The Ivy Tree (43 page)

Mrs Bates went at eight, and soon afterwards, the rain began; big, single heavy drops at first, splashing down on the stones, then all at once in sheets, real thunder-rain, flung down wholesale from celestial buckets, streaming down the windows as thickly as gelatine. Then suddenly, the room was lit by a flash, another, and the thunderstorm was with us; long flickering flashes of lightning, and drum-rolls of thunder getting nearer; a summer storm, savage and heavy and soon to pass.

I went over to shut the windows, and remained there for a few moments, staring out through the shining plastic curtain of the rain. I could barely see as far as the buildings. In the frequent flashes the rain shimmered in vertical steel rods, and the ground streamed and bubbled with the water that fell too fast for the gutters to take it.

Still no Julie. They wouldn't come now. They would stay and shelter till it was past. And meanwhile Grandfather . . .

I drew the thick chintz curtains and came back to the bed. I switched on the bedside lamp and turned it away, so that no light fell on the old man's face. Con, I saw, was watching him abstractedly, with a deep frown between his brows. He said under his breath: ‘Listen to that, damn it to hell, It's enough to wake the dead.'

I was just going to say, ‘Don't worry, it won't disturb him,' when Con added: ‘It'll have the rest of High Riggs as flat as coconut matting. We'll never get the cutter into it after this.'

I said drily: ‘No, I suppose not,' and then, sharply, all else forgotten: ‘Con! It
has
woken him!'

Grandfather stirred, sighed, gave an odd little snore, and then opened his eyes. After a long time they seemed to focus, and he spoke without moving his head. The sounds he made were blurred, but clear enough.

‘Annabel?'

‘I'm here, Grandfather.'

A pause. ‘Annabel?'

I leaned forward into the pool of light, and slid a hand under the edge of the bedclothes till it found his.

‘Yes, Grandfather. I'm here. It's Annabel.'

There was no movement in the fingers under mine, no perceptible expression in Grandfather's face, but I thought, somehow, that he had relaxed. I felt his fingers, thin and frail, as smooth and dry as jointed bamboo, and no more living, lying in my palm, and remembered him as he had been in my girlhood, a tall, powerful man, lean and whippy, and tyrannical, and as proud as fire. And suddenly it was too much, this slow, painful ending to the day. A day that had begun with Rowan, and the brilliant morning, and a secret that was still my own; then Adam, and the knowledge of our betrayal of each other; and now this . . .

The storm was coming nearer. Lightning played for seconds at a time, flashing like some dramatically wheeling spotlight against the shut curtains. I saw Grandfather's eyes recognise it for what it was, and said: ‘It's just a summer thunderstorm. I don't suppose it'll last.'

‘That noise. Rain?'

The thunder had paused. In the interval the rain came down with the noise of a waterfall. ‘Yes.'

I saw his brows twitch, very faintly. ‘It'll flatten – High Riggs.'

Something touched me that was partly wonder, and partly a sort of shame. Con was a Winslow after all, and perhaps his reaction had been truer than mine – my dumb fury of grief that was a grief for the passing of, not this old man, but my world, the world I hadn't wanted, and deserved to lose. I said: ‘That's just what Con was saying.'

‘Con?'

I nodded towards him. ‘He's there.'

The eyes moved. ‘Con.'

‘Sir?'

‘I'm – ill.'

‘Yes,' said Con.

‘Dying?'

‘Yes,' said Con.

I felt my lips part in a sort of gasp of protest and shock, but what I might have said was stopped by Grandfather's smile. It wasn't even the ghost of his old grin, it was nothing but the slight tightening and slackening of a muscle at the corner of his mouth; but I knew then that Con was right. Whatever had been Matthew Winslow's faults, he had never lacked dignity, and he was not the man to slide out of life on a soothing flood of women's lies. He and Con had ground where they could meet, and which was forbidden to me.

My moment of protest must have communicated itself to him through our linked hands, for his eyes moved back to me, and I thought he said: ‘No lies.'

I didn't look at Con. ‘All right, Grandfather, no lies.'

‘Julie?'

‘She'll be here soon. The storm's kept her. She's been out with Donald all day. She doesn't know you're ill.'

I thought he looked a query.

‘You remember Donald, darling. The Scot, Donald Seton. He's the archaeologist digging up at West Woodburn. He was here last night at—' my voice wavered, but I managed it – ‘your party.'

I could see him concentrating, but it seemed to elude him. I had to control myself sharply, not to take a tighter hold on the frail hand in mine. I leaned nearer to him, speaking slowly, and as distinctly as I could. ‘You met Donald, and you liked him. He's going to marry Julie, and they'll live in London. Julie'll be very happy with him. She loves him. You needn't worry about—'

An appalling crash interrupted me. The flash, the long, growing rumble and crack of chaos, then, after it, the crash. Through all the other preoccupations in that dim room it hacked like the noise of a battleaxe.

Matthew Winslow said: ‘What's that?' in a voice that was startled almost back to normal.

Con was at the window, pulling back the curtains. His movements were full of a suppressed nervous excitement, which gave them more than their usual grace, like the sinewy, controlled actions of ballet. He came back to the bedside, and bent over his great-uncle. ‘It was a long way off. A tree, I'm pretty, sure, but not here. One of the Forrest Hall trees, I'd say.'

He put a hand on the bed, where Grandfather's arm lay under the blankets, and added carefully and distinctly: ‘You don't need to worry. I'll go out presently and find out where it was. But it's not near the buildings. And the lights are still on, you can see that. It's done no damage here.'

Grandfather said, clearly: ‘You're a good boy, Con. It's a pity Annabel never came home. You'd have suited well together.'

I said: ‘Grandfather—' and then stopped.

As I put my face down against the bedclothes, to hide it from him, I saw that Con had lifted his head once more and was watching me, his eyes narrow and appraising.

There was only myself and Con in the room.

18

It seemed a very long time before Con cleared his throat to speak.

I didn't raise my head. I could feel his scrutiny, and even through the first rush of grief, the instinct that I had been rash enough to disregard, bade me hide my tears from him. I don't think I had any room, then, for conscious thought about the present danger of my position: the way my stupid, difficult safeguard against him had now become, ironically, a peril. I had known since yesterday that I would have to tell him the truth. To have discussed it today, across Grandfather's unconscious body, would have been unthinkable, like counting him already dead. And now, even if I had been ready to frame what I had to say, it was even less possible to do so.

I never knew what he was going to say. Somewhere, downstairs, a door slammed, and there were running footsteps. He checked himself, listening. I remember thinking, vaguely, that perhaps Lisa had somehow guessed what had happened. But would she have run like that? I had never seen Lisa hurry . . . somehow it seemed unlike her, even if she had cared enough . . .

Julie: of course, it must be Julie. I pressed my fists hard against my temples, and tried to blot the tears off against the counterpane, steadying my thoughts as best I could. Julie was coming running, just too late, and in a moment I would have to lift my face . . .

The steps clattered across the hall, seemed to trip at the bottom stair, then came on up, fast. Even through the thick panels of the door I could hear the hurry of sobbing breathing. She grabbed the knob with fumbling hands. It shook even as it turned.

I lifted my head sharply. There were still tears on my face, but I couldn't help that now. Here was something more. And Con had taken his eyes off me at last, and was watching the door.

It was thrust open – no sick-room entry, this – and Julie ran into the room.

She must have come in so quickly from the dark and streaming night that her eyes had barely adjusted themselves to the light. I thought for a moment that she was going to blunder straight into the bed, and came to my feet in a startled movement of protest; but she stopped just short of the bed's foot, gasping for breath.

I had been right in my swift guess: this panic-stricken haste had had nothing to do with Grandfather. She hadn't even glanced at the bed. Her look was wild, dazed almost, and she groped for a chair back, to which she clung as if that alone prevented her from falling.

Her hair, and the coat she wore, were soaked, so dark with rain that it took me a moment or two to realise, in that dim light, that the coat was streaked and filthy. The gay summer sandals were filthy, too, and there was dirt splashed over her hands and wrists, and smudged across her jawbone. The flush of haste stood out on her cheeks like paint.

She was looking wildly from me to Con while she fought for breath to speak. Her eyes, her whole head, jerked from one to the other and back again, in a kind of distraction that was painful to watch.

‘Annabel . . . Con . . . Con . . .'

The appeal was whispered – the sick-room atmosphere, and whatever news Lisa had given her, had overborne her own distress – but if that distress, whatever it was had driven her to appeal to Con, then something was seriously the matter.

‘Julie!' This time my movement towards her was protective. I came between her and the bed. ‘Darling! Whatever's the matter?'

But something in the way I moved had got through to her. For the first time, she looked past me, fully, at the bed. I saw the shock hit her, as a stone hits a man who has been knocked half silly already. She wavered, bit her lip, and said, like a child who expects to be punished for behaving badly: ‘I didn't know. Annabel, I didn't know.'

I had an arm round her. ‘Yes, darling, I'm sorry. It happened just a few minutes ago. It was very sudden, and he seemed quite content. I'll tell you about it later; it's all right . . . If there's something else wrong, you can tell us now. What is it? Something else has happened? Something's wrong.'

She shook in my arms. She was trying to speak, but could only manage a whispered: ‘Could you – please – please – you and Con—'

It was apparent that there would be no sense out of her yet. I spoke across her, deliberately raising my voice to a normal pitch, and making it sound as matter-of-fact as I could: ‘Con, you'd better go down and tell Lisa, then would you telephone Dr Wilson? And you might get the brandy; Julie looks as if she needs it. Julie, don't stay in here; come along to your own room—'

‘The phone's off,' said Julie.

‘Off?'

‘Lisa says so. It went off just now, she says. She's been trying. It'll be the ivy tree. When it came down—'

‘The ivy tree?' This was Con.

I said: ‘The old tree by the Forrest lodge. That was what we heard come down. Never mind that. Julie—'

‘It sounded nearer. Are you sure it's that one?'

‘It was split. It just split in two.' Julie's voice sounded thin and empty, but unsurprised, as if the questions were relevant enough. ‘Half came down right across the lodge, you see. It brought the rest of the roof down, and a wall, and—'

‘That's nowhere near the telephone wires,' said Con, ‘If that was all it was, there's no real damage done.'

I said: ‘Shut up. This is something that matters. Go on, Julie.' I gave her a little shake. ‘
Julie!
Con, for God's sake go and get that brandy, the girl's going to faint.'

‘There's brandy here.' He was at the bedside table. There was the splash and tinkle of liquid being poured, and he put a tumbler into my hand.

‘Here, drink this.' I held the rim of Grandfather's tumbler against her chattering teeth. Behind me I caught the movement as Con drew up the sheet to cover the old man's face. The moment passed, almost without significance. I said sharply: ‘Julie, pull yourself together. What's happened? Is it something to do with the ivy tree? Were you near the lodge when it – oh, my God, Con, she'd have been just about passing it when we heard it come down . . . Julie, is it
Donald
?'

She nodded, and then went on nodding, like a doll. ‘He's down there. Underneath. Donald. The tree came down. It just split in two—'

‘Is he dead?' asked Con.

Again, it seemed, his tactics worked better than mine. I felt the shock run through her, and her eyes jerked up to meet his. She said, sensibly enough: ‘No, I don't think so, but he's hurt, he can't get out. We have to go . . . We were in the lodge, you see, and the wall came down when he went down the steps, and he's hurt, there underneath. He can't get out.' Abruptly she thrust the back of one grimy hand against her mouth, as if to stifle a cry. ‘We – we'll have to go.' She looked in a kind of childish helplessness at the bed.

I said quickly: ‘He doesn't need us, Julie. It's all right. We'll come now. Con, where's the car?'