The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart Page A

difficult. It’s a – a raw sort of situation, and I’m not prepared to react to it. Don’t you see? I’m not prepared to play, in front of Grandfather, the part of someone who’s borne a child, living or dead, to Con. It – that sort of thing – matters too much. Besides, if it were true, I should never have come home. Con as ex-lover; yes. Con as – this; no. That’s all.’
    â€˜But what explanation—?’
    â€˜It’s perfectly simple to say that it was a mistake. That by the time I found out I was wrong, I’d gone abroad, and was too proud to come home – and too unwilling to face Con and Grandfather again.’
    â€˜And the other thing? You’ll accept that?’
    â€˜Having had a lover? I said I would.’
    Lisa said, watching me: ‘You are – what did you say? – “prepared to react” to that?’
    I looked at her straightly. ‘I’ve no objection, if that’s what you mean, to having Con as my ex-lover. As long as the emphasis remains on the “ex”.’
    She dropped her eyes again, but not before I had seen, quite clearly, what had now and then stirred those unexpressive features with that sudden gleam of malignancy; it was jealousy, still alive and potent, of an unhappy girl whom she had believed dead for years. And by the same token, I saw why Lisa and her brother had all along accepted the fact that I was prepared to come in with them on what was at best a crazy and hazardous adventure. Their need was obvious; but I was under no compulsion. The very fact that I was what Lisa had called ‘straight’ might make me safe to employ, but should have made them pause to wonder why I had thrown my lot in with theirs. I had been sure all along that they didn’t really think of me as the type who would do anything for money. And even this last disclosure had not been expected to put me off. Lisa had been wary, even uneasy, but never downright apprehensive.
    But now I saw it, simply and infuriatingly through Lisa’s eyes. She couldn’t understand that any woman could resist for a moment the prospect of an association – any sort of association – with the wonderful, the handsome, the fascinating Connor Winslow.
    And Con? Well, as far as I could judge, Con thought exactly the same.
    Fatted calf or no fatted calf, Annabel’s homecoming would certainly be a riot.

5
    Oh, the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree ,
    They are all growing so green in the North Country .
    Traditional .
    The approach to Whitescar was down a narrow gravelled track edged with hawthorns. There was no gate. On the right of the gap where the track left the main road, stood a dilapidated signpost which had once said, Private Road to Forrest Hall . On the left was a new and solid-looking stand for milk churns, which bore a beautifully painted legend, WHITESCAR. Between these symbols the lane curled off between its high hawthorns, and out of sight.
    I had come an hour too early, and no one was there to meet the bus. I had only two cases with me, and carrying these I set off down the lane.
    Round the first bend there was a quarry, disused now and overgrown, and here, behind a thicket of brambles, I left my cases. They would be safe enough, and could be collected later. Meanwhile I was anxious to make my first reconnaissance alone.
    The lane skirted the quarry, leading downhill for perhaps another two hundred yards before the hedges gave way on the one side to a high wall, and on the other – the left – to a fence which allowed a view across the territory that Lisa had been at such pains to picture for me.
    I stood, leaning on the top bar of the fence, and looked at the scene below me.
    Whitescar was about eight miles, as the crow flies, from Bellingham. There the river, meandering down its valley, doubles round leisurely on itself in a great loop, all but enclosing the rolling, well-timbered lands of