by Sara Seale
“Yes, of course. You miss him, too, don’t you, Harriet? You don’t like Uncle Rory better than Father, do you? I used to, you know.”
“And you don’t now?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Now, if you’ll just move out of my way, I’ll turn down my bed and then we’ll go down to breakfast.”
Harriet had successfully dodged the child’s question, but she suspected, as she had before, that Nonie’s methods of gleaning information of what went on in the house might have resulted in uncomfortable conclusions.
She turned down the bed, apologising politely to Kurt for disturbing him, then glanced round the room for anything forgotten. The mirror threw back their many familiar reflections of the sombre furniture and her own and Nonie’s figures looking out of place in such stiff, stylised surroundings, and she exclaimed with an echo of the child’s dissatisfaction:
“I hate this room! I can’t imagine how anyone could have thought up such dreary appointments for a bridal suite.”
“This isn’t the bridal suite,” Nonie said, looking surprised. “That’s in the other wing and hasn’t been used since my mother died. This is the mirror suite which was specially decorated for some important English visitors in Queen Victoria’s reign.”
“And that’s what it looks like!” laughed Harriet, but her dislike of the ugly room vanished. No one had really told her, she remembered. She had known that a bridal suite existed somewhere in the Castle, and had taken it for granted that Duff would naturally have chosen to use the traditional rooms to which the brides of Clooney had been brought. It gave her an odd feeling of release to know that she had not shared Kitty’s bed or Kitty’s bridal hopes.
The day passed uneventfully, but by the end of it, Harriet was thankful to go to bed. Nonie had been given to tantrums and even tears, Agnes was in one of her contrary moods, the weight of the snow had brought down a ceiling in one of the attics and Delsa refused, her dinner.
The following morning she busied herself with the small chores which had accumulated over Christmas, washing and darning stockings, turning out drawers—anything which would occupy her while she waited for Duff’s return. Finally she washed her hair, and as she dried it by the bedroom fire, she was reminded of her wedding day when she had got up early to perform the same office as a boost to her morale because she had nothing to wear. How terrible she must have looked, she thought, in her cheap, badly made dress, with Molly’s scarf tied round her head because she had thrown her only hat away; how gauche she must have appeared to Samantha who had so carelessly handed over her mink jacket and bade her keep it, how annoyingly childish to Duff, being more concerned with the rough and tumble of Knockferry’s market day than the more solemn reason that had brought her there.
She would not make quite the same mistakes now, she reflected, as she sat at the dressing-table brushing out her hair, but neither perhaps would she have plunged with such little concern into such a momentous undertaking with a perfect stranger. Oh, well, she thought at eighteen one can’t be expected to have much sense, neither did an orphanage prepare one for the sort of environment in which she had found herself at Clooney. She was still only eighteen, of course, but life, surely, had begun to teach her something? She gave her despised freckles a final dusting of powder, put on Kitty’s pearls as a complimentary gesture to the donor, and went downstairs for luncheon.
“What shall we do after lunch?” Nonie asked with the disgruntled repetition that was becoming monotonous.
“Well, I’m going for a walk. Why don’t you read some of those books you had for Christmas, or help Agnes make cakes for tea?” Harriet said.
“Can’t I come with you?”
“No.” She had not meant to sound unkind, but she felt nervous and wanted to be alone. The time of Duff’s arrival was uncertain, but he could hardly be expected before tea, Jimsy had said.
Nonie thrust out her lower lip and looked sullen.
“You don’t want me,” she said.
“Oh, Nonie dear, it isn’t that, but sometimes one wants to be alone to think. You should understand that because when you first came home for the holidays you didn’t want anybody.”
“It was different then—nobody wanted me. I’ll be going back to school soon, so I do think you might take me with you today.” Nonie had begun to whine, and Harriet felt exasperated.
“You’ll get lost like you did before,” complained Nonie.
“Of course I won’t get lost. I’ll take Kurt, and I’ll be back for tea.”
“You’re not running away, are you? Father wouldn’t be very pleased if he came home and found you’d gone,” Nonie said, the whine more pronounced than ever, and Harriet’s patience snapped.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! If you go on like this you’ll make me feel like doing just that!” she exclaimed, getting up from the table, thankful that the meal was over.
“This very afternoon?”
“Yes, this very afternoon—now do go and find yourself something to do,” Harriet said, and went upstairs to fetch a warm coat and her wellingtons.
When she was ready to set out, however, she could not find Kurt. She called, but neither the dog nor the bitch answered, so she went alone. It was very probable, she reflected, that Kurt with that uncanny instinct he seemed to have had pre-knowledge of his master’s return and was waiting.
It was thawing fast as she ploughed her way through small drifts, and under her feet all around her she could hear the small brittle sounds of melting snow and ice. How long ago it seemed, she thought, since she had lain here in a bog-soaked declivity, listening to those other sounds, the moorland night sounds which were then so new to her and had filled her with superstitious dread. Presently she realised that the light was beginning to weaken as the sun dipped behind Slieve Rury and she had a long walk back to the Castle. Duff might even have arrived by now, and she was suddenly as anxious to get back to him as she had unconsciously been to postpone their meeting. Shyness of him had driven her out with the first excuse she could think of to discourage Nonie, but it was New Year’s Eve, a time for promises and fresh beginnings, a time, even, for new hope. Duff had pledged himself to return that day because she had specially asked him, and whatever news he should bring back from Dublin, she must learn acceptance.
She had dropped a glove somewhere, one of a knitted scarlet pair she had bought from a cheap-jack stall on market day, but it would waste time going back to look for it. The shortest way to the road now was to follow the jagged line of the foothills which, if she kept close in, would also afford some shelter from the wind, which was becoming bitter.
It was rough going over the shale and broken stones brought down from the hills over the years, and her wellingtons slipped on icy patches, but the snow had not drifted here and she was safe from the bog which she knew lay away from the mountains. She stumbled again, aware that the rough tracks which served as a road was farther away than she had supposed, and nearly fell down altogether when a voice spoke suddenly out of nowhere.
“Norah?” What the hell do’you mean comin’ here in the light of day? Are you thinkin’ to turn me in, you bitch?” the voice said, and a hand shot out of nowhere and yanked Harriet off her feet and seemingly straight into the mountain’s side.
She found herself in a dark, damp little cave, sprawling on the ground with an unshaven, wild-looking man standing over her.
“Did Nora send you?” he asked, jerking her to her feet.
“No one sent me,” she replied when she could get her breath back. “I was taking a harmless walk and I shall be late for tea.”
She had only said what was uppermost in her mind at the moment, but the answer seemed to confuse him.
“Who are you then? Are the Guards wid you?”
“The Guards?” For a moment she could only think of smartly marching regiments trooping the colour, then she said, “Oh! Are you the man who broke out on Christmas Day?”
“I am that man, an’ if you’ve a mind
to let out a screech an’ warn the Guards, I’ll do you first,” he said. Harriet looked at him dubiously, remembering Cassidy’s bloodthirsty account of this man’s crime, but he seemed to her a thin, miserable little specimen with shifty, rather frightened eyes and a very bad cough.
“There’s no one with me. I’m Mrs. Lonnegan of Castle Clooney and I was taking a walk, as I told you,’ ‘she replied.
“Castle Clooney, is it? You talk very calm, ma’am. Wouldn’t you be afraid?”
“No,” said Harriet, as surprised as he to find she was not, but who, she thought, could be afraid of this weedy, shaking creature who, whatever he had done, seemed to be as afraid of her as he had expected her to be of him?
After that, conversation had lapsed between them. He told her uncertainly she would have to remain where she was until his girl came after dark to get him away, as she had promised, but he seemed to have doubts even of that. Norah, he said, would like as not turn him in for the reward, and she with her mind set on bettering herself. She’d had it all fixed for tonight, he said, the money, the car, but you never knew with wimmin. Had she any money on her, he had asked, and when she answered no had seen the pearls and snatched them off.
“These will buy me me freedom if they’re real,” he said, and from then on only his painful cough had broken the silence.
It had seemed like hours to Harriet, sitting on a wet flat stone, listening to the man coughing, and watching the daylight fade, and she had leisure to reflect on her own’ foolishness. She should have kept away from the Plain of Clooney which from the first, had boded her no good; Duff would be annoyed by yet another tax on his indulgence, and it looked as if she would see the New Year in with an escaped convict in a very cold and unromantic cave.
She could not have been there as long as she had supposed, she thought later, for there was still a modicum of pale sky showing through the opening to the cave which threw a faint splash of daylight on the ground. Quite suddenly a shadow seemed to cross it, and Harriet looked up. Kurt was standing in the entrance, his head with its pricked ears silhouetted against the grey of the sky, his muzzle lifted, questing, his strong chest and forelegs magnificent and motionless as he stood there like a statue.
“Kurt?” she said softly. His ears flicked like sensitive antennae, then with a deep-throated cry he bounded into the cave. As the startled man got up with an oath, the dog wheeled and sprang straight at him.
After that things seemed very confused. There were voices and shouts, the cave seemed to fill with people and strange men giving orders, and the little man with the terrible cough was released from Kurt’s hold and led away.
“So you had the Guards widout all the while, an’ you sittin’ there like an innocent child and blackenin’ your sowl wid lies!” he shouted at Harriet as he passed. “Tay, she says—I’ll be late for me tay!”
“ ‘Twas your gurrl tipped us off, Mulligan, so rest aisy with your curses,” someone called back. “Never trust a woman when there’s a price on your head, me fine boyo!” The cave seemed very quiet after they had all gone. Harriet became aware that some stranger had been holding her in an unnecessary close embrace for some time, and was even kissing the top of her head. “My love—are you all right?” a voice kept saying, and looking up she saw Duff’s dark face above her.
“I’m—I’m quite all right, thank you. He—he was far more scared than I was,” she said, a little unsteadily. “How did you know about him? How did you manage to collect the Guards?”
“They’d been tipped off and were on their way when Cassidy and I found your glove. We’d been trailing your footprints in the snow and guessed what had happened, so we let Kurt scent your glove and sent him on to reconnoitre. I was so very afraid for you, Harriet. Were you frightened?”
“No—he was such a scared, scruffy little man, and he has a terrible cough.”
“You are always surprising me,” he said. “You weep so easily over trifles, but never at real moments of stress, and you dismiss convicts and other alarming incidents with charming inconsequence.”
“Yes, well...” she said vaguely, and returned to matters she could grasp more easily. “Wasn’t Kurt wonderful, Duff? That’s the second time he’s rescued me from the Plain of Clooney.”
“Well, you mightn’t be so lucky a third time, so keep away in future. What induced you to give us all such a fright?” he said a little roughly. “If it hadn’t been for Cassidy meeting you, and Nonie’s fixed conviction that you’d run away, we wouldn’t have known where to look. Were you running away, Harriet?”
“Of course not. I only said I might if she kept on pestering me because I wanted to be quiet and—and prepare.”
“Prepare for what?”
“For you.”
“And what, I wonder, do you mean by that?”
It was so dim, now, in the cave that she could not read his expression, and she reached up a hand to touch his face, tracing the lines of those harsh, ugly features, and finally his mouth. He imprisoned her hand then, holding it against his lips, and she felt them move, brushing backwards and forwards on her flesh.
“I mean,” she said, “that I’ll be content with what you can give me, if you’ll help me—teach me a little ... I mean that I can accept whatever you choose to do with—with the other part of your life so long as there’s something left for me.”
She could just see the warmth of tenderness in his eyes as he replied: “Did you think you were going to have to be content with crumbs?”
“Crumbs are better than nothing,” she said. “I—I—well, I might as well say it, even if it does embarrass you—you see, I love you, so as long as you will allow me to go on loving you, the crumbs will satisfy me.”
He caught her to him, kissing her eyes, and her cold, startled lips with sudden passion.
“Oh, Harriet, my sweet, generous love ... sometimes you make me feel like weeping,” he said. “How could I be embarrassed when I’d hoped so much that in the end you would feel more than gratitude for me?”
“You hoped that? But you treated me always like a child. How was I to know?”
“I treated you like a child because it was the only way to curb my own impatience. I felt I had rushed you into a meaningless marriage and cheated you out of the normal expectations of any young girl ... I was giving you time to grow up, to get used to me as a person before asking you to get used to me as a husband ... and then I had to go and fall in love with you, which made my problem doubly hard.”
“You fell in love with me!”
“You needn’t sound so amazed, young woman,” he retorted with a certain severity. “If you hadn’t been so taken up with Cousin Rory’s charming attentions, you might have spotted things for yourself.”
“Oh, Duff! And I thought you wanted Samantha.”
“You did nothing of the kind! You knew very well that I married you in the first place to be rid of her.”
“Yes, but—you’d told me so many times that a man had basic animal instincts and passion had nothing to do with love that I thought—well, I suppose I thought the old attraction was too strong for you. I even thought you were going to meet her in Dublin.”
“I did meet her in Dublin—for the last time, in a lawyer’s office. The sale of the farm is more than enough to settle that guarantee she thought such a trump card, and give us a little over for a few home repairs, so let’s forget Samantha, who won’t trouble either of us again. I must confess that, regrettable though it may be, my daughter’s habit of eavesdropping has had very illuminating results. Nonie came clean with all her bits and pieces of undigested gossip and overhead conversations in her anxiety over your imagined runaway departure, so much is already explained. Now, can you forgive me for allowing a malicious woman to cause you so much unhappiness?”
“Can you forgive me for the things I said after poor Uriah had died?”
He took her face between his hands and kissed her very gently.
“It’s easy to forgive when one loves, s
weetheart,” he told her. “I heard about Kurt’s change of affections, too. Would you like me to give him to you for your own, and make up, perhaps, for having to take Uriah’s life?”
“Oh, Duff, you don’t need to reproach yourself. You did what you had to, and in a queer kind of way I would rather it had been you than anyone else ... But Kurt! That would be a most wonderful present—Oh!—Presents remind me—that mean little man took Kitty’s pearls. You must get them back.”
“Kitty’s pearls?” He frowned for a moment, then a twinkle came into his eye. “So that’s why you were so reluctant to wear them! They were my mother’s. Kitty’s little string, of far less value, lies in my safe waiting for Nonie to be old enough to wear than.”
“Oh, Duff...” she said again. Such another silly misconception, she thought, like the bridal suite which, in the end, had held no memories except those of a long-forgotten visitation of stiff personage from England in Queen Victoria’s reign. “I’ve been so stupid—so often—can you learn patience with me?”
“That I’ve had to learn already,” he replied with a touch of his old manner, then he drew her close against him again and answered her question without words.
Kurt gave a sharp impatient whine and pawed at Harriet’s skirt.
“Quite right, old boy, a cold damp cave is no place in which to make love,” Duff said. “Come, sweetheart, it’s time I took you home. The Land Rover’s not far off and Cassidy must have given us up.”
Hand in hand they walked out of the cave and stood for a moment in the gathering darkness, looking out across the Plain, so desolate, so treacherous beneath the innocent beauty of the snow, and Harriet sent a silent prayer of thanksgiving to whichever good, fairy it might have been who, in the end, had waved a wand over those foolish daydreams and made them all come true.