Tipperary: A Novel of Ireland

by Frank Delaney

  Back in Ireland, the widow Somerville had several choices. She could sell the estate and return to England. Or go anywhere, rich for the rest of her life. Or she could lease most of it and hope to collect rents. Or she could stay; she had enough capital to restore and develop the place.

  Each option posed problems. If she sold and left, what would she do with her life? Become the quarry of fortune hunters? If she stayed and leased, would she be able to collect all the rents due to her? By now, tenancy of any kind had made the Irish irredeemably truculent. And if she stayed—how would she handle such a huge project?

  April closed her mouth firmly as she finished speaking of the song. She had become a little frantic as her story gathered pace; now she held her head higher, and I saw that she looked at Mother with almost a stare. Would she likewise look at me? She did not; she was trying to gain control of herself, and she made herself be still. In a moment, her eyes again began to fill with tears, until they held shining pools—which then began to slip in sheets down her face. When next she spoke, her voice had calmed.

  “Papa had a saying; he spoke it every day. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Of the dead say nothing but good. I speak it every moment to myself. And I am trying to let the next thought take me over and stop the worst thought, the nil nisi thought; there's so much that I want to say, but nil nisi won't let me. And so I try to get to the next thought, but I can't. Is that how grief works?”

  Mother said, “We lost Euclid. He was the dearest boy. Since then I have made errors every week in the farm accounts. For months my letters bore the date on which he died and I didn't even know it.”

  I had not known of this. Mother had never mentioned it—indeed, we spoke not at all to each other of our grief. I said, “Since he died, I go out into the world every day without my watch and have to come back for it. It's as if I wished Time itself had halted so that he could still be with us.”

  As I had not spoken until now, my words seemed to echo, and I recalled how much I had liked overseeing this building, and speaking aloud to myself, and hearing my words boom.

  Mother looked over at me. “I did not know about your watch.”

  I replied, “Nor I about your farm accounts.”

  Mother turned to April, who was regarding me closely for the first time. “So you see, here we are, all in pain and grief. The best we can do is move on to the next thing.”

  April threw out her hands in a hopeless gesture. “I do not yet know what the next thing must be.”

  Mother said, “It will choose itself—and it will come and tell you.”

  TUESDAY, THE 6TH OF APRIL 1915.

  The window is wide open and not a breeze comes through. Bernard has gone to bed but does not sleep. I hear Charles walking across the floor of his room—across and back again, across and back again. There is a floorboard that creaks each time. If I listened hard, I could count his steps. I know when he turns and retraces.

  We had showers of rain this afternoon, from the west. Four lambs were born last night.

  I shall go against myself. Against my former feelings. I shall become the friend of young Mrs. Somerville, if she will have it—and I believe that she will. But I shall not do this for Charles's sake. It is easy to see that his passion for her has not dimmed. I think the opposite is the case. But I will not meddle in that. No, I shall do it for her sake. No young woman, no matter what her faults, should be left with such burdens.

  Tomorrow I shall write to her. I shall tell her that she must come to me for tea and I shall go to her, each week, turn and turn about. And we shall do that until she sells Tipperary Castle and departs. As I believe she soon will.

  Before Amelia O'Brien could write her proposal, a letter arrived from the castle; it consisted of one sentence: “Although I am certain that he might not wish to do so, would it be possible to ask your son if he would call on me next Saturday?”

  That was all; no mention of the visit, the condolences, the shared grief.

  In Charles's account of the condolences meeting with April, there's a lot to read between the lines. A major impression emerges of April's mixed feelings. The nil nisi remarks suggest that she was caught between sincere grief at the loss of a husband and what she wanted to say about Stephen's behavior—but was prevented by convention. Almost certainly she had never discussed him with anyone. I have seen all the letters between April and Mrs. Moore, and no mention was ever made of anything untoward.

  Nor, on the other hand—not even in the first flush of marriage—did April ever utter the predictable sentiments of an Edwardian young wife, such as “I have married the most wonderful man” or “Stephen is proving to be an excellent husband.”

  To Mrs. Moore, she makes one or two remarks, along the lines of “the bliss of Tipperary on a summer evening” or “you should have seen dawn on the terrace yesterday.” But her comments always refer to the house and grounds, and never to the matrimony.

  We can assume that Charles rode over to the castle on the Saturday, as invited. He kept no record of the meeting. We do not know from him or from April what was said. Nor do we know how he and April reopened their dialogue—or, rather, opened it; they had never had one.

  And we do not know whether she made apologetic remarks (if she felt she needed to), or whether he again declared his love, although it seems likely that his mother would by now have advised him against any such approach.

  But much can be divined from the fact that, a short time later, on Monday, 19 April 1915, Charles opened a “Daily Ledger” in Tipperary Castle and made these (and many more) entries:

  “Still workable: 88 balks of oak; 10 balks of beech; 22 balks of ash (stable-yard doors & boxes); all balks 8 ft. by 4 inches by 2 inches; 160 planks of beech; 58 planks of maple; 300 pine; all future planks where possible 10 ft. by 18 inches (will accept 12 inches); nails to be determined—too numerous to be fashioned here?” (He also opened full and formal accounts ledgers.)

  Sometime later, he told Harney about that first meeting alone with April. Charles said that by the time he got to the castle he was shaking like a leaf, and that he stumbled as he climbed down from the pony-trap, and almost fell. To his astonishment, “she was trembling too,” and they sat in the sunshine on one of the low parapet walls of the Long Terrace.

  Neither seems to have said much at all when they met, and after a silence “I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.” In other words, widow or not, she was still in control.

  “April said, as a question, ‘You love this place?’ and I said, ‘How can I disagree?’ To which she said, ‘Will you help me rebuild it? The house and the gardens? And the land? I have been told that I have all the money that will be needed.’ Harney, I was astounded.”

  Charles then asked what she had in mind when she used the word “rebuild”—whether she meant to bring it up to a good, usable standard or whether to restore it to its former glory.

  “Then, she captured me again. She said to me, ‘What was it Mr. Wilde said about preserving beauty?’ I caught my breath, and pressed her on the point, and she said, ‘Italian marblers, French painters, the best English carpenters, the great Irish stuccodores, the finest farm stewards.’ Naturally, I said that this would cost several fortunes. And then she told me what she was worth—and she could have rebuilt ten Tipperarys.”

  In September, April wrote to Mrs. Moore, who had just paid a visit:

  “Kitty, to think that I should now be sharing in your high opinion of Charles. I am amused that you recall that letter from Paris. Who could have believed that such a wild creature should be concealing such a greatly capable man? Papa tried to tell me, but I would not listen. Now Papa must be smiling.”

  During that year, Amelia O'Brien made many entries in her journal. But she mentions Charles or April so rarely that it must have been deliberate. She discusses her own farm, her husband's poor breathing, notes the passage of the late Euclid's birthday (she put flowers in his empty room each year) and Charles's birthday, on 21 June. But she m
akes only a few passing mentions of Tipperary Castle.

  “Now we have Italians staying in the village,” she wrote. “A father and two sons. They have come to work on the Hall and Grand Staircase.” And: “Charles has gone to the train in a great welter of excitement—his foreman carpenter arrives from Bristol today.” And: “Who is this new man, my son? How he is flourishing! Is he going to dazzle us all with his energy? With the brilliance of his judgments?”

  It's possible to read the journal as though Amelia might have been holding her breath, watching to see if anything might develop between her son and the beautiful young widow in the castle. But her entries also suggest that she was determined to make the world roll on. In fact, she includes a greater number of housewifery details than was usual for her.

  “Mrs. Tobin has stopped adding baking soda to the washing. Doesn't she know it makes the clothes softer?” And: “I taught Mrs. Tobin today to soak the candles in salt and water. To reduce the candle wax dripping. She told me I should tell Father Cantwell for the church candles. ‘He'll give you a special blessing, ma'am.’ She looked at me as though I needed a special blessing.” And: “I again polished Euclid's boots today. It is a way, I suppose, of not missing him unbearably.”

  The next entry from Charles resumed his “History.” This time, we learn that in the latter half of 1915, the restoration work had slowed down on account of the weather, and he had a little time to spare. Now we begin to see the “new” man. From the moment he took over the restoration of Tipperary Castle, his words convey a newfound strength.

  After not much more than a year under way in the war with Germany, it had taken a heavy toll on Ireland. We were persuaded by Mr. John Redmond that were we to support King and Country we should be writing our own docket to Home Rule. Long had we known what Home Rule would mean—our own parliament in Dublin, our own laws for our own people.

  I was in a cleft stick. How I should have loved to have been traveling Ireland, to hear the many views that I knew were being expounded. As a country, we were dividing cleanly into three simple factions: those who wished revolution, even if bloody, and they included my dear friend Harney; those who believed that we must continue to seek the peaceful direction of Home Rule (and my parents had declared for Mr. Redmond, as they did for Mr. Parnell); and those who desired the status quo—that Ireland remain a territory of the Empire, fully governed by the Parliament in London; in this position April placed herself.

  And I was divided because much as I longed to, I had no time or freedom to explore these divisions up and down the country. For the time being, I had changed from healing the people to healing this great estate of Tipperary, and I must confess that it was proving more absorbing than the nation itself.

  Perhaps my earlier experience as the court-appointed Responsible Overseer made it natural for me to be the one who would steer the estate through its recovery. April had decided, with the influence of her husband's great bequest, to make Tipperary Castle her permanent—indeed her only—home; she sold the house in London. I accepted her invitation to renew my oversight on the property, to manage the estate back into life.

  The work soon began; I divided the requirements into four categories: the House—meaning restoration of the exterior and interior fabric to the pristine brightness of its originality; the Contents—repair of the many hangings and pieces of magnificent furniture; the Gardens— cleaning and refurbishment of the Parterre, the Knot (almost vanished beneath wild growths), the two pavilions (known as Major and Minor), and the herbaceous borders that ran in lines hundreds of yards long from the Terrace down the Eastern Steps to the riverside; the Land—full use of the four thousand acres, which entailed the determination of proportion between arable and livestock, and the eventual purchase of herds and flocks.

  My earliest steps in this mammoth task had to account for two things: work already undertaken, along with the supplies so far purchased to that end, and the long search for those who would accomplish the most beautiful repairs. I needed men who knew stucco better than anyone, plaster experts who could reconstruct freehand the great designs of the house, or who knew how to make molds in the rooms in which they worked. And I required the same standards in stonework, whether masonry or carving; and men who painted like angels; perhaps above all, I needed superb carpentry.

  At the end of my first week, when I had made all these assessments and began to measure the range and size of the tasks facing me, I sought April. Our conversation was brisk and clear; she added admirable sharpness to each point. I gave it as my opinion that, were we to get a good proportion of what we needed by way of craftsmen, labor, and materials, we saw an eight-year-long prospect facing us.

  I think that she was a little dismayed by this; but I counted out for her the likely duration of individual renewals—the Grand Staircase would take, I believed, at least two and a quarter years to restore.

  She wanted, she said, to become a full partner in all of this. It was her wish, she insisted, to learn everything about her own house: how the stone was cut; how the marble slabs were quarried in Kilkenny and Italy; how the magnificent birds with their corbeled beaks were made out of plaster, how their brilliant whiteness would be achieved in the making.

  We discussed, at her initiative, how I should be compensated. In previous times I would certainly have said that the work, the service of her wishes, would provide reward enough. Now I held my tongue; she offered a good stipend, and I accepted. Also, I had the common sense to understand that I would surely fail if I attempted to do it all under my own sole leadership. Therefore, I agreed with April that I needed a very competent assistant, a man with the potential to deputize for me when I must be away somewhere, hiring, purchasing, or simply learning from other Great Houses how I must proceed. She freed me to choose whomever I wished, and I invited Joseph Harney. He readily gave up his job and began with me in the first week of June.

  Here I must add that Harney cautioned me when I asked him. He said that “events” might overtake his role in the house, but that he believed these matters would in the long term prove to our benefit. I knew that he was party to political affairs, and I knew too that were a rebellion to come—as many expected—he would be in the thick of things.

  And I should interject a dark note. When I came back to the property, some workmen still hung around in that first week, including the pair that I had seen sitting on the bridge when Mother and I came to condole with April. For a week or so, I took no action. Then, one day, as I was examining the collapsed stalls in the stable-yard, I heard one of these fellows greeting a newcomer.

  They knew each other well—but they did not know that I was within earshot. As they exchanged bantering pleasantries, I looked out through a hole in some planks—and I saw that the man who had just arrived lacked a finger on one hand. This was the lout who had accosted me on the road to Bruree; and I suspected, but without being able to ascertain it, that I had seen him ride by on another unpleasant occasion. I burst out of the stable, he saw me—and ran.

  When I asked the workman who this fellow was, he answered me sullenly that he did not know. I dismissed him instantly (and his sole colleague left that week). As to the man who ran away—there was nothing that I could do. My mistake was not having challenged him and his insolence on that day when he snatched Della's reins from my hand. But I vowed that were I ever to meet him again, he would feel my knuckles.

  In 2003, the Irish government published the proceedings of a study group set up to examine the country's “heritage,” which meant, the document said, “built and natural heritage.” Here is the second paragraph from the Foreword:

  “The built heritage includes a wide range of structures from terraced houses to thatched cottages, bridges and boundary walls to canals and castles, but the ‘Big House’ has a special place in Irish architectural history. Once considered not to be part of our patrimony, these magnificent eighteenth and nineteenth century houses, built by Irish builders, are now increasingly valued for their a
rchitectural significance and for the wealth of superb interior decoration created mainly by Irish craftspeople.”

  In 1915, when Charles O'Brien began restoring Tipperary, under the ownership and patronage of April Burke-Somerville (as she soon began to call herself), no such official body had been attempting any such care of the existing mansions in Ireland. Many of them had fallen into poor repair, and not until the mid-twentieth-century founding of the Irish Georgian Society, led by Desmond Guinness of the renowned brewing family, had anyone taken the matter seriously on a wide scale. Charles, therefore, was well ahead of his time, to judge from his own text.

  I began as I had hoped—with no workers hired; nor did I seek any until Harney took up his duties. He told me that, to begin with, we must be “men of charts,” and he showed me what he meant; he built a chart of each job, like a family tree, and he bade me do the same. Where my chart would take account of work required, and the guessed-at length of time it would need, his chart was to place the appropriate numbers of essential workers on that particular task.

  Take the smallest example; the front door would need the following craftsmen: two carpenters, a Master and an experienced carpenter to help him; a Master Blacksmith, who would remove the hinges, repair what could be mended, and make new hinges if necessary; and a farrier's assistant to make the nails to the required length and thickness dictated by the Master Carpenter and Master Blacksmith. Thus Harney and I ran twin charts for each separate task, and I am pleased to say that by the time that he and I had completed our main charts, which was in the middle of October, and had begun to hire those people whom we could reach, we felt that we had taken command of the task.

  The weather helped a great deal. I might not have believed that stonemasons would come to work in winter; but we had no early frost. And I would have refused to believe that a thirty-three-year-old, tall, and beautiful English widow would don the roughest of clothes and work along-side the hardest of men. On the first day of October, Mr. Higgins, the Master Stonemason, arrived to take up work. I had already traveled to his home in Hollyford in the hope that I might hire him. He told me that his great-grandfather Jack Higgins had personally cut the great capstone over the front door—which his great-granduncle Peter had then carved so exquisitely.