minded if he’d said straight out from the start they didn’t want to live here with us. But he didn’t have the gumption.’

  ‘He knew what a fuss you’d make... and you did,’ she reminded him. ‘You roared and raged like a wounded dinosaur. Stephen can’t cope with your tempers. It’s not surprising. He had a lot of the stuffing knocked out of him by Dad when he was little. Dad would have liked to swipe Mum when she yelled at him, but he couldn’t do that so he worked off his temper on Stephen. Luckily Stephen doesn’t seem to have inherited your and Dad’s temper. He never gets angry and he never lays a finger on Matthew.’

  ‘He spoils him...they both do,’ said Abel. ‘They’ll have trouble with that kid later, mark my words.’

  ‘Look who’s talking! You’re always giving him sweets and expensive presents. He already has more toys than they’ve got at the creche at the works. Don’t buy him any more, Dodo. Spend the money on children who haven’t got anything. The price of that life-sized stuffed baby panda you bought him last month would have paid for a Third World child to learn to read and write.’

  She knew, as she spoke, that she was wasting her breath. Her grandfather only gave money to causes which might indirectly benefit him.

  His room was not far from the top of the manor’s main staircase. After she had said goodnight to him, as she was crossing the landing she saw Roderick coming up f
rom the ground floor.

  ‘I thought you would be asleep by now,’ he said.

  She was still in the dress she had worn for dinner and was glad that she wasn’t wearing nightclothes. Last night’s encounter was still vivid in her mind. As he reached the top of the flight she remembered the warmth of his hand through the flimsy top of her nightdress as his palm had curved round her breast. Almost twenty-four hours later the memory of that caress made her heartbeat quicken.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Dodo.’

  ‘About me?’ he enquired.

  ‘About Matthew, my nephew. By the way, tomorrow I’m going away for a few days.’

  ‘When do you expect to return?’

  ‘I can’t say definitely, but probably not before Monday.’

  ‘I see. Then I’d better give you something to remember me by.’

  Before she had grasped his intention she was in his arms and he was kissing her; not lightly as he had on their walk, but in the masterful manner he had demonstrated last night and again after lunch.

  Flower wanted to resist but couldn’t. The fact was that each time he kissed her the more difficult she found it not to lose control completely. Being pressed to his tall muscular frame was insidiously, dangerously arousing. She felt his body responding to the close contact with hers, and her body answered the signal from his.

  As the kiss grew more and more passionate she knew there was only one natural and satisfying end to this embrace. He wanted her and she wanted him and there seemed no good reason why so powerful an urge should not find fulfilment.

  ‘Your room or mine?’ Roderick murmured thickly, his lips against her mouth.

  He would never know how hard it was for her to press against his chest with the heels of her hands. ‘Your room for you... mine for me.’

  His hands were splayed over her hips. He pulled them more tightly against his. ‘But you don’t want to sleep alone and nor do I. I want to make love to you.’

  ‘Two days ago you didn’t know me. Goodnight, Roderick.’ Making a determined effort to free herself, she escaped from his arms and bolted in the direction of her room.

  For the second night in succession she had very little sleep, and went down to breakfast hoping it didn’t show.

  She had packed a small case and arranged for her car to be brought round and the case put in it.

  The men were already at the table, and her grandfather was on the telephone. Roderick rose as she entered the room, and walked round to pull out her chair.

  ‘Good morning. Sleep well?’ he enquired.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she lied.

  ‘I didn’t. You kept me awake half the night,’ he murmured while Abel was reading the riot act to whoever was on the line.

  ‘Too bad. You shouldn’t have started something you ought to have known you couldn’t finish,’ she murmured in reply.

  ‘Heartless girl! One day soon I’ll remind you of that and punish you,’ he said in an undertone.

  Then Abel banged down the receiver and put an end to the exchange.

  They said goodbye in his presence. Flower made sure of that, confident that Roderick wouldn’t kiss her with the old man standing by.

  But when she offered him her hand, he lifted it to his lips with an easy gallantry which made her heart bounce about like a light aircraft flying through the updraught from a busy motorway.

  ‘Drive carefully,’ he said, holding the car door while she slid behind the wheel, trying not to give a leg-show which would light that unnerving gleam of desire in his eyes.

  In the Ferrari, on the motorway for all but the final ten miles, the journey north to the shires— the heart of England’s fox-hunting country—didn’t take long.

  Flower drove with Kiri te Kanawa singing Gershwin on the tape-deck. But, although the New Zealand opera star was one of her favourite singers, this time the exquisite voice was merely background music as she did as Roderick had advised and tried to analyse her temperament and decide where her deepest needs lay.

  By the time she left the motorway and was following the familiar route through ‘the country of spires and squires’, with its limestone cottages and churches and weathered greenish-brown roofs clad with the thin layers of stone known as Collyweston slates, she was still as far from a conclusion as she had been when she’d set out.

  Because what she needed above everything was to be loved. And love wasn’t part of the package Roderick was offering her. It included everything else she wanted: the beautiful house she had grown to regard as ‘home’, a way of life which matched her natural inclinations, an attractive exciting husband, ideal conditions in which to have a large family and, least important but not to be dismissed, an entree into the world to which Emily belonged by birth.

  But did all those advantages outweigh the absence of love?

  She arrived at her destination at a quarter to one. Before she had switched off the engine, her friends were hurrying out of the cottage to greet her.

  ‘Flower... how lovely to see you. Looking stunning, as usual.’ Emily hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks.

  Now seven months pregnant, she was wearing a French fisherman’s slop of brick-pink denim over navy blue needlecord jeans. Her mouse-brown hair was brushed smoothly back under an Alice band, and her perfect skin—lightly freckled over the bridge of her small nose—had a glow which owed nothing to make-up. She wore only a touch of pink lipstick.

  ‘Stunning, but too thin,’ said Andrew as his wife and her friend drew apart. ‘Hello, Flower...good to see you.’ He also kissed her on both cheeks.

  Not much taller than the two tall girls, he seemed short by comparison with Roderick. His hair was fair, his eyes grey. He looked what he was: a countryman who spent almost all his waking hours in the open air, many of them on a tractor.

  While Andrew took charge of Flower’s case, Emily led her into the cottage, one of several lodge cottages at the entrances to the large estate owned by Andrew’s father.

  At one time the cottage would have been occupied by the gatekeeper and his family, but nowadays only one entrance was in regular use and, until they needed more space, South Lodge with its pointed Gothic windows and trellised porch was a convenient home for the young couple.

  ‘Where’s my goddaughter?’ asked Flower, entering the sitting-room to find Jess, the grey-muzzled mother of Andrew’s gun dogs, lying on the hearth rug with Emily’s elderly tabby curled on a chair, but no sign of their daughter.

  ‘She’s spending the day with Griselda’s mob,’ Emily explained.

  Griselda was her husband’s elder sister whose large family ranged in age from fourteen to four.

  ‘I thought it would be nice to have the afternoon to ourselves. Lucy is the light of my life, but she’s never still for a minute, which makes it slightly hard to have a serious conversation while she’s around. Perhaps ‘I’m wrong, but I had the impression when you telephoned that you had something on your mind. Or, more probably, someone.’

  ‘Clever of you to guess. I have.’

  ‘Then as soon as we’ve got rid of Andrew we can settle down and be cosy and you can Tell All,’ said Emily, stooping to take a log from the basket beside the hearth and add it to those already burning cheerfully.

  They were joined by her husband. ‘What would you like to drink, Flower?’ he asked, going to the drinks tray. ‘Sherry, or something with more kick?’

  ‘Sherry would be lovely.’ Flower glanced round the pretty room to see what new delights Emily had acquired since her last visit.

  From the age of ten her friend had been a compulsive collector. Many of the things she had bought as a schoolgirl for pennies were now worth a lot of money. But it was their beauty or rarity, not their material value, that mattered to her. She had a flair not only for recognising treasures in unlikely places, but for arranging them attractively.

  Every wall of the cottage was covered with paintings. There were even pictures attached to some of the doors. Every windowsill and table-top was
crowded with things which had caught Emily’s acquisitive eye. But somehow the overall effect, while cluttered, was totally charming—or so Flower thought. She adored her visits to South Lodge and had done her best to create a similar atmosphere at her flat in London.

  Lunch consisted of a delicious soup followed by a beansprout omelette with brown bread and cheese and old-fashioned russet apples to finish. After Andrew had gone back to work, the two girls did the washing-up before settling down by the fire for an uninterrupted chat-session.

  ‘So what would be your reaction?’ Flower asked when she had described the events of the past forty-eight hours.

  Emily pondered the question in silence. She was comfortably ensconced on the sofa with her shoes off and her feet up. On a small table beside her was a basket containing paper-lined hexagons of cotton to be joined together as a cot-cover for the new baby. But, although when they had first sat down she had threaded a needle with the intention of sewing while her friend confided in her, very soon she had stopped the fine stitching to concentrate on Flower’s story.

  ‘Without actually meeting Roderick Anstruther it’s very hard to decide,’ she said at last. ‘Pity you couldn’t have brought him with you and got Andrew’s reaction. He’s a very good judge of character...much better than I am. Did Stephen meet him? What did he make of him?’

  Flower recounted her brother’s advice.

  ‘He could be right,’ said Emily. ‘Why didn’t you let him make love to you? Were you worried that someone of his age who has never been married might have a promiscuous past?’

  ‘Not really. I’m sure he respects his body too much to take any stupid chances with it. Obviously there have been women in his life, but I doubt if they were casual relationships. I suppose the reason I fended him off last night was because I don’t want him to think I’m casual about sex. He did mention that he’d heard things about me, and you know what gossip is like... hardly ever kind or complimentary.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Emily agreed. ‘Why didn’t you ask him straight out what he’d heard and who said it?’