The Judas Tree Read online

  Her English, though stylised, was perfectly good, with just a faint, and indeed attractive, over-accentuation of certain syllables.

  “Well, now you shall have tea. I have ordered it.” He pressed the bell. “We’ll get nothing but watery vermouth at the party.”

  “You are most thoughtful.” She sat down gracefully, removing her gloves; she had strong supple Sogers, the nails polished but unvarnished. “I hope you won’t be too bored at the Kunsthaus.”

  While Arturo wheeled in the trolley and, with bows that were almost genuflections, served the tea, Moray studied her. In her youth she must have been very beautiful. The structure of her facial bones was perfect. Even now at forty-five, or six . . . well, perhaps even forty-seven, although her hair was greying and her skin beginning to show the faint crenellations and brownish stigmata of her years, she remained an attractive woman, with the upright striding figure of a believer in fresh air and exercise. Her eyes were her most remarkable feature, the pupils of a dark tawny yellowish green shot with black specks. “They are cat’s eyes.” She had smiled once when he ventured a compliment. “But I do not scratch . . . or seldom only.”

  Yes, he reflected sympathetically, she had been through a lot, yet never spoke of it. She was horribly hard up and had not many clothes but those she possessed were good and she wore them with style. When they went walking together she usually appeared in a faded costume of russet brown, a rakish bersagliere hat, white knitted stockings and strong handsewn brogues of faded brown. Today she had on a simple but well cut fawn suit, shoes of the same shade, as were her gloves, and she was bareheaded. Taste, distinction, and perfect breeding were evident in every look and gesture—no need to tell himself again, she was a cultured woman of the highest class.

  “Always what delicious tea you give me.”

  “It’s Twining’s,” he explained. “I had it specially blended for the hard Schwansee water.”

  She shook her head, half reproachfully.

  “Really . . . you think of everything.” She paused. “Yet how wonderful to be able to give effect to all one’s wishes.”

  A considerable silence followed while they savoured the hard-water tea, then suddenly, an upward glance arrested, she exclaimed:

  “My dear friend . . . you have bought it!”

  She had seen the Vuillard at last and rising, excitedly, though still skilfully, retaining cup and saucer, she moved across the room to inspect it.

  “It is lovely . . . lovely! And looks so much better here than in the gallery. Oh, that so delightful child, on the little stool. I only hope Leuschner did not rob you.”

  He stood beside her and together, in silence, they admired the pastel. She had the good taste not to over-praise, but as they turned away, looking around her at the mellow eighteenth-century furniture, the soft grey carpet and the Louis XVI tapestry chairs, at his paintings, his Pont Aven Gauguin, signed and dated, above the Tang figures on the Georgian mantel, the wonderful Degas nude on the opposite wall, the early Utrillo and the Sisley landscape, his richly subdued Bonnard, the deliciously maternal Mary Cassat, and now the Vuillard, she murmured:

  “I adore your room. Here you can spend your life in the celebration of beautiful things. And better still when you have earned them.”

  “I think I am entitled to them.” He spoke modestly. “As a young man, in Scotland, I had little enough. Indeed, then I was miserably poor.”

  It was a mistake. Once he had spoken the words he regretted them. Had be not been warned never to look back, only forward, forward, forward. Hastily he said:

  “But you . . . until the war, you always lived . . .” he fumbled slightly, “. . . in state.”

  “Yes, we had nice things,” she answered mildly.

  Again there was silence. The half-smiling reserve she had given to the remark was truly heroic. She was the widow of the Baron von Altishofer, who came of an old Jewish family that had acquired immense wealth from state tobacco concessions in the previous century, with possessions ranging from a vast estate in Bavaria to a hunting lodge in Slovakia. He had been shot during the first six months of the war and, although she was not of his faith, she had spent the next three years in a concentration camp at Lensbach. On her eventual release, she had crossed the Swiss border. All that remained to her was the lakeside house, the Seeburg, and there, though practically penniless, she had striven courageously to rebuild her life. She began by breeding rare Weimaraner dogs. Then, while the ignominy of an ordinary pensionnat was naturally unthinkable, friends—and she had many—came to stay and to enjoy, as paying guests, the spaciousness of the big Germanic schloss and the huge overgrown garden. Indeed, a very exclusive little society had now developed round the Seeburg, of which she herself was the centre. What fun to restore the fine old place, fill it with furniture of the period, replant the garden, recondition the statuary. Had she hinted? Never, never . . . it was his own thought, a flight of fancy. Self-consciously, rather abruptly, he looked at his watch.

  “I think we should be going, if you are ready.”

  He had decided to take her to the party in full fig: Arturo wore his best blue uniform, a lighter shade than navy, and they went in the big car. Since this was the only Rolls in Melsburg its appearance always made something of a spectacle.

  Seated beside her, as they glided off, his sleeve touching hers on the cushioned armrest, he was in an expansive mood. Although his marriage had been a catastrophic failure he had, since his retirement, seriously considered the prospect of—in Wilenski’s vulgar phrase—having another go. During the eighteen months they had been neighbours their friendship had developed to such an extent as to induce gradually the idea of a closer companionship. Yet his mind had hitherto dwelt on young and tender images. Frida von Altishofer was not young, in bed she would not prove so succulent as he might wish, and as a man in whom the intensive demands of his late wife had induced a prostatic hypertrophy, he now had needs that should, if only for reasons of health, be satisfied. Nevertheless, Frida was a strong and vital woman with deep though conceded feelings, who might be capable of unsuspected passion. Such, he knew from his medical training, was often the case with women who had passed the menopause. Certainly, in all other respects she would make the most admirable aristocratic wife.

  But now they were in the town and sweeping round the public garden with its high central fountain. Arturo drew up, was out in a flash to remove his uniform cap and open the car door. They mounted the steps towards the Kunsthaus.

  “Some of my friends in the diplomatic corps may have come up from Bern for this affair. If it wouldn’t bore you, you might care to meet them.”

  He was deeply pleased. Although not a snob—good heavens, no!—he liked meeting “the right people”.

  “You are charming, Frida,” he murmured, with a sudden quick intimate glance.

  Chapter Three

  The party had been in progress for some time: the long hall was filled with noise and crushed human forms. Most of the notables of the canton were there, with many worthy burghers of Melsburg and those of the Festival artistes who had performed during the final week. These, alas, were mainly of the old brigade since, unlike the larger resorts of Montreux and Lucerne, Melsburg was not rich, and between sentiment and lack of funds, the committee fell back year after year upon familiar names and faces. Through the haze of cigarette smoke Moray made out the aged and decrepit figure of Flackmeister, who could barely totter to the podium, held together by his tight dress coat, green with the sweat of years beneath the arm holes. And over there stood Tuberose, the ’cellist, thin, tall as a beanpole, and, through long clasping of his instrument, very gone about the knees. He was talking to the superbly bosomed English contralto, Amy Rivers Fox-Finden. Well, it made no odds, Moray reflected, gaily edging his way into the crush with his companion, the applause at the concerts was always rapturous and prolonged, reminding him, much as he loved his neighbours, of row upon row of happy sheep flapping their
front legs together.

  They were served with a beverage of no known species, tepid, and swimming with fragments of melting ice. She did not drink hers, merely met his eye in a humorous communicative side glance which plainly said, “How wise you were, and how glad I am of your delicious tea”—almost, indeed, “and of you!” Then, with a gentle pressure of the elbow, she steered him across the room, introduced him first to the German, then to the Austrian minister. He did not fail to observe the affectionate respect with which each greeted her, nor her poise in turning away their compliments. As they moved off Moray was hailed exuberantly across the press by a sporty British type, all amiable plastic dentures and alcoholic eyeballs, dressed in a double-breasted, brass-buttoned blue blazer, baggy fawn trousers and scuffed suede shoes.

  “So nice to see you, dear boy,” Archie Stench boomed, waving a glass of actual whisky. “Can’t move now. Keep the flag flying. I’ll be giving you a ring.”

  His face clouding slightly, Moray gave a discouraging answering wave. He did not care for Stench, correspondent of the London Daily Echo, who also “on the side” did a weekly social column for the local Tageblatt—airy little items, often with a sting in the tail. Several times Moray had been stung.

  Fortunately they were near the far end of the big room where, by the wide bay window, a group of their own particular friends had gathered. Here were demure Madame Ludin of the Europa Hof and her delicate husband, standing with Doctor Alpenstück, grave addict of the higher altitudes. Tall, erect, a noted yodeller in his youth, the worthy doctor never missed a Festival. Beyond, beside the ugly Courter sisters, at a round table from which, short-sightedly, she had cleared all the cocktail biscuits within reach, sat Gallie, the little old Russian Princess Galliatine, who was stone deaf and rarely spoke a word but went everywhere to eat, even to remove food expertly in the large cracked handbag she always carried, bulging from over-use, and containing papers proving her relationship with the famous Prince Yussapov, husband of the Tsar’s niece. A pale, limp little creature with a straggle of worn sable on her neck, whatever the past had done to her it had given her a smile of docile sweetness. Not altogether presentable perhaps—still, an authentic princess. A rather different figure occupied the centre of the group, Leonora Schutz-Spengler, and as they drew near Madame von Altishofer murmured humorously:

  “We shall hear the full story of Leonora’s hunting trip.”

  Pausing in the act of narration, Leonora had already acknowledged them with a brilliant smile. She was a vivacious little brunette from the Tessin, with a red laughing mouth, enterprising eyes and pretty teeth, who some years before had nibbled her way into the heart of Herman Schutz, the richest cheese exporter in Switzerland, a large, pallid, heavy man who seemed fashioned from his own product. Yet Leonora was herself worthy of affection, if only for her splendid and amusing parties, junketings which took place at her hilltop villa above the town, in a candlelit, red wood outbuilding, the walls bristling with contorted mammalian horns, amongst which scores of budgerigars flew, fluttered, perched and twittered while Leonora, wearing a paper hat, prodigally dispensed bortsch, melon soup, goulash, caviar, cheese blintzes, Pekin duck, truffles in port wine, and other exotic foods; before initiating wild and improbable games, all produced out of her own head.

  Moray seldom gave much heed to Leonora’s excited ramblings, and his thoughts wandered as, speaking in French, she went on describing the trip from which she and her husband had just returned. Vaguely Moray had heard that Schutz, who late in life had developed ambitions as a jäger, was renting a shoot, somewhere in Hungary he believed.

  Nevertheless, as Leonora irrepressibly continued, his ear was caught by certain phrases, and with a sharp tightening of his nerves, he began to listen with attention. She was not speaking of Hungary but describing a stretch of Highland countryside in terms which suddenly seemed to him familiar. Impossible: he must be mistaken. Yet as she proceeded, his strained suspicion grew. Now she was speaking of the road uphill from the estuary, of the view of the moor from the summit, the river rushing between the high walls of the corrie into the loch, the mountain dominating all. Suddenly he felt himself tremble, his heart turned over and began to beat rapidly. God, could he ever have imagined this turning up again, so unexpectedly. For she had named the mountain, and the river, and the loch, she named lastly the moor her husband had rented, and these utterly unforeseen words sent a painful shock of shame and apprehension through all his body.

  Someone was asking her:

  “How did you reach this outlandish place?”

  “We went by the most fantastic railway—one narrow line, three trains a day—to an adorable little station with such a pretty name. They call it . . .”

  He couldn’t bear to hear that name, yet he did hear it, and it brought back, though unspoken, the last unavoidable name of all. He turned, muttering some excuse, and moved off, only to discover Stench good-naturedly at his elbow.

  “Not going already, dear boy? Or can’t you stand the weirdies any longer?”

  Somehow he brushed him aside. In the foyer a draught of cool air revived him, brought some order to his confused mind. He mustn’t rush off like this, leaving Madame von Altishofer to return alone. He must wait, find a less crowded place—over there, beside that pillar, near the door. He hoped she would not stay long. Indeed, even as he moved to take up his new position she was beside him.

  “My dear friend, you are ill.” She spoke with concern. “I saw you turn quite pale.”

  “I did feel rather queer.” With an effort he forced a smile. “It’s fearfully warm in there.”

  “Then we shall go at once,” she said decisively.

  He made as if to protest, then dropped it. Outside, Arturo stood talking with a group of chauffeurs. They drove off. She wished to take him directly to his villa but, less from politeness than from a desperate need to be alone, he insisted on leaving her at the Seeburg.

  “Come in for a drink,” she suggested, as they arrived. “A real one.” And when he refused, saving that he should rest, she added solicitously: “Do take care, my friend. If I may, I will telephone you tomorrow.”

  At the villa he lay down for an hour, trying to reason with himself. He must not allow a chance word, a mere coincidence, to wreck the serenity he had so carefully built up. Yet it was no chance word, it was a word that had lain hauntingly, tormentingly in the depths of memory for many years. He must fight it, beat it down again into the darkness of the subconscious. He could not do it, could not seal his mind against the buffeting of his thoughts. At dinner he made only a pretence of eating; his depression filled the house, affecting even the servants, who saw in this unusual mood something reflecting upon themselves.

  After the meal he went into the drawing-room, stood by the window opening on the terrace. He saw that a storm was about to break, one of those swift, dazzling exhibitions when, shouting to Arturo to put on a Berlioz record, he would watch and listen with a sense of sheer exhilaration. Now, however, he stood mood viewing the great mass of umbered cloud which had been gathering, unperceived, drifting above the Riesenberg. The air was deadly still, sultry with silence, the light unnatural; a brooding ochre. And now there came a sighing, faint, as from a distance. The leaves trembled and on the flat surface of the lake a ripple passed. Slowly the sky darkened to dull impenetrable lead, masking the mountain, and all at once from the unseen a fork of blue flashed out, followed by the first crashing detonation. Then came the wind, sudden, searing, a circular wind that cut like a whiplash. Under it, with a shudder, the trees bent and grovelled, scattering leaves like chaff. At the garden end the tall twin poplars scourged the earth. The lake, churned into spume, writhed like a mad thing, waves lashed the little pier, the yellow flag swung up. Lightning now played incessantly, the thunder echoing and re-echoing amongst the hidden peaks. And then the rain, large, solitary, speculative drops, not soothing rain, but rain warning; ominous of what at last struck from above, straight sheets of hissing water, a flo
oding from the sky—the eventual deluge.

  Abruptly he turned from the window and went upstairs to his bedroom, more agitated than ever. In the medicine cupboard in his bathroom he found the bottle of phenobarbitone. He had imagined he would never need it again. He took four tablets. Even so he knew he would not sleep. When he had undressed, he threw himself upon the bed and closed his eyes. Outside the rain still lashed the terrace, the waves still broke upon the shore, but it was her name that kept sounding, sounding in his ears . . . Mary . . . Mary Douglas . . . Mary . . . Douglas . . . bringing him back through the years, to Craigdoran and the days of his youth.

  Part Two

  Chapter One

  If Bryce’s ancient motor-cycle had not broken down they would never have met. But as though fated, on that dusty April Saturday afternoon, when he swung back from a spin round the Doran Hills, the driving belt of the near-derelict machine disintegrated, a flying fragment whipping sharp across his right knee. He skidded to a stop, got off stiffly and inspected the damage to his leg, which was less than he had feared, then looked about him. No promise of assistance in the surrounding unpopulated, bracken-covered hills, the wild rush of the river Doran, the wide stretch of moorland threaded by this lonely road and the narrow single-track railway. Even the small station known as Craigdoran Halt, which he had just passed, seemed deserted.

  “Damn,” he exclaimed—it couldn’t have been more awkward. Ardfillan, the nearest town, must be at least seven miles away; he would have to try the Halt.

  Turning, he pushed and limped uphill to the solitary platform, drew the heavy bike back on its stand. The little station was embellished with a border of whitewashed stones, its proud sign “Gateway to the West Highlands” showered with trailing honeysuckle, a hawthorn hedge shedding blossoms on the track, but he was in no mood to admire. Not a soul in sight, the waiting-room locked, the booking-office closed as for eternity. He was on the point of giving up when in the frosted glass ornamental window stencilled with the words “Refreshment Room” he caught signs of life: on the inner window-sill a black cat was contentedly washing its face. He pushed on the door, it opened, and he went in.