The Ivy Tree (42 page)

‘Mercy, no! But it's the stroke like before, and that's how it'll end this time, Miss Annabel, my dear . . .'

She followed me up the passage, still talking volubly. She and Lisa, I heard, had been together in the kitchen, preparing lunch, when Grandfather's bell had rung. This was an old-fashioned pulley-bell, one of a row which hung on their circular springs in the kitchen. The bell had jangled violently, as if jerked in anger, or some sudden emergency. Mrs Bates had hurried upstairs, to find the old man collapsed in the wing-chair near the fireplace. He had dressed himself, all but his jacket, and must have suddenly begun to feel ill, and just managed to reach the bell-pull by the hearth as he fell. Mrs Bates and Lisa, between them, had got him to bed, and then the former had come for me.

Most of this she managed to pour out in the few moments while I ran to the kitchen and plunged my filthy hands under the tap. I had seized a towel, and was roughly drying them, when a soft step sounded in the lobby, and Lisa appeared in the doorway. She showed none of Betsy's agitation, but her impassive face was perhaps a bit sallower, and I thought I saw a kind of surreptitious excitement in her eyes.

She said abruptly: ‘There you are. I've got him to bed and got him covered up. He collapsed while he was dressing. I'm afraid it looks serious. Annabel, will you telephone the doctor? The number's on the pad. Mrs Bates, that kettle's almost hot enough; fill two hot-bottles as soon as you can. I must go back to him. When you've got Dr Wilson, Annabel, go and fetch Con.'

‘Lisa, I must see him. You do the telephoning. I can—'

‘You don't know what to do,' she said curtly. ‘I do. It's happened before. Now hurry.'

She turned quickly away, as if there was no more to be said. I flung the towel down, and ran to the office.

The doctor's number was written there, largely, on the pad. Luck was in, and he was at home. Yes, he would be there as quickly as possible. What was being done? Ah, Miss Dermott was with him, was she, and Mrs Bates was there? Good, good. I was to try not to worry. He wouldn't be long. Smooth with professional assurances, he rang off.

As I went back into the hall, Lisa appeared at the head of the stairs.

‘Did you get him?'

‘Yes, he's coming.'

‘Good. Now, will you go—?'

‘I want to see him first.' I was already starting up the stairs.

‘There's nothing you can do.' She did nothing to bar my way, but her very stolidity, as she waited for me in the middle of the way, had that effect.

I said sharply: ‘Is he conscious?'

‘No.'

It wasn't the monosyllable that halted me, three steps below her, it was the tone of it. I looked up at her. Even through my agitation I caught the surprise in her look. Heaven knows what she could read in my face and eyes. I had forgotten what lay between me and Lisa; now it whipped back at me, stinging me into intelligence, and caution.

She was saying: ‘There's no point in your seeing him. Go and get Con. He's in High Riggs.'

‘I know.'

‘Well, he must know straight away.'

‘Yes, of course,' I said, and went on, past her, straight into Grandfather's room.

The curtains had been half drawn, and hung motionless, shading the sunny windows. The old man lay in bed, his only movement that of his laboured, stertorous breathing. I went across and stood beside him. If it hadn't been for the difficult breathing, I might have thought him dead already. It was as if he, the man I knew, had already gone from behind the mask that lay on the pillow. It, and we, were only waiting.

Lisa had followed me in, but I took no notice of her. I stood watching Grandfather, and trying to calm my agitated thoughts into some sort of order.

Lisa had been in the kitchen when it happened, with Betsy. It had been Betsy who had answered the bell. All that Lisa had done had been correct, and obviously genuine. And Con was far enough away, in High Riggs; had been there since early morning . . .

I turned to meet Lisa's eyes. If I had had any doubts about the naturalness of this crisis, coming, as it had done, so pat upon the signing of the Will, they were dispelled by the look on Lisa's face. It was still, as before, obscurely excited, and she made no attempt to hide the excitement from me. And it was now, also, thoroughly surprised and puzzled as she stared back at me.

I could hear Betsy chugging upstairs now, with the hot-bottles. Lisa had moved up to my elbow. Her voice muttered in my ear: ‘It's a mercy, isn't it?'

‘A mercy?' I glanced at her in surprise. ‘But he was perfectly all right—'

‘Ssh, here's Mrs B. I meant, a mercy it didn't happen yesterday, before Mr Isaacs came. God's providence, you might even say.'

‘You might,' I said drily. Yes, I thought, it was there, clear enough to see: Lisa, single minded, uncomplicated, initiating nothing. The stars in their courses fought for Con; Lisa need only wait. Efficient, innocent Lisa. No doubt at all, when Dr Wilson came, she would help him in every possible way.

I said abruptly: ‘I'll go and get Con.'

The sun beat heavy and hot on High Riggs. A third of the field was shorn, close and green-gold and sweet smelling. Over the rest of the wide acreage the hay stood thick and still in the heat. The clover, and the plumy tops of the grasses made shadows of lilac and madder and bronze across the gilt of the hay. There were purple vetches along the ditch, and the splashing yellow of ladies' slipper.

One tractor was at the far end of the field, with Con driving. It was moving away from me, the blades of the cutter flashing in the sun.

I began to run towards him along the edge of the cut hay. The men with rakes paused to look up at me. The cutter was turning, out from the standing hay, round, and in once more in a close circle, neatly feathering its corner and re-entering the standing hay at an exact right-angle.

Con hadn't seen me. He was watching the track of the blades, but as the machine came into the straight, he glanced up ahead of him, and then lifted a hand. I stopped where I was, gasping in the heavy heat.

The tractor was coming fairly fast. Con, not apparently seeing in my visit anything out of the way, was watching the blades again. The sun glinted on the dark hair, the handsome, half-averted profile, the sinewy brown arms. He looked remote, absorbed, grave. I remember that I thought with a kind of irrelevant surprise, he looks happy.

Then I had stepped out of his path, and, as the tractor came level with me, I shouted above the noise of the motor: ‘Con! You'd better come to the house! It's Grandfather!'

The tractor stopped with a jerk that shook and rattled the cutter-blades. The boy on the reaper hauled on the lever and they lifted, the hot light quivering on the steel. Con switched off the motor, and the silence came at us with a rush.

‘What is it?'

I said, shouting, then lowering my voice as it hit the silence: ‘It's Grandfather. He's taken ill. You have to come.'

I saw something come and go in his face, then it was still again, but no longer remote. It had gone blank, but it was as if something in him was holding its breath, in a sort of wary eagerness; there was a tautness along the upper lip, and the nostrils were slightly flared. A hunter's face.

He drew a little breath, and turned his head to the boy. ‘Uncouple her, Jim. I'm going down to the house. Ted!' The farm foreman came across, not hurrying, but with a curious look at me. ‘Ted, Mr Winslow's ill. I'm going down now, and I may not get back today. Carry on, will you?' A few more hurried instructions, and his hand went to the starter. ‘Oh, and send one of the boys across to open that gate for the doctor's car. Jim, get up on the tractor here, then you can drive it back. I'll send news up with Jim, Ted, as soon as I see how he is.'

As the boy obeyed, swinging up behind him, Con started the motor. He gestured with a jerk of the head to me, and I ran round and stepped up on to the back of the tractor. It went forward with a lurch, and then turned sharply away from the ridge of cut hay, and bucketed down across the uneven ground towards the gate. The men paused in their raking to watch curiously, but Con took no notice. He sent the tractor over the grid with hardly any diminution of speed. I was close beside him, standing on the bars and holding on to the high mudguard. He began to whistle between his teeth, a hissing little noise that sounded exactly what it was, a valve blowing down a head of steam. I think I hated Con then, more than I ever had before: more than when he had tried to bully me into marrying him: more than when I had wrenched away from him and run, bruised and terrified, to Grandfather: more than when he had tried to claim Adam's place as my lover, and told the stupid lie about the child: more than when he had brought me back, an interloper, to damage Julie.

He said nothing until we were getting down from the tractor in the yard.

‘By the way, wasn't there something you wanted to talk to me about? What was it?'

‘It'll keep,' I said.

Grandfather was still unconscious. The doctor had come, stayed, and then, towards evening, had gone again to a telephone summons. This was the number . . . we were to call him back, if there was any change . . . but he was afraid, Miss Winslow, Miss Dermott, he was very much afraid . . .

He lay on his back, propped on pillows, breathing heavily, and with apparent difficulty, and sometimes the breath came in a long, heaving sigh. Now and again there seemed a pause in the breathing, and then my heart would jerk and stop as if in sympathy, to resume its erratic beating when the difficult breaths began again . . .

I hadn't left him. I had pulled a chair up to one side of his bed. Con was on the other. He had spent the afternoon alternately in sitting still as a stone, with his eyes on the old man's face, or else in fits of restless prowling, silent, like a cat, which I had stood till I could stand it no longer, then had curtly told him to go out of the room unless he could keep still. He had shot me a quick look of surprise, which had turned to a lingering one of appraisement, then he had gone, but only to return after an hour or so, to sit on the other side of the old man's bed, waiting. And that look came again, and yet again, as the blue eyes kept coming back to my face. I didn't care. I felt so tired that emotion of any kind would have been an exercise as impossible as running to a wounded man. Heaven knows what was showing in my face. I had ceased to try to hide it from Con, and I could not, today, find it in me to care . . .

And so the day wore on. Lisa, quiet and efficient as ever, came in and out, and helped me to do what was needed. Mrs Bates finished her work, but offered to stay for a time, and the offer was gladly accepted. Julie hadn't come home. After the doctor's visit, Con went out and sent one of the men up in the car to West Woodburn, but on his return he reported that neither Julie nor Donald had been seen at the site since that morning. They had gone up there some time before luncheon, had walked around for a bit, then had gone off in Donald's car. Nobody had any idea where they had gone. If it was into Newcastle—

‘Forrest Hall!' I said. ‘That's where they'll be! I'm sorry, Con, I'd quite forgotten.' I explained quickly about the alleged Roman carving that Adam had described. ‘Ask him to go to Forrest Hall – he'd better go by the river-path, it's quicker than taking a car up past the gates.'

But the man, when he returned, had found nobody. Yes, he had found the cellars; they were accessible enough, and he thought someone had been there recently, probably today, but no one was there now. Yes, he had been right down. And there was no car parked there; he couldn't have failed to see that. Should he try West Lodge? Or Nether Shields?

‘The telephone's easier,' said Con.

But the telephone was no help, either. West Lodge was sorry, but Mr Forrest was out, and had not said when he would be back. Nether Shields – with a shade of reserve – was sorry, too; no, Julie had not been there that day; yes, thank you, Bill was quite all right; they were sorry to hear about Mr Winslow; sorry, sorry, sorry . . .

‘We'll have to leave it,' I said wearily. ‘It's no use. They may have found something at Forrest, and all gone into Newcastle to look it up, or something; or Julie and Donald may have gone off on their own after they left Forrest Hall. But it's only an hour to supper time now, and surely they'll come then? After last night – was it really only last night? – Julie
surely
won't stay away again without letting us know?'

‘Do you know, you sound really worried,' said Con.

I said: ‘My God, what do you think—?' then looked up and met the blue eyes across the bed where Grandfather lay. They were bright and very intent. I said shortly: ‘Oddly enough, I am. I'm thinking of Julie. She would want to be here.'

His teeth showed briefly. ‘I always did say you were a nice girl.'

I didn't answer.

The doctor came back just before seven, stayed a while, then went again. The day drew down, the sky dark as slate, heavy with thunder, and threatening rain.

Still Julie didn't come, and still Grandfather lay there, with no change apparent in the mask-like face, except that I thought the nostrils looked pinched, and narrower, and his breathing seemed more shallow.

Con went over to the buildings shortly after the doctor had gone, and only then, leaving Mrs Bates in Grandfather's room, did I go downstairs for a short time, while Lisa gave me soup, and something to eat.

Then I went back, to sit there, waiting, and watching the old man's face, and trying not to think.

And, well within the hour, Con was back there, too, on the other side of the bed, watching me.