The Black Laurel Read online

  They crossed the burn by the foot-bridge, and came in sight of the house, an old long shooting-lodge, so cleverly added to by Gary that old and new came together in sunlight like the meeting of bright streams.

  The track slid again into the trees. There were ant-heaps, and Gary stood still to watch an ant hauling a twig three times its size; it fell backwards over the edge of the ditch, scrambled up, still holding to the twig, and fell again : this time it lost the twig and spent a frantic minute locating it. When for the fifth time it crashed, they left it.

  “He’ll get hell from the sergeant in charge of his working-party.”

  Queer how when he feels happy he always goes back to the last war, the colonel thought. He’d be, let’s see, twenty-three or four. What’s he had since?

  Chapter Two

  At the same time, a young man, the pilot of Gary’s æroplane, was walking toward Avie Lodge from the other, northern, end of the Glen. He had left the house this morning at five, when the air was cooler than during the night. There was no sun yet, the sky pale, the shadowy half of the moon becalmed in its no-colour, the hills breathing gently a thin mist. He climbed first over heather, then over moss and granite schist. It broke under his feet. He found a hexagonal black crystal, two inches long, and dropped it in his pocket. When he reached the top, sweat ran off him in the cold air. There was a clear light, turning round him without sound. Through it he saw west to the Coolin Hills and north to Moray Firth and the fretted line, foam on sand, of the sea. He had climbed without feeling a thought in his head. Blessed lightness. Holding his wrists under the spring, so that its cold flowed from them through his body, he let the five, almost six years of the war drop from him. They were nearly a quarter of his life. Closed up behind him, they had cut off the earlier three-quarters — and cut him off, too, from any imaginable future. Now, suddenly, he had a future. It started up at his feet in the form of a ptarmigan. Invisible — ptarmigans wear the Lovat plaid, black, white, a touch of red — until he nearly fell over it.

  He slept, woke, washed himself in the icy water, walked, casting round in a circle, and more by good luck than by management found himself again at the head of Glen Avie. He had left his watch in his room. He reckoned the time to be about three.

  Coming out of the pass, the track went down slowly; the hills parted behind him, mouths drawing in segments of air. The sun now was burning his bones through the thin, the very thin, layer of flesh. He was pleasantly tipsy from climbing and the day’s heat.

  From the head to the floor of the Glen took him two hours. He began to hurry. Ahead of him, through the trees, a cart-track. He jumped a wide ditch and landed in the dry wheel-ruts a few yards from a horse ridden by a girl. Startled, the horse leaped violently sideways and threw its rider. He ran, but before he reached her, the girl was on her feet and brushing earth and leaves from shabby riding-breeches.

  “Are you all right?” he called.

  She laughed, and answered without lifting her head.

  “Quite. Thanks.”

  “It was my fault. I didn’t see you for the trees. I’m frightfully sorry.”

  The girl straightened herself and looked at him for the first time. She was smiling. Her smile became a grimace. She blushed scarlet, and stared at him.

  “You are hurt,” he said anxiously.

  She had recovered at once.

  “I’m not in the least hurt,” she said coolly. “But Joseph might have hurt himself. You ought to be careful.”

  She began to flatter the animal, much too large and powerful for her. She talked to it in a gentle voice, ignoring the young man. He watched her. He felt clumsy and stupid. Two moments of his walk flew together in his mind with the shock of light striking on a crystal: as in a dream, two images which could not exist together, did: the white bodies of snow-buntings tumbled, circling, in the glittering blue of the sky, and deer moved, with a soundless finality, across the horizon. The girl reminded him of both. She was, he saw now, very young — seventeen or eighteen. Her mouth curved up at the corners. It had not been made repulsive by rouge.

  In a moment I shall laugh, he thought. A ripple of laughter passed through him. She’s embarrassed. So should I be, if I’d fallen off in front of someone.

  “Hadn’t you better walk him a few minutes?” he suggested. “Have you to go far?”

  “Only to Avie Lodge.”

  “Really! But that’s where I’m going!”

  A mocking glance.

  “It’s nearly large enough for both of us.”

  “I only came last night,” he said quietly.

  She moved off, leading her horse. She disliked me at sight, he thought, but why? Walking a few paces behind her on the sandy track, he studied her coolly. She was thin and light, she walked with a short springing step; her breeches were very worn — they could never have fitted her, and were held round her by a belt. And her shoulder-blades — like knives! Fit to cut the thin blouse. Her hostility offended him, but it made him curious. Why? he wondered: what did I do? He was still dazed by the sun, and terribly hungry. He had been too shy to ask for food to take with him. His body had become a husk, and he had the sense of detachment from it he had had in moments of extreme danger in the war.

  The girl spoke over her shoulder.

  “My father is billeted in the house. I live with him. I suppose you’re on leave.”

  “No. I’m Mr Gary’s pilot.”

  “Oh, you’re not a real pilot.”

  He had a flash of rage.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Mr Gary winkled me out of the Air Force in June. Is that what you mean? ” He repented of his irritation. “He’s the best man I know. I was lucky to get the job.”

  She half turned her head. He saw with astonishment that she wanted to make fun of him.

  “Do you really think he’s so wonderful? He reminds me — the way he moves — of a cat. I’m sure he has claws. Perhaps that’s what you admire?”

  He looked at her. Her malice was at once childish and composed. She was too composed, too guarded, to be a child, but certainly she was not adult. She stared back at him with the child’s lack of self-consciousness — and as if coming to herself, blushed.

  “How silly I am,” she said in a light voice. “The fact is we’ve been alone in the house, daddie and I, so long, I began to think it was ours. We’ve been here more than two years. Mr Gary came once, for a few days. He’s kind, he lets me ride the horses. But I prefer it when we’re alone. I say, I don’t know your name.”

  “Arnold. Arnold Coster.”

  She stood still.

  “Mine is Lise Brett.”

  She was watching him closely. She expected something — but what? Before he could speak,

  “I’m tired, I can’t walk any farther,” she said curtly.

  Taken aback by her roughness, he did not answer. Nor did he move to help her. He was not needed. She swung herself up — “Wh-up, Joseph” — and trotted off without another glance at him. Perched in front of the animal’s huge rump, she seemed ridiculously small. There was a rent in her faded blouse, at the shoulder, and a triangle of brown egg-smooth skin. You could see that she had only a father.

  Still vexed, Arnold looked away. To-morrow or the next day, or the next, he thought lightly, I shall be gone. He forgot her. He was indifferent to people. A tune flickered in his head, he caught it and began singing in a young rough voice — he did not sing easily, he was too guarded. . . So fare you well, my bonny young gel, I’m off to the Rio Grande. . . I must hurry, he thought.

  Chapter Three

  The general was dressing for dinner. There was a long triple mirror in the room; he stood in front of it and scrutinised his image as if it were a candidate for promotion, half seeing, half holding in himself its delicacy and vigour. His thin muscular body stood neatly and loosely in its uniform: he only needed the tonsure to look like a smiling intelligent monk.

  He smiled because it was absurd for him to be considering what impression he woul
d make on people, and to admit that he was absurd absolved him. He could even admit, with the same mischievous smile, that he was anxious to impress one man — his host. And why not? It was not shameful. It was anything but shameful — no young aspirant officer’s needs were more serious or honourable than his at this moment. He was due, in another eight months, to retire — and though accidents, miracles, happen, it was extremely unlikely, since the war was over, that he would move another step. And he had three sons, all young.

  For a second, he saw them in the glass as if they were behind him in the room, his three handsome boys. His heart contracted, with anxiety and love, as nothing, no battle, could have nipped it.

  He had married late, a girl without a penny. When she died, everything impulsive in him, all passion and gentleness, turned from her and grew into her sons. But not because they were hers — though, when he prayed at night, he always asked for help to bring them up “as Elizabeth would have wished.” It was the sop he threw her in her underworld. The boys were entirely his. Another year, and the eldest would be at Sandhurst. The second, who was at Eton, had shown such brilliance, and steadiness with it, that it was not absurd for his father to dream about a future Foreign Secretary. The youngest was only eight.

  He turned to glance at the photograph on the dressing-chest: it went everywhere with him. He smiled, and the handsome lively little child smiled back. “Ricky,” he murmured, “be careful.” The boy loved climbing — his father was proud of it, and deeply, ashamedly, afraid for him.

  Ricky, too, must go to Eton. But however he pinched himself — he had been doing it for years, since Thomas was born — he would be hard put to it, on the pension of a major-general, to feather three such flights. If Gary would give him some job, or a directorship, it would save him. Would save Ricky. Heaven knows, he thought sharply, I don’t want it: if I could live up here, in a cottage, and fish my own few yards of river, that’s all I need.

  The windows of the long dining-room stood open on to a lawn, its edges dissolving in the darkness. The warm air did not move; the candles on the table were steady. It was a round table, and although he was sitting next him, the general could watch Gary. What a charming fellow he is, he thought, with a faint bitterness. There is no finer type in the world than an Englishman of good family — too well-off to be self-seeking, with no need to deceive or flatter anyone, and too well-born and bred to feel the need to be anything but urbane, tolerant. I wonder why he never married? A great pity.

  The girl, Lise, was sitting, as stiffly as an image, between Gary and a young man, a Flight-Lieutenant Coster. Her dress must have been her best at school; a few stitches were torn away at the neck: she was pitiably shabby and yet radiant — narrow smiling eyes, straight hair drawn back, and a young firm mouth. As if she had felt the coldness and sharpness of his scrutiny, she looked at him with un-selfconscious displeasure. He turned away at once to glance, smiling, at her father, who was on his left.

  Apart from his sons, Brett was the warmest and the only safe thing in his life. Dear Humphrey! Enough to see him here to feel confident. Brett’s recklessness — he was completely unable to curb his tongue in any company — was an enormous relief: the general felt his anxiety vanishing.

  “Good heavens, Humphrey,” he said, with affectionate irony, “you’ve put on a deuce of a lot of weight in the last year.”

  “The trouble with you, my dear boy — one of the troubles — is that you don’t drink. If you lose another ounce of flesh —”

  “Ah, if I were as tall as you I could afford to carry a stomach about with me,” the general said slyly.

  Brett leaned back in his chair and looked with his bold and slightly mocking smile at Gary.

  “The first time I saw this chap — my first day at school — when the ragging of new boys started he stood behind me, and he was completely hidden. No one saw him.”

  The general chuckled.

  “It was as safe as getting behind a haystack.”

  “I was sent away to school when I was four,” Gary said, smiling. “It taught me not to expect too much of human nature.”

  Brett rolled his eyes, stretching the ends of his wide mouth.

  “Ah, you didn’t need to learn it. The only thing education teaches sprigs of your sort is what they know already.”

  The general was struck by his off-hand friendliness with Gary. He felt a light envy. But he has no reason to be careful, he thought drily: what does anything matter to him, he has only a daughter — one. Leaning forward,

  “Lise,” he said kindly, “I saw you coming home this afternoon on a brute of a horse, three times too big for you. But you looked very well.”

  The girl smiled. It was an amused lively smile, turning a schoolgirl for a moment into a young woman. She and the young pilot were both silent; and now that he had noticed it their silence vexed the general. What right had they to be here, watching?

  Brett lifted his glass.

  “Here’s to you, bless you.” He drank. “You know, it’s a queer thing — I’m right — we had exactly the same training, we got the same marks, all the way; but no one told me how to get myself promotion. You knew all along, you rascal.”

  The general felt a prick of chagrin.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, look at me. I’m a dependable soldier, I knew everything about tanks when you and your friends were thinking of them as gadgets. And for no damn reason at all I’m sent home from North Africa and pushed into looking after prisoners. If you hadn’t rescued me —” he contorted his face into a tragic ridiculous grimace.

  “Lowerby rescued you because he needed you,” Gary said with a quick warmth.

  “That’s true,” the general said quietly. “I need an A.A.G. I can depend on. Neither Berlin nor the Political Investigation Division is exactly a schoolroom.”

  He felt a sudden impulse to tease his friend, cruelly. A fine smile sharpened his face.

  “Your experience with prisoners who do each other in may come in useful.”

  Brett opened his eyes so widely that his face seemed to split open: it made him look like an anguished clown.

  “Fifty years ago a man like this fellow Gerlach, if he took on himself to murder two of his fellow-prisoners, whether he called it punishing them or keeping discipline or what you like, would have admitted it was murder. Now he says he’s serving the German whatnot.”

  He went on with a furious energy:

  “Any bloody thing can be justified, gas chambers, cutting a schoolroomful of Bolshie children’s poor little throats, injecting poison into the veins of old girls of sixty and seventy — anything. Once you decide to call a private murder justice you’re done for — you and your country are going straight to hell.”

  Gary was watching him with a gently ironic smile.

  “You’re an idealist, Humphrey.”

  In some part of his mind the general noticed not only the urbanity of Gary’s voice, but that he called Brett by his Christian name.

  “I agree with the German officer,” he said drily. “The men were traitors and deserved hanging. He acted as a soldier.”

  Gary looked at him in such a way that he had a feeling of intimacy and understanding — as though he and Gary were the adults in a party of children. His brief discomfort vanished, he felt easy again.

  “So you would have acquitted them?” Gary said.

  “Not at all,” he said, laughing. “You can’t have disorders in camps. The men responsible must be hanged — of course. It’s a question of expediency.”

  “Of justice,” Brett said. “They’re murderers.”

  Gary was clearly amused, and amusing himself.

  “Come, come. After all, justice is only relative.”

  “No, by God it’s not,” Brett cried.

  “But isn’t war murder?” Gary said, smiling.

  Brett refused to follow him on to the level of half-serious chatter. The more he drinks the less manageable he is, Lowerby thought. He put his head o
n one side to listen without seeming concerned, or too attentive to Brett’s quick voice, at once violent and humorous.

  “Yes, of course. A murder his country orders a soldier to do. Of course I’m a murderer. I could blame the State, but it would be damned foolish, since I chose my life, and even if I hadn’t chosen, if I were a conscript, I’d prefer to take the guilt of anything I do on myself, thank you.” He added in a rougher voice, “What I feel is that a soldier ought only to kill other soldiers. This business of killing and maiming children — I mean air-raids — is inexcusable.”

  As if it had gone too far — or as if Brett’s outbreak had bored him, Gary did not speak. The silence was prolonged. Seated with his back to the windows the general had a sudden disturbing sense of the night, uncontrollable, wide, almost disorderly, waiting outside the room, behind his neck. It fidgeted him. He saw that the young man — he, too, had his back to a window — was watching a mirror on the wall facing it. Glancing at the mirror, the general saw only a reflected darkness — then a swift infinitely slight movement, perhaps a bat had crossed the rectangle of the window. He looked again at the young man and noticed the long thin fingers resting on the stem of his glass; he was flushed; his eyes, slightly bloodshot, with a network of fine lines, were many years older than his face. He had spoken to no one, not even to Lise, the whole evening, nor she to him. At this moment she was watching him furtively. The same half-irritated sense — that they had no right here — seized the general.

  “I suppose you are on leave?” he asked sharply.

  The young man looked at him, flushed still more deeply, and said in a low voice,

  “No, sir.”

  “Ah, he’s my pilot,” Gary said. “I stole him a few weeks ago out of the Air Force.”