THE TRYSTING TREE

by Linda Gillard

Ann ripped what was left of her tights away from her feet and placed one foot gingerly in the water, then the other. ‘You say I saw something?’

  ‘No, there was nothing to see. You just stood there, staring into space. You seemed calm enough to begin with, then you took fright and ran away. I followed and grabbed hold of you. I was worried you’d put an eye out running through the wood in the dark.’

  ‘Dark? But in my mind it was light. Almost light anyway. It was morning.’

  ‘Can you remember what made you run?’

  She was silent for a moment, then her face crumpled. ‘No, I can’t!’

  ‘Do you think it’s something you’ve dreamed up? Or was it something that actually happened?’

  ‘I don’t know! How can I know, Connor? Stop asking me all these stupid questions!’ she said, burying her face in her hands.

  ‘Sorry. I was just trying to help.’

  She reached out and grasped his hand. ‘I know you are. I’m sorry. I’m just… frightened. And I don’t even know what I’m frightened of!’

  ‘Nothing can harm you, Ann. You’ve got me and Phoebe looking out for you. What’s the worst that can happen?’

  ‘My memory could come back.’

  For a while he didn’t reply, then he said gently, ‘You think that’s what this is about? Something bad actually happened – but so bad, you wiped it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And you think your memory’s coming back?’

  ‘Yes. Something is getting closer. Creeping up on me. It’s as if I’m being stalked by my own memory.’ She covered her face. ‘Is this what it feels like when you’re losing your mind? Please help me, Connor. I can’t bear it!’

  He dropped on to his knees in front of her and she launched herself at him, throwing her arms round his neck, her feet still immersed in the bowl of water. She clung to him, sobbing, so he held her until she was calm again, then he reached for a box of tissues and placed it beside her.

  She grabbed a handful and began to mop up. ‘I’m sorry to blub all over you like this.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘I haven’t slept in days. Well, not properly for a couple of weeks now.’

  ‘Yes, Phoebe said.’

  ‘So I suppose I must be overwrought.’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘Now I’ve started sleepwalking, everything seems so much worse. I’m afraid to go to sleep. Phoebe offered to lock me in my room, but I can’t bear the thought of being trapped… And with these thoughts!’

  ‘I have a suggestion to make. Just for tonight.’ Ann looked up, her eyes so full of apprehension, Connor wanted to hold her again. Instead he lifted her feet out of the water and started to pat them dry with the towel. ‘Now, don’t go getting the wrong idea here, but what I suggest is, you allow me to stay in your room, with the door locked and the key in my pocket. If you’ve got a spare duvet, I’ll kip on the floor, but don’t worry if you haven’t. I can sleep anywhere.’ He opened the box of plasters, extracted a few and began to apply them to the cuts on her feet. ‘You won’t be able to get out, but hopefully you won’t feel too bad about that because you won’t be alone. Chances are, you’ll go out like a light as soon as you get into bed after all your nocturnal wanderings. You might actually get a good night’s sleep – well, what’s left of the night. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re kindness itself, Connor. And your kindness makes me feel very guilty. And rather foolish.’

  ‘Oh. That wasn’t the idea. I was hoping you’d feel reassured. Protected.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Good! So it’s settled then?’

  ‘Yes. It’s settled.’ As he applied a final plaster, she said, ‘There’s just one thing, though.’

  ‘What’s that?

  ‘I’m not letting you sleep on the floor.’

  ‘It’s not a problem. I really don’t mind.’

  ‘But I do. I want you in the bed. Please.’

  ‘Oh. I see...’ Connor blinked several times, then a slow smile spread across his face. ‘Right, that’s absolutely fine, because I also want you in the bed. No – don’t get up. You’re not walking on those feet, not after all the trouble I’ve taken with those plasters. I’m carrying you upstairs, no arguments.’ He bent down and slipped one arm round her waist and the other under her knees. ‘Put your arms round my neck and hold tight.’

  He swung her up into the air and as he did so, she giggled. Exhausted now, Ann rested her head on his chest. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, she was almost asleep. Connor laid her down gently on the bed and, as she stirred, he whispered, ‘You’re sure now?’

  ‘Oh yes. I’m sure.’ She propped herself up on one elbow and watched him undress. ‘My goodness, that didn’t take long. Only two garments?’

  ‘I got dressed in a hurry when I saw you heading for the wood.’

  She got off the bed and turned her back to him so he could unzip her dress. As she wriggled out of it, he said, ‘I forgot – I need to lock us in.’ He strode over to the door, turned the key and removed it from the lock.

  Slipping under the duvet, Ann laughed as she regarded him. ‘Well, there’s nowhere you can hide it on your person.’

  ‘Close your eyes. I’m going to hide it somewhere secret so you won’t be able to get out.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t be going anywhere. My feet hurt too much to walk. In any case, here is where I want to be. And here,’ she said, throwing back the duvet and patting the mattress, ‘is where I want you to be. Hurry up, Connor, before I fall asleep.’

  Tossing the key into a corner of the room, he covered the floor in two strides. ‘There’ll be no sleeping on my watch. Not for a while anyway.’

  She giggled again and took him in her open arms.

  It was not the last of the laughter.

  ANN

  When I woke Connor was gone. It was very light and I knew I must have slept late into the morning. As the events of the previous night came back to me, I felt disappointed that I’d woken alone, until common sense reasserted itself and I realised Connor had wanted to spare me embarrassment. He might have withstood a ribbing from Phoebe, but he knew I wouldn’t have taken it so well. He’d no doubt risen early and returned discreetly to the studio.

  As I sat up in bed, I registered aches and tenderness in various parts of my body. Accounting for them wasn’t difficult, apart from the soreness of my feet. Swinging my legs out of bed, I examined them and remembered Connor administering First Aid, then I remembered why he’d had to do it. I lay down again and hauled the duvet back over me, wishing Connor hadn’t left me to start the day alone.

  The sound of lively voices drifted up the stairs, along with the aroma of frying bacon. Suddenly hungry, for bacon and the sight of Connor, I got up, showered and dressed quickly, then went downstairs to the kitchen.

  ~

  ‘Ah, you’ve decided to join us at last! Connor, slice some more bread and I’ll shove a few more rashers in the pan. Did you sleep well, Ann? I assume you must have done, lying in till this hour.’

  Phoebe’s cheerful prattle eased my embarrassment at seeing Connor again. He gave me no special look, nor did he avoid my eye. It was clearly business as usual, but I still felt at a loss, not knowing what he might have told Phoebe about my sleepwalking.

  As I limped over to the table, Connor quickly pulled out a chair for me and I was able to sit before Phoebe noticed I was having trouble walking. He poured me coffee, set the mug in front of me and said, ‘You slept, then.’

  It wasn’t a question because he knew I had. Eventually.

  ‘Yes, I did, thank you.’ I looked him in the eye. ‘I had a wonderful night. The best in a very long time.’

  His expression remained serene. ‘Must have been all that champagne.’

  ‘I always say champagne cures whatever ails you,’ Phoebe said, chipping in. ‘And if it doesn’t, well, you’re probably past saving.’ She dished up the bacon on to a plate
, then handed it to Connor who deposited it in the middle of the table. ‘Tuck in! This is brain fodder, Ann. Connor and I were in the middle of an investigation,’ Phoebe said, pouring coffee and splashing some on to the table in her clumsy excitement, ‘and frankly, we need your help. You’re the one with the brains.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Connor mumbled, his mouth full of bacon sandwich.

  ‘We need to put all our heads together because we’re actually no nearer solving the Mordaunt mystery, despite the shocking events of last night.’

  I looked up at Connor, alarmed, wondering what my mother knew. He held my eyes, shook his head almost imperceptibly, then said, ‘I take it, Phoebe, you’re referring to the identity of my great-grandfather.’

  ‘Yes, of course! There’s so much more to think about now we know about William. The plot thickens!’ Phoebe said with relish.

  ‘Okay, fill me in then.’ I said, relieved to be able to focus on the details of a hundred-year-old love affair. It meant I could postpone thinking about Connor and the incident that had finally brought us together. ‘What do we know about Hester and William in later life?’

  ‘The information’s patchy,’ Connor said, ‘Mostly hearsay. If Hester kept any diaries, they’re missing.’

  ‘Missing, presumed burned?’

  ‘Yes. There was just one fire-damaged journal covering a period in the 1920s. It was half-burned and not a single complete page was legible, so I got rid of it. It stank the place out.’

  ‘Do we know how William died?’

  ‘TB. Ivy said he died in a sanatorium, but he’d been ill for many years. It wasn’t just his mind that was affected by his experiences in the trenches. His lungs and hearing were damaged too. Hester’s health also declined after William’s death, but if he was the love of her life, that adds up.’

  ‘Poor old Hester,’ Phoebe said, shaking her head. ‘She saw an awful lot of death, didn’t she? Far too much.’

  ‘It must have taken its toll,’ Connor admitted. ‘She lost most of her family during the war, then her mother and Violet died in the Spanish ’flu epidemic.’

  ‘No!’ Phoebe was aghast. ‘Both of them?’

  ‘Afraid so. After the war Spanish ’flu killed more people than the Black Death. So by 1919 Hester’s only connections with her past were William and little Ivy. She sold the Beechgrave estate in various parcels during the 1920s, but retained some of the houses on the estate. She and Ivy lived in one and William stayed on as a tenant at Garden Lodge with a housekeeper to care for him after Violet died. Eventually Hester paid for his care in a sanatorium.’

  ‘Maybe she sold Beechgrave to pay for his care,’ Phoebe suggested.

  ‘That’s possible. Ivy assumed Hester’s generosity stemmed from her affection for the Hatherwick family. She had no idea her adoptive mother – as she thought – was caring for a dying lover.’

  ‘So we’re pretty much dependent on what Ivy told you about her family,’ I said, clarifying. ‘There’s little documentary evidence left.’

  ‘That’s right, apart from the odd letter or photo that survived the fire.’

  ‘Did William ever get his memory back?’

  ‘Yes, a few days before he died. Well, that’s when he told Hester he finally remembered everything. I think memories might have been coming back to him for some time,’ Connor said, with a glance at me. ‘But Ivy always said he got his memory back after she sent him a letter.’

  ‘After Ivy sent a letter?’

  ‘Yes. Hester apparently gave her all the credit for restoring William’s memory.’

  ‘What was the letter about?’

  ‘Gardening.’

  ‘Gardening?’ Phoebe exclaimed.

  Connor shrugged. ‘That’s what she said. She was away at college, just a kid, only seventeen or so. She wouldn’t have been discussing his war experiences, not in 1934.’

  I shook my head, puzzled. ‘I find it hard to believe Ivy would have destroyed the letter – her letter – that brought William’s memory back.’

  ‘At the time of her death, Ivy was apparently trying to destroy everything,’ Connor said grimly.

  We all fell silent. The bacon sandwiches were finished and the coffee pot was empty. Connor and Phoebe looked at me expectantly and I suddenly felt overwhelmed with tiredness. Then my mother did an odd thing. She reached across the table and took my hand. Squeezing it, she smiled and said, ‘Come on, Ann! We’re counting on you. Aren’t we, Connor?’ she added, nudging him with her elbow.

  He looked at me then, the veil of circumspection cast aside. ‘I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, Ann, but you can quit, any time.’

  ‘No, she can’t! What are you saying? I want this mystery solved before I pop my clogs,’ Phoebe said, rapping the table.

  ‘Sshh, Mum! Let me think. God, the pressure,’ I said with a smile at Connor. ‘So, to summarise… We’re certain it was a letter from Ivy that restored William’s memory? All of it?’

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  ‘Then he must have remembered what Hester meant to him before the war... He must have realised they’d lost years.’

  ‘Seventeen,’ Connor said. ‘And all because Hester never spoke of their love.’

  ‘Yet somehow a letter from Ivy brought everything back…’

  We sat in silence again, contemplating the wasted, loveless years William and Hester had endured, then another thought struck me.

  ‘Connor, do you remember that jolly letter with the inkblots? Ivy’s first letter home from college, wasn’t it? We wondered why she’d sent a tear-stained letter home, especially as she didn’t seem particularly homesick. I wonder… Perhaps those weren’t her tears.’

  Connor frowned. ‘Whose could they be?’

  ‘I’m wondering if they were William’s.’

  WILLIAM

  October 2nd, 1934

  When the latest fit of coughing had subsided, William sat up in his hospital bed, his head thrown back, gasping for breath. His heart pounded as if it would burst out of the frail vessel that contained it and he lay a hand on his bony chest to calm it, as he might have quietened a fretful child. Never one to dwell on regrets or opportunities missed, William pushed away the fleeting but familiar thought that, if he’d had his own child, he might have loved it even more than he loved his niece – though he could scare imagine how, since he was sure he loved Ivy as if she were indeed his own child.

  He rallied at the thought of Ivy and reached for her recent letter which he kept to hand on the bedside table with the books and newspapers brought by Hester, with which he whiled away the tedious hours of an invalid’s day.

  Fumbling with the envelope, William extracted the two sheets covered in Ivy’s untidy handwriting and began to smile, anticipating the pleasure of re-reading her cheerful words. He sat back and perused the letter again.

  Waterbury Horticultural School

  Wheatley

  Oxon.

  September 30th, 1934

  Dear Uncle Will,

  Hurrah! I have now completed my first two weeks’ training and thought you might like to hear what I’ve been up to.

  If you saw me in my uniform, you’d hoot with laughter. It’s certainly going to take some getting used to. Students and teachers, all female, work side by side wearing identical uniform: green breeches with green knee stockings (very itchy), shirts buttoned right up to the neck, with a tie and a green smock over the top. We look a sight, but the clothes are very practical.

  This week we picked bushels of apples and pears and stored them. We learned about the care and use of tools and collected leaf mould from the woods. (Oh, how I miss our beech wood!) We also potted early strawberries, mostly King George and The Duke.

  One of the jolliest jobs was bunching asters for the Saturday market in Swindon. We took sandwiches and tea in a Thermos and set out our stall selling cut flowers, fruit, rooted cuttings and flower seedlings in boxes – forget-me-nots, pansies and primulas. We sold all our stock and could
have sold the fruit twice over!

  I struggle to rise early, but you’ll be pleased to hear I haven’t yet been late for breakfast, which is delicious. Porridge with cream, followed by fish or sausages, eggs and all the bread and marmalade you can eat. I also drink a gallon of tea. I find I’m always hungry and thirsty here. It must be all the fresh air and hard work.

  Now I must ask your advice, Uncle Will, because I have an essay to write. It concerns the construction of a rockery for a town garden. I must choose twelve suitable plants. I’ve already made my selection but I wondered which you would have chosen? I want well-behaved plants that will not overrun a modest plot within a few years. Do let me know your thoughts so I can compare your no doubt superior selection with mine.

  It’s been a tiring day, so I will close now, sending love to you and Hester. I miss you both dreadfully and must confess I’ve shed a few tears late at night when all the others are fast asleep. But don’t worry about me, I shall soon get used to my new life. I’m too busy to be miserable for long. Thinking about how many sausages I shall consume at breakfast cheers me up no end!

  I do hope your health is no worse. I look forward to a little letter from you soon, if you can manage it. In the meantime I shall continue to work hard. I’m determined to make you and Hester very proud of me.

  All love,

  Ivy

  When he’d finished reading, William glanced at the date of the letter and decided he should reply. Ivy was waiting for a response to her query and in any case, it would be a pleasure – albeit a tiring one – to write. When a nurse brought him some tea, he asked her to set notepaper and an envelope on the table by the window, left wide open to admit the copious fresh air deemed beneficial in the treatment of tuberculosis. She helped him into his dressing gown, then supported him as he made his way to the table. Remembering what he wanted to write, William sent the nurse back to his bedside cupboard to fetch one of his old gardening books, a volume on the cultivation of alpine plants.