The Judas Tree

by A. J. Cronin

  How idyllic under normal circumstances such an existence would have been. But, alas, beneath that superficial control a bowstring tension quivered insufferably with, for him, a rankling sensation of frustration and defeat. With all his charm and subtlety he had tried to dissuade her from her intention to desert him, and he had failed. Persuasion and argument alike had proved futile. And time was flying – indeed, had flown. She must leave when Willie arrived in three days’ time.

  This inflexibility in one so young, untried and inexperienced, remained for him a perpetual source, not of anguish alone, but of stupefaction. It was not as though she did not love him. Every hour of the day presented him with evidence of her suffering through the constant suppression of her natural desires. Now when he accidentally touched her hand, as in passing a dish at table, the tremor that ran through her was physically perceptible. And how often, when she thought herself unobserved, had he surprised her glance bent upon him, charged with longing, with all the sad hunger of the heart.

  One morning, although visitors were proscribed, he had felt be must introduce her to his two little friends, the children of the pier-master. So Hans and Suzy were summoned, introduced, and given ‘elevenses’ of cherry cake and orangeade. Afterwards all four had gone into the garden to make a snow-man from a drift blown against the thick bole of the Judas tree. This snow, beneath its hard crust, was soft and malleable, and he tied back the swing he had put up for them last summer, so they could get at it. What fun the children had, what shouts of glee, what rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes! Watching them, he had said to her, almost curtly:

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to have children like these?’

  She had flushed, then paled as from a sudden hurt.

  ‘They are sweet.’ She avoided his question. ‘ So completely natural and unspoiled.’

  Why – why – why should she refuse his love, the children he could give her, and all the immense advantages of his wealth and position? Above all, what could the alternative offer? That same afternoon, when they took their favourite walk along the high ridge of the Riesenthal, he kept asking himself these questions with a kind of brooding, desperate despondency induced for the first time by a gleam, a breaking through so to speak, a compelled recognition that there must be something in her point of view. And although a truce had been declared between them, as they strode along the high path between the silver-dusted pine trees he could hold back no longer.

  ‘Dearest Kathy, I’ve no wish to reopen our wounds, but it would help to – to soothe mine, if only I could get a fuller understanding of your motives. Are you leaving me mainly because you have pledged your word?’

  ‘Partly for that reason,’ she answered, walking with lowered head. ‘ But also for another.’

  ‘What other?’

  ‘As I told you, because of what I believe is demanded of all of us. We’re living at a terrible time, David. We just seem to be drifting towards self-destruction, moral and physical. Beneath the surface we’re all terrified. Yet the world keeps moving away from God. We’ll never get through unless everyone, every single person does something about it, each his own part, no matter how small. Oh, I’m not clever, but it’s so obvious, what Uncle Willie says – that we must prove love is stronger than hatred – show that courage, self-denial, and above all charity, can defeat brutality, selfishness and fear.’

  Mentally he had made the state of the world taboo, except to reflect that it would see him out. But in spite of this he was impressed – who wouldn’t have been by such ingenuous fervour?

  ‘So because of your ideas of – of duty and service, you condemn yourself to a life of hardship and misery.’

  ‘Misery?’ Quickly she raised her head in protest. ‘You can’t imagine the personal rewards of such a life.’

  ‘A life of self-sacrifice.’

  ‘It’s the only way life can be lived. Nowadays especially.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘I was never more in earnest. Wait till you see Uncle Willie. He’s had what you might think of as a miserable time, and a great deal of illness, but he’s the happiest person in the world.’

  He was silent. This hitherto had been beyond him, something outside his conception of life. Could one really be happy out there, doing good, in that confounded wilderness? He asked himself the question with a sense of growing agitation.

  ‘And there’s more than happiness,’ she went on, with difficulty, still striving to express herself. ‘ There’s contentment and peace of mind and a sense of accomplishment. One can never get these by enjoying oneself, by running after pleasure all the time, shutting one’s eyes to the agony of others. And they certainly can’t be bought. But if one does a really fine job, something to benefit other people – people in need … Oh, I’m no good at explaining things, but surely you understand what I mean …’. She broke off. ‘ If you had practised as a doctor you would know … and I think – please forgive me, David – I’m sure you would have been a much happier man.’

  Again he kept silence, biting his lip, and switching with his steel-pointed stick at the iced lumps of snow turned back by the passage of farm wagons. She was enunciating, naively, a humanitarian cliché. And yet, wasn’t there more than a grain of truth in what she said? In the pursuit of the rewards of this world, had he found anything but heartache, ennui, recurrent dissatisfactions and regrets, and a bunch of neurotic complexes which had more than once brought him to the verge of a breakdown?

  ‘Dear Kathy!’ With sudden self-pity and a rush of sentiment. ‘I’ve always wanted to be good, and to do good, but circumstances have been too much for me.’

  ‘You are good,’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s – it’s looking out of your face. You only need the opportunity to prove it to yourself.’

  ‘Do you honestly believe that?’

  ‘With all my heart.’

  ‘My God, Kathy – if you knew what my life had been, what I’ve endured until … well, virtually, until I met you.’ Emotionally, he went on: ‘As a young man, in India, trapped – yes, literally trapped – into a disastrous marriage and then, for years, the American treadmill, trying to get on … on … on, finding some refuge in the arts, but only a temporary respite, make-believe, really never achieving true satisfaction though deluding myself that I had. It all springs from my poor unwanted childhood. The whole tree of my life, roots, stem, and branch, was formed then. I’ve been told,’ he refrained from mentioning Wilenski, ‘I know it too, all my present being comes from those early years when I had nobody but myself.’

  ‘All that you’ve said only convinces me that you still can do great things.’

  He was too moved to reply and they continued in constrained silence. But her words vibrated in his mind and he felt that she was right – the potential for high achievement still lay within him. What was that line? ‘ Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long.’ He remembered suddenly the last advice Wilenski had given him on leaving New York: ‘ When you get over there, for heaven’s sake find yourself something worthwhile to do, something to do with other people, that’ll take your mind off yourself.’ Why had he ignored, forgotten this? It had taken Kathy to remind him. Her sweetness and goodness, the purity of her being – he did not shrink from the phrase – had worked on him unconsciously, affected him without his knowing it. How could it have been otherwise?

  He was about to speak when, looking up, he saw they had reached the mountain hut where on a previous occasion they had stopped for coffee. It was a poor brew made from some inferior powder, but it was hot, Kathy had appeared to like it, and the peasant woman, skirt kilted over her striped petticoat, was already welcoming them. They sat down on the wooden terrace, in the I cold sunshine, both conscious of something momentous and unavoidable developing between them. Nervously, he began drumming on the table, took a quick incautious sip of coffee, spilling it slightly, for his hand shook, then said suddenly:

  ‘I do admit, Kathy, that everyone ought to have some worthy objective in
life. I had hoped to find it in devoting myself to you here. But now – it begins to seem as though something more is being demanded of me.’

  ‘What, David?’ Her lips were trembling.

  ‘Can’t you guess? You’re the one who’s made me feel it, not only by speaking out now, but simply by your presence. Kathy,’ he murmured, in a low, reaching-out voice, ‘all other considerations apart, do you really need me?’

  She looked at him, drawn beyond endurance.

  ‘How can you ask that?’ Then with a sudden weakening of control, pitifully avoiding his eyes: ‘I need you so much … I want you to come with me.’

  It was out at last, she had been forced to say it, the unspoken longing that until now she had kept locked up within her breast. He gazed at her in a shaken silence of revelation, realising that he had wanted and waited for that plea through all these recent days of strain.

  ‘You mean,’ he said slowly, demanding more, at least a repetition, ‘to take the trip out with you?’

  ‘No, no … to stay.’ She spoke almost feverishly. ‘As a doctor, there’s the greatest need for you. Uncle Willie is planning a little hospital adjoining the orphanage. You would find there the very work you are fitted for, which in your heart you are seeking. And we would be together, working together, happy.’

  ‘To be with you, Kathy,’ he conceded feelingly, ‘I’d give my right arm. But think of the changes it would mean, in my – my way of living for one thing. Then again, it’s some time, since I took my medical degree.’

  ‘You could brush up quickly – you’re so clever. And you’d get used to the life.’

  ‘Yes, dear Kathy, but there are other difficulties.’ The inordinate desire to be pressed further made him go on. ‘Financial affairs that require constant attention, responsibilities; then as regards the mission, you know I’m not a religious man. While agreeing with what you’ve just said, I doubt if I could surrender my mind to your spiritual convictions.’

  ‘The work you’d do is the best kind of religion. In time, David, you would know the meaning of grace. Oh, I can’t speak of such things, I never could, in words they become stiff and wooden, I can only feel them in my heart. And you would too … if you’d only come.’

  Their hands glided together. Hers, from inner strain, was cold, a marble hand; he held it tightly until the blood began to throb. Never had he felt closer to her. All her soul seemed to flow into him.

  The arrival of the peasant woman cut into this splendid moment. While he looked up at her, unseeingly, she pointed to the northern sky and said, practically:

  ‘Es wird Schnee kommen. Schau’n sie, diese Wolken. Es ist besser Sie gehen zurück nach Schwansee.’

  ‘She’s advising us to get back home.’ Returning to earth, he answered Kathy’s inquiring glance. ‘Snow is forecast and it’s already clouding over.’

  He paid the score, leaving generous trinkgeld, and they set off back along the ridge, now in total silence, for he was deep in thought. The air had turned grey, cold and very still and the sun was dropping fast behind the mountains like a great blood-orange. Within the hour they had descended to the flatlands and, worried for her in the chill twilight, he looked forward to reaching the villa quickly. But as they were about to cross the short stretch of main road that intersected the path to Schwansee, a red sports M.G. flew past, hesitated, screeched to a stop, and noisily reversed towards them.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ came the effusive greeting in high-pitched tones. ‘I felt sure it was you, dear boy.’

  Jarred out of his meditation, Moray recognised with misgiving the brass-buttoned blazer of Archie Stench. Leaning airily out of the window from the driver’s seat, smiling with all his teeth. Stench extended a gloved hand which Moray accepted with the forced affability of extreme annoyance. The solemn pattern of the afternoon was shattered.

  ‘This is Miss Urquhart, daughter of an old friend,’ he said quickly, bent on extinguishing the suggestive gleam already glittering slyly in Stench’s eye. ‘Her uncle, a missionary in Central Africa, is joining her in two days time.’

  ‘But how inter-esting.’ Archie split and stressed the word. ‘ Coming here?’

  ‘For a brief visit,’ Moray nodded coldly.

  ‘I should like to meet him. Africa is in the news, and how. The wind of change. Ha, ha. Dear old Mac. It’s quite a breeze now in the Congo. Are you enjoying your stay, Miss Urquhart? You are staying with Moray, I presume?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kathy replied to both questions. ‘But I shall be leaving soon.’

  ‘Not for wildest Africa?’ Ogling, Stench threw out the question facetiously.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ Stench thrilled. ‘You’re really serious? Sounds like quite a story. You mean you’re in the missionary racket – sorry, I mean business – yourself?’

  Kathy half smiled, to Moray’s annoyance, as though taking no exception to Stench’s persistence.

  ‘I am a nurse,’ she explained, ‘and I’m going out to help my uncle – he’s opening a hospital at Kwibu, on the Angola border.’

  ‘Good work!’ Stench glowed. ‘ While everyone’s running away from that windy area you’re rushing in. The nation ought to hear about it. We British have to keep the flag flying. I’ll drop over when your uncle arrives. You’ll give me a drink, dear boy just for old lang syne? Well, got to be off. I’m all in. Been down at the Pestalozzi Village doing a conjuring show for the kids. Sixty kilometres each way. Damn bore. But decent little brats. Cheerio, Miss Urquhart; chin-chin, dear boy. Wonderful to have you back!’

  As he drove off Archie called out, ensuring his prospective visit:

  ‘Don’t forget, I’ll be giving you a ring.’

  ‘He seems nice,’ Kathy remarked conversationally, when they had crossed the road. ‘ Good of him to entertain those children.’

  ‘Yes, he’s always up to something like that. But – well, a bit of a bounder I’m afraid,’ Moray answered in the tone of one unwillingly forced to condemn, adding, as though this accounted for everything, ‘Correspondent for the Daily Echo.’

  The unfortunate meeting at this particular moment, when vital soul-subduing issues surged in his mind, had thoroughly put him out. Stench was a menace. Confound it, he thought, brought back to the mundane, in half an hour news of his return with Kathy would be all over the canton.

  Indeed, no sooner had they got back and taken tea than the phone rang.

  ‘Put it through to the study,’ he told Arturo briefly. ‘Excuse me for a few minutes, dear Kathy. Friend Stench has been at work.’

  Upstairs, he unhooked the receiver, pressed the red button with an irritable premonition immediately confirmed by Madame von Altishofer’s contralto overtones.

  ‘Welcome home, dear friend! I heard only this moment that you were returned. Why did you not let me know? It has been so long. You have been missed greatly; everyone is talking about your mysterious absence. Now, how soon may I come to see you, and your exciting young visitor who has designs on darkest Africa?’

  It was amazing how disagreeable he found this intrusion – not only what she said, but her manner, her inverted English, even her modulated well-bred voice. He cleared his throat, launched into a perfunctory explanation, the essence of which was simply that the demands of old family friends had detained him much longer than he had anticipated.

  ‘Relatives?’ she queried politely.

  ‘In a way,’ he said evasively. ‘When my other guest arrives I hope you’ll come over and meet them both.’

  ‘But before, you must come to me for a drink.’

  ‘I wish I could. But I have so many things to attend to, after being away.’ Looking out of the window he saw that the first frail snowflakes were beginning to drift down. He seized upon the topic. ‘Good gracious! It’s actually snowing. I’m afraid we’re in for an early winter.’

  ‘No doubt,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘But are we reduced to speaking of the weather?’

  ‘Of course not. We�
�ll get together soon.’

  Frowning, he hung up, terminating the conversation, annoyed at her interference – no, that was totally unjust; despite her Germanic strong-mindedness she was a thoroughly nice woman and he had perhaps over-encouraged her. He was very much on edge. Again he had a strange feeling that time was closing in upon him. Downstairs he was disappointed to find that Kathy had gone to her room. She did not appear again until dinner, and then he saw, that, to please him, she had put on the green dress. Touched to the heart, he knew that there was only one woman in the world for him. He wanted her with a need so extreme he had to turn away without his usual compliment, without a word. All evening, despite his efforts to entertain, he was not himself – preoccupied, obsessed rather, with the need of achieving some decision, in the ever-dwindling hours at his disposal. After he had played a few records she must have seen that he wished to be alone, for on the plea of fatigue she went early to bed, leaving him in the library.

  Chapter Twelve

  When she had gone he stood for several minutes listening to her light movements in the room above. Then, automatically, he began to slip the long-playing discs into their polythene covers and to replace them in the cabinet. He half opened one of the three tall windows and peered across the terrace into the night. The snow, beginning with light flurries, had fallen steadily all through the late afternoon, gentle, silent, clouding the air with great drifting flakes. Now the garden was blanketed, nothing visible beyond, life seemed extinguished. No sounds disturbed the unnatural stillness but the abandoned wail of a paddle boat groping its way across the shrouded lake, and the faint whine of the bise springing up, imperceptible at first, but gaining in force. He well knew that wind, spiralling down from the mountains with immediate violence, and recognised through all his senses the portents of a storm. Within five minutes, as he had foreseen, the wind was howling round the house, creaking the shutters and tearing at the roof tiles. The air, turned colder, edged the whirling flakes with ice. They fell sharper, mixed with a heavy spattering hail and clots of driven snow. The trees, unseen but plainly audible, had begun that familiar mad fandango which, mingling Berlioz with the blast, he had so often dramatised for his own entertainment.