Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  My man was waiting up for me patiently, so I at once stripped and dived into my night shirt. By the time I had finished with the chamberpot behind the screen he had whisked away my clothes, so I dismissed him, to our mutual relief, and plowed over to the communicating door.

  I had expected to find the bedroom in darkness, but to my horror the bedside lamp was turned up high and Sarah was propped against the pillows with a book in her hands.

  “Where were you?” she demanded at once in a shaking voice.

  Oh God, I thought. I suddenly felt very tired and not a little befuddled. The pillows on my side of the bed gleamed at me invitingly.

  “You promised you’d come upstairs directly after dinner! I’ve been waiting for hours.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t notice the time.” I slid into bed and leaned forward to give her a kiss, but she turned her face away.

  “I suppose you were too busy gossiping with Mr. Stranahan!”

  “Well, why not?” I said, aggrieved. “He is my best friend. Do be quiet, Sarah, and let’s both go to sleep! I’m too tired to cope with tantrums.”

  “Tantrums! Aren’t I entitled to be angry? You’ve treated me abominably ever since we’ve set foot in this dreadful place!”

  “We’ll be leaving in a day or two.” I snuggled into the pillow and savored the luxurious texture of the fine Irish linen.

  “Not with Mr. Stranahan, I hope!” she said, sitting bolt upright in bed.

  Instinct told me that if I once admitted this I would be doomed to a sleepless night. Summoning all my energy, I sat bolt upright too and did my best to be masterful. “Sarah, you’re tired and overwrought,” I said severely. “Stop whining at me, put out that lamp and go to sleep.”

  “I’m not whining at you!” She flung her book halfway across the room, and I thought how beautiful she looked when she was angry. Her eyes glittered, her cheeks glowed and her hair, unplaited that night, streamed over her slender shoulders in a turbulent cascade. “How dare you say I’m whining at you!”

  “You’re whining, moaning and being altogether most objectionable,” I said, losing my patience with her. “Be quiet this instant!”

  She slapped me across the face.

  I stared at her. A second later she struck me again, and after a long silence I realized I was going to make love to her. I moved roughly at first because I was afraid she would fight, but there was no fighting. She lay back on the pillows and let me do as I pleased, and afterward she even took my hand and held it shyly as if to show me all was forgiven. I felt a deep rush of affection for her. Taking her in my arms, I held her so tightly that she gasped, and although neither of us spoke I knew we were both happy.

  So I had a good night’s sleep after all, despite my fears, and it was not until I awoke the next morning that I started to wonder how on earth I was going to tell her that Derry was coming with us to England.

  III

  As matters turned out I didn’t have to tell her immediately, for soon after breakfast a hastily scribbled note arrived from my brother-in-law Alfred Smith to say that Annabel had had a bad fall from a horse and could I come at once to Clonagh Court.

  Sarah looked sulky, as if poor Annabel had deliberately inconvenienced her, and said of course she was much too tired still to consider even the smallest of journeys. “I did hope we could spend the morning alone together,” she added, “but I do understand that if Annabel is injured seriously you must visit her at once.”

  I was too worried to pay much attention to her sulks. Alfred had not been explicit in his note, and I at once imagined Annabel with a broken back and less than an hour to live.

  “Come with me,” I begged Derry, in a great state by this time, and he said sympathetically that he’d ride to Clonagh Court with me, although it would be better if he went no nearer the house than the gates.

  So we set off together down the road to Clonareen, and despite all my anxiety I felt my spirits lift. It was a fine morning. The dew on the wayside grass sparkled, and my tenants smiled at me from their fields or from the doorways of their cabins. Derry pretended not to notice a soul, but after all he did have his dignity to maintain, and it was awkward for him since he had once been one of their number. I was too preoccupied by responding to my friendly reception to pay much attention to the looks which were thrown at him, although I do remember thinking it was a pity people had to be so jealous.

  Our journey was still proceeding in this mildly pleasant fashion when we rounded a bend in the road and saw ahead of us none other than the valley’s prize troublemaker, Maxwell Drummond.

  Derry always claimed that Drummond was descended from Scotsmen, and Drummond’s father had indeed come from Ulster, where many Scots have settled, but to me Drummond was Irish to the backbone, stubborn as the donkey that pulled his cart and a thousand times more aggressive. He had wide shoulders, wide enough to make the rest of his body look disproportionately thin, a thick neck and a broken nose; I thought he was quite the ugliest looking cove I had ever seen. His one redeeming feature was that he didn’t smell as much as he used to, for his wife, a schoolmaster’s daughter accustomed to more refined odors, was obviously strict in keeping a supply of soap in the house.

  He drew his donkey cart onto the verge to let us pass and gave me a peremptory nod. “Welcome home, Lord de Salis,” he said. He had a brogue as thick as sour cream, but he chose his words like an Englishman. “I hope you’ve come here to put your house in order.” And he gave Derry such an insolent look that it was a wonder Derry didn’t leap from his saddle and start thrashing him.

  But Derry was much too debonair to descend to such crassness. He merely yawned, made a great business of watching a cloud drift across the sky and said idly to me, “We’d best hurry, Patrick, if we want to reach Clonagh Court before the rain starts.”

  “I hope God’ll be sending enough rain to drown you, you bastard,” said Drummond, “for it’s no peace we’ll have in this valley till He does. Good day to you, Lord de Salis,” he added as an afterthought, giving the donkey a taste of the switch, and the beast began to plod forward past us along the verge.

  “Just a minute!” I said angrily. I wasn’t going to let him get away with insulting any friend of mine. “If you think Mr. Stranahan chose the thankless task of managing my affairs in this valley, you’re quite wrong! He has better things to do with his time than persecute people like you. He’ll be leaving with me for England at the end of this week, and—”

  “God save you, Lord de Salis!” cried Drummond, interrupting me with the most infuriating glee. “I knew you’d see the light of day and remove that villain from Cashelmara as soon as you returned! No son of your great and mighty father, may the Lord bless and preserve his memory, could have done other than that. I wish you joy of England, Derry Stranahan, but to be sure I’d rather set foot in purgatory than scrape even the smallest tip of my little toe on Saxon soil.”

  The donkey broke into a trot. The cart spun lightly away in a shower of mud that spattered Derry’s clothes, and I shouted a curse after Drummond, which he unfortunately failed to hear.

  “Damned impudence!” I yelled. Even my horse was dancing with rage.

  “Forget him, Patrick! Let him go to the devil and be damned, for he’s not worth your anger!” Derry was already smiling in contempt, and when I tried to protest he merely hunched his shoulders, turned down his mouth at the corners and said in Drummond’s brogue, “To be sure it’s doomed to eternal hell-fire he is, the black rogue, with not a soul to buy him a Mass from the priesteen.”

  I smiled too then—he was so clever with his mimicry—and for a moment nothing mattered because we were out riding together and the sun was shining and it was good to be alive.

  “Ain’t life grand?” said Derry.

  It was only then that I thought of death, just as he always did when life seemed especially good, and my anxiety rose once more as we rode on to Clonagh Court.

  The house lay on the southeaster
n tip of the lough half a mile outside the straggling settlement of Clonareen. At the eastern end of the valley there is a large expanse of lowland marking a break in the ring of mountains. The break in the circle is not visible from either Cashelmara or the western pass into the valley because of the spurs of the southern mountains, but the plain stretches beyond Clonareen to the shores of Lough Mask and the little towns of Letterturk, Clonbur and Cong. Clonagh Court, the dower house my father had built for his mother, stood on rising ground in the shadow of the mountain called Bencorragh and faced the plain. My grandmother had deliberately chosen this view because after years of living at Cashelmara she had declared she was tired of looking at the lough and the mountains.

  In the paddocks in front of the house a number of horses were grazing docilely. I wondered which of them had been responsible for Annabel’s fall, and suddenly I felt very much upset, for Annabel was really awfully jolly, and although I had never known her well (she had been grown up when I was still in the nursery) I liked her far better than my other two sisters, Madeleine and Katherine. I think she liked me too. In fact she had even said once that I was a much finer fellow than our brother Louis, which I thought was pretty decent of her because everyone used to talk of Louis as if he were a child saint. But Annabel would have had no time for child saints. She was much too honest and sensible for that.

  Reaching the house, I tethered my horse to a convenient tree and fended off the half-dozen dogs that were barking furiously around my shins. The front door was open—it always stood open at Clonagh Court—and I saw my brother-in-law Alfred Smith was already hurrying to meet me. He wore a patched jacket, filthy riding breeches and no necktie of any description. His short dark hair stood on end, reminding me of a hairbrush.

  “Christ,” he said. “I’m bloody glad to see you. Come in.”

  “Is she …”

  “No, she’s not dead, but she’s concussed something shocking. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, Danny and Millie and me have made her comfy as possible, but she needs someone else to look at her, and how the hell do I get hold of a doctor when there’s no dispensary for God knows how many miles? Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Millie can’t go, and Danny’s rheumatics is so bad he couldn’t even get on a horse unless he was lifted by a rope and pulley, and I don’t want to go because I want to stay here with Annabel. Christ, you should see her. She just lies there, pale as a lily,” said Alfred with a startling venture into poetic language. “I can’t stand to see her so quiet-like and dead to the world.”

  “I’ll ride to the dispensary at once,” I said, glad that there was something I could do.

  “Well, I know you’re on your honeymoon, but maybe if you could send someone … Then there’s the girls. Clara and Edith. They’re in such a state, poor little things. If you could say a word to them—they’d be ever so happy to see you, I’m sure.”

  It’s an ill wind, as they say, that blows no one no good. I had a word with my nieces, and after I had given my handkerchief to Clara I suggested they both spend a day or two at Cashelmara, where my wife would keep them company.

  “But we couldn’t leave poor dearest Mama!” cried Clara, who was a nice girl and very tenderhearted.

  “Why not?” said Edith, who was the exact opposite of her sister in every respect and always seemed as cross as a bear with a sore head. “She left us for years. Why shouldn’t we leave her for a day or two? Besides, she’s not dying, and at present she doesn’t know whether we’re here or not.”

  “Oh, you’re so hard, Edith!” exclaimed Clara reproachfully, but when I said my friend Mr. Stranahan was at the gates to escort them to Cashelmara she followed Edith upstairs very quickly to pack her bags.

  I hardly needed to ask Derry if he was willing to fulfill the role of escort. The girls, accompanied by their old nurse, who still looked after their clothes, jogged off in the pony trap and Derry rode beside them with an expression that would have suited any self-respecting cat confronted with a bowl of cream.

  Their departure left me free to find a doctor. No one seemed to know where the nearest dispensary was, although the housekeeper thought there might be a doctor at Cong. That was nearer than Westport or Galway, but it was still thirteen miles away, and finally I halted at Clonbur to make inquiries from Willie Knox, the local squireen.

  I must say Knox was very obliging. As soon as he heard what had happened he offered to ride himself to fetch a retired doctor at Letterturk, and since I could trust him not to stop at a wayside shebeen, get drunk and forget his mission (as many an Irish servant would have done), I accepted his offer and rode back to reassure Alfred that help was on the way. I took a look at Annabel, but she was still unconscious and had a nasty gray-white complexion that I found most upsetting.

  “I’ll come back later,” I told Alfred, “but I think meanwhile I’d better go back to Cashelmara and help the girls settle down.”

  “I wish your sister was here,” said Alfred. “The nurse, I mean, not the lady at Duneden Castle.”

  That struck me as being a good idea. “I’ll write to Madeleine,” I said, “although by the time the letter reaches London Annabel will probably be on her feet again.”

  “Either on her feet or in her coffin,” said Alfred bitterly and kicked at a table leg to relieve his feelings. I remember liking him for the first time when he did that because I had always thought, in common with everyone else, that he had married Annabel for her money and now I saw that perhaps he really might have been in love with her after all.

  I was starving by the time I reached Cashelmara and felt I could have drunk at least a gallon of beer to quench my thirst, but to my horror I found a most unpleasant reception awaiting me. Sarah was on the verge of hysterics because I had inflicted the girls on her without warning, MacGowan was glowering in the hall as he waited to give in his notice, and last but not least my cousin George de Salis of Letterturk was dancing up and down the saloon like a turkey cock as he demanded to see me without delay.

  IV

  I dealt with George first. I had no choice. I was scooped into the saloon before I had the chance to escape.

  “You’ll ask Stranahan to leave, of course,” he said as soon as he could. “You’re not going to harbor him under the same roof as your innocent young nieces.”

  “For God’s sake, George!” I protested. “The girls are chaperoned by their old nurse as well as Sarah. You surely can’t think that anything improper could happen.”

  Unfortunately Cousin George could. “I happen to know for a fact that Stranahan has designs on Clara.”

  “But you surely don’t think he’d seduce her!”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past him,” said George darkly. “Look here, Patrick, you’ve no choice. That rogue’s got to go.”

  “Don’t dictate to me like that!” I shouted at him. I’m normally a placid, even-tempered fellow, but it was half past two and I’d had no lunch and my favorite sister was at death’s door and I simply wasn’t in the mood for Cousin George. “You’re not my father, so stop talking to me as if you were, you interfering old mule!”

  He goggled at me as if he were a goldfish hauled from his bowl. Then he exploded. He said I was “ungrateful,” an “insolent young puppy,” and he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I came to a “deuced rotten end.” He was glad my father wasn’t alive to see the “shambles” resulting from my “prolonged neglect of my duties.” God only knew what a “disappointment” my father had found me.

  “That’s a bloody lie!” I yelled at him. “My father was proud of me! The trouble with you is that you’re jealous—jealous because your father was the younger son and mine was the elder, because I have Cashelmara and Woodhammer and all you have is that rat-infested hovel at Letterturk!”

  “How dare you say such a thing!” He was purple as a hyacinth. “My concern for Cashelmara springs from the purest of motives!”

  I laughed in his face.

  “Very well!” he shouted at me. “If you won’t take advice I’ll hold my t
ongue and you and young Stranahan can go to the devil as fast as you please!”

  Derry at this point would have made some devastating witticism, but I was too exhausted to care that I hadn’t had the last word. As soon as George had stormed out of the house I collared Hayes, told him to bring beer and sandwiches to the library and collapsed into the chair behind my father’s desk.

  Hayes turned up ten minutes later with a tankard of ale, a carefully sliced loaf of bread and a plate covered with dollops of butter and cheese.

  “For God’s sake, Hayes, isn’t there any cold meat?”

  “There was a wondrous fine chicken leg, my lord, but no one’s seen it in a whileen. My lord, Ian MacGowan would see you now, if you please.”

  “Find that chicken leg,” I growled, attacking the bread with a single-minded concentration that excluded consideration of all other subjects, and Hayes fled.

  When he dutifully returned some time later he reported that the chicken leg had vanished from the face of the earth. He even had the gall to mention fairies. After that, having a craving to talk to someone hard-headed and practical, I demanded to see MacGowan. “And bring me more beer!” I yelled wrathfully after Hayes as I wondered, not for the first time, how any Englishman could live in Ireland and retain his sanity.

  MacGowan marched into the room, bid me a sour good day and told me he wished to leave. With a great effort I repressed the urge to reply, “Go and good riddance” and instead sank my teeth into a mushy hunk of cheese. Why the Irish can’t make decent hard cheese is a mystery known only to themselves.

  “My lord,” MacGowan was saying, “Cashelmara is not big enough to contain two agents, the one undoing all the other’s hard and loyal work. It’s not my place to criticize you for appointing Mr. Stranahan to a position of authority here. I may only say that he has made my position untenable. Therefore with your permission, my lord, I respectfully submit my notice and will leave at your earliest convenience.”