The Lady Tree. Christie Dickason

friendly. He was all right again. Solid. There.

      Need pushed him too fast. Sooner than he wanted, than he meant, he muffled a shout, sighed from his toe-tips and laid his head between her shoulder-blades. Their ribs heaved in unison. Pond water dripped from the ends of his hair onto her bare brown skin.

      ‘I would have liked a longer farewell feast,’ he finally said. ‘A Roman banquet of courses.’ He leaned his hands on the tree, with an arm on either side of her.

      She turned to face him, her back now against the tree. ‘Don’t be a fool. You’ve never been one before.’ With her thumb, she wiped water from his black brows. ‘A good hearty tup, my love. More than enough, and right for now.’

      She was a good-natured woman, even though she would not have said no if John had offered more, back when she had not had an offer from the cooper, a kind man of her own estate in life, with a skill which would always be needed by civilized man.

      She stretched her handsome face up and kissed him. ‘’Twill do me nicely. We’re neither of us love-sick idiots.’

      At that moment John was not so sure. His spasm had eased his fear, but not the yearning in his bones. The woman in his arms was generous. Her generosity moved him towards words he knew he might regret.

      She held out the front of her dress and tucked her teats back into their nest. Then she ran her hands along his arms. ‘You’re bumpy as a plucked hen. I’d hate to be the death of you from ague. You’d best go get dry and clothed.’ One finger stroked his cold, limp member. ‘And find some other way of keeping that warm.’

      ‘None better than you,’ he said.

      ‘Words to warm me to my grave.’ She ducked under his arm and began to shake down her layers of linen and wool.

      He plucked a grey-green willow-leaf dagger from the front of her thick, wavy hair.

      ‘We’ll still smile when we meet?’ she asked.

      ‘Why not?’ He drew the leaf down the ridge of her nose, then handed it to her like a rose. He watched her think. Then she decided not to say more. John was relieved. He was not angry at her marriage; he understood her necessity. He himself was not a fit husband for anyone. He was grateful to her for two and a half years of ease and delight. And yet, something coiled deep in his gut was best left undisturbed.

      Cat ducked her head suddenly in the ghost of a curtsey. Gathering her ease around her like a cloak in cold weather, she turned away through the willows, back along the muddy bank. John parted the willows to look after her. He would miss watching those haunches shift their weight from foot to foot as she advanced, crouching, along a row of carrots or borage. When she disappeared he felt hollow again. Another line drawn through his life.

      He began to tug his clothes back on over damp, sticky skin. At least the madness was gone. Between them the cold water and Cat had flushed it out even if they had not truly eased him. As he hauled at his boots, John decided that although he was still not his former self he should be able to throw his new demon in a worthy fall or two.

      On the way back upstream towards the fish ponds, he paused to listen to the voices of the water – treble gurgles, alto murmurs and a low pounding bass pulse in the shadows of the bend.

      ‘Gone, gone,’ said the water. ‘On. On.’

      The pale wolf eyes stared at a patch of froth which struggled for ever above the same stone to race upstream.

      I have found my reason only to lose it again, he thought. He could not shake off a troubling fancy that he had just been paid an ambiguous bribe by the Lady Tree.

Two

      May 23, 1636. Water horsetail in bloom. 2nd swallow. Apple buds relaxed, about to blow, very late. A second dry day. I hide in small things.

      Journal of John Nightingale, known as John Graffham.

      ‘I don’t know how Harry can ask it of us!’ Aunt Margaret wailed. She yanked her skirt hem from the closed door of the housekeeper’s office, where it had caught. Stiffened hip joints gave her small figure the rolling walk of a sailor.

      John looked out of his aunt’s window into the immaculate forecourt. The geese had got in again and left grey-green droppings. If only he could freeze all living things until Harry Beester and his Londoners had arrived tomorrow.

      ‘All those extra grooms and maids and Lord knows who else! We should have slaughtered another dozen pigs last autumn!’

      Her fingers moved even more intently than they usually did, constantly checking the location and solidity of things – her belt, her slightly weak chin, her skirt, her keys.

      ‘Your brother was still alive last autumn,’ said John with careful mildness. ‘No one could have known. Least of all Harry.’

      In his head he tested the words ‘Sir Harry’.

      Mistress Margaret shifted the mess of papers on her table. She shook her fluffy silver head grimly and frowned past the end of her generous nose at unavoidable disaster. Her fingers found her handkerchief in her left sleeve and assessed its lace trim. ‘We can’t bake enough pies for so many in that little oven. Agatha Stookey’s taken hysterical on me. Sukie Tanner’s about to drop her whelp and is no use to me in the kitchen, and there aren’t enough silver ewers for the guest chambers and …’ Her nose twitched, her small lower lip tucked itself even more tightly behind the upper one, and she burst into tears.

      Before John could invent words of comfort, she steered abruptly into the true heart of her panic. ‘What will I do if our new lady turns me out?’ she wept. ‘George left me nothing to live on…a few pound a year for clothing …! Do you think he made it clear to Harry that I’ve nowhere else to go?’

      John could not comfort her without lying. He did not know how the new Lady Beester from London would arrange things for her predecessor. He felt a quick spasm of guilt at his earlier self-concern.

      He knew how little of her own his aunt had. Since reaching his majority he had paid out on behalf of his uncle the various annuities incumbent on the estate, including his own modest one. After Sir George died, John had carried on paying without waiting for legalities to be sorted out. His aunt, never married, was a tough, wiry little creature, but inclined to come adrift at the edges. She wouldn’t survive anywhere but here, where she had lived and more than earned her keep, unofficially, for the last thirty years.

      ‘I can’t imagine that warm-hearted Harry would let her do such a thing,’ said John. Harry could, however, do as he liked.

      ‘Harry’s such a fool!’ Aunt Margaret wailed and buried her face in her handkerchief. ‘Always has been. Anyone can turn him.’ Over the top of the handkerchief a suddenly malevolent grey Beester eye found John’s. ‘She might make him turn you out too! And where could you go? Carrying the mark of Cain as you do? I know what happened, even if the rest don’t. You’ve nowhere safe to go, except abroad with all those foreigners! Worse off than I am, poor lamb. We must stick together, John. We must help each other!’

      John closed his fists tightly around cold fingertips. ‘Have faith in Harry. He may be a fool, but he’s a good-natured one.’

      ‘Titles and ambition have changed people before now,’ muttered Mistress Margaret.

      ‘We must pray for the best, then. Do our duty and trust in the just reward. And who knows? Harry may have changed for the better. He seems to have made a sensible marriage.’

      ‘You’re too good, John. No matter what they say you’ve done. You should have had Hawkridge House…Harry hasn’t visited in years …’

      ‘There’s no question of “should”,’ said John between his teeth. ‘After Cousin James, Harry is your brother’s heir.’

      ‘Harry