Read Online The Wicker Tree by Robin Hardy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robin Hardy
Tags: Fiction
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into his reverie. A little husky, that voice, but it had a bell-like tone.
'As I was saying,' added a smiling Sir Lachlan, 'we're taking the horses back to the stables now. But if you can spare the time, Lolly would like to show you around the estate. Then perhaps Constable Furioso will join us for a glass of sherry, Lolly, in the gun room.'
He gave Orlando the inquiring stare of someone whose suggestions rarely, if ever, meet with refusal.
'That's very kind, sir,' said Orlando. 'It would be useful for me to have a clear idea of the lay of the land, so to speak. I was anyway thinking of coming and asking for such a tour.'
Orlando had been told to handle Sir Lachlan with great care when their paths crossed. His wide net of political connections was given as the reason. Scotland, he knew, might no longer be a nation where people were deferential to class. But deference to power and money remained strong and Sir Lachlan had both. Orlando loathed sherry and guessed, correctly, that on these favoured occasions the help on the estate got a dram of whisky and real guests received champagne or whatever they wanted. Who else got sherry? The local councillors probably (correct again), Sir Lachlan's solicitor (a borderline case). He wondered these things while watching Lolly mount her now calmed little mare. The neat, sweet posterior on Lolly (what a seductive name!) as she swung it deftly into the saddle made him think of an old Kiwi rugby song: She has freckles on her – butt – she is nice.
Not much hope of ever detecting those particular freckles, if they exist, he thought, rather gloomily. But there he was wrong.
Seduction in a wet climate has a long tradition of inspired improvisation. One has only to think of bundling, a Scots innovation where two young lovers were placed together in an open box but, to preserve their virtue, a wooden plank divided them from the chin down. This had given way in recent years to a custom imported from America, which was lending them the keys to dad's car. Virtue was no longer the aim. Stopping them mooning around the parental home while staying out of the ubiquitous rain, that was the point.
In the case of Orlando and Lolly, things moved at a pace he could hardly have imagined possible were it not for the fact that, later that day, she gave him an eloquent guide to Sir Lachlan's topiary. As they were proceeding up what the locals called the Willies Walk, she recalled for Orlando the genesis of this wildly erotic avenue: a whim of Sir Hamish Morrison (third of Tressock), the trees represented just some of the infinite variety of male organs that the French writer Rabelais had thought worth mentioning in his satirical fantasy, Gargantua . The topiary trees, she explained, were exceedingly ancient but greatly cherished by the Laird and his gardeners. In the wide variety of their shapes and attitudes each phallus had its own unique character.
'Reflecting a universal truth,' said Lolly. 'One never sees even a really similar one twice, does one? Well of course you wouldn't know. You're fairly obviously a hearty. But almost any girl would agree with me,' she concluded, as if quoting Germaine Greer rather than an old French satirist.
'Really?' said Orlando. Not a question. Playing for time. Feeling a sudden shiver of Scots Puritanism at the sound of the words issuing from Lolly's lovely unpainted mouth, that too-big humorous mouth quoting Rabelais. This talk, that mouth, this fabulous woman, that feeling Orlando had never felt before. If, impossible if, she will have me, let me make love to her, nothing, he thought, will ever be the same again. He decided he must, in spite of the turmoil going on in his mind, somehow keep up his end of the conversation. 'Odd though that they should all be more or less erect, don't you think?' he was slightly surprised to hear himself saying, then adding: 'I like the notion that they only assume these positions when you, Lolly, walk up this drive.'
Lolly stopped
'As I was saying,' added a smiling Sir Lachlan, 'we're taking the horses back to the stables now. But if you can spare the time, Lolly would like to show you around the estate. Then perhaps Constable Furioso will join us for a glass of sherry, Lolly, in the gun room.'
He gave Orlando the inquiring stare of someone whose suggestions rarely, if ever, meet with refusal.
'That's very kind, sir,' said Orlando. 'It would be useful for me to have a clear idea of the lay of the land, so to speak. I was anyway thinking of coming and asking for such a tour.'
Orlando had been told to handle Sir Lachlan with great care when their paths crossed. His wide net of political connections was given as the reason. Scotland, he knew, might no longer be a nation where people were deferential to class. But deference to power and money remained strong and Sir Lachlan had both. Orlando loathed sherry and guessed, correctly, that on these favoured occasions the help on the estate got a dram of whisky and real guests received champagne or whatever they wanted. Who else got sherry? The local councillors probably (correct again), Sir Lachlan's solicitor (a borderline case). He wondered these things while watching Lolly mount her now calmed little mare. The neat, sweet posterior on Lolly (what a seductive name!) as she swung it deftly into the saddle made him think of an old Kiwi rugby song: She has freckles on her – butt – she is nice.
Not much hope of ever detecting those particular freckles, if they exist, he thought, rather gloomily. But there he was wrong.
Seduction in a wet climate has a long tradition of inspired improvisation. One has only to think of bundling, a Scots innovation where two young lovers were placed together in an open box but, to preserve their virtue, a wooden plank divided them from the chin down. This had given way in recent years to a custom imported from America, which was lending them the keys to dad's car. Virtue was no longer the aim. Stopping them mooning around the parental home while staying out of the ubiquitous rain, that was the point.
In the case of Orlando and Lolly, things moved at a pace he could hardly have imagined possible were it not for the fact that, later that day, she gave him an eloquent guide to Sir Lachlan's topiary. As they were proceeding up what the locals called the Willies Walk, she recalled for Orlando the genesis of this wildly erotic avenue: a whim of Sir Hamish Morrison (third of Tressock), the trees represented just some of the infinite variety of male organs that the French writer Rabelais had thought worth mentioning in his satirical fantasy, Gargantua . The topiary trees, she explained, were exceedingly ancient but greatly cherished by the Laird and his gardeners. In the wide variety of their shapes and attitudes each phallus had its own unique character.
'Reflecting a universal truth,' said Lolly. 'One never sees even a really similar one twice, does one? Well of course you wouldn't know. You're fairly obviously a hearty. But almost any girl would agree with me,' she concluded, as if quoting Germaine Greer rather than an old French satirist.
'Really?' said Orlando. Not a question. Playing for time. Feeling a sudden shiver of Scots Puritanism at the sound of the words issuing from Lolly's lovely unpainted mouth, that too-big humorous mouth quoting Rabelais. This talk, that mouth, this fabulous woman, that feeling Orlando had never felt before. If, impossible if, she will have me, let me make love to her, nothing, he thought, will ever be the same again. He decided he must, in spite of the turmoil going on in his mind, somehow keep up his end of the conversation. 'Odd though that they should all be more or less erect, don't you think?' he was slightly surprised to hear himself saying, then adding: 'I like the notion that they only assume these positions when you, Lolly, walk up this drive.'
Lolly stopped
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