The Ivy Tree

by Mary Stewart

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘There may be a few more ripe, in the bed by the dove-houses. I can pick them, if you’ve time to wait.’

  ‘No, don’t trouble. I’m sure there’ll be enough, and I promised to get back quickly. Dinner’s at half-past seven, and we’ll have them to pick over. Look, I brought a basket. We can tip them all in together, and you can keep the punnets.’

  ‘It comes cheaper that way,’ agreed Adam gravely.

  I gaped at him for a second, for some absurd reason more embarrassed than at any time in our too-rapidly intimate relationship. Lisa hadn’t mentioned money; I had none with me, and hadn’t thought about it till now. I said, stammering: ‘I – I’m afraid I can’t pay for them now.’

  ‘I’ll charge them,’ said Adam imperturbably. He reached for a notebook, and made a jotting on a meticulously columned page headed ‘Winslow’. He caught my eye on him, and grinned, and suddenly, in the shadowed shed, the years fell away, and there was the lover of the moonlit tryst, the actor of that early film. I caught my breath. He said: ‘Whitescar runs an account. They don’t seem to have time to grow any vegetables there themselves . . . I doubt if anybody has even touched the garden’ – he shut the book and returned it neatly to its place – ‘since you left. Careful! You’re spilling those! What did I say to make you jump.’

  ‘You know quite well. You did it deliberately. You . . . got under my skin.’

  ‘That makes two of us,’ said Adam; at least, that’s what I thought he said, but he muttered it under his breath, and the words were swallowed as he turned his head quickly to the door, adding aloud: ‘I suppose this is Mr Seton?’

  ‘Oh . . . hullo, Donald. Yes, Mr Forrest’s still here. Mr Seton, Adam . . .’

  The men exchanged greetings. Donald said: ‘You got your strawberries?’

  ‘I did. Your dinner’s safe. I told Mr Forrest you wanted to see him, Donald, but I managed to keep quiet about the reason.’

  ‘You needn’t have done that.’ He turned to Adam. ‘I don’t know if Annabel told you, sir, but I’m an archaeologist; I’m attached to the Commission – the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments – and just at present I’m in charge of the work being done up at West Woodburn.’

  ‘I had heard that excavating has started there,’ said Adam. ‘Just what are you hoping to do?’

  ‘Well, the Commission’s job is to list and describe all existing Roman monuments, with maps and photographs and so on – to make a complete survey, eventually covering the whole country. It’s worked on a county basis, and I’m one of the team assigned to Northumberland. We haven’t got very far, yet, with this particular site; I’ve got some students from Durham and London working for me on the job, and we’re now busy on a trial trench . . .’

  I had got the strawberries all tipped into my basket, but lingered a little, interested to hear the outcome of what Donald had to say. He gave Adam a very brief account of the work he was engaged on, and then passed, with an admirably Scottish economy of time and words, to the business of the moment.

  When he described how he had seen the ‘Roman stones’ in the quarry, it was obvious that he had caught Adam’s interest. ‘And you think it likely, if that quarry was originally Roman, that there may be some Roman buildings near by?’

  ‘Fairly near, at any rate,’ said Donald. ‘There’s nothing remarkable about the rock itself – the quarried rock – if you follow me. If it were marble, for example, you might expect it to be worked, even if it had to be carried long distances; but this kind of sandstone is the common local stone. If the Romans did start a quarry there, then they would do so for pure reasons of convenience. In other words, they were building locally.’

  ‘I see,’ said Adam, ‘and am I right in thinking that there’s nothing recorded hereabouts? I’ve never read of anything, though I’ve always been interested in local history.’

  ‘Quite right. There’s nothing nearer than the camp at Four Laws, and, since that’s on Dere Street, the materials for building it would certainly be taken from somewhere on the road, not right across country from here. So it did occur to me that, if the quarry was started here, in the peninsula, when the same stone occurs all along the ridge above the river . . . and is rather more get-at-able there . . . it did occur to me to wonder if whatever was built, was built on the peninsula itself.’

  ‘Somewhere in Forrest Park?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to ask your permission to have a look round, if I may.’

  ‘With the greatest of pleasure. I’m afraid the Forestry Commission acres are out of my jurisdiction, but the meadowland, and the Hall grounds, by all means. Go where you like. But what exactly will you be looking for? Surely anything there was, will be deep under several feet of earth and trees by now?’

  ‘Oh yes. But I did wonder if you could help me. Can you remember if there’s anything else in the way of a quarry, anything that might be an overgrown pit, or artificial bank – you know the kind of thing?’

  ‘Not at the moment, but I’ll think it over. The only pit I can think of is the old ice-house near the Forrest Lodge. That’s dug deep into the earth under the trees, but that can hardly – wait a minute!’

  He broke off, his brows knitted in an effort of memory. I watched him half excitedly, Donald with the utmost placidity. Doubtless he was very much better aware than I was, that ‘discoveries’ rarely, if ever, come out of the blue.

  ‘The ice-house,’ said Adam. ‘Mentioning the ice-house struck a chord. Wait a minute, I can’t be sure, but somewhere, some time, when I was a child, I think . . . I’ve seen something at Forrest. A stone . . . Roman, I’ll swear.’ He thought a moment longer, then shook his head. ‘No, it’s gone. Could it have been the same ones, I wonder, that I saw? The ones in the quarry?’

  ‘Not unless there was a very dry season, and you probably wouldn’t have noticed them unless they were even nearer the surface than they are now. Wouldn’t you say so, Annabel?’

  ‘Certainly. And anyway, nobody but an expert could possibly have guessed those were Roman. They looked quite ordinary to me, and to a child they’d mean nothing at all.’

  ‘That’s true. You can’t remember anything more, sir? What made you think it was Roman stone? Why the ice-house? What is the ice-house, anyway?’

  ‘A primitive sort of refrigerator. They usually built them somewhere in the grounds of big houses, in the eighteenth century,’ said Adam. ‘They were big square pits, as a rule, dug somewhere deep in the woods where it was cool. They had curved roofs, with the eaves flush with the ground, and a door in one end, over the pit. People used to cut the ice off the lake – there’s a small pool beyond the house – in winter, and store it underground in layers of straw, to bring out in summer. The one of Forrest’s in the woods near the old lodge.’

  ‘Then you may have seen this thing there, surely? It was quite usual for later builders to lay hands on any Roman stones they could, to use again. They were good blocks, well shaped and dressed. If there were a few left stacked in the old quarry, above water level, a local eighteenth-century builder may well have taken them and—’

  ‘The cellars!’ said Adam. ‘That was it! Not the ice-house, we weren’t allowed in; it wasn’t safe, and it was kept locked. We weren’t allowed in the cellars, either, but that was different; they were at least accessible.’ He grinned. ‘I thought there was something surreptitious and candle-lit about the memory, and it also accounts for the fact that we never mentioned it to anyone. I’d forgotten all about it until this moment. Yes, I’m fairly sure it was in the cellars at Forrest. I can’t remember any more than that, except that we were rather intrigued for the moment, as children are, by the carving on the stone. It was upside down, which made it harder to make out what it said, even if we could have—?’

  ‘What it said?’ Donald’s voice was sharp, for him.

  Adam looked surprised. ‘Yes. Didn’t you say the stones were carved? There was some sort of lettering, as far as I remember, and a carving
of some kind . . . an animal.’

  ‘I said “chiselled”, not “carved”,’ said Donald. ‘If you’re right, it sounds as if you may have seen an inscription. All I saw were the ordinary tooling-marks on the stone, the marks made by dressing with chisels. Like this . . .’ He fished in his inside pocket, and came out with a thick wad of papers. There seemed to be (besides a wallet, several dozen letters and a driving-licence) an Ordnance Survey map of the North Tyne, and a thin booklet of what looked like – but surely could not be – logarithms. Donald looked at them vaguely, selected an old envelope, on which I distinctly saw a postmark two years old, and restored the rest to his pocket.

  Adam handed him a pencil. ‘Thanks. This’, said Donald, drawing with beautiful economy and accuracy on the dog-eared envelope, ‘is something like the stones I saw.’

  He handed the paper to Adam, who studied it. ‘I see. No, that conveys nothing to me; I’d never have known that was Roman . . . not even now, let alone ten years old. Well, the obvious thing to do is to go and look, isn’t it? This is really rather exciting. If it turns out to be an inscription of the Ninth Legion or something, will Forrest’s fortune be re-made?’

  ‘Well,’ said Donald cautiously, ‘you might get it on to TV . . . The house is a ruin, isn’t it? Is it still possible to get into the cellars?’

  ‘I think you’ll find you can get down. I don’t have to tell you to watch yourself: I’m not sure what sort of condition the place is in. But you may certainly go just where you like. Look, I’ll make you a plan.’

  He reached to the nearby shelf for paper – it looked like an invoice-form – and spread it on the bench. Donald handed back the pencil. I came to Adam’s elbow to look. He drew a couple of lines, then, with a subdued exclamation of irritation, pulled off the cotton gloves, dropped them on the bench beside him, and picked the pencil up again. ‘I can’t write in them. Do you mind?’

  ‘Mind?’

  Then I saw. His hands were disfigured, most horribly, it must have been by burns. The skin was white and dead looking, glassed like polythene, and here and there were puckered scars that showed purple; the shape of his hands, like the other bone-structure, had been beautiful, but the injuries had distorted even that, and made them hideous, things to shock. Things to hide, as, until now, he had hidden them. This was something else that the romantic moonlight had not revealed.

  I must have made some small sound, some little gasp of indrawn breath. Adam’s pencil checked, and he looked at me.

  I suppose most people stared like that, sick and shocked, for a moment or two, then looked quickly away, saying nothing, talking of something else, pretending not to have seen.

  I said: ‘Adam, your hands, your poor hands . . . What did that to your hands?’

  ‘I burned them.’

  The fire at Forrest. His wife. ‘The bed was alight by that time. He managed to drag the bedclothes off her, and carry her downstairs . . .’

  He had reached one of those terrible hands for the discarded gloves. He hadn’t taken his eyes off my face. He said gently: ‘I’ll put them on again. I’m sorry, I forgot you wouldn’t know. It’s rather a shock, the first time.’

  ‘It – it doesn’t matter. Don’t, for me . . . I – I’ve got to go.’ I reached blindly for the basket. I could feel the tears spilling hot on to my cheeks, and couldn’t stop them. I had forgotten all about Donald, till I heard him say ‘Here,’ and the basket was put into my hands. I said shakily: ‘I’ve got to hurry back. Goodbye,’ and, without looking at either of them, my head bent low over the basket, I turned and almost ran out of the packing-shed.

  I was conscious of the silence I had left behind me, and of Adam, straightening abruptly, the pencil still in his hand, staring after me.

  14

  Go with your right to Newcastle,

  And come with your left side home;

  There will you see these two lovers . . .

  Ballad: Fair Margaret and Sweet William.

  As it turned out, there were more than enough strawberries for supper. Julie didn’t come back.

  The dinner, though delicious, could hardly be said to be festive. It was as if all the accumulated tensions of the last days had gathered that evening at the dining table, building slowly up like the thunderheads that stood steadily on the horizon outside.

  Con had come in early, rather quiet, with watchful eyes, and lines from nostril to chin that I hadn’t noticed before. Grandfather seemed to have recruited his energies with his afternoon rest : his eyes were bright and a little malicious as he glanced round the table, and marked the taut air of waiting that hung over the meal. It was his moment of power, and he knew it.

  If it had needed anything to bring the tensions to snapping point, Julie’s absence provided it. At first it was only assumed that she was late, but, as the meal wore through, and it became apparent that she wasn’t coming, Grandfather started making irritatingly frequent remarks about the forgetfulness and ingratitude of young people, that were intended to sound pathetic, but only managed to sound thoroughly bad tempered.

  Con ate more or less in silence, but a silence so unrelaxed as to be almost aggressive. It was apparent that Grandfather thought so, for he kept casting bright, hard looks under his brows, and once or twice seemed on the verge of the sort of edged and provocative remark with which he had been prodding his great-nephew for days.

  I drew what fire I could, chattering shamelessly, and had the dubious satisfaction of attracting most of the old man’s attention to myself, some of it so obviously affectionate – pointedly so – that I saw, once or twice, Con’s glance cross mine like the flicker of blue steel. Afterwards, I thought, when he knows, when that restless, torturing ambition is stilled at last, it will be all right; everything will be all right . . .

  As Grandfather had predicted, Donald’s presence saved the day. He seconded my efforts with great gallantry, making several remarks at least three sentences long; but he, too, was unable to keep his eyes from the clock, while Lisa, presiding over a magnificent pair of duckling à la Rouennaise, and the strawberries hastily assembled into whipped cream Chantilly, merely sat unhelpfully silent and worried, and, in consequence, looking sour.

  The end of the meal came, and the coffee, and still no Julie. We all left the dining room together. As Con pushed back his chair, he said abruptly: ‘I’m going to telephone Nether Shields.’

  ‘What the devil for?’ asked Grandfather testily. ‘If the girl chooses to forget, let her be.’

  ‘She’s not likely to have forgotten. I’m afraid there may have been an accident.’

  ‘Then what’s the use of telephoning Nether Shields? If they knew anything, they’d have rung us up. The girl’s forgotten. Don’t waste your time.’

  ‘I’ll ring, all the same,’ said Con, and left the room abruptly. Grandfather’s gaze as he watched him was bright and sardonic.

  To forestall what comment he might make, I said quickly: ‘If she did forget, she may have gone back to supper with Bill Fenwick.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Grandfather roundly, and stumped out of the dining room.

  In the drawing room Lisa poured coffee, her attention stolidly on the cups. Grandfather mercifully relapsed into silence, fidgeting with his fingers, and forgetting to drink his coffee. Donald was still watching the clock, though I suspected that his motives had altered somewhat. I’d have given a lot, myself, to go for a long, long walk, preferably several miles away from Whitescar.

  ‘If anything has happened to that child—’ began Grandfather, at length.

  ‘Nothing will have happened,’ I said. ‘You’d have heard if there’d been an accident. She’d have rung up . . . or someone else would. Don’t worry, it’ll be all right. She’ll turn up soon.’

  ‘If a tyre burst when they were miles from anywhere—’ Donald put in a comforting oar – ‘that could delay them.’

  ‘As long as this? It’s nine o’clock.’

  ‘Mphm,’ said Donald.

  I gla
nced anxiously at Grandfather. The bright malice had faded. He looked his age, and more, and the hand with which he pushed aside his untasted coffee was shaking a little.

  Con came back into the room.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said tersely. ‘Mrs Fenwick knew Julie was due back here for dinner. Bill said he’d be home by seven. No sign.’

  ‘I told you it was no use telephoning!’ Grandfather almost snapped it. ‘But you know best, as usual.’

  Con took the coffee which Lisa had stirred and handed to him. ‘It was a chance,’ he said, mildly enough. ‘And I thought it might save you worrying.’

  ‘You’re very solicitous of others, all of a sudden, aren’t you, Connor? Why so anxious? Because you want to see the family all assembled together? Lisa tell you what I said at luncheon, eh?’

  It was unforgivable enough, especially in front of Donald, but normally it would hardly have worried anyone. Con’s reaction was indicative, uncomfortably so, of the pressure that had been building up behind the quiet, sealed front.

  He went rather pale, and put down his coffee half drunk. He didn’t even look where he was setting the cup, but put it blindly down on what would have been vacancy, if Lisa had not quietly taken it out of his hand. For a moment he and Grandfather stared at one another, and I waited, with a sort of horror, for the valves to blow.

  Then Con said: ‘If I’m wanted, I’ll be in the field,’ and turned his back on his great-uncle. ‘Good night, Seton.’ Quietly still, but like one escaping to a freer, purer, air, he went out of the room.

  Unexpectedly, Grandfather chuckled. ‘Good lad,’ he said, with a sort of fierce approval, then turned a ghost of his old charming smile on Donald. ‘I warned you, didn’t I? You’ll have to forgive us for thrusting our family squabbles on you.’

  Donald returned some sort of polite reply, and, thereafter, the conversation trickled back into fairly normal channels. But half an hour went by, and still there was no sign of Julie, nor did the telephone ring. I must have shown how worried I was, and Grandfather took to saying, at shorter and shorter intervals: ‘Where on earth can the child have got to?’ or alternatively: ‘Why the devil couldn’t she have telephoned?’ until I could see it was getting across even Donald’s admirable nervous system. I wasn’t surprised when, almost too soon for civility, he rose to his feet, and said he thought he had better be going.