‘Thank you!’ breathed Constance with what might have seemed excessive gratitude, considering the basket could have weighed no more than a few ounces. She cleared her throat. ‘How … well you look!’
‘Do I? I was about to say the same to you.’
Constance did look particularly attractive in a black dress with a high neck, put on for Father Deglan’s benefit as he was coming to dinner, with her thick curly hair swept over to one side as Liddy had taught her. They stared at each other and slowly each darkened to a shade of strawberry which made their eyes sparkle brilliantly by contrast.
‘Shall we … Would you like to resume our readings this evening?’ asked Eugene. ‘I found a new edition of Patrick Pearse today. There are one or two poems with which you may be unfamiliar.’
‘Yes,’ Constance almost whispered.
‘À bientot, then.’ Eugene flourished his free hand, bowed and swept upstairs with the basket of chestnuts.
Constance drifted back to the kitchen, her eyes fixed on some invisible point far, far away.
Kit looked at me. ‘What she sees in that vain, deluded ass I can’t think.’
‘I don’t believe he is vain, really. The posing is to cover a terror of rejection, poor man. Besides, Constance loves him and he loves her and that’s enough. If only they can find a way to declare their feelings and not waste any more time. That seems to be the hard part.’
‘Don’t let us waste time, Bobbie.’ Kit put his hands on my shoulders and turned me to face him. ‘I shall have to get back to London soon. I want you to know that I love you. I’m telling you again so you’ve no excuse to doubt it. I’m not expecting you to commit yourself or to allow me to make love to you. But you ought to know what I feel.’
There was a manliness about this that drew me into sympathy with him.
‘Dear Kit. I hope I—’
‘Did you remember my cottons?’ Sissy had pattered silently up to me.
‘Oh, yes. Here they are.’ I rummaged in one of the bags and brought out a spool of red and another of green. ‘What are you making?’
‘A tam-o’-shanter.’ Sissy spoke coldly. She was dressed as Flora Macdonald in a white dress and a tartan sash fastened with a large plastic cairngorm.
‘Did you get it?’ Liddy came running down the stairs. She saw the bag with Modiste printed on it and screamed with delight. ‘I’ve been praying you would. It was the only thing that kept me going through a day of total boredom. The French Revolution and hop, skip and jump in the gym. Could anything be more stupid?’ She ripped apart layers of tissue paper and held the dress up against her. ‘What do you think, Kit?’
‘You’ll knock them dead in Kilmuree.’ He spoke with a studied indifference which I suspected was largely for my benefit. ‘I’ll take your shopping down to the kitchen, Bobbie.’
Liddy widened her eyes as she watched him cross the hall. ‘I don’t give a fuck about Kilmuree. The whole place could be burned down tonight for all I care.’ She turned to me. ‘Do you think I can wear this in London?’
‘You’ll outshine everyone I know.’
‘Will I?’ Her eyes shone and she slipped her arm round my waist. ‘It was nice of you to get it for me, Bobbie. Oh, yes – Dad said I was to let you know he’s had to go to Dublin. Something about preparing for some seminars he’s giving next term. He’ll be gone for several weeks. He said I was to give you this: a late Christmas present.’
She took from the side table a small green book, stamped with gold. I had a feeling beneath my ribs as though I had just been sawn in half. He had gone. I tried to persuade myself that it was a good thing, that I was glad. I turned the book to look at the spine. The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats.
‘He asked me to be sure to give it to you,’ continued Liddy. ‘Actually he said he’d stop my dress allowance if I forgot. But I think he was joking. It’s not much of a present, is it?’ Liddy looked apologetic. ‘He got it out of the library. But he hates shopping. Aunt Connie’s shirty because he hadn’t let her know he was going today. He just appeared with his suitcase. He only spent five minutes saying goodbye to Mum. You can consider yourself privileged to be remembered.’
Sissy let out a slow hiss. I guessed she was among those overlooked in the leave-taking.
‘It was so thoughtless of Finn,’ grumbled Constance in a low voice as we sat together at the kitchen table later that day. Turlough McGurn had failed to make a promised delivery so, being sick of apples which we had eaten baked in pastry, turned-over, scalloped, as a filling for pancakes and puréed for a charlotte, we were destoning an ancient bottle of damsons we had found in the still room. Katty was sitting at the other end of the table, nodding and mumbling over the brass fire-irons from the dining room, which she was cleaning.
‘I’m not upset for myself,’ Constance continued sotto voce. ‘Well, only a little because I do miss him; but it was so sudden. I’m sure he said he was staying until Sunday. Violet’s been crying ever since. Maud told her to pull herself together and threatened to box her ears. I’m inclined to think a little firmness does Violet good but Maud carries things to extremes.’ She paused to scratch her nose, staining the tip purple. ‘Finn was in one of his silent moods, which didn’t help. Men do hate scenes, don’t they? Violet’s always been demonstrative and now she’s tremendously dependent on him. I suppose for her it’s like starting all over again.’ She leaned her head on her hand, empurpling her cheek. ‘Imagine beginning a love affair with a man you’ve been married to for sixteen years. It could be very romantic.’
‘You’ve got damson juice—’ I began before I was interrupted.
‘Romantic!’ Sissy had come into the kitchen. I noticed subliminally that she was carrying a suitcase. ‘It’s a fool you are for all your clever way of talking! You can’t see nothing that’s going on under your stuck-up nose. You think you’re better than anybody else because you live in a big house and your family’s been ordering other people around for centuries but you’re blind!’
At the sound of Sissy’s angry voice Katty dropped the poker she was polishing. It clattered on the flagstones.
Sissy rounded on her. ‘And you and that Pegeen can go to the devil, the pair of you: nasty, mean-minded sots! You’re jealous of me for catching the eye of the master! You’d like to do me harm, I know, but you’ll not have the chance now!’
Katty blinked in the face of this outpouring of venom.
‘Really, Sissy!’ protested Constance. ‘Must you shout?’
‘I’ve as much right to shout as anybody else!’ Sissy yelled. She made the sign of the evil eye and so ferocious was her glare that I found myself sinking down into my chair. ‘I curse you all! May love never flourish in this house! May passion grow cold and sweethearts hateful! May there be no babies born here but bastards! Then you’ll know what it is to have folk look down on you through something that’s no fault of your own.’
Katty crossed herself several times and tiptoed out of the kitchen. Sissy spat contemptuously after her.
‘Sissy!’ Constance seemed stunned by this outburst of malevolence. ‘You sound so bitter – angry! What have we done? I thought we’d made you welcome, that you were happy here …’
‘We! Yes, that’s it!’ Sissy laughed, screwing up her dark monkey face in hatred that was charged with a sort of ecstasy at being free at last to speak of the injuries which she had nursed and brooded over for so long. ‘It’s us and them, all right! You’ve treated me like a beast that’s to be humoured. Like that dog.’ She indicated Osgar with a jerk of her chin. He was lying on his back in his customary place on the hearth, pedalling his paws as he dreamed. ‘You’ve never made a friend of me. When she came’ – Sissy turned her eyes on me – ‘you were as thick as thieves in a trice. She’s to be included in all your talk and thanked and made much of. She’s a person in her own right. I’m a tinker’s bastard and your brother’s whore, who you’ve to be kind to for his sake.’
In her confusion Constance upset the bowl of str
ained damson juice as she sprang from her chair and approached her with outstretched hands. ‘Sissy, please! If I’ve made mistakes, I beg your pardon. I never meant to hurt you.’
‘Hurt me! It’d take someone with more brains than you to do that! It’s nothing to me what you do. You can make a fool of yourself over that Eugene Devlin that’s as much spirit as a thrashed donkey while all the time she’ – Sissy directed a finger of scorn at me – ‘plots and schemes. She’s going to make a nest for herself in despite of you, Constance Macchuin, and then you’ll find yourself playing second fiddle and see how you like it!’
Constance, surely the gentlest, kindest, least proud-hearted woman of my acquaintance, looked justifiably amazed to find herself at the receiving end of so much animosity. She abandoned her original purpose of putting her arms round Sissy and stood humbly with slightly bent head. ‘I really had no intention of making you unhappy.’
‘It’s me that makes me unhappy or not,’ Sissy said witheringly. ‘You’re incidental to me life. I’m going now. I expect you’ll worry that I’ve pinched the silver. But you’ll be astonished to hear that I don’t give a damn about all that stuff you and she’ – another angry glance in my direction – ‘set so much store by. Where I’m going I shall have knives and forks that’ll cut and pick up and that’s good enough for me.’
‘You’re leaving?’ Constance looked genuinely sorry though I knew that Sissy had been, if not a thorn in her flesh, then a hair-fine splinter from the day she had moved in. But a dislike of things unresolved that is natural to all of us prompted her to say, ‘Won’t you think again? I’m sure Finn would be very sorry if you left like this, after a quarrel.’
‘He cares nothing about me.’ Sissy tossed back her locks of red-tipped hair. ‘I was the fool that time. He was sad and wanted comfort. I thought he might come to love me just because I loved him. But that’s not how it works. I might as well have loved the moon. You can tell him from me …’ Her voice broke and various emotions, ranging from loathing to grief and finally anger, ran quickly over her face. ‘I don’t care to be hanging on, receiving kind words out of manners. Here!’ She put the pot of black jam that she had put so much effort into making on the table in front of me. ‘You’ll have more need of this than I. I’ve read in the dew that you’ve a great misfortune coming to you and I’m glad!’
I regarded it doubtfully and then said gently, for I was sorry for her and rather admired her proud defiance, ‘Thank you, Sissy, but I hope I’ll never be so desperate that I’ll want to poison anyone.’
Sissy threw back her head and laughed. ‘Eejit! A baby could eat the whole pot and not come to harm. ’Tis a love philtre. Where I’m going I shan’t need it. I’ve charms enough.’
‘Sissy!’ pleaded Constance. ‘Don’t let’s part in anger.’ Timidly she put her hand on Sissy’s arm.
Sissy threw it off as though it scorched her. ‘You can go to hell!’
She walked out of the kitchen, her head held high, her grubby white dress trailing across the floor through the damson juice that had been spilt there.
That night, after I’d fed the cats and brushed my teeth I got into bed and opened the little green book at random. I read:
A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed his body to her body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
FORTY-TWO
After a day or two I got over the worst unhappiness of knowing there was no possibility of meeting Finn by chance on the stairs or of accepting a glass from his hand in the drawing room. The pleasure of stealing a covert glance from the other end of the dining table had been so intermingled with pain that it was as well, I told myself, it was no longer possible. As one gets used to doing without the sun in winter I accepted that the matter was out of my hands.
Surprisingly, I found I missed Sissy too. She would have been pleased to know that our circle seemed diminished without her. Constance was inclined to punish herself for a failure of sensitivity. ‘I ought to have realized how she felt.’
At the time of this conversation we were in the morning room. This was to the left of the dining room and had not been used for a long time. After her grandmother’s death Constance had gathered all the cases of stuffed birds and animals in the house, stacked them in the morning room and shut the door. Occasionally, over the last ten years, the door had been opened and another unpopular article had been chucked in. Unlike the morning room at Cutham, this one faced east so it caught the best of the early light. It had a pretty blue-and-white delft-tiled fireplace and was exactly what we needed as a sewing room where we could spread out curtains and carpets as we repaired them. We had emptied the room of its lumber and brought a large table, a sofa and several comfortable chairs down from the attics.
The disposal of the stuffed creatures had presented a problem. Damp had got into their cases and destroyed them beyond the point of being resaleable. Their sad little eyes hung down on rusty wires; their fur and feathers were grey with mould. Flavia had been adamant that they should be neither burned nor thrown away. In the end we had given the glass cases to the rag-and-bone man, loaded the bodies into the back of the Land-Rover and driven them down to the graveyard by the lake for burial.
The graveyard was on a promontory, so marshy at this time of year that it felt like walking on water. The graves from the mid-nineteenth century were particularly sad. There were so many headstones with the names of entire families who had perished of famine fever within days of each other.
‘At least there weren’t any evictions on the estate,’ said Constance. ‘My great-great-grandparents set up a soup kitchen and fed everyone who came for help. But sometimes I think Ireland’ll never get over that time. It fanned such a blaze of hatred. I’m so glad we don’t own it all now. I’m not sure that we ought to have even as much as two hundred acres. But most of it’s bog and I suppose no one else would want it.’
She laid a group of stuffed balding squirrels into the hole that Timsy had dug. Flavia led brief (it was raining again) but fervent prayers for the souls of the creatures, and we covered the bodies with leaves gathered from the woods to dignify their pitiful condition until Timsy should return to fill in the hole. Constance put little wreaths of scarlet spindle-berries on the graves of her parents and grandparents. We drove home with that feeling of satisfaction and completion a well-conducted ritual always gives.
Because the morning room was smaller than the other ground-floor rooms at Curraghcourt the fire produced a fug quite quickly and Constance and I positively looked forward to retiring there once the chores were done. We were repairing my bed curtains when the conversation about Sissy took place. Inevitably the canopy above my head had given way beneath the weight of increasingly heavy cats and I had been woken in the middle of the night by a faceful of rotting fabric, spiders, flies, one dead mouse and a hundred years of dust. The cats naturally had gone from deep sleep to alacrity in the time it had taken for the canopy to rip and had jumped clear. In one of the linen cupboards we had found some old curtains of yellow chintz sprigged with lilies of the valley. Constance was unpicking the seams while I stitched them into bed-hangings.
‘Ought we to scrap this bit?’ She held up a length of chintz that had been bleached by sunlight of long ago. ‘Do you know, it never occurred to me to wonder whether Sissy might think we looked down on her because of her birth.’
‘We’ll just take off the really faded part,’ I said. ‘The rest will do for the gathered heading. It didn’t occur to me either. In England most people – of our generation, anyway – would scoff at the idea that there was anything shameful about being illegitimate.’
‘Really? I can’t say that would be the case here. I suppose, because contraception is still against the law in Ireland unless you’re married, there has to be some kind of stigma to prevent us being overwhelmed by unplanned babies. It’s ridicu
lous, I agree. If I really believed God wanted unmarried girls to go through all that misery and the poor babies to be punished, I’d have nothing more to do with Him from this moment on. But, you know, I hate the idea that Sissy thought I was despising her.’
‘Her prickliness meant that she saw slights where none existed. The fact is we didn’t share the raw materials of friendship: similar attitudes and tastes, that sort of thing. And there’s a chemistry you can’t overrule. Real friendship isn’t that common, after all.’
‘That comforts me a little. But I still feel as though somehow I’ve behaved badly. Do you think Michael McOstrich will be good to her? He’s the kind of man who expects to be boss and have everything done for him. I admire him no end but I’ve always thought he was a bit of a bully.’ We had seen Sissy in Kilmuree on Michael’s arm that morning. She had a swing in her step and a haughty expression. He had looked pleased with himself and there had been something proprietorial about the clasp of his huge hand over her small one. Each party had pretended not to see the other.
‘I can’t imagine Sissy letting anyone order her about.’
‘There’s one consolation: it’ll be a terrific weight off Finn’s mind. With Violet getting better poor Sissy could only have been a difficulty. Do you think this room smells of mice?’
I sniffed. ‘I should say the predominant smell is damp coming out with the warmth.’ I sniffed again. ‘But perhaps mice as well.’ Carefully I restitched scallops of silver thread, a process called snailing (perhaps because it took an age to do) to the head of a tassel that was part of one of the tie-backs.
Constance stood up and began to prowl about the room, looking for nests. ‘I expect you thought them an odd couple from the start. Finn and Sissy, I mean.’
‘Well, yes,’ I murmured.
Constance turned over a chair to examine the base. ‘You have to understand how it began. Finn was so depressed at the time, poor darling. To be fair, he’s had enough problems to try the patience of a saint. And Finn certainly isn’t that. He’d already had a fling with some woman in Dublin. She used to ring him up here all the time until he got fed up. And I’ve a feeling there may have been one or two others. I think Finn’s quite attractive to women.’
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