The meal had revived me. I at once realized that MacGowan’s resignation was the last thing I wanted if I intended to leave soon with Derry for Woodhammer Hall. MacGowan might have his faults, but he could in his own fashion keep the estate running evenly. If he left I might have difficulty finding a replacement, and worse than that I would be obliged to stay at Cashelmara for God knows how long before the man could be engaged and instructed. Better the devil you do know, I told myself firmly, than the devil you don’t.
“MacGowan,” I said, “Mr. Stranahan and I intend to leave shortly for England. I’m sorry your position here has been difficult. That wasn’t what I intended, and I promise you that from today you can manage matters exactly as you see fit. I appreciate very much the efforts you’ve been making on my behalf during my long absence and would be pleased if you would accept an increase in salary of …” I hesitated. I suddenly realized I had no idea what his salary was. My lawyers in London sent him the remittance each month.
“My brother in Scotland who is agent for the Marquess of Lochlyall has twenty-five pounds a year more than I do,” said MacGowan with typical Scots cunning. He sounded so gloomy that not even his worst enemy could have accused him of being insolent in suggesting the figure before I did.
“Well, we’re not in Scotland, are we, MacGowan?” I said. “But nonetheless I think you’ve certainly earned an extra twenty-five a year.” As soon as I said that I realized he had expected me to beat him down to fifteen. To cover my confusion I said hastily, “Talking of your family in Scotland, how’s Hugh?”
Hugh was his son. He was a year younger than I was, and I had not seen him since he had left Cashelmara ten years before to attend a school in Glasgow. Shortly afterward Mrs. MacGowan, a fierce woman who looked as if she might have won a prize tossing the cabre, had left her husband and settled with relatives in Glasgow to be near her son. No one had ever known what MacGowan had thought of this arrangement, but remembering Mrs. MacGowan, one could only assume he had been relieved to see the last of her. He lived alone in a neat stone house on the other side of the Fooey River and was reported to keep a sack of gold hidden in the privy.
“Hugh is doing very well, thank you, my lord,” said MacGowan, almost sociable now that he had the extra twenty-five pounds adding a golden glow to his future. “My brother in Scotland has arranged for him to be an apprentice on the Lochlyall lands and is instructing him in the details of estate management.”
“How nice,” I said. “Do remember me to Hugh when you next write, won’t you?” But in fact I had never cared for Hugh MacGowan, whom I remembered as a tough, sullen little boy always spoiling for a fight or else sulking because I preferred Derry’s company to his, and I didn’t care a jot that I was most unlikely ever to see him again.
Meanwhile MacGowan was suitably appeased, Hayes reappeared with more beer and I was beginning to feel I might possibly survive the day. I still had to cope with Sarah, but to my relief I found she had calmed down and was doing her best to be hospitable to my nieces. Derry in turn was making a great effort to charm her, and although she still insisted on being cold toward him I did feel that the situation was not so far beyond redemption as I had earlier feared. Presently I found I even had a moment to write to Madeleine to ask for her help, and to save time I sent a stable boy to take the letter immediately to the mail car at Leenane.
Having dealt with all the crises at Cashelmara, I was able to return to Clonagh Court, but barely had I crossed the threshold when the housekeeper came sobbing down the stairs to tell me my sister had died.
V
I cried and Alfred cursed, but she was gone. At last I mopped up the tears which I had shed as furtively as possible, and Alfred stopped swearing. It was very quiet in the house after that.
“Have a drink,” said Alfred finally and produced a huge bottle of pale poteen.
“Thanks,” I said, so we sat down together and started drinking. He told me all about himself. He had had six brothers and seven sisters, and he thought he had been born in a stable on Epsom Race Course, but he wasn’t sure. His father had been a groom for old Lord Rustington (the father of Annabel’s first husband), and as Alfred was the oldest son he had followed in his father’s footsteps. Fortunately he had turned out to be the right size for a jockey, and after that he had been as happy as a king and had even been able to keep his parents from destitution in their old age. His brothers were either dead or in Canada, and his surviving sisters had all kinds of husbands and offspring—he couldn’t remember how many. He had never thought he would be a husband himself because he only liked tall girls and tall girls had always thought he was too small. Annabel had been the only woman who had ever been halfway decent to him. He had liked her so much he had even been prepared to overlook her being a baron’s daughter. He had never been cowed by the aristocracy anyway. He had rubbed shoulders often enough with them at the race course, and they weren’t anything special, just different.
“Have some more poteen,” he added as an afterthought and snatched my glass from under my nose.
“This is awfully powerful stuff,” I said hazily as he poured me another tumblerful.
“It’s bloody old,” said Alfred. “That’s why it’s so bloody pale. They make it in a shebeen not far from here, but I swore blind I’d never tell a soul where it is in case the magistrates get wind of it. Well, as I was saying …”
He said a great deal more, describing his early years in loving detail, and then I too embarked on my life history. We talked far beyond sunset, and finally after we had sworn eternal friendship with each other we fell asleep at the dining-room table. When I next opened my eyes Alfred was still snoring opposite me, the morning sun was high in the sky and if a priest had walked through the door I would immediately have asked for the last rites. In fact we were both of us so ill that I was quite unable to leave Clonagh Court that day and could only just manage to write a note to Sarah to say I had been obliged to stay with Alfred to make arrangements for the funeral.
The next few days were as confused as a nightmare and far more harrowing. I was relieved that Derry was at Cashelmara to look after the women, for it was as much as I could do to stay at Clonagh Court and look after myself and Alfred. I tried feverishly to make funeral arrangements, but when I despaired of ever being able to arrange anything in that godforsaken corner of the world I had no choice but to swallow my pride and ask Cousin George for help. He at least had the advantage of being a native of the district, and he did eventually succeed in organizing a proper English funeral. I have no prejudice against Roman Catholics, but Irish funerals are so awfully un-English, and I knew Annabel would have wanted to be laid to rest with the minimum of fuss.
The grave was dug in the little plot beside the family chapel at Cashelmara. The parson was summoned from Letterturk, where the nearest Protestant church stood, and a few select mourners gathered, the Knoxes of Clonbur, the Courtneys of Leenane and the Plunkets of Aasleagh. After a short plain service the coffin was lowered into the ground and the ordeal, to my great relief, was over.
I had quite forgotten the letter I had written to Madeleine, and when she arrived the next day I was astounded to see her. She had taken an outside car from Galway and had walked the three miles to Cashelmara from the Leenane road. Naturally after such an arduous journey she was even more offended that I hadn’t waited for her before holding the funeral.
“How was I to know you would even come?” I said, aggrieved. “You never wrote, and besides I had no idea how long my letter would take to reach you.”
“Well, it’s done now,” said Madeleine, annoyed, “but I must say I think the entire incident from Annabel’s fall to her funeral has been grossly mismanaged. Why didn’t you send for a proper doctor instead of that old man at Letterturk?”
“Because there wasn’t a doctor for miles!” I cried heatedly. “No one around here even knows where the nearest dispensary is!”
“That’s a scandal. An absolute scandal. I shall do somet
hing about it.”
“Do,” I said, relieved that Ireland, not I, was now being blamed for the tragedy.
“I shall open a dispensary in Clonareen,” announced Madeleine. “I’ll go to the Archbishop for money—I’ll even go to the Pope if I have to—and you can donate the land, Patrick, in Annabel’s memory and arrange for a little house to be built where I can treat patients.”
If that was the price I had to pay for placating Madeleine, I supposed I would have to pay it. Madeleine always looked as if she would never have the heart to say boo to a goose, but underneath that soft exterior she was as tough as old boots—as my father had discovered when he had tried to stop her becoming in turn a Roman Catholic, a nun and a nurse. For some reason which was beyond my understanding, Marguerite liked her the best of my sisters.
“Marguerite was most upset not to be informed of Annabel’s accident,” Madeleine was saying severely to me. “I went to see her before I left London. You should have written to her, Patrick! That was very remiss.”
“But Annabel wasn’t dead! I mean, when I wrote to you—”
“It must have been obvious that she was at death’s door. Have you written to Katherine?”
“Not yet”
“Patrick!”
“Well, I knew she’d be in London and would think it too far to come for the funeral.”
Madeleine gave me a withering look from her china-blue eyes and said politely, “I shall write to Katherine immediately. Will you be here if she decides to come to Cashelmara?”
“No, I’m going to Woodhammer,” I said thankfully. “Sarah and I are leaving the day after tomorrow.”
“But what are you going to do about Clara and Edith? You’re surely not going to leave them with that wretched Smith?”
“Alfred Smith,” I said angrily, “is a jolly nice fellow and I won’t hear a word against him.”
“The word ‘wretched’ was simply intended to convey commiseration. You’ll let him stay on at Clonagh Court, of course? Good. I’m glad you intend to be charitable. Now, about the girls …”
“They’re coming with us to Woodhammer.”
“An excellent solution! After all, no matter how much one would wish to be charitable one can only admit that Clonagh Court has been the most unsuitable environment for them, and besides I hear from George that it would be advisable for Clara to be separated from Derry Stranahan.”
“Derry’s coming with us to Woodhammer,” I said, too incensed to hide the fact from her. “And if he wants to marry Clara I certainly shan’t stand in his way.”
Madeleine was motionless. She looked up at me with an inscrutable expression and finally said, “I see. Well, of course, it’s not my business to interfere, but I can’t help but think you’re misguided.”
Half an hour later Sarah was rushing up to me in a towering rage to say that if Derry came with us to Woodhammer she would take the first boat back to New York.
VI
I did manage to pacify her, but it was damned uphill work, and I had to tell her at least twenty times how I would do anything in the world to make her happy.
“But I must help Derry just this once,” I pleaded. “If he can get things settled with Clara it would mean such a lot to him, and after all … well, he is my oldest friend, darling. Do try and understand.”
“But it’ll be months and months before he marries Clara, and we shall have to have them and that dreadful Edith with us for all that time!”
“But, darling, I thought Clara would be nice company for you!”
“Why can’t you be nice company for me?”
“Well, I’d love to be, but you must admit it’s been deuced difficult lately.”
“Don’t make excuses! You don’t love me. You can’t love me or you’d take me to Europe.”
“Woodhammer’s much nicer than the Continent,” I said, kissing her. “Wait and see.” I thought I was talking reasonably enough, but at length I realized that if I wanted to prove to her she was loved I would have to do more than talk. I made an effort; Sarah was coaxed to bed and all was well once more. At least by the time we left Cashelmara we were still on speaking terms.
I won’t attempt to describe the journey to Woodhammer. Suffice it to say that to traverse Ireland, cross the sea and journey by a series of irregular railway connections to Warwickshire with three females, a bunch of servants and a mountain of luggage is enough to prostrate any two men in the prime of life. Derry and I arrived looking very white around the gills, and I don’t think I’ve ever in my life been more relieved to see dear old Woodhammer slumbering in the sunshine amidst all that beautiful, orderly, civilized English countryside.
Home, I thought thankfully and only just managed to control myself from weeping for joy. Derry, who deplored sentimentality, kept giving me suspicious looks, but Lord, how good it was to be back at Woodhammer again! I had been born at Woodhammer, spent all my childhood there; it was part of me. People had entered my life and left it—parents, brothers, sisters, servants, friends—no one ever seemed to stay very long, but Woodhammer! Woodhammer was always there. Woodhammer was continuity, security, warmth, comfort and peace. Generation after generation of de Salises had lived and died there; I liked to think of that. It wasn’t that I was much of a one for history, but I enjoyed thinking of my ancestors growing up as I was growing up, encircled by Woodhammer’s mellow walls. When I was very young I had asked the people in charge of me where I had come from, and after being fobbed off with explanations about the stork I had at last heard the right words from the cook. She had said, “Why, you come from Woodhammer Hall, dear, just like every other little de Salis,” and from then on I no longer cared about storks. I knew who I was and I knew where I had come from. I was a de Salis of Woodhammer Hall, and Woodhammer Hall was the center of the universe. So when my father was away, as he was most of the time, and when my mother died after secluded years in which I scarcely saw her—when my nanny observed yet again that boys were more difficult than girls and my sister Nell became more distracted than ever—I no longer minded because I had my home and I loved my home with all the passion I never had the chance to lavish on other people.
And what a beautiful home it was! It was an Elizabethan house, shaped in the traditional E, with tall stately chimneys and weatherbeaten walls and odd windows that didn’t match one another. It faced an expanse of parkland laid out by order of one of my eighteenth-century ancestors, but behind the house was a fascinating Elizabethan garden with a maze to rival Hampton Court’s and several walled arbors where flowers bloomed throughout the summer and the grass was very smooth and short and green. There were other eighteenth-century features—an orangerie and a rather frightful gazebo—but I liked the Elizabethan garden best, and it was there that I first became interested in planting flowers and watching them grow.
And inside the house—oh God, I can see that hall still, panel after panel of exquisite oak, and beyond the huge fireplace with the crossed swords over the chimney piece, beyond the far corner of the immense Persian carpet, rose the staircase, my staircase, the finest staircase in all the world, the wood hand-carved by Grinling Gibbons with such a brilliance that I couldn’t look at it without experiencing that great thrill which always overwhelms me when I see a work of art so superb that no words can describe its splendor. It was that staircase which first inspired me to turn to woodcarving, and for a long time now I had enjoyed working with wood more than anything else.
There was a great deal of carving at Woodhammer, though none matched that splendid staircase. The paneled rooms were warm and serene, the maze of winding corridors mysterious, the priest’s hole endlessly fascinating. It was a wonderful place for a child growing up, and nothing pleased me more than to think that when I had children they would grow up there too.
Of course I never said that to my father because I knew he wouldn’t understand. He came from the one generation of the de Salis family who hadn’t been brought up at Woodhammer Hall. My poor father! He had been bor
n at Cashelmara, stark, terrible, band-new Cashelmara, chillingly symmetrical, architecturally perfect and spiritually null. Built in a wilderness, devoid of the sense of times past which I found so comforting at Woodhammer, impregnated by the damp mind-numbing Irish air and surrounded by the hostile alien Irish peasantry, it was at once terrifying, depressing and repugnant to me. Whenever I came home to Woodhammer after even the briefest of visits to Cashelmara I always wanted to go down on my knees and thank God for once more delivering me from evil.
Thank God! I thought fervently, running true to form, and as I looked at the servants drawn up in neat quiet lines, Ireland at last seemed as remote as a South Sea island and Cashelmara no more than an unpleasant memory fading to the back of my mind.
I was just shaking hands emotionally with the steward when someone came hurrying down the staircase. Glimpsing the glow of red hair, the flash of light reflecting on pince-nez and the sweep of a smart, dark, fashionable dress, I felt my heart lift in joy a second time.
“Marguerite!” I shouted. “What a marvelous surprise!”
But Marguerite didn’t even smile at me. She was looking at some point beyond my right shoulder, and just as I was realizing that my enthusiasm was unreciprocated, Sarah shot past me as fast as a fox breaking covert and flung herself weeping into her aunt’s outstretched arms.
Chapter Three
I
“THE SOLUTION,” SAID MARGUERITE firmly, “is quite obvious.” Dear Marguerite, she really did have the most splendid talent for organizing other people’s lives. “You and Sarah must have more time alone together.”
We were in the long gallery at Woodhammer an hour later. Sarah had been soothed and put to bed, the girls were also recuperating from the journey, and Derry had not yet emerged from his room. I had been about to seek sanctuary in a quiet corner, preferably in the attics among my woodcarving collection, when Marguerite had pounced on me, clutched my sleeve so that I couldn’t escape and maneuvered me to one of the sofas that faced the view across the terrace to the Elizabethan garden. There was no choice but to surrender. After listening gloomily as she talked of Sarah’s distress I cheered up only when she added, “Of course it’s not entirely your fault, I do realize that.”
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