Andrew remembered. 'And she gave you furniture and money.'
Lady Campbell had deliberately sent Ma away. But why? She was no philanthropist, no giver of charity. She had never acted except in self-interest in her life.
‘Yes. She was good to me. She was having problems of her own. All those evacuees to find homes for. And her expecting her first baby.'
If Flora, pregnant and desperate, had gone to Ingersley looking for Ma, why was Ma never told? Who had kept it from her? Why? It still did not add up. He could be on the wrong track - the girl may not have been Flora. He'd need a few more facts before he tackled Nanny Taylor.
The following morning at the office, as soon as he had drunk a cup of coffee and read his post, he sent for Brodie and asked him to check the register of births in North Berwick between the date the Heinkel was shot down and the end of July. Next, and thinking about the investigation in hand, he put in a transatlantic call to New York. There was a reciprocal agreement through Interpol and soon he found himself speaking to his American counterpart. 'I want you to trace a Robert Campbell,' he said. 'He landed in June, nineteen fifty eight and has become a successful singer and song-writer over there.'
'Who?'
'Robert Campbell.'
'Never heard of the guy.'
Andrew believed him. It would be Nanny Taylor's exaggeration. He laughed. 'Try Nashville, Tennessee. He wanted to go there.'
'How old?'
In front of Andrew was Robert's file, from his running-away days. 'He was born on the fifteenth of April, nineteen forty. He'll be twenty-one.'
'Description?'
'Scottish accent. Tall. Dark haired.'
'Worn long?'
'Oh, I expect so, by now.'
'What's it about?'
'Tell him his father is dead. He must come home.'
'You'll pay for his ticket?'
'Yes. Give him enough for the ticket and a couple of nights in hotels en route. And tell him to call me as soon as he lands. I want to put him in the picture.'
Andrew put the phone down. It rang immediately and he picked it up. It was Brodie, who said, 'I found it, sir. Flora Macdonald gave birth to a boy. Alexander Andrew Macdonald. On the fifteenth of April, nineteen forty.'
The hairs on Andrew's arms stood on end. His stomach lurched. He was a father. He fought back the tears and the lump that came to his throat. He put his hands to his face and realised that Flora had had her baby -his own baby son - in Ivy Lodge on the very day that Lady Campbell gave birth to Robert at Ingersley. And slowly the feeling of tearful elation was replaced with a simmering anger. How could Lady Campbell not have known that Nanny Taylor had delivered a baby on the same day as herself? They lived only four miles apart.
Chapter Sixteen
Robert did not have enough luggage to put in the hold. He took his guitar case on board. A sweet Scottish air hostess smiled and allowed him through, seeing that the guitar case was larger than the small haversack he carried. The sack only contained two worn-out pairs of jeans, four shirts that had seen better days and the jacket he'd retrieved from pawn with the money the cops gave him.
The air hostess showed him to a single seat by the emergency exit. 'You'll be comfortable here,' she said. 'More leg room. If we are not full I'll let you into first class later. That is, if you will give us a tune.'
'Sure thing,' he said as he stretched his long legs out. 'It's going to be a long flight.' He closed his eyes as soon as she retreated. The flight would be a luxury after the last six months of sharing a room with four others in a flop-house in steaming-hot Nashville.
A smile crossed his face quickly as he thought about the bare light bulbs, the broken furniture, the bugs and the noise all night long from drunks, trucks, whores, occasional gunshots and fighting couples. The four of them were too poor to buy what they needed. When they needed guitar strings they could not afford the coin laundry but had to do their washing in the bathroom and drape the wet clothes over the backs of chairs.
Although the four of them - all player/song-writer hopefuls like himself shared the one room, they were seldom at home together. Robert had found a job for the last six months waiting-on in a hotel, where at least he was fed when on duty one meal a day. He’d stuff himself full so he could last out until the next. Meals otherwise were nonexistent. Breakfast was a cigarette and coffee, lunch half a sandwich, cigarettes and coffee, supper the other half sandwich.
Two of the other guys worked at a soda fountain and Tex, the luckiest of the four, as a box-office clerk at the Grand Ole Opry. It was Tex who'd slip them in to watch the stars performing and Tex who kept them all going, assuring them that their songs would be sung all over the world; Tex who told them that the acts at the Grand Ole Opry were not half as good as theirs and that they were all gonna make it big.
The safety-belt lights were on now and his girl was back, fastening his belt for him. Robert kept his eyes closed, enjoying the feel of her little hands going down his chest to pull the thing tight across his lap. When he heard the snap of the buckle, he opened his eyes and winked at her.
She pulled his hair - he wore it shoulder length and curly now,and said, 'You can move up to first class when we are in the air.'
He grinned, the lopsided, engaging grin that some girls, he thought gratefully, found irresistible.
Later, after he'd been moved up to the front when they were flying through the black night, he told Cathy, for that was the hostess's name, all about his years in America and how he would not be returning to Nashville. The climate didn't suit him. With the humidity, ninety degrees Fahrenheit felt like two hundred. 'So I'm going home,' he said. 'My father's dead. I have come into the estate and the title.'
There were folk-singing groups in Edinburgh. Singing and writing songs would have to be his recreation. He had given it a fair go but he hadn't made it, and unless he found a partner, he never would.
'A title?' she smiled. 'So you're rich and famous?’
He laughed. 'Neither. I won't use the title.' He had long ago stopped wondering if he were Father's legitimate heir; stopped asking himself if he really were entitled to the estate, reasoning that if he were Mike Hamilton's offspring then Edward probably was too. The important thing was that Father had never been told the truth of Mother's adultery and that he had trusted Robert to come back, take on the estate and look after Mother and Edward. Robert wanted it too. He wanted to run the estate and the farm in the interests of all of them.
However he had never imagined it coming to him this way, through his father's premature death. He had not given Nanny his last address, so could not have known about this tragedy. The cops had given him the newspaper with a four-week-old report of Father's going missing. They'd also given him the most recent report, a two-day old Scotsman which had his own photograph emblazoned across the front page beside Father's.
He was hurt by the newspaper story that Father was depressed and had never recovered from the loss of his elder son. Nanny had told Father from the beginning, that he was safe. She had even reported back to him Father's hopes for his success.
He opened the locker and got out his guitar case. The Scotsman was zipped inside with his songs and music. He read the front page of the newspaper and again felt anger rising in him. Father would never commit suicide. There were questions to be answered - and to think that, without Andrew Stewart's intervention, he might never have known.
Afterwards, Alex realised, he might never have known the truth had he not dropped by at the library on his way to the rehearsal. It was pouring with rain - a summer shower and the worse for being unseasonal for it was mid July and he was dressed in jeans and a thin shirt. However, he was wearing a tie to impress Jean, the new library assistant, who was tall and red-haired like Mom.
He parked Mom's Studebaker in front of Kelusky's in the only parking spot he could find. He stood looking in the window at the sale goods, wondering if he should buy the rubber knee boots that were reduced to $1.95. He decided against it and t
ook his chances, and ran fast, so as not to get too wet, to the library on Flint Street. In the porch he ran his fingers through the hair he wore longer than the family approved. He liked the feel of it against his neck and the look of the dark curls that bounced over his ears and fell forward over the greeny-grey eyes that were so like his mother's.
Pushing open the door, he saw that Jean was there, and went over to her where she worked behind the high maplewood desk. 'Hi!' he said.
'Hi!' she replied shyly, looking up at him and down to her books very quickly. 'Have you read them all? It's only two days ...’
'I was looking for something -er -exciting,' he said, and grinned to see the blush that spread at great speed, poppy red, on her cheeks. Girls with Mom and Jean's colouring could never hide their blushes.
Her straight hair was cut to chin length and it fell slanting across her face as, flirtatious now, she smiled back at him and said, 'You mean the books?'
Alex looked around. There were only four people in the hushed library apart from themselves. The others wouldn't hear if he kept his voice down. 'I mean what time do you finish? Do you have a date?'
'I don't have a date. But,' she glanced at him again, 'you have a reputation.'
‘For what?' he whispered, smothering the ready laugh. He'd had a few girlfriends but nothing serious, until Jean came to town and he fell in love -or whatever one called this urge to see her, speak to her, only be happy in her presence and to fret if she were not at work every day.
'For being a Don Juan -a lady-killer.'
'That's all right then,' he said. 'I prefer you alive.'
She laughed, and it was a sweet sound like water burbling over mountain stones. She said, 'All right. Eight o'clock.' She looked up at the big wall clock. 'It's only five. You don't want to wait around here.'
'I have to go to Mom's rehearsal.' He leaned over the counter the better to see her small hands riffling through the pages of returned books as she looked for damage. 'She's in The Mikado.'
Mom was singing the part of Yum Yum in the production that was to be staged next month in Bancroft. Alex played the piano at rehearsals.
'She's good. I never miss the operatic society productions.
'Shall I meet you here?' he said. 'We could go for a drive ...’
She smiled the secret smile he could not fathom. 'We'll go to the coffee bar,' she said softly.
He was about to leave when she added, 'By the way - go and look at the newspapers.' There was a large table in the far comer of the room. On it were placed the dailies, local and national, and in a large rack against the wall the monthlies and international news.
'What for?' he said.
'Look at last week's Scotsman. Front page. He looks like you.'
'Who does?' Alex grinned at her but went obediently to the empty table and took a few old copies of The Scotsman from the rack. He placed them on the table, opened the top one out and felt his face growing pale. There, right in the middle of the front page, was a picture of a man in naval uniform - next to one of himself. It was himself yet not himself. He had never had this particular picture taken and the photograph was of a young man with shorter, neatly cut hair such as Brits wore.
The stark headline read: Naval Hero Found Drowned. Underneath the article continued:
The body of Sir Gordon Campbell of Ingersley has been found. Sir Gordon sailed out of North Berwick harbour at high tide on 15 June in perfect sailing conditions. His empty yacht drifted ashore the following day but until today there had been no sightings. The cause of death has not yet been established but the police are treating the case as non-accidental drowning. The procurator fiscal has announced an inquiry. Lady Campbell, well-known local figure, JP and school governor, told reporters that her husband was being treated for depression. He had never recovered from the loss at sea -" of his son Robert (right, above), who went missing, presumed drowned, off the coast of San Francisco three years ago.
It was not the report that held Alex's horrified attention. It was the photograph of Robert Campbell. Alex stared again at the photograph of himself -himself but not quite. Underneath he read: Robert Campbell, son of the late Sir Gordon Campbell. Born North Berwick, 15 April 1940.
Alex looked round at Jean, who had come to stand beside him to say, 'Don't you think you and he are alike?'
He said, 'Not only alike. He was born on the same day as me. In the same place. But how..? His hands were trembling. Robert Campbell was the boy Aunt Dorothy's sister wrote about. Robert Campbell had been his own other half his imaginary friend - all his life. 'Can I take the paper?' Alex said to Jean. 'It's really important.'
'OK. Nobody will even notice, I expect,' she said. 'And would you mind if I broke our date? The first and last time?'
'Not at all,' she said. 'I'll see you whenever,' but he had gone and was running back to the Studebaker, ramming it into gear and going hell for leather for the rehearsal hall.
Normally he enjoyed rehearsals and often stayed on after time, but now his mind and concentration were not on the music. He hardly knew how he got through it.
He seated himself at the piano where the score was opened at page sixty-four. The trio. He didn't need the music but it pleased Mom to have someone stand by the piano and turn the pages for him. Mom was talking to the other two Little Maids, Peep Bo and Pitti Sing. He watched her, unobserved, for a few moments. He had always known that there was a mystery around his birth, but how could any mother - how could his own, adored, wonderful Mom - hide from her son the fact that she had given away his identical twin - his 'missing presumed drowned' twin, for that was the only answer.
The producer called, 'All right, ladies,' and a hush came over the cast who were all assembled now in the area around the piano. The Three Little Maids stood in line. Alex caught the producer's eye and began the introduction, allegretto grazioso, and the women came in without faltering, exactly on cue, with Mom singing as if this were the only challenge she had ever faced in her life.
Two hours later, with Mom in the Studebaker beside him, Alex pulled up fifty yards short of the house, switched off the engine and said, 'Stop chattering, Mom. You have some explaining to do.'
'What?' she said, and there was the little catch in her voice that always afflicted her when she knew that awkward questions were coming.
He reached into the back seat and presented the paper to her. Then he saw the colour drain from her face, saw her hands start to shake and finally saw the frightened look in her eyes. He said, 'The game's up, Mom. You have to tell.'
When she had finished reading, she looked at him with a world of pain in her tearful eyes. 'Robert? He isn't dead! He must never have let them know he's alive!' she said.
'Tell me. Please, Mom.'
She started slowly, and he listened, appalled, to the tale of her abandonment by the father of her babies, the frightening pregnancy of a girl of sixteen who had nobody in the world, the offer of shelter from a woman whose price for help was the child Mom was bearing. She told him how she loved him and how she had lived with her burden of guilt for abandoning Robert. She said, 'Nanny said that Robert would have a better life with the Campbells than with us and I knew it was true. One of my boys would have security. Robert would have a title and an estate. I was not to worry about him. I would never have left you behind, Alex.’
She looked exhausted when she had finished, and now he put his arm about her and said, 'It doesn't matter about me, Mom. But it sure as hell matters.' He stared out at the rain that was hammering on the windscreen and running in rivulets down the side windows. He said, 'So Lady Campbell never knew there were two of us?'
'No. Nanny never told her. Nanny wouldn't tell her.'
'And nobody - not even Nanny - knows what has since happened to my natural father?'
'Nanny has never mentioned him. I was never to ask, she said. It was best that way. If there were anything to tell, Nanny would have said so in the letters to Aunt Dorothy. I was to put it behind me and start afresh.'
/> 'And you did!'
She started to cry. 'No. I have never forgotten, not for one hour. And I never lost the feeling that I was doing wrong, for all I was told was that Robert was well and content.'
'So my natural father may be married. He may have other children -and he does not know I exist?' he demanded.
'Yes.'
'We are going back, Mom. We have to find Robert.' She twisted her handkerchief between tense fingers, as if she were on the edge of breaking down.
'He's not there. Three years ago he rang from San Francisco. He'd jumped ship. He wanted to be a singer and was heading for Nashville.'
'I wish you had told me.'
'I wanted to go find him, tell him the truth and bring him to you.'
His voice was cold now. His emotions were confused. He could not comfort Mom. 'Why didn't you?'
'Nanny said that Robert and Sir Gordon Campbell would be broken-hearted if they discovered that Robert was not his son.'
'We are going to find him.'
'In America?'
'No. I know him, Mom. Don't ask how. I just know. He is me. He will go back home when he discovers that his father is dead. His Nanny is still alive. She'll find him. He'll take over the estate won't he?'
She wept. She couldn't control herself any longer. Her face was red and blotchy and her breath was coming in great lurching gasps. 'I can't, Alex! I can't go with you. I have carried it for all these years - the guilt. I couldn't face it. What if Robert doesn't want to know the truth at a time like this? He's lost his father and now he has to take the title ...'
Her shoulders heaved as she said, 'I couldn't bear it if he turned against me.'
Mom might not be able to bear rejection but Alex knew that his identical twin would feel exactly the same as he did. 'He will want to know his brother. He will want to know the truth,' he told her. 'I won't just go barging into his home and demand to see him, or anything like that. I'll be discreet.' But he could see that it would be difficult for Mom.
The Weeping Tree Page 33
