by Maeve Binchy
“One step at a time,” Mother Francis said.
Eve looked at her. Her face had that look she used to have years ago when there was some surprise in store.
“Do you have any ideas?” she asked eagerly.
“My last idea wasn’t very successful now was it? Go to bed, Eve. You’ll need all your strength to deal with the Westwards. Go up there in the late morning. They’ll be going to church at eleven.”
The avenue was full of potholes, and there were clumps of weeds rising in the middle of what must once have been a well-kept drive. Eve wondered if her father had worked on this very road. Mother Francis had always been vague about Jack Malone when pressed. He had been a good man, a kind man and very loving of his little daughter. That was really the sum total of it. And it was what you would tell a child, Eve realized.
And about her mother there was even less information. She had looked very beautiful when she was young. She had always been very gracious, Mother Francis had said. But what else could she say about a gardener and the disturbed daughter of the Big House. Eve was determined that she would not lose her clear-sighted way of looking at her background. She had long realized that there was no mileage in romanticizing her history. She squared her shoulders and approached the house. It was shabbier close up than it looked from the road. The paint on the conservatory was all peeling. The place looked untidy and uncared for. Croquet mallets and hoops were all thrown in a heap as if someone had played a game many months ago, but no one had ever bothered to tidy the set away or to have another game since. There were Wellington boots in the hall, old golf clubs splintering, with their bindings coming undone. Tennis racquets slightly warped stood in a big bronze container.
Through the glass doors Eve could see a hall table weighed down with catalogues and brochures and brown envelopes. It was all so different from the highly polished convent where she lived. A stray piece of paper would never find its way onto the hall table under the picture of Our Lady Queen of Peace. If it did it would soon be rescued and brought to the appropriate place. How extraordinary to live in a house where you could hardly see the hall table for all that was covering it.
She rang the bell, knowing that it would be answered by one of three people. Bee, the sister of Paccy Moore, the shoemaker. Bee was the housemaid in Westlands. Or possibly the cook might come to the door if it was Bee’s Sunday off. Mrs. Walsh had been in the family for as long as anyone could remember. She hadn’t come from Knockglen in the first place and didn’t fraternize with the people of the town, even though she was a Catholic and seen at early mass. She was a large woman who looked rather ominous on her bicycle. Or perhaps Simon Westward himself would come to the door. His father was in a wheelchair and reported to be increasingly frail, so he would not appear.
Ever since she could remember, Eve had played a game. It was like not stepping on the cracks in a footpath. It was what Mother Francis would have called a superstition probably. But she had always done it. “If the next bird to hop up in the windowsill is a thrush then I’ll get my exam. If it is a blackbird, I’ll fail.” “If I have to wait until I count twenty-five at the door of the convent in Dublin, I’m going to hate it.” For some reason she always felt like doing it at doors.
As she stood outside the unfamiliar door of the place that was once her mother’s home, Eve Malone told herself firmly that if Bee Moore, the housemaid, came to the door it would be a good omen, she would get the money. If Simon Westward himself came it would be bad. If it was Mrs. Walsh the thing could go either way. Her eyes were bright as she waited and heard the sound of running feet.
She saw the figure of a schoolgirl, about ten or eleven years old, running toward the door. She reached up to open it and stood looking at Eve with interest. She was wearing the very short tunic that girls in Protestant schools always wore. In the convent everything had to be a bit more droopy and modest. She had her hair tied in two bunches, one sticking out over each ear almost like candles, as if someone was going to pick her up and carry her by them. She wasn’t fat, but she was square and stocky. She had freckles on her nose and her eyes were the same dark blue as her school uniform.
“Hallo,” she said to Eve. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Eve asked. She wasn’t afraid of anyone in the Big House if they were this size.
“I’m Heather,” the child replied.
“And I’m Eve.”
There was a pause while Heather tried to work something out.
“Who did you come to see?” she said, after some consideration.
Eve looked at her with admiration. The child was trying to work out whether Eve was for the master or for the staff. She had phrased the question perfectly.
“I came to see Simon Westward,” she said.
“Oh, sure, well come in.”
Eve walked behind the little figure through the hall, full of dark pictures, hunting prints maybe. It was impossible to see. Heather? Heather? She didn’t know of any Heather in the household, but then she didn’t really keep up with who was who in this family. If people in Knockglen spoke of them she didn’t join in the conversation. Sometimes the nuns mentioned them, but Eve would toss her head and turn away. Once she came upon an article about them in the Social and Personal magazine and she had turned the pages on angrily in case she would find out any more about them and their goings-on. Benny had always said that if the Westwards had been her family she would have wanted to know everything about them and would probably have made a scrapbook as well. But that was Benny all over. She’d probably have been doing their errands for them by now, and thanking them for everything instead of the guarding, the cold indifference, that Eve had nurtured for so long.
“Are you one of Simon’s girl friends?” the child asked conversationally.
“No indeed,” Eve said with no emotion.
They had reached the drawing room. The Sunday papers were spread out on a low coffee table, a sherry decanter and glasses stood on a silver tray. Over by the window in his wheelchair sat Major Charles Westward, his shoulders sloped down and it was obvious even from a distance that he was not really aware of his surroundings. A rug over his knees had partly slipped to the floor.
This man was Eve’s grandfather. Most people hugged their grandfather, they called him Granddad, and sat on his knee. Grandfathers gave you two shilling pieces and took pictures of you on First Communion and Confirmation days. They were proud of you and introduced you to people. This man had never wanted to see Eve, and if he was in the whole of his sense he might have ordered her out of his house, as he had done her mother.
Once upon a time she had thought he might see her from his horse or his car and ask who was that lovely child. She had a look of the family about her. But that was long ago. She felt no sense of loss looking at him, no wish that things had been different. She was not embarrassed by his infirmity nor upset by looking at him closely after the years of rejection.
Heather looked at her curiously. “I’ll go and find Simon for you now. You’ll be all right here?” she said.
The child’s face was open. Eve found it hard to be stiff with her.
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” she said gruffly.
Heather smiled at her. “You don’t look like his girl friends usually look.”
“No?”
“No, you look more normal.”
“Oh good.” Despite herself Eve smiled.
The child was still curious. “Is it about the mare?”
“It’s not about the mare. I wouldn’t know a mare from a five-bar gate.”
Heather laughed good-naturedly and headed for the door. Eve surprised herself by giving the information the child had been looking for.
“I’m not one of his girl friends,” she called. “I’m one of his cousins.”
Heather seemed pleased. “Oh, then you’re a cousin of mine too. I’m Simon’s sister.”
Eve said nothing because of a slight lump in her throat. Whatever she had thought would happen when she
went to Westlands it was not this. She would never have believed that any Westward would have been pleased to see her.
Mother Francis told Kit Hegarty that there was no need for her to hurry back to Dublin. She could stay as long as she liked, a week maybe.
“Don’t go back too soon. The peace of this place could wear off you if you went back to the city too quickly.”
“Ah, that’s country people for you. You think Dublin is all like O’Connell Street. We’re out in County Dublin you see, by the seaside. It’s a grand place full of fresh air.”
Mother Francis knew that the peace of Knockglen had nothing to do with its being in the country or the city. The advantage was the place was far from the home where Frank Hegarty would return no more.
“Still, stay here awhile and take our air.”
“I’m in the way.” Kit had sensed Eve’s eagerness to have Mother Francis to herself.
“On the contrary. You are very helpful in that Eve needs time to talk to other people before she commits herself to any plan. There’s no point in she and I going round in circles. Much as I hate it, I realize that she has to make up her own mind.”
“You would have made a marvelous mother,” Kit said.
“I don’t know. It’s easier one step removed.”
“You’re not removed. You just manage not to do what all the rest of us wish we didn’t do. You don’t nag.”
“I don’t think you were a nagger either.” Mother Francis smiled.
“Did you not want to marry and have children?” Kit asked.
“I wanted a wild unsuitable farmer’s son that I couldn’t have.”
“Why couldn’t you have him?”
“Because we hadn’t a farm of land to go with me … or so I thought. If he had really wanted me he’d have taken me, farm or no farm.”
“What happened to him?”
“He married a girl who had legs much better than Bunty Brown, and who did have a farm to go with her. They had four children in five years, then he found another as they say.”
“And what did the wife do?”
“She made a fool of herself the length and breadth of the county. That’s not what Bunty Brown would have done. She would have thrown him out, started a guesthouse, and held her head high.”
Kit Hegarty laughed. “Are you telling me you are Bunty Brown?”
“Not any longer. Not for a long time.”
“He was a fool not to take you.”
“Ah, that’s what I said too. I said it for three years. They didn’t want to take me in the convent at first. They thought I was just running away, trying to hide from the world.”
“And do you regret it, not waiting for a different farmer’s son?”
“No, not a bit.”
Her eyes were far away.
“And you’ve had everything in a way,” Kit said. “You’ve had all the joy of children in a school.”
“It’s true,” Mother Francis said. “Every year, new children, every year new young faces coming in.” She still looked sad.
“It will work out for Eve.”
“Of course it will. She’s probably talking to him now.”
“Who is she talking to?”
“Her cousin, Simon Westward. Asking him for fees. I hope she doesn’t lose her temper. I hope she won’t throw it all away!”
Heather had left the room as soon as her brother came in. Simon went over first to the figure in the wheelchair, picked up the rug, and knelt to tuck it in around the old man. He stood up and came back to the fireplace. He was small and dark, with a thin handsome face, dark-eyed, and his brown hair fell into his eyes. He had had to shake it away so often, it was now a mannerism. He wore riding breeches and a tweed jacket with leather cuffs and elbows.
“What can I do for you?” His voice was cold and polite.
“Do you know who I am?” Eve’s voice was equally cold.
He hesitated. “Not really,” he said.
Her eyes blazed. “Either you do or you don’t,” she said.
“I think I do. I asked Mrs. Walsh. She said you were the daughter of my aunt Sarah. Is that right?”
“But you know of me, surely?”
“Yes, of course. I didn’t recognize you coming up the drive, so I asked.”
“What else did Mrs. Walsh say?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant. Now can I ask you what it’s about?”
He was so much in command of the situation that Eve wanted to cry. If only he could have looked ill at ease, guilty about his family’s treatment of her, confused and wondering what lay ahead. But Simon Westward would always know how to handle things like this.
She was silent as she looked at him. Unconsciously imitating his stance, hands behind her back, eyes unflinching, mouth set in a hard thin line. She had dressed carefully, deciding not to wear her best outfit in case he would think she had put it on specially, or had come from mass. Instead she had worn a tartan skirt and gray cardigan. She had a blue scarf tied around her throat in what she had thought was a jaunty look.
Her glance didn’t fall from his stare.
“Would you like a glass of sherry?” he asked, and she knew she had won the first round.
“Thank you.”
“Sweet or dry?”
“I don’t know the difference. I’ve never had either.” She spoke proudly. There was going to be no aping the manners of her betters from Eve Malone. She thought she saw him raise his eyebrows in surprise that bordered on admiration.
“Then try the sweet. I’ll have that too.” He poured two glasses. “Will you sit down.”
“I’d rather stand. It won’t take long.”
“Fine.” He said nothing, he just waited.
“I would like to go to university this term,” she began.
“In Dublin?”
“Yes. And there are a few things standing in the way.”
“Oh yes?”
“Like that I cannot afford it.”
“How much does it cost in Trinity now?”
“It’s not Trinity and you know that well. It’s UCD.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know actually.”
“For years Trinity wouldn’t let Catholics in, and now when it does, the Archbishop has said it’s a sin to go there, so you know it’s UCD.”
He put his hands out as if warding her off. “Peace, peace,” he said.
Eve continued. “And since you ask, the fees are sixty-five pounds a year for three years for a BA, and after that I would like to do a diploma in librarianship so that would be another sixty-five pounds. There would be books to buy. I am talking about one hundred pounds a year.”
“And?”
“And I was hoping you would give it to me,” she said.
“Give? Not lend?”
“No, give. Because I wouldn’t be able to pay it back. It would be a lie to ask for a loan.”
“And how will you live there? You’ll have to pay for rooms and everything.”
“I told you. It’s not Trinity. There are no rooms. I’ll get a job in a family, earn my keep. I’d be able to do that. It’s just the fees I don’t have.”
“And you think we should pay them?”
“I’d be very glad if you did.” Not grateful, Eve told herself firmly, she had sworn she would not use that word. No matter how much Mother Francis had warned her. Glad was the nearest she could get.
Simon was thinking. “A hundred pounds a year,” he repeated.
“It would be for four years,” Eve said. “I couldn’t really start unless I knew I wouldn’t have to come and beg for it every year.”
“You’re not begging for it now,” said Simon.
“That’s right, I’m not,” Eve said. She felt a great pounding in her head. She hadn’t known it was going to be remotely like this.
He smiled at her, a genuine smile. “I never beg either, it must be a family trait.”
Eve felt a hot flush of anger. Not only was he going to refuse her, he was going to mak
e fun of her as well.
She had known that she might be refused, she thought it would be with apologies cold and distant, closing the door firmly, and this time forever. She had steeled herself against it. There would be no tears. No pleading. Neither would there be recriminations. She had heard enough in the gossip of the town to know that her father had sworn and cursed this family long years ago. She wasn’t going to let history repeat itself.
She had rehearsed staying calm. “So what do we do now?” she asked in a level voice. There was nothing arrogant or pleading about it.
“That seems perfectly reasonable,” Simon said.
“What?”
“What you ask for. I don’t see any reason why not.” His smile was very charming.
She felt that to smile back would put her in some kind of danger.
“Why now?” she asked. “Why not before?”
“You never asked me before,” he said simply.
“Not personally,” she agreed.
“Yes. It’s quite different to be asked indirectly, by a religious order who never made any other approach to me.”
“What approach might they have made?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say. I can’t say I’d have liked them to ask me to tea or to pretend a friendship I didn’t feel. But it was rather bald just to ask for money on your behalf as if you hadn’t a mind or a voice of your own.”
She considered it. It was true. Of course it was also true that she should never have had to ask him or any of the Westwards for what was rightfully hers. And Mother Francis had been sent away twice with a flea in her ear.
But these were not the subjects at issue. And the need was for calm, not for raking up the past.
“I see,” she said.
Simon had almost lost interest in it. He was prepared to talk about other things.
“When does term start, or has it started?”
“Last week. But there’s late registration.”
“Why didn’t you register in time?”
“I tried another kind of life. I couldn’t bear it.”
He must have been used to short answers. It seemed to satisfy him.
“Well, I’m sure you won’t have missed very much in a few days. All I ever see in Dublin when I go there is students from both universities drinking coffee and talking about changing the world.”