Becoming Belle

by Nuala O'Connor

  “Should I move Pritchard’s travel cage to the overhead rack?” he said.

  “Leave him be,” Belle said. The cage sat on the seat beside her and she lifted the edge of the black cloth that covered it to peep in at her pet. The somber material made it seem as if Pritchard, too, was in mourning. The cage was small and she fretted that her canary did not have enough room to exercise his wings and legs; he was perch bound and sulky looking, his feathers puffed out. “Do you think he’s well? He’s awfully still and quiet. Entirely unlike himself.”

  “I’m sure the little fellow is tip-top,” William said. “But you could sing to him, darling. How about ‘Fresh, fresh, fresh as the morning’?” William sang the line softly, one of Belle’s old tunes that he liked to resurrect to cheer her. She leaned across, put her hand to her husband’s cheek and kissed his lips.

  She turned to Pritchard and sang:

  “We’re fresh, fresh, fresh as the morning,

  Sweeter than the new mown hay,

  We’re fresh, fresh, fresh as the morning,

  And just what you want today.”

  The canary cocked his head for his mistress and offered a few notes in return; Belle smiled.

  “See?” said William. “Your birdy friend is up to snuff, as ever.” The train chugged out of the station. “Westward ho!” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Indeed, my love.”

  Belle shivered, wondering again what awaited her in County Galway; none of the family would be there, of course; Berkeley Square was their permanent home now. But she would have ample staff to deal with and William would be much occupied with the affairs of the estate. How would she fare alone, without Flo? Who would tell her how to do things?

  William had tried to prepare Belle for her new life, but some of his proclamations about what she might expect only increased her anxiety.

  “The Irish like to be agreeable,” he had told her, “but there always seems to be a bubbling dissent in them, too.”

  So what could she look forward to—congeniality or contention? She tried to dredge up Flo’s advice about going in “with heart and mind unbarred.” And something else, what was it? Oh yes, “Keep your feet firmly planted.”

  “Feet firmly planted,” Belle murmured.

  Belle hoped to make acquaintances among the local gentry, but would they accept her? William had assured her she would make friends, that the Irish of all classes were ebullient and welcoming, despite their natural discordance. There would not be a friend like Wertheimer among them, of that she was certain. Dear Isidor. He offered fulsome forgiveness to William for dragging him into the whole court debacle. And he promised to write to Belle frequently now that Ireland had claimed her and they would no longer see each other so much. She resolved to write to Wertheimer the moment she landed in Ballinasloe to lure him from London to Garbally to visit; Galway surely had plenty of pleasant diversions that would amuse him.

  The train shunted forward, leisurely at first while it shook off the city and gathering speed as it pressed on toward Mullingar and Galway. Their compartment was as fine as any on a train in England, Belle was pleased to apprehend—finer, perhaps, for being newer. She stroked the nap of the maroon seat and admired the polished wood of the racks.

  “There are beds in some of the carriages, Belle. Got up like steamer berths. A lot of the cattlemen are wealthy fellows and they like to down some grog, then take their rest as they travel between sales.” Belle nodded her encouragement and William carried on, determined to lay before her, it seemed, the best of everything Ireland had to offer. “There is a ladies’ carriage also, for women traveling alone or with children.”

  “So they can avoid the cattlemen, no doubt.”

  Belle looked out the window at the passing landscape—the banks to the side of the tracks swayed with tall flowering stems and the plants’ pink spears nodded as if greeting each passenger one by one. The babe wriggled beneath Belle’s gown. Already she had had to switch to a featherbone corset; and it was a blessing that she was in mourning, for none of her old bodices would fasten across her enlarged bosom. This baby was making a mountain of her long before little Isidor ever had. She thought of her son. He was amply provided for, she had seen to that, and Sara, she knew, would do well by him. One day, she hoped, he might come to Garbally, too, if it could be arranged. Not as her son, perhaps, but as an esteemed and welcome guest. Maybe one day, when he understood the circumstances of his birth, he would see why she had had to do what she did. Belle put her hand to her middle. Maybe the child growing inside her now would be the baby girl she longed for; William, of course, hoped for a boy. This pregnancy was easier, she found, perhaps because the babe was loved already. Poor baby Isidor, he had had such an inauspicious start.

  William leaned forward and placed his hand over Belle’s stomach. “How is the sixth earl today?” he said.

  “Awriggle, as always,” she said.

  When they lay in bed together William liked to talk of the baby and imagine his future. He put his cheek to Belle’s abdomen, as if the infant might announce pertinent information about itself to its papa’s ear. They would not know whether it was a boy or a girl until Christmas, of course, and Belle’s confinement. “It seems a devilish long wait,” William said often. Their baby, if a boy, would also hold the title Lord Kilconnell and William told Belle about Kilconnell, the place. “A dainty town, an area of trees and small lakes, a few miles distant from Ballinasloe.” They would ride out there soon, so Belle could cast her eye over it, her yet-to-be-born son’s domain.

  Being enceinte had made Belle sluggish and hungry; all she longed to do was sleep or eat, and already she wondered whether the restaurant car would bring food to their compartment, rather than her having to walk there.

  “Might they have sago pudding on board, dearest? I do so fancy something sweet and milky.”

  “I shall find out for you,” William said and rose from his seat.

  “No, no. Perhaps I am too sleepy to eat. Sit, sit. Let me close my eyes for a spell.”

  The rickety-rackety jaunt of the train lulled Belle into a doze where every sound—voices, track noise, the opening and closing of doors—became part of the same far-off, liquid thrum. She woke as the white girders of the bridge at Athlone cast shadows across her eyes through the window. The Shannon had burst its banks after a heavy rain and the river threw its skirts wide to cover fields where swans threaded the hems. Belle shook herself awake to better appreciate the scene.

  There was romance to Ireland, it seemed. Yes, it was green like England, but it was less tangled somehow, with its spilling riverbanks, low stone walls and squat houses. There was something flung about to the landscape, a not-quite-togetherness that she thought might suit her. She would fit in, surely; she would find ways to make friends even if it took some time.

  “I don’t want you to fret about being lonely, Belle,” William said, sensing her anxieties. “As I’ve said, society is not so pronounced in Ireland—even less so in the west. You can expect to mix with all. People are not so inclined to be hierarchical.”

  Belle wondered if this was fancy on his part—wouldn’t the son of an earl always have been treated with deference by ordinary people? Might William have long mistaken respectful submission for friendliness? What would they know of her in Ballinasloe, she mused, and what would they make of her?

  The train slowed and she looked out. “Little could be amiss with a place where trees grow in the middle of lakes,” she said.

  “It’s a turlough, my love—a temporary lake.”

  Sure enough, when Belle peered closer she could see the stone walls bounding the lake, which seemed to shimmer under the sun.

  “But it’s so beautiful—a tree in water. The branches are mirrored roots.”

  William reached across and pressed her hand. “Are you happy, Belle?”

  “Yes, William, ve
ry happy. And hungry. Ever so hungry.”

  * * *

  —

  The train shunted on and, in no time, it puffed into the station at Ballinasloe; the door to their compartment swung open from the outside as soon as movement ceased. How did the stationmaster know they were within? A hand was thrust forward to Belle and she took it and stepped down. William emerged behind her, throwing greetings like confetti to various people.

  “Hullo, Flanagan! Ah, Mr. Burke, it is good to see you. Very good, indeed!”

  All was gray. The platform, the limestone buildings that made up the station, the sky, the faces that loomed around Belle with unbridled interest.

  “How do you do, gentlemen?” she said.

  “Come now.” William was suddenly officious and commanding. “Leave the countess some space to walk.”

  Belle took William’s arm. “Countess” still felt somewhat like a sobriquet to her but she enjoyed growing accustomed to it. Since she heard that Lady Adeliza did not mean to deny William his due, a great peace had descended into Belle’s mind. It engulfed her now, this confident, tranquil feeling, and it was tinted with excitement, for now she knew that her life was beginning anew. This was not like moving to London; her days would be ordered here and she would have a position.

  Though all about was gray, it pleased Belle that the air smelled sweet: peat smoke drifted from the station chimney and a strong floral smell came from a stand of lilac that swayed beside the pedestrian bridge. This was a place that held promise.

  William walked forward along the platform and Belle glided beside him; they gained the arched entranceway to the building. The name of the station, “Ballinasloe,” hung in black letters on a white sign. It suddenly struck Belle how odd it sounded: Ball-in-a-sloe. Later she would ask William to explain it to her. For now, she only wished to get to Garbally Court, the place she had heard so much about, so often, to see it for herself.

  The carriage made slow progress from the station to the gates of Garbally, affording Belle time to glimpse something of the area from the window. She saw rows of squat thatched buildings that released smoke skyward; William assured her that there was a proper town with streets of shops and that she would see it once they had settled. He looked out at the passing scene with contentment and Belle sat back and watched him, glad that he was glad.

  When they arrived at the entrance of the estate, which lay at the top of a gentle hill, the gates were locked. William alighted from the carriage to see what could be done and, after a spell, Belle joined him. The driver said he would go to one of the groundsmen who lived nearby to see what was what. While William and the coachman made arrangements for the keys, Belle pulled up her skirt and hitched as much of its silk into her waistband as would fit. She climbed the black gates—her pregnancy had not yet made a complete indolent of her—and in seconds was at the top, over and down the other side. She began to walk the path through trees that would surely lead to the house.

  “Come on, William,” she called, not looking back.

  She soon heard the rattle of the gates as her husband scaled them. He jogged up behind her, and they walked through the trees and out into parkland. Bees stumbled in a drowse from meadowsweet to buttercup in the grass that bracketed the long track, and the echo of a woodsman’s ax traveled pleasantly to them from among the trees. There were these small sounds and no others; a great peace thrummed up from the earth and descended from the large sky above Ballinasloe.

  When the carriage rolled up behind them—a key evidently located—Belle and William chose to continue to walk the rest of the way. It would delay the moment when William could lay the house out before her, and it afforded Belle a more gradual taking in of at least part of the estate she had heard so much about. And it felt glorious to stretch her limbs after being so long seated on the train and let the Galway sun take her in its embrace.

  A HOME

  Belle heard a clock strike an early hour, three, maybe, or four. Was it the clock tower at Saint John’s Church in Ballinasloe town, or some nearer one on their land? William had told her over dinner that Ballinasloe meant “the mouth of the ford of the hosts,” and she repeated the meaning to herself, wondering who would concoct such a convoluted appellation. And what on earth might it mean? Oh, William had tried to explain, but he was being as complicated in his account as the reasons behind the awkward name. It was perhaps an Irish trait to be oblique and circuitous; Belle would ask him when he woke.

  She sighed and ruffled her toes under the covers. Sleep did not come easily to her when the babe within wriggled at night. It fluttered against her skin and the movement meant she lay awake most midnights, and beyond, feeling the ticklish kicks, her head a mishmash of thoughts. Her hands traveled now over her hips, onto her thighs and buttocks—all was fleshily soft. William loved this new pillowiness in Belle’s form; she found she did not mind it as much as she had the first time she carried a child. Everything was different now.

  She poked her nose above the coverlets—the bedroom air was keen and cold. She must become accustomed to brisk rooms again, she realized, after the always-warm comfort of Avenue Road, the muggy heat of a string of hotels and, later, Flo and Seymour’s cozy home where she and William had lodged for a while.

  It had been difficult to leave her sister to cross the sea—they had been fast companions since Flo was fresh from the womb. It would be hard to have only letters for a time—Flo was not a keen correspondent. But Flo would visit her in Galway and Belle would spend almost half the year in England. Flo and Seymour were tight these days, thankfully, but Flo was a little alarmed at Belle’s move to Ireland.

  “Must you go, Belle?” she said. “You’re no hand at provincial life. Remember Maidenhead? You almost went barmy with the drabness of it! No, you will return to bask in London’s stink and clatter within a month, I guarantee it.”

  “We mean to come back and forth,” Belle had said, “but Garbally will be our main home.”

  “Ireland!” Flo said, with a moan. “It’s such a rough, drenched place. And the people are ugly and dull, by every account. I worry you will not thrive there.”

  “With William beside me, all will be well.”

  Flo softened. “I’m sorry, dearest, I shouldn’t say such things. It’s just that I won’t know what to do without you, old stick.”

  “You’ll get along, Flo,” Belle said, but she was as gut punched as her sister at the idea of their separation. It was the only cloud that obscured what she hoped would be a bright onward march.

  Belle put thoughts of Flo aside and rose from the bed where her husband made a long, comforting hump. By thin moonlight she descended the staircase of Garbally Court; the place was hushed, the marble of the steps felt wintry underfoot. Mildew draped its heady scent over everything. Still, this was a palace. The finest house Ireland had to its emerald name, perhaps. William had already shown her the throne room and the seat where no king’s rear end had ever been comfortable—nor any queen’s for that matter.

  “It waits for royal posteriors still,” he’d said and lifted Belle into it. “There now, it has one.”

  * * *

  —

  The baby squirmed again.

  “Time, time,” Belle whispered, putting her hand to her stomach as if that might soothe the child. “There is plenty of time.”

  Once at the bottom of the stairs, she made her way to the ballroom, where she opened some of the long window shutters. Under crepuscular light, she viewed the portraits of William’s ancestors. They were as portraits of the nobility usually are: stern and condescending. She could divine William in some of their faces and their stances. But her husband, it appeared to her, had not his forbears’ arrogance. Belle wondered if likenesses of her own children would hang there someday, if her own portrait might also grace the wall.

  Leaving the ballroom, she slipped out the front door and under the portico. This path to t
he left would lead to what was called the broad walk, William had told her. He would take her in the morning around the grounds to see his favorite oak grove, the icehouse, the forty steps that led to nowhere, the stables and the farmyard. Everything she had not seen on her walk down the avenue from the gates.

  Belle stepped farther out and crossed the path so she could stand and look at the house, at its long bank of top-floor windows—eleven glinting panes. One day, she hoped, the face of a child might peer from each one. The grass felt alive under her soles. What joy this place would bring. What joy it had already brought; she and William had spent hours in torsions of ecstasy in their new marital bed. William seemed to find his best erotic self here and they had kissed and plunged and caressed as never before for, it seemed, hours on end. William had kissed Belle in places she didn’t know she liked to be kissed: her thighs, her inner arms, the small of her back. She had sat astride him and rocked slowly, then faster until he gasped and cried out. Sated and exhausted they then slept, tangled limb on limb around each other, until the baby’s usual nocturnal fluttering woke Belle and propelled her out of bed to her nighttime wanders.

  Dew doused Belle’s feet now; she wriggled her toes and rose high on them, ever the dancer on the edge of performance. She settled the gold heart on its chain at her throat, then threw her arms wide. Garbally Park held two thousand acres. Two thousand acres. This was more land than her mind could even fathom. And it was her home.

  “Home,” she said to the facade of the house. “Home,” to the oaks that flanked it. To the yellowing sky she said it and to the sharp Galway air. “Home,” she said to her dawn companions: the owl, the bat, the badger. “I am home.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The characters in Becoming Belle are almost all based on real people. Some newspaper reports of the divorce case contradict each other and many display the journalist’s personal bias but, by and large, I stuck to the reported facts of the case. The British Newspaper Archive was a valuable resource, as were the National Archives at Kew and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Brian Casey kindly allowed me to read his PhD thesis on the Clancarty estate. Thanks are due also to Damian Mac Con Uladh who shared useful information and photographs relating to the Le Poer Trench family, and to my sister Aoife O’Connor for archival help. Any mistakes in fact are my own.