THE TRYSTING TREE (24 page)

WILLIAM

October 2
nd
, 1934

When the latest fit of coughing had subsided, William sat up in his hospital bed, his head thrown back, gasping for breath. His heart pounded as if it would burst out of the frail vessel that contained it and he lay a hand on his bony chest to calm it, as he might have quietened a fretful child. Never one to dwell on regrets or opportunities missed, William pushed away the fleeting but familiar thought that, if he’d had his own child, he might have loved it even more than he loved his niece – though he could scare imagine how, since he was sure he loved Ivy as if she were indeed his own child.

He rallied at the thought of Ivy and reached for her recent letter which he kept to hand on the bedside table with the books and newspapers brought by Hester, with which he whiled away the tedious hours of an invalid’s day.

Fumbling with the envelope, William extracted the two sheets covered in Ivy’s untidy handwriting and began to smile, anticipating the pleasure of re-reading her cheerful words. He sat back and perused the letter again.

Waterbury Horticultural School

Wheatley

Oxon.

September 30
th
, 1934

Dear Uncle Will,

Hurrah! I have now completed my first two weeks’ training and thought you might like to hear what I’ve been up to.

If you saw me in my uniform, you’d hoot with laughter. It’s certainly going to take some getting used to. Students and teachers, all female, work side by side wearing identical uniform: green breeches with green knee stockings (very itchy), shirts buttoned right up to the neck, with a tie and a green smock over the top. We look a sight, but the clothes are very practical.

This week we picked bushels of apples and pears and stored them. We learned about the care and use of tools and collected leaf mould from the woods. (Oh, how I miss our beech wood!) We also potted early strawberries, mostly King George and The Duke.

One of the jolliest jobs was bunching asters for the Saturday market in Swindon. We took sandwiches and tea in a Thermos and set out our stall selling cut flowers, fruit, rooted cuttings and flower seedlings in boxes – forget-me-nots, pansies and primulas. We sold all our stock and could have sold the fruit twice over!

I struggle to rise early, but you’ll be pleased to hear I haven’t yet been late for breakfast, which is delicious. Porridge with cream, followed by fish or sausages, eggs and all the bread and marmalade you can eat. I also drink a gallon of tea. I find I’m always hungry and thirsty here. It must be all the fresh air and hard work.

Now I must ask your advice, Uncle Will, because I have an essay to write. It concerns the construction of a rockery for a town garden. I must choose twelve suitable plants. I’ve already made my selection but I wondered which you would have chosen? I want well-behaved plants that will not overrun a modest plot within a few years. Do let me know your thoughts so I can compare your no doubt superior selection with mine.

It’s been a tiring day, so I will close now, sending love to you and Hester. I miss you both dreadfully and must confess I’ve shed a few tears late at night when all the others are fast asleep. But don’t worry about me, I shall soon get used to my new life. I’m too busy to be miserable for long. Thinking about how many sausages I shall consume at breakfast cheers me up no end!

I do hope your health is no worse. I look forward to a little letter from you soon, if you can manage it. In the meantime I shall continue to work hard. I’m determined to make you and Hester very proud of me.

All love,

Ivy

When he’d finished reading, William glanced at the date of the letter and decided he should reply. Ivy was waiting for a response to her query and in any case, it would be a pleasure – albeit a tiring one – to write. When a nurse brought him some tea, he asked her to set notepaper and an envelope on the table by the window, left wide open to admit the copious fresh air deemed beneficial in the treatment of tuberculosis. She helped him into his dressing gown, then supported him as he made his way to the table. Remembering what he wanted to write, William sent the nurse back to his bedside cupboard to fetch one of his old gardening books, a volume on the cultivation of alpine plants.

He sat and turned the pages until he found the list he was looking for, then laid the book open on the table. He unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and began his reply to Ivy. A breeze lifted the pages of the book and began to turn them. William turned them back, found his place again and resumed his letter, but another gust of wind, stronger this time, lifted the pages again. As he looked up, irritated, William saw a brightly coloured piece of paper fly up in the air, twist, then drift down to the floor where it lay at his feet. He put down his pen and, as he bent to retrieve the paper, saw it was a seed packet. As his fingers grasped the paper, he cried out, then let it go, as if the packet had burned his hand.

William got to his feet, his chest heaving and stared at the packet on the floor. He staggered as memory engulfed him like a tidal wave, obliterating the merciful amnesia that had protected his shattered mind for seventeen years. Remembering, he lifted his hands to his head and clutched at it, as if he feared the sudden flood of knowledge might cause his skull to explode. He let out an agonised cry and sank back on to his chair, turning his head from side to side, incredulous.

Sobbing, William leaned forward and pillowed his head on his arms, resting his wracked body on the table. Ivy’s letter and his reply lay unregarded beneath him, absorbing his tears, until the nurse looked in on him again. Seeing her patient’s pitiful condition, she summoned a doctor immediately.

THE BEECH WOOD

They sought consolation among us, separately, not expecting they should meet. Grief drove them towards us and towards each other. Both had lost so much, yet there was still something that could not be taken; something both still had to give.

Afterwards, they regretted what had happened, but in the midst of decay and death, life goes on. The cycle is eternal, inexorable, like the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon.

They were young. Alive. They did not understand, but obeyed the imperative. Death had no dominion over them and so they found the consolation they sought – not with us, but with each other.

WILLIAM

May 27
th
, 1916

Even before she came into sight, his sharp ears detected sounds: the sweep of her skirt over the mossy floor of the wood, the cracking of fallen twigs beneath her feet. He turned, quickly concealing the packet behind his back, though as it was wrapped in oilcloth, no one could have discerned the contents. When he saw it was Hester Mordaunt, he removed his cap and dropped the packet into it, then greeted his employer.

She was walking with her head bowed and at the sound of her name, she looked up, startled. Her serious expression vanished and was replaced briefly by a joyous smile. She then composed herself and said, ‘Mr Hatherwick. William… Please accept my condolences. I was so very sorry to hear of your father’s death. I have not liked to call. I thought you and Violet were best left alone to grieve. She has seemed quite distraught.’

He nodded. ‘She has indeed taken it badly, but she says you were a great comfort in his final days, Miss Mordaunt.’

‘Oh,
Hester
, please! Have you forgotten?’ she asked with a smile. ‘We might not have seen each other for a while, but you have often been in my thoughts. Family and friends still living are even more precious, now so many have departed and naturally I count you and Violet among my friends.’

‘Thank you,’ he replied with a slight bow. ‘Violet has spoken warmly of your generosity.’

‘Oh, it was nothing. I grew fond of your father. He was an excellent worker and a kind man. He seemed very concerned about Violet’s future, so I did my best to settle his mind. I told him her position at Beechgrave is assured.’

‘I fear I can do nothing to repay your kindness other than promise that when I’m able to take up my father’s duties, I shall fulfil them gladly and gratefully, to the very best of my ability.’

‘I know you will, William. And I hope that day will come very soon.’

He didn’t reply and in the silence they shared, both acknowledged privately how remote the end of the war still seemed, how difficult it was to recall peacetime.

‘Thank you for your last communication,’ Hester said with a shy smile.

He looked uncertain. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember—’

‘Your sketch. You sent me a little sketch of your trench garden. I was delighted to receive it. I do miss getting letters from the Front. There used to be so many and so many I had to write. But there’s no one now. My brothers… Friends… It seems as if everyone’s gone. Your sketch meant you were
alive
, so I was very glad to receive it. And it was such a charming sketch. I showed it to Violet and we discussed your excellent draughtsmanship.’

He looked uncomfortable and stared down into his cap. Hester feared she’d embarrassed him with the compliment, but eventually he said, ‘I’m sorry there was no letter to accompany the sketch. It’s difficult to find the time, not to mention the paper. I had to tear a page out of my sketchbook.’

‘Yes, of course. I understand. I really didn’t expect a letter. It was very good of you to think of me at all when your father was ill and Violet so troubled. I should not have mentioned it.  That was selfish. Please forgive me.’

William looked up, his expression pained. ‘Miss Mordaunt… Hester… I
did
write to you.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You did? But… but I never received any letters.’

‘That’s because I never sent them.’

‘Why not?’

‘They weren’t the sort of letters that could readily be sent.’

Hester frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘If you’d read them you would understand.’

‘Where are these letters? I do hope,’ she said, her voice unsteady, ‘you didn’t destroy them?’

‘No. I kept them.’

‘Where are they now? May I read them? I should very much like to read any letter you wrote me, however old.’

William said nothing, but slowly extracted the packet from his cap. He stared at it, as if trying to decide what to do.

‘Are those my letters?’ Hester asked faintly.

‘Yes. But they aren’t proper letters. It was hard to find paper. And in any case…’ His voice tailed off, but then he drew himself up and said firmly, ‘They could not be sent. I mean they could not be
read
.’ He made a derisory sound and looked down at the packet in his hand. ‘They should never have been written!’

After a long pause in which Hester struggled to order her thoughts, she asked, ‘Why do you have them with you? Were you intending to destroy them?’

‘No. I was going to hide them. Here, in the wood. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy them.’

‘And you couldn’t bring yourself to give them to me?’

‘No.’

‘But
why?
’

‘Because it would have been wrong.’

‘I don’t understand. If you’ve kept them for so many weeks—’

‘Months.’

‘Why won’t you keep them any longer?’

‘Because I know I shall not return. I feel it in my bones. I cannot explain it, but I know this is the last time I shall speak to you, Hester, the last time I shall see Beechgrave and my home.’

Tears started into her eyes. ‘You cannot know that! It’s mere superstition. Please don’t say such dreadful things, William. We must never abandon hope!’

Ignoring her, he continued solemnly. ‘I wished to dispose of anything that might prove an embarrassment to my family after my death, or an embarrassment to you. So I was going to hide these letters in the Trysting Tree. There’s a hole in the trunk, high up. No one would ever have found them there and no one would ever have known. Apart from me.’

‘Would you show me the letters? Please.’

He looked up and fixed her with dark, expressionless eyes. ‘Know that you ask this of a dead man.’ He swallowed and went on. ‘And it is a dead man who complies with your request. Do you understand?’

‘I think so.’

He regarded her a moment longer, then put down his cap and slipped the string off the packet. As he unwrapped the contents he let the oilcloth fall to the ground, then stepped forward and handed Hester some seed packets.

She was so astonished, she laughed. ‘But these are just seed packets!’

‘The ones you sent me,’ he said simply. ‘Open them up. Read the sweet peas first. Violet told me you liked our sweet peas, so that was the first one I wrote.’ As she shuffled eagerly through the empty packets, he laid a hand on her arm and said, his voice low and urgent, ‘Remember, Hester: it is a letter from a dead man. Remember that and forgive.’

She looked into his face but his eyes were cast down – in shame, she thought. As he turned away, she continued her search. When she found the sweet pea packet, she set the others down. The packet had been opened carefully along its sides so that she was able to open it out like a book. Inside, the paper was covered with small, neat handwriting executed in pencil. The letter began “My dear H”. As she peered at the tiny words, all colour left her face. As Hester read on, a whimper escaped her lips and, blinking away tears, she put a hand up to her mouth. When she’d finished reading the packet, she bent and picked up another and read that, then another. In the end she abandoned her reading because she could no longer see through her tears. She let the packets fall and as they fluttered to the ground, she covered her face with her hands.

William stepped forward, clutching his cap. ‘Forgive me, I would not have made you weep, not for the world! You must understand it was my intention you should never know. And you never
would
have known if we hadn’t met today.’

She looked up, her cheeks wet, her expression earnest. ‘Then I thank God we
did
meet! I thank the God I can scarcely believe in that I met you today, William. That you had the courage to show me these blessed, blessed letters! I thank God I shall not die believing no man ever loved me. But most of all, I thank Him that
you
will not die before I have told you that your love is requited. That I think of you every day – every
hour
! That I pray fervently you will be spared, that you will come home to Violet and to
me
, William, because if the day comes when I cannot look upon your dear face, I shall be a dead woman mourning a dead man.’

She stooped and quickly gathered up the seed packets and clutched them to her breast, dislodging a little silver brooch in the shape of a daffodil. William saw it fall and bent to retrieve it. As he straightened up, they stood very close, close enough for him to hear how her breath came unevenly, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his upon her face.

He dropped the brooch and took her face in both his hands, staring at her in mute appeal. He felt rather than saw her nod. As he kissed her, she let the packets fall so she could take him in her arms. She clung to him, sobbing between kisses, forbidding him to leave Beechgrave, assuring him she was his, would always be his, in life and in death, but that he must not –
must
not – die, not now they had found each other, now that they both
knew
.

William buried his fingers in her hair and silenced her with another kiss. Combs and hairpins worked loose, allowing her long hair to tumble down her back. He groaned in ecstasy and took her firmly round the waist, crushing her to him, so he could feel her breasts against his chest. She said his name over and over, pressing her face against his neck, her mouth searching for his skin.

He took hold of her arms and held her away from him, his eyes wide. ‘Hester, you must go. Now. Leave me here. Go now before we— before it’s too late.
Go!
’ He released her and stepped back.

She stood, dishevelled and confused, expecting to feel ashamed, but there was no shame, only a terrible hunger, something as primitive, as all-consuming as the grief and anger she had known when her brothers died. ‘William... There is more, isn’t there? Is that what you’re afraid of?... Tell me. Is there more?’

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘Much more. But it would be wrong, Hester. Wrong in every way you can imagine.’

She tossed her loose hair away from her face and said, ‘This war is wrong. What happened to my brothers was wrong. And so is what’s happening to my poor mother. Going back to the Front is wrong, William, I know it! I cannot believe anything we do in the name of love can be more wrong than this wicked, wicked war. Can it?’

‘No, my dearest love,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘It could not be more wrong than this godforsaken war.’

‘Then I am satisfied. And you, I think, are not. If there is more, William, I want it. If we can be more to each other, then that is what I desire, above
everything
. And I do not care if the world thinks us wicked. It will be a wicked world that judges us!’

Still he hesitated, a look of agony contorting his features. She grasped his hand and pressed it to her breast. ‘Kiss me, William. Take me in your arms and love me. Love me as if we both might die!’

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, a moment in which his resolution faltered. He withdrew his hand and stared down at the ground, then he spun on his heel and walked away to the centre of the clearing where he stood and surveyed the circle of beech trees that surrounded them. Hester watched, not breathing, as he gazed up at the tree canopy, then solemnly addressed the beeches, calling on them to witness his vow. He swore to honour and protect the woman he loved for as long as he should live, then he turned, took Hester’s hand and led her, unresisting, to another part of the wood: a sunken dell, thick with moss and bluebells, where light hardly penetrated and the only sound was the gentle rustling of leaves in the treetops.