The Mulberry Tree

by Jude Deveraux

  Between the weight loss and the removal of that big schnozz of hers, Phillip had to admit that Bailey was a looker. Pudginess had been replaced with slim curves, and without that nose, you could really see her beautiful eyes and small, full lips. One morning at breakfast, Carol, holding a metal spatula, had leaned close to his ear and said, “You keep on looking at her like that, and I’ll ram this—”

  But Phillip did admit that Bailey looked good. “Do you think anyone will recognize me?” was the first thing Lillian had asked when the bandages were removed.

  “No one,” the doctor, Carol, and Phillip had all assured her, each trying not to say how much better she looked, because that would have been saying how bad she used to look.

  Now Phillip got out of the car and motioned to the man in the car behind him to remove the suitcases from the trunk and put them inside the house. He’d arranged for two cars to be waiting for them at the airport: the SUV he’d bought for Lillian, and a black sedan from a local car service to follow them and drive Phillip back to the airport.

  On the plane ride to Dulles Airport in D.C., Lillian had put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. When Phillip had spoken to her, she’d just nodded. He figured that she wasn’t speaking to him because he’d taken the job with Atlanta and Ray. He wanted to explain to her why, but at the same time, the less she knew, the better. If she wasn’t going to fight for herself, then he was going to do it for her. And the only way he knew how to do that was from the inside out.

  It had been a three-hour drive from the airport to the tiny mountain town of Calburn, where the farmhouse was. On the drive Lillian had put aside her anger and had pumped him for everything he knew about the town and the house.

  Unfortunately for Lillian, Phillip could honestly say that even though he’d been James Manville’s friend for twenty years, he knew nothing about his childhood. Truthfully, he wasn’t at all sure that this farmhouse was even connected to James’s past.

  “How can Jimmie be related to people like Atlanta and Ray?” she’d asked. “I can’t understand that.”

  Phillip was tempted to say, “That’s because you never saw James do business. If you had, you’d know that he was more like them than you realize.” But he didn’t say that. Let her have her dreamy-eyed visions about her dead husband, he thought.

  Lillian—Bailey, he corrected himself again—had walked around the house to look at the back. The investigator Phillip hired had taken photos of the property, so he knew that the back was more tangled than the front, and he dreaded having her see it. Using the key that James had given him when he’d signed over the deed to the house, Phillip opened the front door.

  The door fell off its rusty hinges and crashed onto the floor, taking the jamb with it. In astonishment, Phillip turned and looked at the man behind him, whose arms were loaded with suitcases. Turning back, Phillip stepped onto the fallen door and into the house.

  The place was ghastly. Thick, dusty cobwebs hung down from the ceiling all the way to the floor. He could hear creatures—mice, rats, and whatever else they have in the country—scurrying about under the floor. The sunlight that came through the dirty windows showed years of dust floating through the air.

  “Take the luggage back to the car,” Phillip said over his shoulder to the man behind him. “She’s not staying here.” He waited until the man was gone, then he turned, stepped onto the door and out into the fresh air. He’d never thought of James Manville as evil until this moment. That he’d leave his wife this filthy place and expect her to live here was either insane or truly evil. Since he knew for a fact that James was not insane, that left—

  Lips tight with anger, Phillip walked toward the back of the house to find Bailey.

  The photos hadn’t lied: the back really was worse than the front. Huge trees, vines that were covered with lethal-looking thorns, bushes as tall as trees, and weeds as big as something in a science fiction movie fought each other for space and light. The tangled mass of plants around him made Phillip shiver. To his right were stones set in the ground to make a narrow path through weeds as high as his head. The many bees buzzing around him made him quicken his step. “Lillian?” he called, then caught himself. Like the lawyer he was, he looked around to see if anyone had heard him make the error of calling her by her former name. But as he looked at the tangle of weeds, he knew that an army could be hiding ten feet away, and he’d not be able to see them. “Bailey?” he called louder as he quickened his pace. Still, there was no answer.

  Immediately, his mind filled with all the horrors of the country: snakes, rabid skunks, deer that could kick a person to death. Were there wolves in these mountains? What about wildcats that hid high up in trees and jumped on people? What . . . about . . . bears?

  If the jacket she was wearing hadn’t been bright pink, he never would have seen her. She was entangled in the biggest, ugliest tree he’d ever seen, and all he could spy were her denim-clad legs and part of one pink sleeve. Oh, God, he thought, she’s hanged herself. In despair over James and this hideous place, she’d somehow managed to commit suicide.

  Heart pounding, he ran toward the tree, ducked under two low limbs, and then saw her. She was alive and looking upward raptly as though she were seeing some heavenly vision. It’s worse than suicide; she’s lost her mind, he thought.

  “Bailey,” he said softly, but when she didn’t respond, he said, “Lillian?” She just kept looking upward. Slowly, carefully, he stepped toward her—but he also inspected the ground. Weren’t people supposed to stand still if they saw rattlesnakes? Was a poisonous snake the reason she wasn’t moving?

  “Bailey?” he said softly when he got closer to her. “We can go now. You don’t have to stay here. If you want a little house somewhere, I’ll buy it for you. I’ll—”

  “Do you know what this is?” she whispered.

  He looked up, but all he saw was an old tree that badly needed pruning—or better yet, removal. “I know,” he said, “it’s a horrible old thing. But you don’t have to look at it.” He put his hand on her arm to pull her away.

  “It’s a mulberry tree,” she said softly, her voice sounding almost reverent. “And it’s very old. It’s a black mulberry tree.”

  “Nice,” Phillip said, then pulled harder on her arm.

  Bailey smiled. “The Chinese duped James the First.”

  At first he thought she meant James Manville, but then he realized she meant the English king, Elizabeth the First’s incompetent successor. What did an English king have to do with a derelict farm in Virginia?

  She spoke again. “James decided to grow mulberry trees in England so he could raise silkworms and make silk an industry in England. The silkworms feed on mulberry leaves, you know. So James imported thousands and thousands of mulberry trees from China. But—” She broke off and smiled as she touched a leaf of the big tree. “The Chinese tricked him. They sent the English king trees that bear black mulberry fruit instead of white. Black mulberries are great for eating, but silkworms won’t touch them.”

  Phillip looked at his watch. It was 2:00 P.M. Three hours back to the airport, and his flight was at six. Of course he’d have to find a seat for Bailey on the same flight. “Look, why don’t you tell me more about mulberry trees and the kings of England on the way back to the airport? You can—”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said.

  It was Phillip’s turn to want to burst into tears. Why did all women have to be contrary? “Bailey,” he said firmly, “you haven’t seen the inside of that house! It’s falling down. The door collapsed when I opened it. How can you possibly spend the night here? The place is filthy! It’s—”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  At the sound of a large truck on the rarely used gravel road in front of the house, Phillip started chanting, “No, no, no, no,” even as Bailey leaped over two tree limbs and started running down the overgrown path.

  The furniture had arrived.

  Three

  For
a moment, the two burly furniture movers stood behind Bailey, looking across the fallen door into the house. A breeze blew in through a broken windowpane, and the cobwebs danced in the dust.

  “Not quite ready for us, are you?” one of the movers said into the silence.

  “There’s been a mistake,” Phillip said from behind them. “We’re sending all the furniture back.”

  “I can’t take the stuff back,” the mover nearest Bailey said. “Look, mister, this is my truck but their furniture. They paid me to haul it one way. If I drive it back up north, they’re gonna tell me that the expense is on my head, not theirs.”

  “I’ll pay you whatever—” Phillip began, but Bailey cut him off.

  “It’s not going to be sent back. The furniture goes into the house just as soon as I get it—”

  “Repaired?” the mover asked, his brows raised.

  “Maybe I should back the truck into the house,” the second man behind him said. “Looks like it would only take a nudge to topple it.”

  The first man, taller, bigger, the one who owned the truck, frowned as he looked down at Bailey. He was about twice as big as she was, and he’d always felt protective toward small things. “Maybe there’s someplace else we could unload the truck until you get this place fixed up. You got any friends with a big garage, maybe?”

  Biting her bottom lip, Bailey shook her head no. No friends, she thought, and didn’t dare meet Phillip’s eyes. She knew he was standing there waiting for her to “come to her senses,” that universal male phrase meaning that she was to agree that he was right and do whatever he wanted her to.

  The second mover seemed to think better of making any more negative comments about the derelict old house. “Why don’t you put the furniture in the barn?”

  Bailey’s head came up. “Barn? What barn?”

  The man pointed toward a dense growth of trees. Barely visible was what looked liked the peak of a building that had once been painted red. “Either that’s a barn, or it’s a fire station ready and waitin’,” the man said.

  No one laughed at his attempt at humor, but Bailey instantly set off through the undergrowth, one arm across her face for protection, the other one pushing aside hanging vines and bushes that blocked her path.

  “Remind me not to tip you,” Phillip said to the man who’d pointed out the barn, then he went after Bailey, the two movers following him.

  It was indeed a barn, not a hundred yards from the house. There was no path cut through the underbrush, so getting to the building had been difficult. Bailey had three long, bloody scratches on her left arm.

  It wasn’t a huge barn, not something that kept dozens of horses and cows. It was more of a “gentleman’s barn,” a place to store farm implements and maybe one or two horses.

  Bailey was struggling to slide the heavy door open when the others arrived and the two movers stepped forward to help her. The hardware on the door was heavy-duty, but it had rusted from disuse. As Phillip stood to one side, his mouth a tight line of disapproval, the movers and Bailey pushed until the big door slid to one side. A thick gush of dust and dried straw came rushing out of the barn and set the three of them coughing.

  “When was this place last opened?” the second mover asked, leaning over and hacking to clear his lungs.

  “I have no idea,” Bailey answered, straightening up and taking some deep breaths. “I never saw this place before about an hour ago.”

  “You bought it without seeing it?” the man asked, his voice letting her know that he thought she was this year’s number-one idiot.

  “Inherited,” Bailey said over her shoulder as she looked into the barn. Sunlight came in through a high window, but it took her eyes a few moments to adjust. Inside were a few bales of dried-out hay, some horse harnesses hanging from a board wall, and a few broken shovels hanging on another wall. Toward the back she could see some empty horse stalls. All in all, the place looked in better condition than the house. At least the roof had held, and there was no sign of water damage.

  She turned to the others. “We’ll put the furniture in here.”

  “And how do you propose to get it back here?” Phillip asked, nodding toward the way they’d come. There was no path, much less a drive that a truck could use.

  For a moment, Bailey had no answer, then she smiled. “Isn’t that car you bought me four-wheel-drive? We’ll make a path.” With that, she turned and went down the narrow space that their four bodies had made in the weeds.

  The first mover walked behind Phillip. “When a woman is as determined as that one is, you might as well give up,” he said softly, then chuckled when Phillip ignored him.

  Hours later, the barn was full of crates and boxes and furniture wrapped in packing blankets, and Bailey had given the men a fifty as a tip.

  “You can’t afford to do that kind of thing now,” Phillip had said as soon as the men drove away. “If you must give a tip, make it a small one.”

  Bailey walked ahead of him, back toward the house, and she kept her head high. When they reached the house, Phillip caught her arm. “Lil—I mean, Bailey, we have to talk. You can’t stay here alone. This . . . this . . . ” He couldn’t seem to think of any words bad enough to express what he thought of the forsaken old house. All he could think of was the life that Bailey had lived for as long as he’d known her: servants, palaces, silk sheets. Like Carol, Bailey had spent most of her days having various beauty treatments. “For you to stay here is like Marie Antoinette playing at farming,” he said in frustration. “You don’t know anything about the kind of work that a place like this requires.”

  “Actually, I don’t know much about anything, do I?” Bailey said softly, looking at him in the fading daylight. “But what is my alternative?”

  “I’ll take care of you,” Phillip said quickly. “I’ll buy you a house, I’ll—”

  Bailey narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you mean that you’ll use the money you received from James Manville to buy me a house, and then you’ll”—she was advancing on him—“you’ll put me in it and keep me very well? Is that what you had in mind? Like Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater?” When she was nearly nose to nose with him, she lowered her voice. “Or do you intend to try to take Jimmie’s place? Is that what you think? That one man kept me, so now another one will? Any ol’ man? You maybe? Are you thinking that since I lived in seclusion with one man for sixteen years, it will suit me perfectly well to live in seclusion with you as the head of the harem?”

  Blinking, Phillip stiffened his spine and stepped backward. “That’s not what I meant at all. This house is not livable.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said, her face full of anger. “But you know what? It’s mine. I figure I earned it, if for nothing else than for all those hideous parties Jimmie made me attend where everyone watched—and commented on—every bite I took.” When she saw him flinch, she took another step forward. “Did none of you think that I heard you? You whispered behind my back that I was fat and not pretty enough to be worthy of a dynamic man like Jimmie. You said—”

  “Not me,” Phillip said softly. “I never said anything like that, so don’t try to make me out to be the enemy.”

  “Then why are you working for Atlanta and Ray?” she shot at him, then closed her mouth. She hadn’t wanted to say that, hadn’t wanted to let him see how she felt about what he was doing.

  Phillip took his time in answering. His natural reticence, mixed with what he’d learned as a lawyer, made it difficult for him to reveal anything to anyone—it was a characteristic that James had truly loved about him. “Trust me,” he said at last. “That’s all I ask of you: trust me.”

  For a moment, the two of them stood there glaring at each other, neither of them giving in, but then Phillip gave a bit of a smile. “Now, about that idea of setting up a harem with you as my favored concubine . . . ”

  For a moment, all Bailey could do was stare at him in openmouthed astonishment. Was he saying this for real? It was a full minute before she r
ealized that he was teasing her—and teasing her in a sexual way! In her entire life, only Jimmie had done that, and even he hadn’t done it much. She wasn’t sure what to say, but then she thought, Why not? “I get to be second wife, after Carol, or it’s no deal. And if I bear you a son, then he’s to be made sultan. Are we clear on that?”

  Phillip laughed, then looked at her in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry that I didn’t make an effort to get to know you.”

  “Me too,” she said quietly, smiling at him.

  “Sorry that you didn’t get to know me or get to know yourself?”

  “Both,” she said, then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

  Phillip’s eyes twinkled. “About that son . . . ,” he said. “I have a low sperm count, so it will take lots and lots of trying before—”

  “Get out of here!” she said, laughing.

  Reluctantly, after giving Bailey a list of half a dozen telephone numbers where she could reach him, Phillip got in the car behind the waiting driver. “Anything,” he called out the window. “You need me for anything at all, let me know,” he said as the car backed over the weed-infested gravel of what had once been the driveway.

  “Dinner,” she called out as he backed onto the dirt road that ran in front of her property, but he didn’t hear her. “Or a grocery store,” she said into the silence.

  She stood where she was until she could no longer hear the sound of his car, then she let out her breath and let her shoulders relax. Around her were tall weeds, trees with great hanging branches, and vines with thorns that could tear a person’s skin. What was lurking behind the trees? There was a sound like slithering. A snake? Or was it a person? Someone who had been watching and waiting?

  She closed her eyes and swallowed, then offered up a prayer. “Dear God,” she whispered, “please continue to take care of me in the way that You have in the past.” She wanted to add more, but that seemed to cover it. So far in her life, she’d been quite fortunate, and now all she asked was for the good to continue.