The winter had eaten up the very last of his savings. Keeping the farm going, the staff, the stable yard, and the house itself were more than he could keep up with. It pained him to see Charity and her father organise and order expensive and frivolous niceties for the wedding. But he had to let her do it. It was her occasion after all.
On the morning of the wedding, Mrs Johansson shook him gently, leaning over him, whispering. ‘Wake up, today’s the day.’
He turned over and looked at the ceiling. The day was here. In a few hours, he would be married and Charity Eustace would become the new lady of the house.
He realised there hadn’t been a lady of the house in twenty years. And as he pictured her sitting in the great room, organising staff rotas, and going over menus and accounts, the thought struck him that she was not a suitable successor to his mother. She had none of her charm, none of her graciousness. He thought about what his mother would think of her, and he knew, in his heart, what she would have felt.
The whole thing was wrong.
Mrs Johansson had brought breakfast on a tray, two yellow daffodils leaning in a slim glass, to brighten up his morning. He ate his food slowly, not wanting to get out of bed, thinking of the day ahead of him, of the ceremony, of the reception, of the well-wishers and faces and the people that would be filling the house for the evening. He wished that it were all over. That it was tomorrow and it was done with; the deed too.
He had been thinking about Amelia. Could he plant Amelia’s face where Charity’s was as he rutted in the martial bed? Or was that a sin?
Arthur came to shave him and help him get dressed. His hand shook a little and Henry angrily grabbed the stem of the razor and said he’d do it himself. ‘I don’t trust you with your hangover shakes,’ he said and Arthur looked a little hurt.
‘Sorry old boy,’ he said. ‘I think I’m just a bit nervous. It’s a big day today.’
Henry said nothing but shaved his cheeks and neck himself.
‘I know,’ said Henry. ‘It is a big day.’
When he came down the stairs, dressed in his wedding suit and sash, Mrs Johansson stopped mid-rush and looked at him.
‘Oh Henry,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘You do look handsome.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. But he wished that he were looking handsome for someone else. That he could make Mrs Johansson proud, in a different way.
When it was time to go to the church, Henry watched his brother and his uncle Edward climb into the belly of the first carriage and a wave of nausea swept through the walls of his stomach. It had been there all morning, but now it had taken hold. He gripped the handle of the door and brought in his breath to try and steady himself.
‘Are you alright?’ asked Arthur, as Henry sat down opposite him with a sigh. ‘You’ve gone white as a sheet.’
‘Fine,’ said Henry. But he didn’t feel fine. He felt positively sick. The staff had lined up to wave him off, those who were going to the church were dressed in their Sunday clothes.
He looked at them lined up, waving, white frills on their sleeves fluttering in the breeze. What it would to be a domestic, free to marry for love.
Arthur and his uncle made conversation during the short journey to the church. Henry was silent, his sickness worsening, an aching thought warming his head.
‘You do look rather nervous,’ said Arthur, reaching over to touch Henry on the arm. His touch shocked him, a bolt, reaching through the deep thoughts he was absorbed in. ‘We’re here.’
Henry looked out the window. Guests had already gathered outside, most heading into the church, the early April weather too chilly to stand around in. He thought how ridiculous it was to have agreed to a marquee on the lawn.
‘Alright?’ asked Arthur again.
‘Yes,’ said Henry and he let Arthur open the door and help him down out of the carriage.
Spotting him, some cousins from his mother’s side came over to clasp his hand and wish him well. He smiled, shook their hands, and worried that the nausea was going to spill over and he was actually going to retch, right here at the entrance to the church.
‘Henry,’ said Arthur, as they made their way inside.
Henry didn’t answer, but strode on through the open door. Inside it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the dark. People had gathered near the top of the church, relations from both his mother and father’s side, a landlord he recognised from another part of Meath. He walked up on to the altar, bowed and made for the sacristy off to the side, where he thought the vicar would be. The vicar wasn’t there and Henry stood, leaning against a mahogany sideboard, holding his forehead with his hands.
‘Henry,’ said Arthur again, having followed him. ‘Are you quite alright?’
Henry mumbled into his hands, shaking his head.
‘What?’ said Arthur. ‘What did you say?’
‘I can’t do it,’ said Henry, now audibly repeating what he’d been muttering into his palms. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Henry,’ said Arthur. ‘Everyone’s here now. The bride will be here soon. You can’t not do it.’
He put his hand on his arm, rubbing it a little.
‘It’s probably just the nerves,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine when you get out there.’
‘No,’ said Henry, shaking his head. ‘I can’t do it. Tell her I’m sorry. Tell them all I’m sorry.’
Henry told Arthur not to follow him and made his way out of the church, past the guests who were still arriving for the service, and crossed on to the road. He took off into the woods that led to the back of Brabazon, his legs almost breaking into a trot.
He was minutes away from catching a glimpse of the bride, who was arriving in an open top carriage, clasping her father’s arm, the largest smile she had ever worn, shadowed under her veil.
Chapter Twenty-Four
MOLLY
Being a wife to a man you do not love is, in some ways, the same as being a whore. You must still make love. You must dress up and smile. You must be coquettish. You must pay off your debt. Most nights. Unless he’s tired. Or angry enough not to touch you.
The table in his kitchen is varnished white, and I scrub it with a rough brush to keep the stains and the cup rings from seeping deep into the wood. There’s a spot, where I sit, where the varnish has been wearing away. I dig at it with my butter knife and hope that he notices, that it causes a row and that he might stay angry for a while. I get a false sense of joy by provoking him.
I think I am going mad.
I wonder if we could have been happy, Tubular and I. If we could have grown a life together, formed a bond, organised a true marriage between us. We had exactly seven weeks where we got to try. Before it happened. Before everything changed forever.
I enjoyed being out of the kip-house, my days filled with domestic tasks, happy that I was now a married woman and my baby had a respectable mother and father and a nice home, on a busy back street in London. No one knew of my past. Except Tubular, of course.
My sores healed; I began to heal. And I knew that with time, I would lock the memories of the past few months in a box in my head, the key tossed away, buried in a recess that I would have to work hard to find.
I wondered what future Tubular and I would have. I thought about writing home, to tell them where I was, that I was now a married woman with a baby. But I was terrified of what had happened on the day I left, of what people knew or suspected. Brabazon had come looking for me that night in the kip-house, I was sure of it. If I wrote, telling of my whereabouts, then one day, a knock could come on the door, I would be found, and that would be that.
‘Don’t you want to write?’ Tubular asked me occasionally, after I mentioned my mam or Michael or Patrick. I’d shake my head and say, no, I was never going home again. But it made me sad.
I concentrated on the sense of achievement I felt when I looked around me; at Oliver sitting in the little wooden chair, at the pots bubbling on the stove, at the floor that shone becau
se I’d gotten down on my knees and scrubbed it.
I liked being in the house in the daytime, just me and Oliver. I pretended it was our own house, just the two of us, a little sanctuary from the cruel world I knew to be outside.
I’d made some changes to make the place more homely. Tubular had a mean streak and he didn’t give me money for things I’d have liked for myself. I had to convince him that buying items were his idea, I had to hint and get him to make the suggestion that we buy a new blanket, or a vase or a toy for the baby.
When he brought something home, he’d be as proud as punch and I told him he was ever so lovely and sometimes I added that I was glad he brought me there.
I played the game. I had to.
In the evenings, I’d sometimes drop over to Mary’s to avoid having to sit and talk to Tubular for an hour or two.
She was a lovely woman and she never asked any questions about where I was before this or why I brought a baby into my marriage. For all she knew, Tubular could have been the father anyway, and I was happy to let her think that. He would be his father growing up and I was starting to accept that now. That he would have an influence. I needed to learn to love him like a wife should. It was only fair on Oliver.
Mary and I drank tea, and the odd time she poured me a drop of port or wine or whatever bottle she had handy from the drinks cabinet. Mary’s husband drank a lot and she said he never noticed what she took. I wished Tubular drank a bit more so that he might go off out to the pub and leave me in peace. But he wasn’t a drinker - his favourite thing to do was to come to me and take me to bed - he couldn’t get enough of my body, of my mouth, of my breasts.
I would sigh after I’d had a few mouthfuls of drink and think about buying my own bottle of alcohol for the house. I missed the whiskey tumblers I used to down at the kip-house. When I first came to Tubular’s, I craved them something terrible, but after a while I got used to going without and as the days passed I noticed that my head was clearer and the dull headache I always had was gone.
Still, after those visits to Mary’s, after I’d had a little sup, it always made things a bit easier and I slept better, forgetful, a bit stupored.
After the novelty of the first few weeks of marriage had worn off, when he’d gotten used to me being there every evening, with his dinner on the table, his laundry airing, and his kitchen scrubbed nice and clean, I noticed that his demeanour changed a bit, that it was almost like Oliver and I were getting in his way.
He would sigh if I stepped in front of him, or grumble when Oliver whined. One time he marched out of the kitchen and slammed the door because of that child’s incessant squalling.
I wrapped my arms around Oliver and tried to get him to shush, but he was teething and his cheeks were on fire and I’d run out of the teething syrup I normally pressed to his gums.
Tubular started passing comment and making remarks, lowly mutterings under his breath about me being a good for nothin’ or useless and then one day, he said it, the word I’d been waiting for, the thing that he knew he could always hold against me.
‘What did you say?’ I said and I spun around to face him from where I was standing.
‘You heard me,’ he said and his face was in a grimace, ugly, snarled.
The word echoed through the air, the sound of it repeating over and over in my head.
Whore.
I walked up to him and went to slap his face but he grabbed my arm and with the back of his hand he struck me across the face.
My hands flew to the stinging, to the red mark he’d lain across my jaw.
‘Get away from me,’ he said.
We glared at each other and I felt tears threatening the back of my eyes. I willed them away with the anger I felt.
‘Don’t call me that,’ I said and I realised how pathetic I sounded, that I should have been more forceful. He would call me whatever he wanted whether I liked it or not.
‘Well, that’s what you are,’ he said and he sat down at the table and picked up his fork to start eating the fry-up I’d prepared.
I saw his eyes glance over at Oliver who was lying in his pram, his little chubby legs kicking.
‘And he’s the son of a whore,’ he said, stabbing a sausage and putting it in his mouth.
I ran to Oliver and scooped him into my arms. I slammed the kitchen door and made my way to the bedroom where I dived under the covers with him and willed the tears to stay in my eyes.
I had nowhere to go and no one to come looking for me. I’d made the decision to marry Tubular and this is what came with it.
I wondered which was worse; being at the kip-house servicing many men or living in this house of tension, servicing just one? At least I had friends in the kip-house, Elizabeth, alcohol. Even Madame Camille, supplying things and marking them up on my slate.
I longed for my mother, for my family, for my country. I longed to be at home, in the fields, on top of Dowth mound surveying the landscape with nothing but my thoughts for company.
But there was no point wishing for that now. The most I could wish for was for Tubular to treat me with more kindness. I would have to find a way to convince him to do that. I’ll go to the shops tomorrow, I thought. I’ll get some groceries in and make him corned beef for his tea, his favourite.
That was my idea.
A treat for the husband who was turning against me, who was starting to make my life uncomfortable, making it miserable altogether some days.
I had no idea that there was worse to come.
That really, I didn’t know misery at all.
And that was how I lost Oliver.
Chapter Twenty-Five
HENRY
He sold the lands on the edge of the estate. They fetched a meagre price, bought up by a consortium of other locals and some tenants keen to own their own land. He couldn’t shake the vision, as he signed the paperwork granting ownership to these new land owners, of his father’s face, angry and sore. He had done what his father had always managed to avoid; he’d lost land that had been in their family for generations.
But, he reasoned to himself; it was his father who had gotten him into this mess. Even if it was Henry who would go down in the Brabazon chronicles as having lost the estate. If it came to that.
He broke it to Arthur that summer that there would be no going back to Oxford. ‘You can’t be serious,’ his brother replied, a tumbler in his hand.
It was late July and the birds were singing in the trees outside. Henry had the water turned off in the fountain. The garden was starting to look unkempt. He’d let all but one of the ground staff go.
‘I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s the situation we’re in. I can talk to the year head and see if they can delay for a year, maybe two.’
Henry turned away from the window now to look at his brother. He had told Arthur the news while looking out on to the gardens, thinking how they reflected the state they were in. A mess.
‘And then if things are better you can go back, pick up where you left off.’ Henry felt his shoulders shrug a little.
‘My God, you are actually serious. You’re serious?’ His brother was furious, red spots burning on his cheeks as he lunged forward towards Henry.
‘You get to go to Oxford for four bloody years and I’m whipped back home after mere months? No Henry. No, it’s not happening. I’m not sacrificing my education to make you feel better.’
‘Me … feel better?’ said Henry, his skin bristling at the confrontation with his brother. Their relationship had suffered lately. They argued regularly, Henry berating Arthur for spending money. He had made his way through their drinks cellar and started ordering malts and whiskeys in from all over the world. Henry told him they couldn’t afford an alcoholic in the family. They’d already suffered a gambler.
‘How does this make me feel better?’ said Henry. ‘Selling our land. Cutting back on every damn spend in the house. Telling you, now, that you can’t afford to go back to Oxford?’
&n
bsp; ‘There is money to send me to Oxford. You just want to hold on to it. To keep it for yourself, for here.’
‘Arthur,’ said Henry, feeling exasperated. ‘If there’s no here, there’s no Oxford. Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been telling you? We are broke. Broke! Father left us penniless. We’ll be lucky if we do hang on to the house.’
‘You could have fixed this, Henry,’ said Arthur and he threw his head back with the tumbler to his face.
‘Oh really?’ said Henry, annoyed that he was bringing Charity into this. ‘It was up to me to change the whole path of my life to suit your lifestyle.’
‘Well it looks like I’ve to change the whole path of mine to suit yours.’
He knew Arthur was biting out of frustration. His youthful charm got him everywhere, but with it came a stubbornness, a childishness, when he didn’t get his own way.
Arthur turned and went back to the drinks cabinet. He removed the stopper from a decanter to pour more alcohol into the glass he was holding.
‘Is that really going to help?’ said Henry.
‘No,’ said Arthur. ‘It won’t. Nothing will help. But at least it dulls the pain. This,’ he said pointing at the glass, ‘makes me forget about this.’ He waved his hand to take in the room and Henry.
‘I know you miss Father,’ said Henry, trying the direct approach. ‘I do too. But we need to sacrifice now to build a future. To see that we hand Brabazon on, like it was handed to us. I know that delaying your studies is an awful thing to ask of you, but I wouldn’t be asking it if it wasn’t necessary. I don’t want to see you torn away from doing something you want to do. But I’m serious, the fees, at this moment are not affordable. OK, we could probably push on for a few more months, but then what? Sell up completely?’
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