The Quivering Tree by S. T. Haymon

that float
On those cool waters where we used to dwell,
I would have rather felt you round my throat
Crushing out life than waving me farewell.’
    Mrs Benyon’s breath, curling round my cheeks, smelled sweet, much too sweet for comfort. As she stood there, puffing it out over my shoulder I felt myself positively drowning in its dreadful sweetness, which was no perfume I recognized – that is to say, not lavender water, Parma violets nor eau de Cologne, nor that Evening in Paris scent Phyllis went in for and which I always felt – not that I would have dreamed of mentioning it – smelled like cat’s litter slightly the worst for wear. With that smell wafting about me, hitting the piano front which promptly batted it back into my face, I could easily have brought my tea up, except that I was hanged if I was going to be parted from the only decent meal that had come my way since coming to lodge at Chandos House.
    I hurried to the end of the song as fast as I dared, and then stood up, dislodging the podgy hands from my shoulders as if by accident: full of a desperate admiration as I edged towards the french window, seeking air.
    â€˜How marvellously you sing!’ I gasped, I gushed. ‘You ought to be in opera!’
    â€˜Opera!’ Mrs Benyon looked as if I had insulted her. ‘I hope I got something better to do with my time.’
    â€˜Do you sing in the church choir?’
    â€˜I do not!’
    â€˜The chapel, then?’ I persisted, unwilling to let go this possible key into the closed life of this closed woman. I hated not knowing about people.
    â€˜I don’t sing anywhere!’
    â€˜Except here,’ I corrected winsomely, my lungs recharged. ‘I’ll always be happy to accompany you.’
    The housekeeper was looking annoyed. It was strange that such flat, immobile features could convey emotion, but they could, to perfection.
    â€˜How many times I got to say I don’t sing anywhere, ever?’
    â€˜But we just –’ I stammered.
    â€˜But we just what?’
    â€˜Sang. “Pale hands I loved” – you know –’ I managed feebly.
    â€˜Pale hands I what?’ Mrs Benyon drew herself up and I saw that she too stuck out front and back like the old-fashioned ladies on the song sheets – except that you could tell by the look in her eyes, whatever the others might or might not have known, she knew all right whether she was coming or going.
    Both at the same time, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

Chapter Ten
    On Saturday morning the sun shone, birds sang. The leaves outside my bedroom window quivered excitedly, or so it pleased me to imagine. ‘Food!’ I distinctly heard them rustling, as I hurried through my dressing. ‘Lovely food!’
    I ran downstairs, anxious to put away my meagre breakfast without delay; get off to the city and on with the task of stocking my private larder. The thought of putting myself into a position where I no longer felt compelled to think about food all the time intoxicated me. I was high on hopes of, at last, contriving to fill the churning crater which seemed to have taken up permanent residence in my innards. Mrs Benyon’s teas, during the week, had been extraordinarily variable in quantity, the magnificent opulence of the first afternoon never repeated, and subsequent teas ranging between fair and two desiccated triangles of bread without so much as a smidgeon of butter between them. I had given up trying to puzzle out whether it was some inadvertent blunder on my part which determined my allotment on any given day. Like Jehovah, and equally unknowable, the housekeeper at Chandos House was that which she was, stony as marble and unpredictable as Fate.
    By the time the weekend actually came round I had, in my dreams, spent Alfred’s pound note twenty times over. Every idle moment had been taken up with a writing of lists, with a weighing of pros and cons of great moment.