A wave of exhaustion swept through me. It came on suddenly, as though every drop of energy had been sucked from my body. I lay back on the grass, moving the case up behind my head, turning over like how I slept at home, curled up, my legs and arms tucked in. I closed my eyes and soon the sounds of the water were coming in and out of my ears and I was asleep.
I don’t think I dreamt. I don’t remember anything. The only thing I knew was that there was someone there, and I woke up, all crumpled, listening to the noise of the water, the smell of the grass and soil in my nose.
I looked up, my hands still clasped as though in prayer and it took me a few moments to recognise him. To bring him into focus. To see his dark hair and his moustache - he was bending down close, asking me if I was alright.
I sat up, rubbing my neck and nodding.
‘I didn’t know anyone else knew about this place,’ he said. He was smiling, a nice smile, even though his eye teeth jutted out a bit.
‘It’s nice here,’ I say quietly.
‘Yes, I find it … relaxing.’
I didn’t know whether to stand up or sit down. He sat down right beside me, close to my legs. Henry Brabazon, at this secret place, at the river I loved.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked me again. ‘It’s not often I find a sleeping girl with a suitcase under this tree.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I just fancied a walk.’
‘Oh,’ he says. I hoped he wouldn’t pursue about the suitcase. What could I say, that I was delivering something, perhaps? It wasn’t too far-fetched.
‘Did you enjoy today?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I said. It wasn’t a lie. I did enjoy it right up until ... ‘I did. It was a lovely day.’ I wanted to tell him that I admired his team and their speed and how everyone had cheered them on. He had changed from his white sports clothes now. He was in dark slacks and a shirt, a cravat folded around his neck.
‘This might seem exceptionally rude,’ he says. ‘But I have to be honest and tell you I am not quite sure of your first name. I know you’re Miss Thomas. What is your first name?’
‘Molly,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘It was playing on my mind.’
I wondered why such a thing would play on his mind. Why he would care what my name was or anything about me?
‘Do you miss here?’ he says, looking at my knees, which were tucked under my dress, making a triangle with the ground.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I miss the river. I miss the fresh air. It can feel very cooped up in town.’
‘I’m the same,’ he says. ‘I find cities stifling. When I’m home I walk as much as I can. In fact, I come here very often. It seems we both have a hiding place.’ He was joking, but I couldn’t laugh. We were not equal.
‘Funny thing is,’ he says, looking to me now, ‘I’m waiting on a letter. About London. And I’ll be frightfully disappointed if it doesn’t come.’
And there it was. The word London. A word that dived right into my ear and nestled in the centre of my thinking.
We sat there in silence, listening to the water, me thinking how strange it was that I’d seen him twice in one day. But it felt different here. Here, he was alone, away from all the rich folk and their fine clothing and their delicately cut white bread sandwiches.
‘I want you to know, Miss Thomas, that I do feel dreadfully sorry about what happened to your family.’
I didn’t reply, but nodded my head.
‘I think it is a shame. And I really am sorry for your loss, for your father. From what I’ve heard he was a good man.’
I hadn’t heard anyone speak about my father in so long. It was always Mr McKenna this, Mr McKenna that, it was like Daddy’s memory had been forgotten. And, of course, there were tears in my eyes again. I stared straight ahead, trying to blink them away, not wanting him to look at me and see me crying.
But he did. I could feel his eyes on me.
I turned my head and I looked at him.
‘Mr Brabazon,’ I say. ‘I don’t blame you. But your father could have stopped things. And your agent, Montgomery …’ The word is like ash in my mouth again. Saying his name out loud bubbled bile in my stomach.
‘This was his doing. I blame him for my father’s death.’
He’s looking at me, his forehead creased, his eyes thoughtful.
‘I think there may be a way,’ he says. ‘A legal way. Of getting the land back.’
I don’t know anything about legal ways. I only know that my father was in court and at meetings and had board after board look at the case and still they decided to send an eviction party to our house, twice, with their horses and their men and their batons and their white paper, fluttering on the front door.
‘It’s too late,’ I say. Because it is. Daddy is gone. And Mam has made her choices.
‘Thank you for trying, Mr Brabazon. I think you are a good man,’ I say. I stand up, rub down my dress and lift up my case.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ he asks, eyeing up the case.
‘I’m catching the train at Slane,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going to stay with my aunt in Dublin.’
‘Oh, well, it was lovely speaking to you again. And if your mother does wish to pursue the issue, tell her to please write to me at Brabazon House. I wasn’t involved in the previous court cases, but I feel if I was, this time round there would be a different outcome.’
A different outcome.
I smiled at him and dipped my head under the alder branches, setting out on the river path towards Slane.
‘Goodbye, Molly,’ he says and I turn back and give him a wave.
As I walk away I realise that he called me Molly and not Miss Thomas.
I turn left, making my way across the small bridge, on my way to Dowth, not going straight, like he would have expected to Slane. I peer back to make sure he can’t see me.
I make sure that no one sees me, walking up that road, stepping into the ditch and going behind the hedgerows. My boots are muddy as I hide and walk, hide and walk.
When I arrive at Montgomery’s farm, hunkering down in a blackberry bush, not six feet from his yard, a new feeling has entered my body. It’s a powerful feeling, the one like I had the night that Daddy died, as if I’m soaring like the Holy Spirit.
The power stays with me while I watch. Children are playing in the yard, kicking up dust and throwing pebbles at each other and then their father, Montgomery’s son, comes out and calls them and they leave, through the gate, following him like a string of little ducks.
A woman with a bonnet comes in and out of the yard, fetching things, carrying a bucket, throwing corn out for the chickens in a big arching skitter.
Then I see him, his big stomach and his bald head shining in the dying sun. Now all I had to do was wait for the sun to fall behind the hill, for him to come out and check on the horses and do his last visit to the yard.
I’d moved beside the stable, silent behind a tipped-up cart.
He didn’t hear me or see me, not until I was right up in front of him, his eyes just catching a look of me long enough to know that it was me and long enough to know what I was going to do to him.
As I reached up with the brown handled knife I’d taken from Mr McKenna’s kitchen and pressed it into his throat and pulled it from side to side, tearing at his windpipe, his gullet, I thought how the power was still with me, the power that gave me the strength to keep the knife in, to expose his throat and watch black blood flowing from the inside.
I watched the fight in his eyes, felt his hands grip my neck, the power letting me hold the knife there and keep it there long enough, inside the man who had taken everything from us. I could never come back home because of this man. I could never live with my mam or with the boys now, because of what happened. Mr McKenna had made sure of that. But Montgomery had put us there in the first place.
And when he fell forward and I pulled the knife back, the power was still with me and calmly, I picked up my case and walked out of t
he yard. When I was down the road a bit, I stopped behind a ditch and wiped the knife on the grass. I held it in my hand till I got to the river, and flung it, hard, watching it spin, jagged, right into the centre and land with a small splash and then slowly sink, the currents taking it away.
It was only when I was further down the road, walking on my way to Slane, still hiding in the hedgerows, that the power left me and I realised what a great thing I’d done.
I thought how Daddy would be ashamed, how Mam would be shocked, how the boys wouldn’t understand. I thought that if I was caught, I would be taken to the prison, and surely to the gallows, where I would swing. I thought about Henry Brabazon, how he had seen me in the area, just before the murder, how he had spoken to me and could place me, if the police spoke to him at all.
But it was done now.
I learned that no one would suspect a young woman, with her neat hair in a summer bonnet, marching along with her suitcase in her hand. I found that I could walk right by the police and their horses and the alarm and panic as it was whispered through the village that there had been a killing that night. There were criminals on the loose, a gang by the sounds of it.
I also learned that no one would suspect a young woman who took her case and herself on to a steamer ship between Dublin and Liverpool and that all she needed to start again, were the coins in her bosom and her honest, hard-working face.
I thought of Flann and the knife and the power more and more lately. The thoughts came to my mind as I sat in Tubular’s kitchen peeling potatoes, watching the muddy curls drop into a basin, feeling the knife slice through the starch.
Were you more likely to kill if you’d killed once before?
Would I find the power again, the one I’d found on that day, from the rage, with all the strength?
Could I do to Tubular what I’d done to Flann Montgomery?
But I didn’t think I could. I couldn’t do what I’d done in that yard, not again, here in London.
I wouldn’t get away with it this time. I knew I wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HENRY
Henry walked past Arthur, whose mouth had dropped open forming a round O. ‘Don’t follow me,’ he said. Outside, he walked past the people who had gathered, chatting at the church gates and past the carriages that were parked along the roadway. He saw the Brabazon House carriage pass through the road gate and pictured the staff inside chattering happily, not noticing their master walking right by it, out of the church grounds and on to the road.
When he reached the woods, he broke into a run and ran all the way back to the stable yard, where he saddled his chestnut mare and climbed on her back, kicking her flanks until she was in a gallop, all the way down the driveway and out of the estate. He rode her past the river, through muddy fields, whipping her hind and shouting at her, hah, hah.
It was as though the horse could sense his distress and she drove her legs, the fastest, he felt, she had ever carried him. When he reached Dowth, he tied her by her foaming mouth at a Hawthorn tree and he climbed to the top of the mound, standing and surveying the lands around him. The lands he was going to lose. The lands he had been unable to save in the memory of his father. All because he could not face this marriage and the lie that it would have been.
But there was only one feeling now, one over-arching sense, where the nausea had been. And that was relief. The weight had been lifted. And he felt as though he could breathe again.
* * *
He had tried to go through with it. He had watched her and imagined very nice things about Charity Eustace. Her skin was soft. He had touched it when she’d placed her arm on his, pale like her lips. Thin lips. With a spattering of black hairs gathered in the corners. She had bright blue eyes. But they were wrinkled, lines that didn’t disappear after she’d stopped laughing.
She’d been laughing in his company a lot. She took delight in his interest, touching him at every moment. He felt her eyes bore into him if he moved around a room. Her letters were incessant, scent poured on to the paper, her love declared over and over. He always wrote back that he loved her too.
Because it seemed like the right thing to do. He wanted to make her happy.
He visited her home in Carlow, making the long trek on invitation, taking in the manicured grounds of the sprawling estate her father had built.
Brabazon House was small in comparison. Charity’s father owned so much land that he had a team of agents to assist him. It struck Henry that there would have been many suitors for Charity, her inheritance was so great. Yet she had taken a shine to him.
He had been treated to vast feasts during his stay in Carlow, dinners that lasted for hours, with guests arranged around him from both sides of Charity’s family. They all warmed to him, telling him what a fine match he was for her, how happy she’d been lately, what a radiant bride she would make.
He smiled and told everyone how much he was looking forward to marrying her.
But it was all a lie.
Her father had taken him on a walk one morning, sensing perhaps that his intentions were not all to do with love.
‘Do you know how many proposals she has turned down?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said Henry, feeling himself squirm a little.
‘I’ve lost count. She only wanted you, she was waiting for you.’
‘How flattering.’
‘Indeed,’ said her father. He had a thick white moustache and a voice far more powerful than his short stature belied. ‘And, Master Brabazon - I hope that you will make her happy.’
It was a warning. He knew her father could sense that he was not in love with Charity, not in a lustful way. Not in the way she held him in such high esteem.
With the wedding date now set, he started opening the invoices brought to him daily at breakfast by Mrs Johansson. He had been avoiding them, unable to tear open the envelopes to reveal more bills and carefully scribed details of the latest interest charges.
Now that he was to marry Charity, he felt the problem had been somewhat solved and whenever he felt a creeping feeling of dread about his upcoming marriage, he went and rifled through the paperwork in his study, reminding himself of why he was doing what he was doing.
Their wedding was set, a lavish affair to take place in the small Church of Ireland chapel where his parents had married, just off the estate. The wedding breakfast was to be held at the house, with a large marquee set up on the lawn. Charity’s father insisted on a lengthy invitation list; she was his only daughter and she would marry in style. It was his idea to set up a marquee in the grounds estate but it was Charity’s idea to install a mountain of glasses from which champagne would flow. Every time they met, Charity had added another layer of extravagance.
Henry began to despair. The money for the wedding would pay a large proportion of the debt he was battling. But he held his lip, instead, holding it out to her as she gently nibbled on it, thinking it was a lustful thing to do. He noticed her bottom teeth were crowded. Was there any part of her he could like?
* * *
His mood worsened as the wedding approached. When Arthur came home from Oxford on his break, he was shocked at Henry’s appearance.
‘I say Henry,’ he said when they’d taken off their coats and sat down to a supper of fish and potatoes. ‘Are you alright? You’ve lost weight. You’re practically wasting away.’
Henry was surprised and looked down at his legs in the chair. He realised he was at the innermost notch on his belt. He’d been pulling it tighter and tighter and he’d need to take a penknife to the leather soon.
‘Still engaged, then?’ said Arthur, a soft smile on his face.
‘Yes.’
‘And, how is she?’
‘She’s fine. Absolutely fine. Counting down till the wedding day. There’s a dressmaker in London sewing thousands of sequins on her dress as we speak. And now she’s talking about chocolate rabbits because it’ll be near Easter.’
‘Chocolate rabbi
ts?’ said Arthur.
He watched Henry attempt a smile but could see that he was struggling.
‘Dear brother, you know I love you. You know I support you. But there has to be another way. Are you seriously going to commit yourself to her for the rest of your life?’
It was refreshing to have Arthur home. To feel his presence and see his blond curls back at the table. He was the only one who would talk to Henry straight.
‘I’m not losing the house,’ said Henry. ‘I will learn to love her. And I’m sure, if there are children, she will be occupied with that and I will be left alone, to pursue what I want to pursue.’
‘Which is what?’ asked Arthur. ‘Country walks?’
‘Peace and quiet,’ said Henry. ‘And the Brabazon legacy. Which, by the way, I hear you’re doing a good job of thrashing.’
‘Me?’ said Arthur, pretending to look embarrassed. ‘Nonsense. I’m just having fun. But by golly, Henry. The talent in Oxford. What a city. You never warned me!’
Henry had made peace with his brother’s philandering. He had given up envying his freedom. He’d realised, with his father gone and Arthur away at university how alone he felt. He longed for his brother’s upbeat company even if it did come with mischief and drinking.
‘Henry,’ said Arthur, looking serious. ‘You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to. There are other ways.’
‘This is the way,’ said Henry, as he stabbed a potato with his fork and looked at the upturned mushroom on his plate. Black gills. Velvety soft. It reminded him of the dark hairs on Charity Eustace’s lip.
* * *
The wedding came too fast. He’d spent the weeks in the lead-up to the day embroiled in negotiations on the final sale of Seymour’s stock portfolio. He had held on to what he thought might offer some glimmer of an income, but the rest, he sold to an agent in London who bought up bad debt. With the small amount of cash he made, he repaired a large hole that had opened up in the roof of Brabazon, where the slates had been torn from the roof during a winter storm some years back. It wasn’t until the water started seeping down into the first floor that they realised the damage had been done. He worried that one of the roof beams had rotted all the way through. But there was no money to replace that. He asked the carpenters to do the best they could with what they had.
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