Fire and Hemlock (41 page)

“He’s the soul of consideration – poor Tom,” Laurel said. “And loving him as I do, I quite understand how you feel, Polly. Let me see, you first met Tom at Seb’s mother’s funeral, didn’t you?”

“I – thought that was
your
mother’s—” Polly managed to say.

“No, dear. It was poor Seb’s,” said Laurel. “And then of course you were quite a
little
girl. Children always adore poor Tom. But I do think nowadays you might show him the kind of consideration he always shows you. You’re embarrassing him, dear. You’ve got what’s called a crush on him, haven’t you?”

Polly could not say anything. Shame rose up in her and scoured through her, bleaching everything. This was far worse than she had ever felt in Bristol. She could only look across at Tom’s hunched shape, bleached faint and wavering like a mirage. Oh, what a fool she had been!

“I’m asking you to leave poor Tom in peace for the little time he has left,” Laurel said kindly, gently. “I know it’s hard. But couldn’t you agree to forget him?”

“I—” Polly tried to say. Everyone in the room must know what a fool she had been. She could see faces turning to her, dimly, smiling kindly and pityingly.

“He’s only
got
four years, and you’ve got the rest of your life,” Laurel said gently. “Think what it means to him, when he had to ask me to ask you—”

Polly could take no more. She put her teacup down on the small table near her chair and then backed away from it with her hands stretched out to push it from her, as if the teacup were her stupidity. And that was a silly way to behave too. The people who had been looking at her were all turning away, embarrassed to look.

“Think,” said Laurel, “if someone was hanging round
you
, pestering and sighing, for all the life you had—”

“Oh all right! Don’t go on!” Polly cried out. “I didn’t mean – Of course I’ll forget him! Just leave me alone!”

Things began to go dim again after that. Polly remembered sitting for a while, bolt upright and staring at nothing, wishing she could leave, or that she could crawl into a hole and die of shame. She remembered her relief when Seb came and said it was time to go now. Polly got up and went with him into the hall with the jointed staircase and the Ali Baba jars, where things were already fading, fading – bleached away by her shame, she thought then – when she heard Seb say, “Hey! Now, look here, Tom, you’re not supposed – Oh, well—”

Polly looked round to find that Tom had come out into the hall too. “Goodbye, Polly,” he said and bent down to give her a kiss on her forehead. Since Polly turned and looked up as he did it, the kiss landed, briefly and awkwardly, on her mouth. Brief, awkward, and sideways, Polly remembered, which caused Tom to take hold of her shoulder to pull her into a better position. But Seb gave a meaning cough and he let go. And that was really all she remembered. As soon as she left the house, her memories started to run single.

And plain, and dull, she thought. And she had done it to herself. And deserved it all, even being engaged to Seb, for not having the sense to remember something Tom had said himself: that being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel. She had let Laurel embarrass her into a state in which she could not even think straight. Laurel’s persuasions, she could see blazingly clearly now, had all been aimed at making her say she would forget Tom. Without that, they could not have done a thing to her. And not, it seemed to follow, to Tom either. But they would have kept on at me, Polly thought. They would have got me to say it in the end. That was bound to follow, once she had opened the way by doing her peculiar piece of prying on Tom.

And that had been an awful thing to do. She knew that now. It had not been knowledge she was after. She had been just like Ivy – a miser who thought her hoard was being taken away – and she had been after revenge, because Tom had hurt her. So she had let Seb egg her on. But, she had to admit, she might have done it anyway, without any suggestion from Seb.

“And the most awful thing is the way I got it right!” Polly said aloud.

At some time, as she sat hunched over, thinking, Polly had been aware that Fiona had come in, hearing music playing. She had seen her look meaningly at the borrowed turntable, pick up the sleeve of the record to look at the picture, then nod and go out again.

“I must cook tonight,” Polly said. Instead, she hunted out the paperback book which had jogged her memory awake.
Times out of Mind,
edited by L. Perry. Laurel evidently had quite a sense of humour, didn’t she? But there seemed no more to be got out of this book, except the odd fact that Ed’s story was printed as being by Ann. Polly smiled slightly. Ann had known too, perhaps in the same instinctive way Polly had – though, looking back on it, she thought that all three of the others in the quartet must have had some idea of what was going on. And Ann seemed to have done what she could. Tan Audel, famous for memory. She must have thought Polly could still do something. But what, what, what?”

Granny had said a book might help.

“All right,” Polly said. “Let’s try picking a book at random off my shelf.” She swung back in her chair and, without looking, hooked her fingers round the first book she touched. “Probably
The Golden Bough,
if I’m anything like right now,” Polly murmured. But it was not. She seemed to get hold of two books initially. One flopped to the floor. The other, which was much smaller, slipped easily into her hand. Polly stooped to the fallen one first. It was the book of fairy stories Tom had sent her once for Christmas that she had been too old to read. Naturally, it lay open face downwards in the way he hated books to be.

Polly scooped it up and looked to see where it had opened. It was the story called ‘East of the Sun and West of the Moon’. Oh, that one! The one where the girl gets too curious, and the man vanishes to Nowhere to marry someone else, and she has an awful job to get him back. Yes, Polly thought, they may have laid it on him not to tell, but he made sure that I knew. And I did know, really.

Then she looked at the other, smaller book in her hand.
The Oxford Book of Ballads.
For four years she had seemed always to have had this book, with no idea where it came from. Now she knew it had arrived when she was twelve, under the name of Lee Tin, from a cathedral city somewhere. And this was the one. Polly’s fingers shook as she opened it to the list of contents. The first two ballads were ‘Thomas the Rhymer’ and ‘Tam Lin’. Of course, when she was twelve, she had not known that Tam was simply a North Country form of the name Tom.

“Oh my God!” Polly said, and whipped over the pages to a certain part of the second ballad. She threw the book down and went dashing into the other room.
“Fiona!”
she screamed. “What
date
is it?”

Fiona looked up over the glasses she wore for reading. “Go away,” she said unconvincingly. “I have an astute and beautiful essay to write myself now. The date is October the thirtieth.”

Polly screamed, “Then it’s tomorrow! I shall be too late! I must go home to Granny’s at
once!
”

“The last bus went at six. You have to get permission. And there are two frozen platters heating in the kitchen at this moment,” Fiona said. “Apart from that, you’re free to go instantly. A taxi? Or do you prefer to hire a helicopter? Myself, I’d recommend the first bus tomorrow, and dear Fiona to see to all the rest. What’s happened?”

“Nothing yet – I hope,” said Polly. “But I’m going to interrupt you by ringing Seb.” She seized the phone and dialled, with Fiona watching interestedly.

“Sebastian Leroy,” said Seb’s voice. He always answered the phone like that.

“It’s me – Polly,” said Polly. Her hand was so wet that the receiver nearly slipped out of it.

“Pol!” said Seb, and Polly winced at how glad he sounded to hear her. “I wrote you a letter. Did I get the address wrong?”

“No, but I’ve been awfully busy,” Polly said, “so I thought I’d phone instead of writing, because things have slacked off now. Seb, can I come to London and see you tomorrow night?” She crossed her fingers and pressed them against the wood of the table, hard. Her hand jerked and slid with apprehension. If Seb agreed—

“Oh, bother! I wish you could,” Seb said. “Pol, any other weekend but this! I’ll be out of town from tomorrow till Monday. There’s a tedious family gathering.”

“In Middleton?” Polly asked brightly. “Can I come to Hunsdon House and see you there, then?”

“No, precious,” Seb said, with his most indulgent churring laugh. “For tedious, my love, read private conclave. Strictly family. Anyone less than half-blood definitely not admitted. Make it next weekend. Please.”

“I’m not free then,” Polly said. But she dared not refuse outright, for fear he would realise the real reason for her phone call. “How about the weekend after that?”

“Fine. I’ll ring you up about it the moment I get back,” Seb promised.

Polly rang off. So it was true. Carla had said Thomas Lynn was not going to be available after October the thirty-first. Seb was at his so-called tedious family gathering tomorrow. The same day. And she had to stop it. Somehow.

“Our phone bill,” said Fiona, “will jump up and hit the gong at this rate. Polly, I’m disappointed. From the look on your face, I made sure you were going to give Marmaduke the push.”

“That was collecting evidence for the push,” said Polly. “Don’t worry, he’s got it. Now find me the bus timetable and I won’t bother you again.”

On the bus to Middleton the following day, Polly sat clutching the book of ballads. She did not need to read those first two. She had them more or less by heart by then. But she thought about them the whole way.

They were both about young men Laurel had owned, but their fates had been rather different. Thomas the Rhymer was a harpist, and a man of considerable spirit. When Laurel proposed rewarding him for his services by giving him the gift of always speaking the truth, Thomas objected very strongly indeed. He said his tongue was his own. But Laurel went ahead and gave it him. And what an awkward gift, Polly thought, one which could be downright embarrassing if Laurel happened to be annoyed when she gave it him. True Thomas, she called him, and turned him back into the ordinary world with his awkward gift after seven years. In the book, the story stopped there. But Polly knew she had read a longer version, perhaps in another book Tom had sent her, which made it clear that Thomas the Rhymer was still Laurel’s property even after he got home. Years later she came and fetched him away and he did not come back.

The second Thomas had been taken as a boy, and he had escaped. He was rescued by a splendid girl called Janet, who was forever hitching her skirt up and racing off to battle against the odds. When the time came, Janet had simply hung on to her Tam. Laurel, or whatever she was calling herself then, had been furious.

Polly could only hope she might manage to do what Janet had done, but she was very much afraid it would not be quite like that. Despite the similarity of the names, it was not Tam Lin but Thomas the Rhymer whom Thomas Lynn most resembled. He had been turned out too, also with a gift. And Laurel had been furious with Thomas Lynn at the time. She was still furious at the funeral. So the gift had been given with a twist. Anything he made up would prove to be true, and then come back and hit him. Which must, Polly thought, have made things so much easier for Mr Leroy.

But this was where Polly herself had come in. She had become connected to the gift because she had helped Mr Lynn make up Tan Coul. And she rather thought that the gift had been intended to be conveyed through the pictures Tom had been allowed to take – shoddy, second-rate pictures, until Polly had stepped in there too and mixed the pictures up.

So I did some good, Polly thought as she got off the bus and hurried with long, anxious strides to Granny’s house. Even if I cancelled it out later. Cancel it she had. Neither ballad more than hinted at what Laurel really needed young men for.

Granny opened the door blinking, roused in the middle of her rest. “My heavens!” she said delightedly. Then sharply, “You fetched it out.”

“Yes,” said Polly. “Come and sit down, Granny. I want to read you two things.”

“Then just let me get the big pot full of tea,” Granny said. “I can see this is going to be a session.”

They went into the kitchen, where Granny made the tea and fetched out a tinful of her best biscuits. Then she sat opposite Polly, with Mintchoc draped across her knees, very upright and looking curiously obedient.