Her first impression is of some money in her family system. How that can be I cannot know. Bernard says that she hired her car and driver well, with good horses, from an excellent livery in County Cork. That she has manners goes beyond doubt. But I fear that they may be trained manners, rather than the grace that comes from within. She behaved elegantly toward me, and false-prettily toward Charles—whose face whitened with strong feeling as he greeted her.
Bernard and I had made an understanding that Charles must introduce her to us. All morning he fretted, pacing upon the terrace, asking over and over how long the drive from Cork must take. Of Euclid, Miss Burke made no show. A mistake, I think; can she not know of Charles's fond affections for his brother? He judges people by their expression of regard for Euclid.
My impression of her has not yet been a good one. She presents herself as if in expectation of the world's unquestioning appreciation of her beauty. Forthright and confident in her views. Very sure that her beauty will open all doors.
Charles stumbled and hesitated in her presence. I watched closely. She took less and less regard of him, except what courtesy demanded. I am glad to say that his manners showed him to be a gentleman. I had feared that he might have crumbled. But he behaved so beautifully that I wonder how many men of such manners and gentleness does she meet that she can afford to spurn him?
Bernard and Charles showed her our gardens, our horses and cattle, and our beloved wood. Bernard reports that she talked amiably but showed little interest in the creatures or in the wood's eccentric growths or their history. She came back to the terrace and sat for tea. And she accepted our sensible invitation to stay the night. Charles has undertaken to show her the disputed property over at Tipperary Castle. They will go there tomorrow.
When Miss Burke had repaired upstairs to change for dinner, Charles naturally and with heartbreaking eagerness asked Bernard and me if we liked her. As we had had no opportunity to confer, we retreated a little. In such circumstances, Bernard always believes it best to tell what he calls “the truth of the moment.” He said, “She is such a beauty.” I said, “I will make up my mind about her when we have had dinner. And I will give you my candid opinion.”
Charles then turned to Euclid, who said something I believe to be unfortunate.
“She'll change,” Euclid said. “She'll learn to love you.”
Oh, dear me! If we had any means left by which we might encourage Charles to extricate himself, we lost them at that moment.
At dinner tonight we were five. I had decided not to invite friends or neighbors until we had seen her further. She has excellent table manners. I would expect no less from a young woman who has worked for our Embassy in Paris. Bernard told a story I have heard many times (about a man who caught a fox, a rambling and funny story). Euclid told about electricity and what he had learned about it. Charles said little but for an occasional remark. The young Miss Burke looked at each speaker in turn as if calculating them in some way, assessing them.
Then came a moment which caused me to understand my son's infatuation. He must have seen something of this side to the girl somewhere. She spoke of her father, not in extravagant terms or in a surfeit of any emotion—but she spoke of him more tenderly than I ever spoke of my father, fine man though he was. Or than I have ever spoken of my adored Bernard and my two sons.
It was not so much the words of her speech. It was the light that she gave to us. Her face changed and lost some of its watchfulness. At least I call it that—I hope that it's not out-right cunning, barely concealed. She could not hide her feelings for her father. From Charles's reports, Mr. Burke has much to recommend him.
“I would do anything for Papa” was her concluding remark. And, perhaps in the same mode of kindness, she turned to Charles and said, “That was a great gift you gave him, that journey to his childhood home.” But Charles had told me she had cast him down for making the journey. Does this young woman have two faces? And perhaps more?
A worse question is: Have I deprived my darling son in some way? Did I withhold praise and approval from him? So much that he now inhales any approbatory remark as a dog takes a bone? When he had acknowledged her remark with a smile and a murmur, her earlier self returned. We saw again the cold and deliberate young woman whom I disliked at sight.
Tonight I go to bed with a heavy heart. My son loves a girl who will not judge him well. Who will not see that he is a fine and darling man. If he does win her, she will ruin him with her coldness and her calculations. If he does not win her, he will lead a lonely life. What am I to say to him in the morning? Shall I keep my counsel until she has left? And I hope that will occur soon.
In September of that year, 1904, it became known to me that new events would soon unfold and that they would join my life, at least in one form, to that of Miss Burke. For reasons of discretion and privacy I cannot disclose what transpired; suffice it to say that, owing to kind intermediaries, in particular the Countess of A——, some letters passed between my mother and my beloved. On a certain Wednesday, I was in the town of Kilkenny when a railway porter came to me with a letter from my mother (my parents always know where I am to be found in any week), saying that I must return home immediately, that Miss April Burke was “about to present herself.”
As I galloped back through the gold light of evening, my mind raced; the “why” and the “how so” and the “wherefore” and the “which” and the “what” echoed like bells—and like bells they offered little beyond their exciting voices. Did she come to threaten me? Mother's letter said she was to visit “as a result of some correspondence”; was this some complaint that she meant to bring? As I always go to the foolish extremes of every thought, I naturally said to myself next, “Perhaps she has found that she loves me, that her father spoke well of me, and that she means to apologize, to say that she misunderstood me.”
When I reached home, Mother told me that the letters gave ample direction as to the reasons for this astounding turn of matters, and on condition that I do not disclose them, she showed me. My heart leaped further as I read them—she meant to pursue the ownership of Tipperary Castle! If successful, would she live near us? I kept myself in check; disappointment has too long been such a companion to me that I knew I must not raise my hopes.
On my return from the mixed adventure that I had known in England, I had resumed my works. I healed a child in County Wicklow who suffered from sore eyes (bathing with day-old cold tea); and I spoke to men who planned political revolution and wished all our land matters, now significantly resolved, put behind them, so that a freedom and a self-government of the people and for the people could be determined.
One of these, a Dublin man of a few years more than thirty, by name of Arthur Griffith, told me that he would presently found a new political movement whose name would, he said, “echo in every home and in every heart.” I spoke to Mr. Griffith in his newspaper offices in Dublin, and afterward I wrote about him as follows:
He seems to maintain a balance of fierce and wise, of astute and idealistic. Of his Irish patriotism, he has no doubt; and his greater sarcasm has been reserved, he told me, for those who deem him “British,” because Griffith, his ancestral name, is Welsh and not Irish. With his eyes aflame he said, “To paraphrase that diminutive Englishman, the Duke of Wellington—if my forefather was born in a stable, does that make me a horse?” He gave me the name of his new political movement, Sinn Fein, meaning “We Ourselves,” and he declared as its aim the restoration of Ireland as a separate condition of statehood under the British monarchy. He would abolish the Act of Union of 1800, and in this way he believed that Time would present Ireland, after years of peaceful self-determination under the Crown, with a pathway towards total self-government.
I received much praise for this contribution, and I must confess that when I heard who was to be a guest under our roof, I contrived to leave a copy of the newspaper in her room, open at that very page.
Came the day she arrived. Of the Five Senses w
ith which we are blessed, I cannot for certain say that one took precedence over another on that exquisite morning; Sight and Hearing flamed into life and remained in full bloom from the moment I opened my eyes (which was at six o'clock, almost before the sun); Smell and Touch followed hard behind; and as to Taste, I should have thought I had been eating raw board, so dry did my mouth feel.
Never did I shave with such precision. (I resist a beard, as I do not wish to be a creature whose fashion is led by the King's style—too many young men affect the royal shape of beard.) Nor have I ever chosen linen and outerwear with such hesitancy, such indecision. Evidently I made some good choices, because when I came down for breakfast Mother said I looked “dashing” and Father said that he hoped this girl had “a pair of eyes in her head.” Euclid asked, “Charles, why am I not as handsome as you?”
It is my blessing to have so loving a family.
I was standing on the terrace, looking south to the mountains, when I saw her car arrive. From the stiffness of her posture I could tell that she has had little practice of traveling in sidecars, and I was there to receive her hand when she stepped down—the first time, believe it or not, that I had touched her, and I felt a blade of thrill shiver up along my arm. She greeted me warmly (though eschewing the use of my name—she said neither “Mr. O'Brien” nor “Charles”), and I led her forward to meet my family.
From that point the day seemed to dissolve into a kind of glow, and I am tested to recall its particulars. She sparkled among us like a wonderful stream—she gave us so much of her spirit with warmth and friendliness, and she turned to me with a doe's eyes, and she deferred to me, and she charmed Euclid and flattered him, and my father lost his heart to her and Mother smiled and smiled.
We walked with her through the gardens and the wood, and she liked everything so much and was so attentive to my old tales of my tutors that I could imagine her having been here with me in those past days—and I knew that I could eagerly share all this with her now and forever.
Then we saw the horses with their glossy strength, and the cows with their wrinkled brows, and then we repaired to the terrace for tea. I can bring to mind little of what was said. The sun shone and this young woman, the queen of my soul, sat with me, here, amid my family, at my home, listening and speaking and looking as beautiful as a dream.
Mother invited her to stay with us for at least one night; we all concluded that she must be too fatigued to ride over to Tipperary Castle that evening, and that perhaps tomorrow morning would prove more appropriate. When she agreed, Mother accompanied her upstairs, Father had to reach the yard before milking began (some errand or other), and Euclid went to take his daytime rest, which he needs if he is to enjoy dinner.
For my part I walked through the wood, and I confess that I talked to the trees. I felt like singing, but I knew that the peculiar corridors between the growths permitted sound to carry to the house and I feared that I might disturb that beloved girl who, even now, was resting beneath the roof under which I was born.
In time, in blurred and happy time, I too went indoors and changed for dinner, and there passed as pleasing a meal as I have ever known under that or any other roof. April sparkled again, and she asked many questions—about land and ownership nearby, about neighbors, about the safety of circumstances.
Father, bless him, assured her that were she to enter our society, she would come in as our friend, and therefore would have all the protection of our society, which, as he put it, “goes from the lowest to the highest and back down again.” When he added, “And the lower you go, the safer you'll be,” she looked alarmed—until we all laughed, and she seemed relieved and joined in the laughter.
She inquired as to other landowning neighbors. Father gave her a verbal tour of our district, and he named many names. Of each one she asked questions, and she seemed in danger of tiring herself, until I stepped in, as it were, and advised her that were she to get the legal proceedings under way, I should make it my business to introduce her to all these people—and my parents began to name the names, such as Lord and Lady Cashel, Lord and Lady Knockavilla, the Countess of Dundrum, Lord and Lady Fermoy, the Honorable Mrs. Prendergast, and, of course, Lady Mollie Carew.
“To name but a few,” I said, and received a smile of great beauty.
This moment in Charles O'Brien's narrative is very telling socially. It's important to keep bearing in mind that the O'Briens were, in part, Irish Catholics, of longstanding native stock. Their tribe went back to the days of pagan Ireland, before the arrival of Saint Patrick in 432, before the birth of Christ and the beginning of A.D. (or “C.E.,” as we must now call it). Therefore, Charles, and his father, and the family belonged among the dispossessed—in theory.
In practice, however, those Irish families who survived wave after ghastly wave of genocidal plantation discovered that they had created, in effect, a different—and very superior—class. On the one hand they bore none of the colonists' taints and stains. On the other hand, no aroma of victimhood clung to them, no self-pity.
These were the true Irish aristocrats, the families who went back more than two thousand years. And perhaps even beyond that. If they said that their ancestors caught the very seeds the birds dropped to fertilize the new loam thrown up by the melting tides of the last ice age, who could contradict them?
Such families had the respect of their Anglo-Irish new neighbors— many of whom wished fervently for such a long pedigree. And they had the respect too, though tinged with envy, of their fellow Irish, who were forced to the roads or the emigrant ships. Thus, they could easily name as neighbors—and indeed claim as friends—that list of lords and ladies, countesses, marquesses, and honorables.
By mentioning such names to April Burke, the O'Briens—both Bernard and Amelia—showed shrewdness and delicacy. In choosing to evoke titled families, they made her comfortable, and paid her a compliment. They naturally expected that she knew how to mix with such people. At the same time, had they sought to advance the romantic suit of their son, they were demonstrating to Miss Burke how they lived.
The general account of April Burke's first day in the O'Brien house and the very different reports of Amelia and her son bring up another curiosity. Nothing seems to have been mentioned of April's grandmother, the allegedly celebrated actress—“April the First,” as Oscar Wilde called her.
Given a man as steeped in knowledge of his countryside as Bernard O'Brien, it would have seemed natural and to be expected had Miss Burke plied him with questions. If she did, we have no reports of it; nor do we have any record or evidence that she asked many questions about Tipperary Castle.
Why not? Did she have something to fear? On the face of things, no. Surely she needed as much information as she could get about her possible inheritance? In fact, it can be fairly well assumed, judging from the next and vital passages from both Charles's and Amelia's records, that Miss Burke, on her first night at Ardobreen, never mentioned the possible origins of her interest.
The matter had proceeded as follows: Charles journeyed to the west of England in June 1904. And Miss Burke wrote to Amelia O'Brien six or seven weeks later. In that period she evidently decided—which she had not done since November 1900—that Tipperary Castle and its estate warranted a look serious enough to make a visit; and to spend a potentially embarrassing time in the family home of a man to whom she had at best been dismissive.
All the impressions of her at this stage suggest a young woman who never did anything spontaneously. Amelia O'Brien discusses her in strong terms—“conniving” and “icy” and, almost expletively from such a woman, “cunning.” Depending on only the O'Brien observations, we can therefore assume that April Burke knew what she was doing when she decided to travel to Ireland.
In her terms she was going to darkest Africa. She had grown up with daily reports of murders and other outrages out of Ireland. In London her only contact with the Irish would have been at the servant level, with beggars in the streets, or perhaps with an o
ccasional Irish lord or lady.
It's perfectly feasible that until she met Oscar Wilde she had never encountered a cultivated Irishman. She failed to see past Charles's rather careless facade to the honest and earnest man beneath—who was now about to show her a magnificent possibility. Have two people ever had such different intentions on a Sunday morning outing?
I did not sleep that night. She lay mere yards away from my room, along the west corridor of our house. The moon rose late, and I sat at the window looking out at the garden and the wood. With foreknowledge of the boards that creak, I stepped out and walked to her door. For a long moment I stood there and my mind reared under many lashes; I pressed both hands to my face, seeking composure.
The catch on that lock has some indifference to it, and I knew she would not be certain that she had closed her door. I pushed gently, and the door opened back. From inside I could hear deep breathing and almost a hint of snoring; and from the room in general came a faint and sweet perfume that I shall ever associate with her.
I stepped into the doorway; she had drawn all curtains tightly closed—no moonbeam would gain that room. Along with the perfume I caught the smell of the candle that she had recently doused. From the moonlight of the corridor I could see that the newspaper I had left for her to read (with my disquisition on Mr. Griffith) had a valise sitting upon it. No doubt she intended to read it upon the morning.
Then I caught my breath. Here I stood, a man in a lady's room without her invitation or permission! I retreated immediately, ashamed that I should have advanced so far. As I closed the door tenderly, I knew that she had not stirred, and therefore my little visit had passed unobserved.
April rode well. We gave her Nonie, a nine-year-old mare who had thrown one foal and was therefore inclined to be placid. As I watched the horses being readied in the yard, Father appeared. Mother walked with him and they had deep conversation, both looking at the ground; I doubt not that they discussed this remarkable young woman and her suitability for their son. When they saw me, Mother waved a warm hand, said something to my father, and returned to the house; she fills her life with work. Father came over and asked how prepared were the horses. When he discovered that some minutes remained before both should be watered and saddled, he said, “I want to look at something in the garden.”
Tipperary: A Novel of Ireland Page 18