by Sara Seale
He looked at her reflectively.
“One can shut oneself up in a world of abstracts, even convince oneself a career is all-sufficing, but sooner or later one becomes vulnerable,” he said. “It’s taken me a little longer than most to find it out, that’s all.”
“I don’t think I quite understand you.”
“Don’t you, Sarah? Well, never mind, and don’t worry any more about Kathy. She’s just built a dream round an imaginary person. Quite soon you’ll find she’s missing young Kavanagh.”
“Do you think so? But supposing she can’t love him after all?”
For a moment his lips had the old sardonic twist to them, “Very few of us can afford to despise the old tried friendships,” he said. “Second-best isn’t as shabby as it sounds.”
She looked at him with swift negation.
“I don’t think second-best is good enough’,” she said, and his eyes grew grave.
“No, Sarah, I think for you it wouldn’t be,” he said. “But then you would demand more of life than most people, and that, perhaps, is a mixed blessing. I used to be the same, you know.”
“And now you would compromise?”
“Well, didn’t you once tell me that there were other sorts of miracles? St. Patrick was the boy for them, you said, and don’t forget I made a wish at his well.”
She looked beyond him out of the window” to Slieve Rury rising beyond the lough with its summit of snow. “But, surely, for you anything that had to take the place of your profession would be second best?” she said.
“No, Sarah, not anything,” he replied gently, then added, with a lift of the eyebrow: “I wonder if you really know what we’re talking about?”
“Compromise.”
He smiled.
“Not entirely. Anyway, to you it has a dreary sound. But sooner or later, Sarah, we all have to compromise with life—even you with your single-hearted love for your home will have to learn that.”
“Dun Rury? I’ll never compromise over Dun Rury!”
“Won’t you? But you’re doing it already. Paying guests, allowing neglect to grow rather than sell.”
“Do you think I ought to sell Dun Rury?” For the first time she asked him the question as though she would respect his answer.
“I don’t know, Sarah,” he replied. “It’s not a matter on which I really have the right to advise you. But as an outsider I can see that a great deal is being sacrificed to your idol.”
She looked startled.
“What?” she asked. “I don’t expect Kathy or Aunt Em to do the dirty jobs. I do them myself.”
“I know you do. You work too hard, I think, and have too much responsibility on your shoulders, but that’s not quite what I meant. There are other things: Danny’s schooling—later, his start in life; Kathy’s natural desire for a little fun—she would have been much less introspective if she’d led a normal young girl’s life after she first left school, you know.”
“But there was no money for any of those things,” she cried.
“But there would have been a little if Dun Rury hadn’t swallowed it all,” he said with gentleness.
She left the rocking chair and went and stood by the window, leaning her forehead against the cold glass.
“You think I’ve been selfish,” she said slowly.
He joined her at the window and put a hand on her ‘shoulder.
“No, not exactly,” he replied. “In small things I think Kathy is the selfish one—you’ve all been enslaved by beauty for so long, haven’t you? But you, Sarah, have the single-mindedness of the crusader, and I’ve often thought a good many innocent people have had to suffer through lost causes.”
She looked up at his clear-cut profile, cold and momentarily grave in the hard winter light.
“But Dun Rury is all I’ve got,” she said a little piteously. “My father would never have sold—never!”
He looked down at her and touched her thin cheek with tender fingers.
“No compromise?” he said, and felt her stiffen beside him.
“No compromise,” she said bleakly, and broke away from his restraining hand.
“When do you think you’ll go to England?” she asked.
“Early next week, as soon as I can get a passage booked.”
“How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“It depends. There’s some research I want to do for my book, and my agent is anxious to discuss the question of a series of lectures for me later in the year. There’s still a certain amount I can do for music, apparently. Lectures, broadcast talks. They’ve been at me before but then I wasn’t ready to consider offers.”
“And now you are? Is that your particular compromise with life, Adrian?”
“Perhaps. One should be useful in some capacity, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so.”
“But you think it’s a poor substitute? So do I, but there’s little else left to do in that particular field.”
“Adrian—” She hesitated. “Do—do you mind less, now?”
“Yes,” he replied gravely. “I think I do. At least I can regard the thing as a closed chapter and your own sane attitude was a great help, you know.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.” He smiled down at her surprised face. “I wish I was able to talk the same good sense to you as you upon occasion talked to me. Perhaps one day I will. Now, my dear child, I think you’d better leave me to get on with the rest of this correspondence. Perhaps, tomorrow, you’d let me borrow the car and deal with booking agents in Knockferry? The sooner I’m off, the better in all the circumstances.”
“Of course. Adrian”—she paused at the door—“I’m sorry I slapped your face.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Miss Riordan. Don’t do it again or there may be trouble,” he said severely, and she grinned and shut the door gently behind her.
For the few days that remained before he went to England, Adrian kept as much as possible to the nursery.
He did not take Kathy’s attachment for him very seriously but he discouraged intimate chats and poetry readings from then on. Sometimes she looked at him with a puzzled, vaguely hurt expression, but she took his sudden decision to leave them for a while without undue concern. To Kathy, the dreams she built in her own imagination would always be more real to her than the reality. She was content to wait, to wait and dream and savor innocently the delights of anticipation.
Sarah drove Adrian into Knockferry to catch his train for Shannon Airport, and at the last she reached anxiously up to his carriage window.
“You’ll come back, Adrian?” she said. “Promise you’ll come back.”
“I’ll come back,” he assured her. “Probably even before you’ve had time to mend those fences. It will only be for a few days. I’ll wire you the time of my return. Goodbye, and take care of yourself.”
“Goodbye, and God bless you,” she said as the train moved out of the station.
But he was away more than a few days. He wrote briefly to say that his business would take him at least a fortnight to settle and they were not to expect him back yet. Sarah sometimes wondered if he was deliberately stopping away on Kathy’s account. Her sister did not seem disappointed by the fact that he was extending his visit to England, but she herself missed him acutely. She knew a measure of the same feeling of emptiness she had experienced after her father died. The house seemed strange without him and too full of women.
“I suppose,” she said to Nonie, “one misses a man about the house. It was the same after Father died—apart from grieving, I mean, there was a kind of emptiness.”
“Och, sure a house without a master is like an egg without salt,” the old woman agreed. She was ironing one of Danny’s shirts, and the kitchen was redolent with the odor of the hot iron and a tin of saffron buns baking in the oven. “Dun Rury’s lacked a head of the house too long.”
“Dun Rury has me,” she said, watching Nonie’s toil-roughened hands fold the shirt in
quick, neat creases and place it on a pile of others.
“Sure, the place has you—like a rabbit in a snare, but that’s not the same thing at all.”
“I don’t understand you, Nonie,” Sarah said. “I thought you loved Dun Rury as much as any of us.”
“An’ so I do.” Nonie informed vigorously. “You were born here an’ your father before you an’ his father before him, an’ if things had been different, maybe one day, Danny’s children would bawl their way into the world under this roof.”
“Danny’s children?”
“Hasn’t it always been Dun Rury for the Riordans?”
“Of course, but I’m a Riordan, too, and Dun Rury is mine.”
“Were you thinkin’ of marryin’, then, Miss Sarah?” Nonie’s voice was dry.
“No—no, of course not.”
“An’ what other way would you raise children at Dun Rury? Well, let me tell you this, me bold girl—your husband, if you’re after findin’ one—will be takin’ you away to a home of his own, and then what happens to this divil of a house?”
“He could live here,” Sarah said, and Nonie smiled.
“He could an’ he would,” she replied. “But the sort of felly you’d pick for a husband, me doty, will have a mind of his own and will want a roof of his own, too, I’m thinkin’.”
“Then I shall have to live and die an old maid,” said Sarah cheerfully, “for I’ll not give up Dun Rury for any man.”
“An’ that’s what you’ll become, me poor child, an’ you growing stubborn with the years. Mr. Denis, God rest his soul, did you no kindness in settin’ you over Miss Kathy, an’ she the eldest ... Danny is needin’ more underclothes, Miss Sarah. These is droppin’ off his back.”
“Oh, Nonie, more expense! Can’t they be patched?”
The old woman held up a tom vest, already darned and mended in a score of different places.
“If you think meself or Miss Emma can howld that thing together you’d best try patchin’ yourself,” she said scornfully. “You’ll order some more at Cassidy’s next time you go to Knockferry, an’ throw in some socks as well. The boy’s growin’.”
“All right,” said Sarah despondently.
Each week her precious hoard got dipped into for something, stockings for Kathy, linen for the house, repairs for the car. It was extraordinary the number of dusters, dishcloths, aprons and the like required by Mary, while Nolan had to have new boots, the garden boy fresh tools, and all the time there was Dun Rury dropping into decay and the new roof for the stable as distant as ever. With the damage caused by the snow, it was clear that expenses could not be met without running up fresh bills, and Sarah drove into Knockferry one morning in early February and went to see Brian Kavanagh at his office.
“My dear Sarah, I don’t see what more I can do,” he said regretfully, when she had told him her difficulties. “That extra twelve guineas a week should help to ease things, you know.”
“But I never seem to catch up,” said Sarah despairingly. “As fast as I get something saved, somebody needs something, and there’s so much to be done to the place that can’t wait much longer. If only I had a little bit of capital—a lump sum to get straight and start again. Surely there’s something you can sell, Uncle B.?”
“My dear child, I’ve realized on all possible investments long ago. The few that remain must be kept intact, otherwise where’s your income coming from?”
“Couldn’t you raise even a hundred or so without making a lot of difference?”
His eyes were kindly but he shook his head.
“A hundred or so wouldn’t begin to set the place to rights.
“It would help.”
“I can’t do it, Sarah,” he said. “We’ve already dipped far too heavily into your father’s investments. I’m supposed to look after your interests, you know, and there are the others to be thought of.”
“The others?”
“Kathy and Danny. If everything goes into Dun Rury what is there left for them?”
“Kathy will get married.”
“Sure she will, but there’s still Danny and yourself. You know what I’ve always advised, my dear. Hanging on to the place is sheer folly.”
“It will be different in the summer,” she said. “There will be plenty of visitors over then.”
He sighed. She was as stubborn as Denis had been and as passionately single-hearted.
Joe took Sarah out and gave her lunch. They had none of them seen him since New Year’s Eve and she warmed again to the sight of his familiar, kindly face.
“No luck with the old man?” he asked with a sympathetic grin.
“None. He’s a hard-hearted old skinflint. I suppose I can’t get round you?”
“I can’t act without Dad, and in any case, you know, he’s right. You can’t afford to sell out any more. There’s little enough left as it is.”
“Oh, well, I’ll manage somehow. How are you, Joe? We’ve missed you.”
“Have you? I wonder?”
“Well, I have. Joe”—she traced a pattern on the table-cloth—“Adrian isn’t in love with Kathy. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Isn’t he? Then what right had he to make love to her?”
“He didn’t. Kathy’s made one of her dreams round him. He’s gone away.”
He looked up quickly.
“For good, you mean?”
“No, only for a little while, but I think he’s staying away longer to give her a chance. He says she’ll soon get over it.”
“How’s she taking that?”
“She doesn’t seem to mind. I think she enjoys making up stories about herself and the ideal lover—I think Adrian just happened to fit the picture rather well.”
He was silent for a moment, then he said with a little smile:
“Perhaps Kathy doesn’t want a flesh-and-blood affair.”
“No, I don’t think she does,” Sarah said. “She wants something all mixed up with poetry and romance and gentle compliments.”
“She hasn’t grown up,” he said, and she replied a little tartly:
“Then it’s time she did. She’s nearly twenty one.”
Driving back along the south road she was suddenly aware that spring was nearly here, and she knew a joyous lifting of the spirit, as she beheld the first buds on the arid thorn trees, the first green on the hills. Her old delight at the change of the seasons returned to remind her that nothing remained the same; as nature changed, so must their fortunes. She whistled the air of The Spanish Lady as she drove and wondered if this lovely awareness of the approaching season was like the dreams Kathy made for herself. She went running into the house shouting for her sister.
“Come out!” she called. “Walk down the road with me and sniff the spring. Slieve Rury’s lost her snow cap and the thorns are budding.”
They walked down the road together, their arms linked, and Kathy said:
“You sound happy. Did Uncle B. help?”
“He didn’t help at all, but I’m still happy,” Sarah said gaily. “What does it matter, anyway? Dun Rury’s waited for years. It will wait a little longer till I make my fortune.”
Kathy smiled.
“Do you expect to make a fortune?” she asked tolerantly. “On a day like this I can expect anything. I saw Joe, Kathy. He took me out to lunch.”
“When is he coming out here again? He seems to have quite deserted us,” Kathy said.
For a moment Sarah glanced at her sister incredulously. “But, Kathy—” she began.
“Oh, I know I said I wouldn’t marry him but that was only because he wouldn’t leave me alone and I had to say something. But I don’t see that’s any reason why he should stop coming here.”
“Don’t you?” Sarah felt subdued after her sudden sense of exultation. Did Kathy have no understanding at all or did she simply believe that her beauty gave her rights which others should not expect?
“Have you missed him, Kathy?” she asked, and Kathy pouted.
>
“Of course I’ve missed him. With Adrian away it’s very dull, and besides, I shall always need Joe. He’s part of my childhood.”
“And do you miss Adrian?” Sarah questioned a little tentatively.
“Of course,” said Kathy again. “But he’s coming back.”
“Kathy—” Sarah began, but at her sister’s enquiring gaze she fell silent and said no more.
“Don’t interfere,” Adrian had once told her. No, she would not interfere, she would not, as her heart urged her to do, make things safe for Kathy, perhaps make things safe for Joe. Words were useless things with which to fight dreams.
It was better to be silent.
Adrian did not return until the middle of February. He had been away just over three weeks, and since he had been gone the face of the country had changed. There was a softness over the land. The mountains, with their fresh splashes of color, were blue in the evening light with the soft bloom of grapes, and the streams ran clear and sparkling to the lough.
Sarah walked round the demesne the day Adrian was to return and surveyed everything with rueful eyes. Dun Rury had a battered look after the winter. Broken boundary fences would soon be claimed by the strong profusion of spring, byres and outbuildings had suffered too severely in the frost and snow to be more than patched together, and the house itself wore a sad air of neglect, in the bright February sunlight.
Sarah sighed. She had changed, too, she thought. Once Dun Rury had been enough; not so long ago she had known that fierce pride of possession and wanted nothing more. When had she changed, what more could she want? She did not know. She only knew on that soft day of early spring that fulfilment did not after all lie in bricks and stone and the memory of a dead man, and she remembered Adrian was coming home.
Had Kathy changed, as she had, she wondered, as she drove to Knockferry to meet the afternoon train. Kathy had not wanted to come to the station. She said she preferred to wait and watch for them from the windows of the snug. It was impossible to tell what Adrian’s return might mean to her. And Adrian, himself ... had he changed, too? Had the old ties been broken for all of them? Was he, perhaps, returning only to pack up and leave them for that other life which was beginning to claim him again?