The Ivy Tree

by Mary Stewart

  No time to stop him now, or swerve him to face the gate. Two tremendous strides, and he was on it.

  This time, he thought for me. As the grid gaped in front of his feet, looking, in the dark, like a wide pit across his path, he steadied, lifted, and was over, as smoothly as a swallow in an eddy of air.

  And then, all at once, ahead of us, were the massed trees, and the lights of Nether Shields.

  I learned afterwards that there had been some storm-damage at Nether Shields, and that after the rain was off the men – Mr Fenwick and his two sons – had come out to take a look round. They were in the yard when I got there, and they must have heard the horse’s hoofs coming up the moor at the gallop, for all three were at the gate.

  The main track went by some fifty yards from Nether Shields. We cut across the corner, and I sent Rowan headlong for the gate.

  It is possible that they thought the horse was bolting with me, for nobody opened the gate. Rowan came to a slithering halt with his breast almost up against the bars, and then, seeing the men, shied violently sideways and began to circle.

  Someone swung the gate wide, then, and the three men stood aside. It was all I could do to get Rowan in past them, through the gate, but he went in the end, fighting every inch of the way. One of the men shut the gate behind us, and would have reached for the bridle, but I thought the horse would rear, and said breathlessly: ‘Leave him. It’s all right. Keep back . . .’

  Someone said: ‘It’s Forrest’s,’ and another: ‘It’s the Winslow girl,’ and then Mr Fenwick’s voice came quickly: ‘What is it, lass? Trouble?’

  I found I could hardly speak. I was breathless from effort, but it wasn’t that. My teeth were chattering as if I was chilled. I suppose it was shock catching up on me; my whole body was shaking, now, and the muscles of my thighs felt loose against the restless movements of the colt. I think that if I hadn’t had a hand in his mane, I would, shamefully, have fallen off him.

  I managed to say, somehow: ‘There’s been an accident at the old lodge. Forrest Hall. A tree’s down on the lodge, and someone’s hurt, and Mr Forrest’s there too. They’re both trapped inside, and if they don’t get help soon the whole place looks like coming down on them. The phone’s off at Whitescar. Is yours working?’

  Mr Fenwick was a man of swift action and few words. He said merely: ‘Don’t know. Sandy, go and see. Is it for the doctor?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. Tell him a cut artery, we think, and to come quickly. And could you come yourself – all of you, straight away? There’s a wall collapsing, and the men underneath, and only Con and Julie there—’

  ‘Aye. Bill, get the Land-Rover out. Ropes, torches, crowbars. Sandy, tell your mother.’

  Sandy went in at a run. Bill had already vanished into a shed whose doors, dragged wide, showed the gleam of the Land-Rover’s bonnet.

  I slipped off the horse’s back, and held him. ‘Props,’ I said. ‘Have you anything to shore the stones up?’

  ‘What sort of length?’

  ‘Short. Just to hold them off a man. He’s lying underneath. A foot, eighteen inches, anything just to hold them clear.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said the farmer.

  ‘We had fencing-posts, and Con can push them in sideways,’ I said, ‘but there weren’t enough. And some for the passage, too, if you’ve any longer ones—’

  ‘There’s plenty of stuff in the shed, all lengths.’ He raised his voice above the sudden roar of the Land-Rover’s motor. ‘Put your lights on, Bill!’

  The lights shot out. Rowan went back in a clattering roar, almost lifting me from the ground. I saw the farmer turn, and cried: ‘Never mind! Get on! I can manage him!’

  The Land-Rover came out of the shed, and stopped just short of the yard gate, with its engine ticking over and its lights full on. Bill jumped out of the front and ran back to where his father was dragging solid lumps of sawn timber from a wood-stack. I saw the gleam of a metal bar, and the shape of a heavy stick, as they were hurled into the back of the vehicle. A couple of what looked like old railway sleepers went in after them.

  ‘The rope from the tractor-shed?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Aye.’ The farmer threw a shovel in after the rest.

  Sandy must have told his mother something as he ran to the telephone, for she appeared now in the lighted doorway of the farmhouse. ‘Miss Winslow? Sandy’s told me of the trouble. He’s on the telephone now.’

  ‘It’s working?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Dear God,’ I said, meaning it, and put my forehead against Rowan’s hot neck.

  ‘My dear,’ she said, ‘don’t worry. It won’t be long. Doctor Wilson’s not at home, he’s up at Haxby, but Sandy’s getting through now. He’ll be down at Forrest in something under twenty minutes, and the men will be there in ten. Would you like me to go with them, in case I can help?’

  There came to me, the first flush of warmth in an Arctic night, a vague memory that before her marriage to Jem Fenwick of Nether Shields, she had been a nurse. He had broken a leg and spent a month in the Royal Victoria, and taken her back with him when he was discharged. A long time ago now, but if the doctor were delayed . . .

  I cried: ‘Oh, Mrs Fenwick, could you go with them? Could you? There’s Julie’s young man with a cut artery, and Adam Forrest tying to hold it, and the cellar roof going to come down on them, and only Con and Julie there to try and fix it up.’

  She was as decisive as her husband. ‘Of course. I’ll get some stuff and be with you. Don’t you fret, child. Can you leave that horse, and come in?’

  ‘No.’

  She wasted no time arguing or persuading. She must have known that I was almost grateful for the job of holding Rowan quiet amid the bustle and shouting in the yard. She turned back into the house, and I heard her calling: ‘Betty! Pour some of that tea into the big flask, quickly! And get the brandy. Sandy, go up and fetch blankets – what? Oh, half a dozen. Hurry, now!’

  The Land-Rover was loaded; Bill had pulled the gate open, and was in the driving seat. Mr Fenwick heaved a great coil of rope into the back, and then came over to me.

  ‘I take it you came by West Lodge?’

  ‘Yes. The tree that’s down has blocked the lane to the main road. I drove over to West Lodge, and then took the horse.’

  ‘Is the river deep?’

  ‘In places, but it’s coming down fastish, and near the bridge it’s all boulders. There’s no decent crossing, even for that thing.’

  ‘I doubt you’re right. We can drive her down and pile the stuff across into your car. It’s at the Lodge?’

  ‘No. You can’t. I – I crashed it. I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘Dear God,’ he said again. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, quite.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to go the other way. It’ll not take much longer; it’s a good road. Ah, here we are.’ This as Sandy ran past us with a load of blankets, which went on top of the tools and props. Then a girl, with what must have been the hot tea and brandy. And finally, Mrs Fenwick, diminutive but bustlingly efficient, with a box in her hands, and about her, clad though she was in an old tweed coat, the impression of a comforting rustle of starch.

  Everyone piled into the Land-Rover. The farmer turned to me. ‘Coming? Shove the colt in the barn, he’ll come to no harm. We’ll make room somehow.’

  I hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘No. I’ll take the horse back. Someone ought to go to Whitescar and tell Lisa. We’ll have beds ready there. Don’t bother about me. And – thank you.’

  His reply was lost in the roar of the motor. The Land-Rover leaped forward, cut across the field corner, her four-wheel drive sending her through the mud churned by the cattle, as easily as if it were an arterial road. I heard Mrs Fenwick call something shrill and reassuring, then the vehicle was nothing but a receding roar and a red light in the darkness, making for the high-road.

  I only remembered then, with a curious little jolt, that I had forgotten to tell them about Grandfa
ther.

  The girl said, shyly, beside me: ‘Will you come in, Miss Winslow? Just for a minute? There’s tea made.’

  ‘No, my dear. Thanks all the same. I must get back. Will you shut the gate behind me?’

  ‘Surely.’

  It wasn’t so easy to mount Rowan this time, but I managed it with the aid of the gate itself, and presently, having said good night to the girl, I turned him out of the yard, to face the darkness once again.

  It was now, with the job done, that nature went back on me. My muscles felt as weak as a child’s, and I sat the horse so loosely that, if he had treated me to a single moment’s display of temperament, I’d have slid straight down his shoulders under his hoofs.

  But, the two of us alone again, he went as softly as a cat across the grass, let me open the second gate from his back, and after that he walked, with that smooth, distance-devouring stride of his, till we came to the river-bank.

  Sooner than have to fight or cajole him, I’d have dismounted and led him across, myself thigh-deep. But he took to the water as smoothly as a mallard slipping off her nest, and in a few minutes more, it seemed, we were striding out at a collected, easy canter for Whitescar.

  He swerved only once, as we passed the crashed Ford squatting down on the river-gravel, but a word reassured him, and he went smoothly on.

  It was now, when I had no more effort to make, when Rowan was, so to speak, nursing me home to Whitescar, with the sound of his hoofs steady and soft on the turf of the avenue, that the spectres of imagination had time to crowd up out of the dark.

  Do what’s nearest . . . I had done just that, and I was right. Someone had to go to Whitescar, and warn Lisa what to prepare for. There was nothing I could have done at the lodge. And if I could do nothing for Adam, I could at least care for his horse, who was worth, in hard cash, at least as much as the garden and West Lodge put together . . .

  But this way, I should be the last to know what had happened. And in the darkness, as Rowan (whom I would never be able to see as ‘hard cash’ in my life) strode steadily and softly on, I was forced at last, with nerves sufficiently stripped by shock, to admit openly to myself what I had known at some other level for long enough.

  It might have already happened. This night, dark and damp and sweet smelling, might at this moment be empty of all I cared about. All. If Adam were dead (I acknowledged it now), there was nothing else, nowhere else, nothing. They are fools indeed who are twice foolish. I had had my folly, eight years back, and again this morning in the early dewfall, and now, tonight, it might be that the chance to be a fool again was gone.

  The colt stopped, lowered his head, and blew. I leaned over his neck, and pushed open the last gate. The lights of Whitescar were just below us.

  A few moments later Rowan clattered into the yard, and stood still.

  As I slid from his back, Lisa came hurrying out. ‘I thought I heard a horse! Annabel! What’s happened?’

  I told her everything, as succinctly as I could. I must have been incoherent from sheer fatigue, but at least she knew that a bed, or beds, would be needed, and I must have made it clear that the doctor would soon be on his way. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ I finished wearily, ‘when I’ve put the horse in.’

  Only then did I notice how she looked from me to Rowan, and back again. ‘Yes,’ I said gently, ‘I did manage to ride him, after all. I always did have a way with horses.’

  I left her standing there. As I led the lathered horse round the end of the Dutch barn, I saw her turn, and hurry back into the house.

  The mare’s box stood empty. I put the light on, and led Rowan in.

  He went without even a nervous glance round at the strange stable. Even when Tommy lifted her head from the nest in the manger, blinking at the light, Rowan only snorted, blew, and then lowered his nose to forage for hay. I fastened the bars behind him, slipped the bridle off and hung it up, then tipped a measure of feed down in front of him. He blew again, sighed, and began to munch, rolling an eye back at me as I brought the brush and set to work on him. Tired as I was, I dared not leave him steaming, and lathered, as he was, with ripples of sweat like the wave-marks on a beach.

  I had my left hand flat against his neck, and was currying his back and ribs vigorously, when, suddenly, I felt the muscles under my hands go tense, and the comfortable munching stopped. Rowan put his head up, and his tail twitched nervously. From the corner of my eye I saw a shadow leap from the manger to the top of the partition, and vanish without a sound. Tommy, taking cover.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  In the doorway, framed by the black night, stood Con. He was alone. He came quietly into the stable, and shut the half-door behind him.

  20

  ‘I lo’ve Brown Adam well,’ she says,

  ‘I wot sae he lo’es me;

  I wadna gie Brown Adam’s love

  For nae fause knight I see.’

  Ballad: Brown Adam.

  He stopped just inside the door, and I saw him reach back to pull the upper half shut, too.

  I hardly noticed what he was doing. There was room for only one thought in my mind just then. I straightened up, saying sharply: ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘They got him out. The doctor got there just before I left.’ He was struggling with the bolt, to thrust it home, but it was rusted, and stuck. He added, over his shoulder: ‘I see you did get the colt over to Nether Shields. Congratulations.’

  ‘Con!’ I couldn’t believe that even Con could so casually dismiss what must even now be happening up at the old lodge. ‘What’s happened? Are they all right? For heaven’s sake!’

  He abandoned the bolt, and turned. He came no nearer, but stood there, eyeing me. Beside me, Rowan stood stiffly, not eating, motionless except for that nervously switching tail. I laid an automatic hand on his neck; it was beginning to sweat again.

  Con’s voice was subdued, even colourless. ‘I told you. They got Seton out safely enough in the end. The cut in the artery wasn’t too bad; he’d lost a fair amount of blood, and he got a bump on the head, but the tourniquet saved him, and the doctor says it won’t be long till he’s as right as rain. They’ll be bringing him down soon.’

  So fierce was the preoccupation in my mind, that only now did Con’s manner – and his begging of my question – force itself on my attention. I noticed then that he seemed totally unlike himself; quiet, oddly restrained, not tired – that I could have understood – but damped-down in some way, almost as if his mind were not on what he was saying . . . or as if he was holding back what was in the forefront of it.

  It came to me, quite clearly, what he was trying not to say. My hand must have moved on Rowan’s neck, for the colt shifted his quarters, and his ears flattened.

  I said hoarsely: ‘Why did you come down like this, ahead of the rest? What are you trying to tell me?’

  He looked aside, for the first time since I had known him refusing to meet my eyes – Con, who could lie his way through anything, and smile in your face while he did it. There was a horseshoe on a nail by the door; hung there for luck, perhaps, the way one sees them in stables. He fingered it idly for a moment, then lifted it down, turning it over and over in his hands, his head bent to examine it as if it were some rare treasure. He said, without looking up: ‘The beam came down. I’m sorry.’

  I must have been leaning back against the horse, because I remember how cold my own body seemed suddenly, and how gratefully the heat from the damp hide met it through my thin blouse. I began to repeat it after him, stupidly, my voice unrecognisable: ‘The beam . . .’ Then sharply: ‘Adam? Con, you’re lying! It isn’t possible! You’re lying!’

  He looked at me quickly, then down again at the metal in his hands. ‘He wouldn’t come out. The beam was shifting, you saw it, but he wouldn’t leave Seton, he said, he’d have to take the chance. We did what we could, but with just me and Julie there . . .’ He paused, and added: ‘It happened just before the others got there.’

 
While I had been riding home. It had happened then. Then . . .

  My hand slid up the colt’s neck, and was twisted in his mane. I think it was all that was holding me up. Next day I found the cuts scored in the hand where the coarse hairs had bitten into the flesh. I said, so violently that the horse started: ‘So you let it happen, did you?’ Con was looking at me again now. ‘“Before the others got there . . .” Of course it was! Because you let it happen! You did it, Connor Winslow, you wanted him dead!’

  He said slowly: ‘Are you crazy? Why should I want that?’

  ‘God knows why? Do you have to have a reason? I’ve stopped wondering how your mind works. I suppose it suited you to let him die, just as it suited you to get Donald out alive! You think nobody exists but yourself, you think you’re God . . . every rotten murderer thinks the same! So Donald’s alive, and Adam—’ I stopped, as abruptly as if he had struck me across the face; then I added, quite flatly, without the faintest vestige of drama or even emotion: ‘You let him die, and me not there.’ And this time I wasn’t talking to Con.

  It must have been fully twenty seconds later that I noticed the silence. The quality of the silence. Then Rowan shifted his feet on the concrete, and I looked at Con again.

  He was standing quite still, the horseshoe motionless in his hands. His eyes were wide open now, and very blue. He said softly, and the Irish was there: ‘Well, well, well . . . so it’s true, is it? I thought as much, up there in your grandfather’s bedroom, but I couldn’t quite believe it . . . not quite; not till the clever little girl took the horse.’ His knuckles whitened round the horseshoe. ‘So that’s it, is it? That’s everything clear at last.’ He smiled. ‘Annabel, me darlin’, what a fool you’ve made of me, haven’t you, now?’