by Sara Seale
“I wouldn’t want much salary. I’d be learning myself most of the time,” she answered, lowering her lashes. “Yes, Raff, of course I’ll stop on if you think I can make a go of it.”
“Good!” he said briskly, as if he had concluded a satisfactory business deal. “Well, we’d better set to right away clearing up the mess Noel’s left. Come on.”
There was no time for the rest of the afternoon to indulge in personalities, or perhaps he saw to it that there should not be.
By seven o’clock Judy was aware that she was desperately tired. Raff prescribed a stiff drink for both of them, but she hardly touched hers, desiring only her bed and the blissfulness of unconsciousness.
“I’ve worn you out,” he said remorsefully. “Would you like to skip dinner and have a tray upstairs?”
She shook her head and made an effort to sip her drink as if she enjoyed it. Miss Botley had already retired to bed with a migraine, and if they were short-handed in the kitchen, an extra tray would make more work. Raff looked tired himself, she thought, and wondered if it would seem strange being alone with him instead of being one of the foursome they had always made with the Maules.
They did not, however, share a table together in the end, for with Miss Botley absent, Colonel Frazer was left marooned in the middle of the room, and Raff invited him, Judy thought, with a certain relief, to join them. The Colonel was not generally communicative, except in matters of complaint and his habitual sparring with Miss Botley, but he made a gallant effort to keep the conversation going when his two companions fell silent. It was true that his contributions mostly consisted of rather dull stories about the Regiment and life in India, but Judy was grateful to him. Being faced with the knowledge that she would, in the days to come, spend long hours in Raff’s company with no one else to shift the focus from herself had made her suddenly shy of him, and he, she thought, darting a surreptitious glance at his detached, rather weary expression, was possibly already regretting his unguarded remarks of last night.
“Will you advertise for another manager?” Colonel Frazer asked for the second time, and Raff smiled an apology for his absent-mindedness.
“No, Judy and I are going to try to tackle it on our own,” he replied. “We shall run the place on very different lines, of course, but there must still be people like yourself, Colonel, who want somewhere quiet with a bit of fishing and shooting thrown in and the moderate comforts of a country house.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” the Colonel barked. “Wouldn’t have stayed on meself, I don’t mind telling you, if that couple had jazzed the place up any more. Miss Botley’s going, of course. Rather took a shiner to that no-good young manager of yours. Flattered her; gave her ideas, silly old bag!”
“She’s lonely,” said Judy gently, remembering her conversation with Miss Botley. “She says when you’re old nobody really wants you. That’s dreadful.”
“Yes, well that’s true enough, I suppose, and one ought to remember...” the Colonel cleared his throat in some embarrassment and finished dictatorially: “... I shall stop on, of course, if you’ll get that lazy feller of yours to stoke the furnace properly, O’Rafferty. Only needs discipline and a little dragooning—might take him on meself and knock a little stuffing into him.”
“Thank you, Colonel, that’s very kind,” Raff said courteously, and Judy surprised the old soldier by leaning across to kiss him and inform him that he was a perfect dear.
“God bless my soul!” he observed, turning brick-red. “Don’t you worry, Miss Judy! We’ll soon get this place going, and if I may say so, a little organisation on military fines wouldn’t come amiss, what? Call on me, m’dear, call on me any time.”
He rose to take his leave of them and went off delighted with the alluring prospect ahead, and Raff observed with a crooked smile:
“Another lonely one, do you suppose? You mustn’t go turning the heads of our elderly guests in such a flagrant fashion, Judy!”
“He was so sweet, trying to lend his support,” she said. “Wouldn’t you love to see him organising Timsy into a smart recruit?”
“Well, thank goodness we’re going to get rid of the old biddy, after all. I thought we’d got her for life,” Raff said, and cocked an eyebrow at her. “If you become so successful as manageress-cum-everything else, running my modest guest house for me, I shall have to think about a new secretary.”
But she was not listening. Her gaze wandered round the high room, imagining it as it once was.
“What did you say?” she asked, aware that Raff had spoken to her.
“Merely a frivolous comment,” he answered, watching her withdrawn expression. “What were you thinking of?”
“Slyne as it used to be,” she said. “Don’t you ever see ghosts, Raff?”
“Ghosts?” His bony features creased into lines of wry remembrance. “Not of the eighteenth century, which I think you had in mind.”
“I wasn’t thinking in terms of any century,” she said, surprised.
“Possibly not, but Ireland is very eighteenth century in character still, you know. Dublin’s Georgian houses, the old, decaying mansions such as this—the dust of that century still blows over us,” he said, and she thought that, like Timsy, he could speak sometimes with a poet’s tongue, and wondered if this might be an unconscious characteristic of the Irish.
“Is that why you say your feet are in the past?” she asked, remembering how she too had fallen into the trick of thinking backwards.
He smiled.
“I don’t know. Probably ifs merely an excuse for insufficient interest in the future. Are you falling into the habit yourself, Judy? You were such a direct, uncomplicated young creature when you came here. Wolves were wolves, you once told me, and nice men were nice men—both easily defined. You used to make me a little envious by your simple approach to life.”
“Did I? But then, you see, I didn’t know very much about life.”
“And do you now?”
“No...” She sighed and folded up her napkin with absent-minded deliberation, and he said, with a change of tone:
“You’re tired, my dear. Why don’t you nip up to bed?”
“I think I will,” she said. “Goodnight, Raff.”
“Goodnight,” he replied, rising as she pushed back her chair.
“And don’t slip away from me altogether in your concern for my country’s past. We live in the twentieth century, as you used to be fond of telling me. You and I must meet halfway.”
“Halfway? Is it riddles again?”
“Not really. Go to bed, Judy, and tomorrow perhaps we’ll sort the riddles out.”
She went through the hall, pausing to sniff the malodorous smell of Timsy’s paraffin stove which, more than usual, seemed to pervade the house. It was probably smoking again, but she could not be bothered to go to the pantry and turn it down, and Timsy most likely was there, sleeping off the effects of his private celebrations. She switched off the lights to save what current was left and went upstairs to the nursery.
III
No one had turned down her bed or drawn the curtains, and the light of a full moon flooded into the room from the open window. She stood for a long time looking out at the lough and the dark shape of Slieve Rury, and listening to the small sounds of the still May night A light went out in old Paddy’s cabin down the boreen, but in Granny’s none burned, and soon the tiny gleams from the few scattered homesteads would be doused too, for the country folk went early to bed here. Judy wondered if they had looked across to the castle, missing the lighted windows and the sound of laughter from the bar, and the noisy arrival and departure of cars disturbing the peace of the south road, and been glad that in the space of one day the place had slipped back to its gentle decay. And the Maules? Had they gone back to England, or stopped in Dublin to live riotously for a while in the plush hotels of their ambition; and had Marcia no regrets for the bounty she had thrown away? And had Raff?
Presently she saw him walk down to the
jetty and stand there for a long time, staring out across the lough as she was doing, his tall, loose-limbed frame outlined against the path of moonlight across the water. He turned then and began to walk slowly along the shore, and soon she lost him in the shadows. Dear Raff, she thought, leaving the window and beginning to undress; he had been disturbed all day, and now he was seeking the solitude which had become habitual to him as an escape from his guests, and was tonight, perhaps, an escape from something else...
She put her new housecoat on, tying it snugly round her narrow waist, and turned and twisted dreamily before the mirror. In the moonlight it no longer looked cheap; the colour which had seemed a little crude had paled to the green of lake water, and the long, full skirt brushing her bare legs made her feel feminine and frail. Illusion, she thought rather crossly, and became aware that she had lost the desire for sleep, or even for the doubtful comfort of her bed with the broken spring. She decided to sit by the window and watch for Raff’s return.
She realised vaguely, after a time, that it must be getting late, for she remembered hearing the Colonel come up to bed, and the faint sounds of the servants moving about in the upstairs rooms had long ago ceased. Raff must have gone for a very long walk, she thought, discovering that she was beginning to feel stiff sitting so long by an open window, and at the same moment became conscious that the pungent smell of Timsy’s stove had penetrated even to her bedroom. For a moment she sat there, wondering sleepily how the smell of paraffin could possibly reach this wing of the house, then became suddenly wide awake as her senses recognised something more ominous, the unmistakable smell of burning.
“Oh, lord! Oh, goodness! The silly old idiot must have set light to something!” she exclaimed, and flung open her door.
The smell of burning was stronger in the corridor, and she thought she saw a faint haze of smoke drifting through the shafts of moonlight, but Timsy’s pantry was in the other wing and something down there must be well ablaze if smoke had already reached this part of the house. She pressed one of the light switches, but the current had been completely exhausted by now, and as she ran along passages, banging on doors, she was thankful for the brilliant moonlight and the servant’s careless habit of never drawing the curtains. As she ran, she had time to think of Granny Malone’s prophecies ... ashes and ruins ... ashes and ruins... “Oh, no!” cried Judy, flying down the stairs, but it seemed only too true. As she reached the hall great clouds of smoke billowed to meet her, and now she could hear the sinister roar and crackle of flames. The pantry was ablaze, and the panelling had already caught in the Small Saloon next door.
“Raff! Raff!” she shouted, running to the study, where he would most likely be if he was still up, then she remembered that he had not returned from his walk, and when he did ... when he did ... he would find his home in ashes as that horrible old witch had predicted.
“I’m bad luck to the house like she said ... she’s put the fluence on me, on Slyne, perhaps on Raff himself ... she cried distractedly, and became aware that someone had her by the shoulders and was shaking her none too gently.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic! Pull yourself together, girl, mid tell me where the fire-extinguishers are,” Colonel Frazer was barking at her.
“Where’s O’Rafferty?” he barked at Judy, and snorted when he was told. “Have you rung the fire brigade? No? Then do so now, though God knows what degree of efficiency they may have in this disgracefully run country!” Judy got on to the fire station at Knockferry, after the usual arguments with the erratic exchange, but it seemed that someone had seen the fire from across the lough and already notified them.
“Sure, there’s no need to disturb yourself, miss, no need at all!” a cheerful voice the other end assured her. “The boys have been spoilin’ for a good fire, and they with the tarrible monotony on them for want of an elegant blaze! The boys will be with you in the wink of a pig’s eye—if Micky Doolan doesn’t drive the contraption right off that tarrible road of yours, that is.”
The Colonel had managed to organise pails and buckets of water from somewhere by the time she returned, and it was only then, seeing them all trying to tackle the flames without much success, that she missed Timsy. He had not come down with the others, she remembered, and suddenly the beating of her own heart sounded louder in her ears than the roar of the flames. The old man had been slightly drunk for most of the day; he could have fallen asleep in his pantry to which he retired indefinitely upon these occasions with his bottles and his cornet; he might even have knocked the stove over in his unsteadiness.
“Timsy!” she cried in terror, and ran across the hall and through the smoke before the Colonel could stop her.
The bar was blazing in earnest now, the dry old panelling in the Small Saloon acting like tinder, and at the door of the pantry she was beaten back by the heat.
“Timsy ... Timsy...” she screamed, and felt the pain in her hands as she tore at the burning wood which was obstructing the doorway. She had managed to force an entry when she felt herself lifted from behind and Raff’s furious voice shouted:
“Are you crazy, you little fool? You can’t get in there, the place is an inferno!”
“Timsy’s in there!” she sobbed, and never knew that she was crying. She could only remember that Timsy had been her friend, offering strange comfort when she needed it, making her laugh, teaching her to love this feckless country of his birth. She fought Raff with all the strength she had left, but he simply pinioned her hands in a grip that made her cry out with the pain of her burns, and carried her back into the hall.
“You idiotic, gallant, bloody-minded little loon!” he shouted at her, and shook her hard. “There’s your poor charred victim coming down the stairs! Sleeping it off in comfort in his bed, so Agnes says, having done his best to burn the place down first,”
“Oh, Timsy...” Judy wept with relief and reproach and a hint of laughter in her tears.
The old man was sober now and he looked round him with mild astonishment, then his rheumy eyes found the blazing doorway of his pantry and he said in a quavering voice:
“Me cornet ... merciful heavens, me cornet is in there! Destroyed it’ll be ... destroyed entirely ... whirra ... whirra...”
“And a good job too,” said Raff heartlessly. “Pull yourself together, Timsy, and go and join the bucket-chain outside. You’ll all do more good there till the brigade arrives than fighting the flames from inside. Come on!”
“Can’t we get the furniture out?” Judy asked, rubbing away the tears from her smarting eyes. “If the Grand Saloon catches, all that lovely stuff will go up like matchwood.”
Raff merely seized her hand and pulled her after him to the front door.
“We’ve had enough trouble with those ruddy antiques as it is. Let the damn things burn!” he said.
The cool night air was a blessed relief after the heat and smoke and confusion, and at first she just stood and stared. The place seemed like Fair Day in Knockferry, for people had come from far and near, from across the lough in boats, and even, it was said, from the mountains, to lend a hand in saving Castle Slyne. Men in various aspects of the national hat argued and gesticulated excitedly in groups; some ran hither and thither, shouting to their friends, with little purpose it appeared except to render more confusion; the bucket-chain worked tirelessly from the lough to the house, and Judy recognised familiar faces: Mick and Pat and the entire Boyle family, including Rosie; Casey from the other side, and a couple of the Garda; Willie-the-Post, with a fine tale to spread tomorrow. Even old Paddy had taken his turn to pass the buckets and now sat on the terrace steps for a good ringside view in company with Granny Malone. Glare from the flames lighted the gesticulating figures like the demon effects in a pantomime, and the noise was indescribable.
“It’s fantastic. Where do they all come from?’ Judy exclaimed, uncertain whether to laugh or cry again, and Raff’s smile was a little grim.
“Any occasion’s a beanfeast in Ireland,” he said, “
but they’d all want to help. Slyne has been a landmark in these parts for a very long time.”
“Don’t take alarrum, O’Rafferty, we’ll have the castle saved for you!” they shouted as Raff and Judy turned among them to relieve a couple in the bucket-chain, and suddenly a great shout went up, and amidst wild cheering the fire brigade arrived taking the bends in the south road in magnificent style with screaming tyres and a clanging bell, and driving over Raff’s lawns without stopping once to inquire their direction. When they came to a violent standstill and the men jumped off and started unwinding their hoses, it could be seen that the engine had collected two flat tyres.
The buckets were hastily dumped as the willing workers surged towards the house for a fresh diversion, and Judy half expected that the fire-fighting appliances, like the household extinguishers, would be out of date and inadequate, but the little force of men were well trained, and soon powerful jets of water were playing on the flames, and orders were issued and obeyed with heartening speed.
Judy had lost Raff in the crowd, and she slipped down alone to the water’s edge to watch, away from the crowd. The house was unbearably beautiful in the moonlight, the shadows of its moulded stone and gracious abutments etched sharp and clear; even the burning wing had a strange, fierce beauty against the night sky. Just so must it have looked once before, she thought, when another wing had blazed in the angry darkness of Ireland’s “troubles” and still not been destroyed. Watching from the solitude of the shore, Judy knew a tightening of the throat. Was, she thought in sudden anguish, her castle in the clouds to vanish in smoke like the burning of Valhalla in The Twilight of the Gods? Were the old gods to be driven once again from their peace in this land of so much unrest? I’m slipping back, as Raff warned me ... she told herself, suddenly shy of the emotions the night had brought her, and as a cheer went up from the milling mass of humanity round the house she saw that the flames had died and the smoky glow which hung over Slyne was fading into the soft radiance of the May moon.