The Ivy Tree (39 page)

Then he was a yard away, pausing: just a large, curious, hardly broken young horse staring at me with dark eyes that showed, at the edge, that unquiet hint of white. I said: ‘Hi, Rowan,' but I didn't move.

He stretched his neck, blew gustily, then came on. Still I didn't move. His ears twitched back, forward again, sensitive as snail's horns, as radar antennae. His nostrils were blown wide, puffing sweet breath at my legs, at my waist, at my neck. He mouthed my sleeve, then took it in his teeth and tugged it.

I put a hand on his neck, and felt the muscles run and shiver along under the warm skin. I ran the hand up to his ears, and he bent his head, blowing at my feet. My hand slipped up to the long tangled forelock, and held it. I slid slowly off the fence-bar, and he didn't try to move away, but put his head down and rubbed it violently up my body, jamming me back against the railings. I laughed at him and said softly: ‘You beauty, you love, you lovely boy, stand still now, quiet now . . .' and then turned him, with the hand on his forelock, till his quarters were against the railings, and his forehand free. Then with my other hand, still talking, I brought the bit up to his muzzle.

‘Come along now, my beauty, my darling boy, come along.' The bit was between his lips and against his teeth. He held them shut against it for a few seconds; I thought he was going to veer away, but he didn't. He opened his teeth, and accepted the steel warm from my hand. The bit slipped softly back into the corners of his mouth, and the bridle slid over his ears; then the rein was looped round my arm and I was fastening the cheek-strap, rubbing his ears, between his eyes, sliding my hand down the springy arch of his neck.

I mounted from the top of the fence, and he came up against it and stood as if he had done it every day of his life. Then he moved away from it smoothly and softly, and only when I turned him towards the length of the field did he begin to gather himself and dance, and bunch his muscles as if to defy me to hold him. I'm not, in fact, quite sure how I did. He went at a canter, that lengthened too quickly towards a gallop, to the far corner of the long meadow, where there was a narrow wicket giving on the flat grass of the river's edge. He was biddable enough at the wicket, so that I guessed that Adam Forrest had taken him this way, and taught him his manners at the gates. But, once through the wicket, he danced again, and the sun danced and dazzled too, down through the lime leaves, and the feel of his bare back warm and shifting with muscle between my thighs was exciting, so that I went mad all at once, and laughed, and said, ‘All right, have it your own way,' and let him go; and he went, like a bat out of hell along the flat turf of the river's edge, with that smooth lovely motion that was as easy to sit as an armchair; and I wound my right hand in his mane and stuck on like a burr to his withers with too-long-disused muscles that began to ache before long, and I said, ‘Hi, Rowan, it's time we got back. I don't want to get you in a lather, or there'll be questions asked . . .'

His ears moved back to my voice, and for a second or two after I began to draw rein, he resisted, leaning on the bit, and I wondered if I could manage to check and turn him. I slackened the bit for a moment to break his stride, and, as it broke, pulled him in. He came sweetly, ears flickering back to me, and then pointing again as he turned. I sang to him, mad now as the morning: ‘Oh, you beauty, you beauty, you love, home now, and steady . . .'

We had come the best part of a mile, round the great curve of the river that led to West Lodge. I had turned him just in time. The chimneys of the Lodge were showing above the nearer trees. I spared a glance for them as the horse wheeled and cantered, sober and collected now, back along the river. His neck was damp, and I smoothed it, and crooned to him, and he flowed along smoothly and beautifully, and his ears twitched to my voice, and then, half way to his own meadow, I drew him to a walk, and we paced soberly home as if he was a hack hired for the day, and bored with it, and there had been no few minutes of mad delight there along the sward. He arched his neck demurely and fiddled with the bit, and I laughed at him and let him have it, and when we came to the wicket he stopped and moved his quarters round for me to reach, as gentle and dainty as a dancer.

I said: ‘All right, sweetheart, that's all for today,' and slid down off him and ducked under his neck to open the wicket. He pushed through, eager now for home. I turned to shut the wicket, and Rowan wheeled with me, and then snorted and threw up his head, and dragged hard at the rein I was holding.

I said: ‘Steady, beautiful? What's up?' And looked up to see Adam Forrest a yard away, waiting beside the wicket, watching me.

He had been hidden from me by the thick hawthorn hedge, but of course he would have heard Rowan's hoofs, and seen us coming from some way off. He was prepared, where I was not. I actually felt the colour leave my face, and stood stock still, in the act of latching the gate, like a child in some silly game, one hand stiffly held out, the other automatically holding the startled horse.

The moment of shock snapped, and passed. The wicket clicked shut, and Adam came forward a pace and took Rowan's bridle from me. I noticed then that he had brought a bridle himself; it hung from a post in the hedge beside him, and there was a saddle perched astride a rail.

It seemed a very long time before he spoke. I don't know what I expected him to say; I know that I had time to think of his own reactions as well as my own; to imagine his resentment, shame, anger, bewilderment.

What he said was merely: ‘Why did you do it?'

The time had gone past for evasions and pretences; in any case Adam and I had always known rather too well what the other was thinking. I said merely: ‘I'd have thought that was obvious. If I'd known you were still at Forrest I'd never have come. When I found I had to face you, I felt caught, scared – oh, anything you like, and when you wouldn't just write it off and let me go, I suppose I got desperate. Then you decided I was an impostor, and I was so shaken that on the spur of the moment I let you go on thinking it. It was – easier, as long as I could persuade you to keep quiet about me.'

Between us the horse threw up his head and fidgeted with the bit. Adam was staring at me as if I were some barely decipherable manuscript he was trying to read. I added: ‘Most of what I told you was true. I wanted to come back, and try to make it up with Grandfather. I'd thought about it for some time, but I didn't think he'd want me back. What kept me away was the worst kind of pride, I know; but he's always rather played power-politics with money – he's terribly property-conscious, like a lot of his generation – and I didn't want to be taunted with just coming back to claim my share, or to put in my claim for Mother's money.' I gave a little smile. ‘As a matter of fact, it
was
almost the first thing he said to me. Well, there it was, partly pride, partly not being able to afford the passage . . . and, apart from all those considerations, there was you.'

I paused. ‘But after a bit I began to see things differently. I wanted desperately to come back to England, and I wanted not to be . . . completely cut off from my home any more. I didn't write; don't ask me why. I suppose it was the same impulse that makes you turn up unexpectedly, if you have to visit a house where you're not sure of your welcome; warning them gives people too much time to think of excuses, and be wary; whereas once you're on the doorstep they've got to welcome you. Maybe you don't know about such things, being a man, but I assure you it's quite commonly done, especially if you're a person who's never sure of their welcome, like me. And as for you, I – I thought I might be able to keep out of your way. I knew that . . . things . . . would be long since over for you, but I thought you'd understand why I felt I had to come back. If I had to meet you, I'd manage to let you know I'd only come on a visit, and was going to get a job elsewhere.'

Rowan jerked his head, and the bit jingled. Adam seemed unconscious of the movement. I went on: ‘I'd saved a bit, and when Mrs Grey – my last employer – died, she left me a little money, three hundred dollars, along with a few trinkets for keepsakes.' I smiled briefly, thinking of the gold lighter, and the car permit left so carefully for Con and Lisa to find. ‘She was a cripple, and I'd been with her quite a time, as a sort of housekeeper-chauffeuse. I was very fond of her. Well, with the three hundred dollars, and my savings, I managed to pay for my passage, with something left over. I came straight up to Newcastle from Liverpool, and got myself a room, and a temporary job. I waited a day or two, trying to nerve myself to come back and see how things were. Of course, for all I knew, Grandfather was dead . . .'

Half absently I stooped and pulled a swatch of grass, and began to wisp the horse. Adam stood without moving; I had hardly looked at him. It was queer that when a part of your life, your very self, was dead, it could still hurt you, as they say a limb still does, after it has been cut off.

‘I hadn't wanted to make too many enquiries, in case Con somehow got to hear of it. I'd even taken my rooms in the name of my last employer, Mrs Grey. I didn't know what to do, how to make my approach. I wanted to apply to the lawyers for Mother's money, you see, only I wasn't sure if I dared risk Con's finding out I was home. Well, I waited a day or two, wondering what to do—'

‘Just a minute.' Adam, it seemed, was listening, after all. ‘Why should you not “dare” let Connor know you were home?'

I ran the wisp along Rowan's neck, and said briefly: ‘He tried to kill me one night, along the river, just near where we found him with Julie.'

He moved at that. ‘He
what
?'

‘He'd wanted to marry me. Grandfather wanted it, too. You knew that. Con hadn't a hope then – or so he thought – of getting the property any other way, so he used to – to harry me a bit. Well, that night he threw a bit of a scene, and I wasn't just in the mood for it; I wasn't exactly tactful, and I made it a bit too clear that he hadn't a hope, then or ever, and . . . well, he lost his temper and decided to get rid of me. He chances his arm, does Con.' I lifted my eyes, briefly, from my task. ‘That's how I guessed, last night, that he'd have gone to find Julie. That's why I followed her.'

‘Why did you never tell me?'

His tone was peremptory, proprietorial, exactly as it might have been eight years ago, when he had had the right.

‘There was no chance. It happened the last night I was here. I was on my way home, after I'd left you in the summer-house. You remember how late it was. You know how I always used to go over the river by the stepping-stones, and then home by the path and the bridge, so no one would know I'd been to Forrest. It was just as well I bothered, because that night I ran into Con.'

‘Oh, my God.'

‘That was the – the other reason why I ran away. Grandfather took his part, you see. He'd been angry with me for months because I wouldn't look at Con, and there'd been scenes because he'd found I was staying out late, and I'd lied once or twice about where I'd been. He – I suppose it was natural, really – he used to storm at me, and say that if I ever got into trouble, I could go, and stay away . . .' I smiled a little. ‘I think it was only talk and temper; it was a bit hard on Grandfather, being saddled with an adolescent girl to look after, but of course adolescents take these things seriously. When I got home that night, after getting away from Con, I was pretty nearly hysterical. I told Grandfather about Con, and he wouldn't believe me. He knew I'd been out somewhere, and suspected I'd met somebody, and all he would say was “where had I been?” because it was late, and he'd sent Con to find me himself. I think he just thought Con had lost his head and had been trying to kiss me, and all I was saying about murder was pure hysteria. I don't blame him, but there was a . . . pretty foul scene. There's no point in raking it all up: you can imagine the kind of things that were said. But you see why I ran away? Partly because of what had happened between you and me, and because I was scared stiff of Con . . . and now because Grandfather was taking his part, and I was afraid he and Con would start ferreting about, and discover about you. If Crystal had found out . . . the way she was just then . . .'

Rowan put his head down, and began to graze with a jingling of metal. I paused, leaning one hand against his neck. ‘Well, you understand why I was afraid to come back to Whitescar, even now. If Con had been in charge here, alone, I'd never have dared, but once I found that Grandfather was still alive, and still playing at power-politics between me and Con and Julie, and that Julie might be exposed to exactly the same sort of danger as I had been . . .'

‘And that I had gone.'

‘And that you had gone,' I said steadily, ‘I knew I'd have to come back here. It would still have been a pretty sticky thing to attempt, in the teeth of Con and Lisa, and not being sure of Grandfather's reception of me, but then Con himself appeared like Lucifer out of the blue, and presented me with what looked like a nice, peaceful, Connor-proof homecoming. I rather grabbed at it. I only planned, you see, to stay here as long as Grandfather lived.'

‘I begin to see. How did you fall in with Connor?'

‘I took a risk which I shouldn't have taken, and went to take a look at Whitescar. I didn't even get out of the bus, just went along the top road from Bellingham to Chollerford, one Sunday. I got out at Chollerford, to get the bus along the Roman Road. I – I wanted to walk along the Wall, to – to see it again.'

Nothing in his face betrayed the fact that lay sharply between us; that it was on the Wall that he and I, sometimes, by chance – and oh, how carefully calculated a chance! – had met.