It was like a dream, but the climax was yet to come.
‘By the way, sorry for the way I spoke on Saturday. I was feeling pretty rough at the time, but I went too far. I admit it.’ He said it almost like an uncle, and, extraordinarily, the gesture, welcome as it was, brought Haidee a pang. He could seem so young and so old. Did he feel the age he sounded now?
Paul, at any rate, took full advantage of the change. He accepted the apology with grace, commented on Haidee’s lucky escape and ended with the suggestion that she might care for a drive that afternoon. Even this did not break the spell.
‘I’m sure she would,’ Rory agreed still avuncularly. ‘What time may we expect you?’
Powerscourt Demesne was not open to the public in November, but Paul obtained access. They passed under the stone eagle on the entrance gates and headed up the avenue. On the right, the great park, where a film company had once shot the battle of Agincourt, unrolled its green to the dark lapis lazuli of the hills. On the left, the cone of Sugar Loaf stood naked against the clouds.
There were thirty-six thousand acres in the estate put down in grass and garden, wood and weald, and a waterfall that poured like milk over black rock four hundred feet high. Paul took a road in this direction and followed it along the banks of the Dargle to the back road. Crossing this, the estate went on into mountain land; the sound of the river was louder and more exciting and there were signposts distinguishing the car route to the waterfall from the rough field path.
Ahead, now visible again and making the panorama which was almost a commonplace in this county of thirty summits, were the mountains. And they were wild. On the skyline saddles and ridges were peat brown, below came a narrow band of green and then a richer swathe of plantation. A ruler of road straight up the face of the mountain cut the conifers in two, but stopped short of the heath and the rocky brown wilderness above it. Sometimes a feeling about a place can come at first sight. One came to Haidee then, so strongly that as she gazed at the ridge antlers appeared to twinkle along it.
‘You realize you’re looking at the back doorstep?’ Paul asked lightly. ‘That,’ he pointed at the highest of the peaks, ‘is Glenglass Mountain—the side you don’t see from the village.’
‘Then you could get up there.’ She pointed. ‘From the forest?’
He was not impressed. ‘If you were crackers,’ he said carelessly, driving on.
He had an easy way with people. Willie Byrne, located in his son-in-law’s cottage, was obviously flattered at being sought out as an expert.
‘Oh, begob there are,’ he asserted in reply to Paul’s question as to whether there were still deer in the vicinity. ‘If I’d me legs under me like I used I’ll guarantee I could find you upwards o’ fifty beyant there on the mountain.’
An exciting prospect, but apparently it had to be done at dusk or later. ‘No use in the daytime at all. You scare the living light out of them. I only once saw a number to speak of in the daytime. ’Course you’ll see the odd one. Don’t mind that. You want to see the king bringing in his herd.’ He described how he had seen this in the dusk of a summer evening, fifty to sixty animals in all strung out in single file along the ridge top of Glenglass with the master stag in front. These were wild deer, of course, he explained, descendants of those who during ‘the troubles’ had escaped from Powerscourt Park and taken up residence in the northwesterly parts of the Wicklow range. ‘An’ bloody terrible the way they’re gettin’ slaughtered,’ he threw in fiercely at this point. This time of the year they were starting to come closer in, summer they lived higher and farther out. At the moment the rut was still on, last night he had heard the roars of them in the distance.
‘The rut is the breeding season,’ Paul interpolated for Haidee’s benefit.
She said unthinkingly: ‘The babies must be beautiful. I’d love to see some.’
‘Them’s words I don’t like hearing,’ old Willie rejoined unexpectedly. ‘People go making pets of the calves and it’s not right. They’re wild creatures. Nature puts in their brain-box that man’s an enemy, and that’s the way it should stay. If I had a’ needed to learn that which I didn’t I surely saw it with Miss Suzanne beyant there in Glenglass.’
Haidee caught her breath. Unnecessarily. The faded blue eyes turned benignly upon her silky hair and the oval glasses Paul had suggested obviously saw no likeness. How could they? Their owner was back in the past, somewhere in the middle fifties. Long hair hadn’t come into fashion then; Suzanne would probably have had short curls.
He had taken her, it seemed, on many an expedition, her and ‘young Rory Hart—him that’s now in charge of the forest. Rory had been a sensible lad, Suzanne ‘pigheaded as they come’. She had made a pet of a calf, christened it some rubbishy name, and got it so it followed her about. One day it had trailed her down the mountain, bolted across the road after her and been killed by a passing car.
‘Lord have mercy, what a business!’ The white head shook. ‘It was everyone’s fault, o’ course, except Suzanne’s.’
He would have developed the theme, but Paul pulled him back. ‘Any chance of getting up to the deer these days?’
‘You could, you could,’ old Willie allowed. ‘There’s two ways. You can climb up this side be the back of the waterfall or there’s a short way up t’other side, but it’s Forestry land, so you’d need to get permission.’
‘Any hope with a car?’ Paul pursued.
‘You could, I suppose, if you’d a good enough engine.’ He mentioned a road and the fact that at times it would be necessary to drive on the rocky surface of the moor. ‘I don’t advise it, mind. You’ll ruin your springs, but I suppose it’s worth a try.’
‘Listen to this, lily maid,’ Paul said genially to Haidee. ‘I ask for thee!’
He could have saved himself the trouble. Haidee saw no prospect of borrowing a vehicle nor would she have risked it alone. His intentions, however, had been good and the tip he slipped old Willie on leaving was generous. It earned them a fervent: ‘May God spare you the health. Good luck now, good luck.’
There was a cheese pudding for supper and Toby partook heartily and quickly.
‘Just a minute, just a minute,’ Haidee joked when his empty plate came up for the third time. ‘Rory, are you ready?’
‘Yes, please. It’s very good,’ he approved.
What was happening to him? The morning’s mellowness with Paul, and now a smile boyish as his son’s. In passing the plate their fingers touched and the warmth of his made her absurdly glad. She wanted to make him comfortable, warmed, fed, rested. This morning he had seemed older and all day she had not been able to forget it.
‘Suzanne,’ Jennie said abruptly, ‘where did you go this afternoon with Paul Freeman? I saw you coming back.’
If she had dropped a gauntlet along with it, the sentence could not have been more challenging. The significance of it, sinking coldly, delayed Haidee’s reply. Rory got there first. ‘Oh yes, he was taking you for a drive, wasn’t he? Have a good time?’ Brown spatulate fingers conveyed the spoon to his mouth. ‘This stuff is very good. We shall have to get the recipe for Mrs. Ryan.’
There was a slight sound from Jennie’s end of the table. Uneaseful, like the clearing of a throat. Haidee, looking down at treacle dark eyes and a forehead beaded with sweat, was in her own turn hot with trepidation.
‘Sorry,’ said Jennie anxiously. ‘I was just going to ask will he be taking you out tomorrow.’ She paused and Haidee shook her head. Whatever the child was up to, it was costing her something.
‘Did you want me for something?’ she asked.
Jennie had gone scarlet. ‘Yes, in a way. I think you should go and see Mother Mary.’ She was not good at delivering ultimatums and she looked quite agonized. ‘And I’ll go with you. If that will be all right?’
In the second’s silence Haidee found herself looking not at Jennie but at Rory. Almost imperceptibly he nodded. It held reassurance, or seemed to. A moment later she dispelled t
he feeling for the fancy it must be. Rory had no doubts of her. And if he had he would certainly not have been protective.
She stood alone as always, but, frighteningly, her solitude now had a degree of sophistication. She was the more alone because, like the deer, she wanted to come in close.
Too silly. Absolute cobblers. And you haven't answered Jennie.
She nodded quickly: ‘Of course, I’d like that. Tomorrow, then.’
Next day she wondered about Marie Antoinette. Had she dressed up for her date with the guillotine? It echoed faintly in memory that she had.
She thought of her own French name as establishing a link. Haidee with a slim neck ready for the chop. She switched her hair and pinned it in a pleat, buttoned the cuffs of her high-necked paisley blouse and stood with her gold trench coat in one hand and her dark Sunday coat in the other. Choosing the dark with dark gloves and shoes and quite liking the effect of gold paisley at the neck, she went downstairs to find Jennie in pants and fur-trimmed jacket.
‘You’re all dressed up,’ the younger girl commented disapprovingly.
‘And very nice too,’ Rory’s voice from the background was a shock. She had not dreamed he was anywhere near the house. ‘Take the car,’ he suggested. ‘You can hardly climb fences in that get-up.’
Again it seemed Jennie did not approve. ‘Oh, heavens, that makes it so different.’
What was she trying to do? Haidee wondered uneasily. Set up a facsimile of the visits she’d only heard about—Suzanne in short skirts and blind rages ducking under the wire and going hot-foot for comfort?
She accepted the car. ‘It is different. I’m fifteen years older, actually,’ she said stoutly. ‘So you’ll just have to put up with me.’
Why was Rory looking at her like that? He should have been at his work. His eyes travelling from the touch of blue shadow on her lids to her very slender ankles were reminiscent of that first morning when he had walked into her bedroom to hurry her up. Now, as then, her pulse quickened. When he spoke, however, it was impersonally. ‘Make sure you see the chapel. It’s new.’
She was very thankful he’d said it. It was a stepping stone. She might so easily have pretended to remember.
‘The Sisters are praying for Mummy,’ Jennie announced as they drove.
It insinuated disquiet. Jennie couldn’t think, couldn’t hope ... or could she? Haidee risked a quick glance from the road. If only Jennie did not look so vulnerable, her cheeks and bone structure so ‘little girl’, her lips so soft and full. She had shown suspicion, even enmity, yet Haidee could feel for her nothing but compassion. ‘Jennie dear, you do realize...’ she began. And got nowhere.
‘I think there’s a car wants to pass,’ Jennie said in a stone wall tone.
Haidee had wondered a little about the convent and both Suzanne’s and Jennie’s attachment to it. It was, as it happened, the first time she herself had visited one.
It was cool, highly polished and sweet-smelling. A statue of the Virgin, with a posy of fresh flowers before it, stood at the end of the long corridor. The nun conducting than to Mother Mary genuflected as she passed.
It brought everything to a concert pitch of emotion. All along Haidee had been aware of the material consequences of her deception; at best, Rory would fling her out, at worst, he might institute proceedings. The moral consequences had not seemed to exist until this moment. She was doing it in a good cause and that was that. In church she’d felt a soldier ‘marching as to war’. Here, she felt very small, very presumptuous, very wrong.
Mother Mary was old—in religion as well as in years. She was important, she was revered. To deceive her and to have thought only of getting away with it was suddenly as obnoxious as anything the real Suzanne had done.
As the room door opened, the black-robed Mother Superior, her back to a window of ripened sunshine, might have been straight out of the Book of Revelations. She remained motionless for a second and Haidee thought it again, not this time so much of the book with its pictures of glory and judgement as of the author, St. John, whose symbol was the eagle. The high cheekbones and frail-lidded, intensely blue eyes before her now made a face as astute as it was saintly. A gaze, for instance, second thoughts confirmed the first ones, that would never ever have missed Suzanne, not even in a Sunday afternoon crowd.
Well, at least I haven’t pretended too much, Haidee thought. I do look like myself. She knew too that at this crisis point she could only act like herself. Suzanne might have been on familiar terms here. She was not and she simply could not presume.
‘It’s extremely good of you to see me, Reverend Mother,’ she said without equivocation. ‘I have wanted to come.’
The eyes, naked as a clear sky, seemed to move, a wing flutter, no more, and then they were still again.
But she knows, Haidee thought, she knows.
She felt herself strangely calm as the tall figure came forward. As before, and no less astonishingly now, both hands had gone out. It was hardly possible that such a gesture of welcome could be made in the circumstances. And yet it was.
‘My child, I hoped you would. I have been waiting for you.’
The wrinkled hands closed warmly on Haidee’s slim black gloves.
At first they talked pleasantries, the effects of the drought, Saturday’s fire and Haidee’s encounter with the owl.
‘Dear child!’ the old nun exclaimed in horror. ‘What an experience!’
‘My own silly fault,’ Haidee owned. ‘I’ll know better next time.’
‘I’m surprised no one ever told you before,’ Jennie observed in that mildly puzzled tone. ‘When I was a child I knew. Father was always telling me.’
Into the sharp silence came Mother Mary’s voice, gentle but authoritative, like a parent closing a forbidden door.
‘I often think what treasure trove lies in word of mouth. And I don’t mean sermons.’ She smiled. ‘We forget those. We remember all our lives the little warnings, the little guidances, the little sayings of those we love; and so we keep them with us and grow more like them. Jennie has great treasure.’ She took the younger girl’s hand and held it gently. ‘There’s sorrow with it at the present time, I know, but that will pass. The treasure is there to keep.’
There was no doubt the message had been received. Jennie’s Madonna-like gaze had drunk in every word.
Jack Whittaker, Haidee thought, must have been a fine man, a man who, given the chance, might have pulled Glenglass together. His daughter did right to cherish his memory. When Jennie spoke, however, it was not about her father. ‘Mummy’s just the same. Usually people only live like that for a day or two, but it’s six weeks now and she hasn’t got any worse.’
Mother Mary’s eyes met Haidee’s.
‘Jennie must soon start thinking about herself,’ Haidee said carefully. ‘She has a lot before her this year. Rory is anxious she shouldn’t miss much more of it.’
The Mother Superior’s wimple inclined in agreement. ‘I have said that myself to Sister Gabriel.’
‘But I can’t!’ Jennie’s plummy tones rose protestingly. ‘I can’t, Mother. I can’t leave Glenglass. Not now. Specially not now.’
Had she, Haidee wondered, hoped that the visit would end in a showdown and denunciation? If so, could she be blamed? She had an obvious sense of responsibility and the thought of harbouring an impostor must be torturous.
There were so many things to think of. Haidee had thought of pitiably few. It had seemed that she and she alone was assuming the burden. The measure of her error was only now beginning to appear. On the spur of contrition, she might just have spoken—then and there. For good or ill. But instead, it was Mother Mary who broke the strained silence.
‘Sister Gabriel would be pleased to see you, Jennie. I think you know the way.’
Sister Gabriel, now bedfast, she explained when Jennie had left them, was in her ninety-fifth year and the oldest member of the community. She had been in Glenglass for sixty years.
Haidee said:
‘How wonderful!’ before she realized that if a trap had been set she had walked straight into it. Cover it up, however, she would not even if she could. Not in this place of prayer. It reminded her of the chapel Rory had mentioned. ‘May I see your new chapel?’ she asked.
‘Gladly.’ Mother Mary rose at once. ‘We love showing it to people. It has been the fulfilment of a long dream.’
They went out into the now thinning sunlight and crossed the grey precincts to a purply brown building with an almost pencil slim spire. It stood in the shelter of some young firs, the layered branches of which seemed to match the angles of its steep roof. The trees, Mother Mary volunteered, had been given them by Mr. Hart and planted by his men. The chapel, she continued, had been consecrated only last Whitsuntide and dedicated to the Holy Spirit. So saying, she opened the door and Haidee found herself looking up a nave of cream stone to a sanctuary blazing in Pentecostal flame. At least that was how it seemed. Later, she saw how skilfully the lights of gold and amber in the tall windows had been used to channel the natural light. For that first moment she was breathless and tonguetied.
‘Will you talk to me, child?’ her companion invited simply.
It was a long tale, made longer by the twists and turns of recent pondering, and Haidee, keeping back only the fact of Suzanne’s marriage, did not spare herself. She doubted if she could have done so had she wished. In this house which bore His name, the Spirit of Truth was in complete command.
Once indeed Mother Mary inserted a gentle: ‘I said talk, not confess, my child. I am your friend, not your judge.’
It was almost anti-climax. Looking ahead to this moment, Haidee had always seen it as an open and shut case. Verdict guilty. Leave to appeal denied. Reality was different.
‘We don’t have all the answers,’ Mother Mary told her. ‘The longer I live the fewer I seem to retain. I cannot tell you what you should do at this stage.’
‘But aren’t you going to censure me?’ Haidee stammered. ‘You can’t approve of deceit.’
Dear Deceiver Page 16