The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart

Author:Mary Stewart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2011-02-16T13:00:00+00:00

11

The wind doth blow to-day, my love,

And a few small drops of rain;

I never had but one true-love;

In cold grave she was lain.

Ballad: The Unquiet Grave.

If you stood on the low piece of crumbling wall that enclosed the trunk, you could just reach your hand into the hole. I held on to the writhen stems of the ivy with one hand and felt above my head into the hollow left by some long-decayed and fallen bough.

I put my hand in slowly, nervously almost, as I might have done had I known that Julie’s owl and seven mythical young were inside, and ready to defend it, or as I might have invaded a private drawer in someone’s desk. The secret tryst; Ninus’ tomb; the lovers’ tree; what right had a ghost there, prying?

In any case there was nothing to pry into. Whatever secrets the ivy tree had held in the past, it was now only a tree, and the post-box was an empty hole, the bottom cracked and split, its fissures filled with crumbling touchwood as dry as tinder. Some twigs and rotting straw seemed to indicate that a starling had once nested there. The ivy, brushing my face, smelt dark and bitter, like forgotten dusty things.

I climbed down from the wall and wiped my hands on my handkerchief.

Beside me, skirting the ruins of the lodge, the neglected avenue curled away into the shadows. I turned my head to look where, in the strong moonlight beyond the blackness cast by the trees, the white gate glimmered. I could almost make out the neat black letters on the top bar. WHITESCAR. I made a half-movement in that direction, then checked myself. If it be now, ’tis not to come. Well, let it be now.

I put away my handkerchief, and walked quickly past the ruined lodge, up the silent mosses of the drive, towards the house.

The moon was fuller tonight, and it was later. The skeleton of the house stood up sharply, with the dramatic backcloth of trees cutting its lines and angles, and throwing into relief the tracery of the bare windows. One or two sheep grazed among the azaleas. The little tearing sounds they made, as they cropped the grass, sounded loud in the windless air.

I could smell the roses and honeysuckle that smothered the sundial. I went slowly down the moss-furred steps, and over the grass towards it. The dial was covered with a thick mat of leaves and tendrils. I picked one of the tiny chandeliers of the honeysuckle and held it to my face. The long stamens tickled, and the scent was thick and maddeningly sweet, like a dream of summer nights. I dropped it into the grass.

I sat down on the lowest step where the pediment jutted into the encroaching grass, and pushed aside the trailing honeysuckle with gentle hands, till the shaft of the sundial lay bare. The moonlight struck it slantingly, showing the faint shadows of carving under the soft rosettes of lichen.

I scratched a little of the moss away, and traced the letters with a slow, exploratory finger.

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