“Edith, I can’t believe you really want to marry a man like that”
“Why not? I’m tired of being left out, passed over, pitied and forgotten! And I like Hugh. He’s the only man who’s ever given me credit for any intelligence. ‘I need a clever, exceptional wife,’ he said, ‘a woman capable of handling an unusual situation with the maximum of efficiency and discretion. I want a partner,’ he said, ‘someone I can trust, someone who can share my ambitions.’”
“He’s marrying you simply to conceal his relationship with Patrick,” I said.
“You’re quite wrong. He likes me just as much as I like him.”
“I should think it’s the idea of a rich wife that he likes. Your money would compensate him for the tedium of being obliged to share a house with you.”
“How dare you say such a thing!”
“Why not? It’s true. It is tedious to have to share a house with you. My God, I should know!”
“You wicked, evil-tongued slut!” shouted Edith. She was red in the face, and her protuberant eyes glittered with rage. “You’ll be sorry you said that!”
“And you’ll be sorry you didn’t stay a spinster,” I said. “God only knows what kind of a marriage you’ll have.”
She didn’t answer. She had already stormed out of the room, and as the door slammed behind her I began to tremble at the thought of her complaining to MacGowan.
IV
“That really wasn’t very sensible of you, Sarah,” he said. He entered the room without knocking, and the shock of seeing him so suddenly jerked me to my feet. The fashion magazine that had arrived that morning slipped through my hands to the floor, but I made no attempt to pick it up.
“Sit down,” he said.
I sat down on the edge of the window seat and stared at him mutely.
“If you want me to treat you with the minimum of courtesy,” he said, “you’d better mend your manners toward Edith.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“So you should be. You can apologize to Edith in the drawing room before dinner tonight, but don’t do it before Patrick and I join you. I want to hear your apologies for myself.”
“Yes.”
“And if you ever make the mistake of being so rude to Edith again …”
“I won’t.”
The door closed. He was gone, the unspoken threat lingering behind him. At last when I had stopped shivering I went to my bedroom, took a shawl from the chest and drew the folds tightly around me before I tiptoed downstairs. Patrick was in the garden. He had spent so many summer days there that the sun had lightened his hair, and in a moment of irony I realized that although he had always been a handsome man he was even more striking now at thirty-five than when he had proposed to me twelve years earlier. The change lay not merely in the fact that his physique was enhanced by his obvious good health and that his eyes seemed unusually blue in contrast to his sunburned skin. The difference ran deeper than that. He seemed to have a new self-assurance, and as I watched him working rhythmically his movements seemed not only graceful but full of the purpose he had lacked when he had been no more than an ingenuous and idle young man about town.
He was wearing his gardening clothes—old trousers and boots, a faded tweed jacket—and in his hands was a twig broom he was using to sweep the autumn leaves from the weedless expanse of lawn. Ned and John, each equipped with little twig brooms, were busy helping him, and on the stone seat on the far side of the lawn Nanny was knitting beside Eleanor’s perambulator.
“Patrick,” I said, “may I have a word with you, please?”
“Of course.” He was smiling at Ned, who was staggering across to the wheelbarrow with his arms full of leaves. “What is it?”
“A word without the children.”
“Papa, is it time to light the bonfire yet?”
“In a minute. I’m just going to show Mama the new sundial in the Italian Garden. You stay with John and make sure he doesn’t toss all the leaves out of the wheelbarrow.”
We crossed the lawn, and he led me up a path to a new clearing in the woods where stone balustrades enclosed a long deep pit that would eventually be filled with water. At the far end in the center of a paved square stood the block of stone that he had transformed into a sundial.
“What’s the matter?” he said, pausing to run his fingers over the familiar stone, and in that casual gesture I saw how calm he was, how relaxed and unconcerned. I was clasping my shawl around me so tightly that my fingers ached, and the air was so dank in the woods that I had begun to shiver again. The fallen leaves bore the faint, moist scent of autumn, and above us the sun was already sinking in the late-afternoon sky.
“Edith has told me about her engagement,” I said. I had to be very careful, since every word I said would be repeated to MacGowan. “I’m glad for her, since she’s so anxious to be married, and I hope she’ll find this marriage will give her what she wants. But, Patrick, you know Edith and I have never got along. Why, you yourself have said at least a dozen times how difficult she is! Yet now she’s talking of seeing a great deal of me after she’s married, and I just don’t know what I’m going to do. How am I ever to avoid quarreling with her? We’re so unsuited to be friends. I think perhaps Hugh doesn’t quite realize how unsuited we are.”
“Hm,” said Patrick, still fingering the sundial. I noticed a button was missing from his tweed jacket. “Well, you’d better do as Hugh says.”
“I know, but …” I stopped, kept calm, tried again. “Patrick, I’m being put in a very difficult position, can’t you see that?”
“Well, why don’t you talk to Hugh about it?”
“Because …” The nails dug into the palms of my hands. “Patrick, I’m terrified of Hugh. I think one day he’s going to seize on some excuse to hurt me, and I’m afraid he’s going to find the excuse he needs in my behavior toward Edith. I shall try as hard as I can to be civil to her, but … supposing I made a mistake—gave her offense, Patrick, you wouldn’t let Hugh hurt me, would you? I mean … you don’t hate me enough for that?”
“Of course I don’t hate you!” he said, astonished, and laid a gentle, comforting hand on my arm. “And I don’t see why you should be so worried about Hugh. He wouldn’t hurt you unless you deserved it. He’s very fair and just, and … well, I trust him to do whatever’s right. He’s awfully sharp, you know, and not at all the kind of person who makes mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes,” I said. I was beginning to feel ill. I had to lean against the sundial to support myself.
“Oh, if only you weren’t so prejudiced against Hugh!” he exclaimed with a mixture of irritation and impatience. “If only you could see him as he really is! He’s so clever and interesting—and he loves the land, just as I do, although he doesn’t know much about flowers. Trees are his great interest, and he’s made some marvelous suggestions for my topiary. In fact, he’s the only person who’s ever really understood about my garden. We talk about it for hours and hours, and … Sarah, you’re not listening.”
“I must sit down for a moment.”
“But why can’t you understand that your view of Hugh is distorted? Why can’t you admit it? It’s foolish to be so obstinate!”
“You’re the expert in obstinacy,” I heard myself say, but he did not answer, and presently when my dizziness had passed I looked up and found I was alone.
It was very quiet.
After a long time I went back to the lawn. Nanny had taken John and Eleanor indoors, but Ned was helping Patrick stoke the bonfire. I watched them, and when Ned waved I thought, What am I to do? But there was no answer, only Ned’s bright smile and the acrid tang of smoke, and at last, seeing no alternative, I returned to my room to dress for dinner.
Chapter Six
I
IN DECEMBER THOMAS AND DAVID arrived to spend Christmas with us, but since they had problems of their own, neither of them noticed immediately that anything was wrong. Thomas wanted to leave Oxford and study medicine in Lond
on, and David, who was eighteen, wanted Patrick’s permission to visit the famous opera houses of the Continent. After that he would go up to Cambridge and write librettos while he studied English literature.
“But, David, librettos—the stage—is it really suitable?” I asked, worried, but Patrick said firmly, “I should do exactly as you wish, David, and if your librettos ever match the standard of W. S. Gilbert, I’d be awfully proud of you. Have you ever thought of translating the Johann Strauss operas into decent English?”
“But he’s so difficult to translate! How do you translate a song where all the characters simply stand around singing ‘Dui-du’?”
“Good God!” exclaimed Thomas fervently. “Thank heavens I at least have had the sense to choose a practical profession!”
“But, Thomas—medicine!” I could not help saying anxiously. “It’s hardly very aristocratic. What would your mother have said?”
“I think she would have been very pleased,” said Thomas. “She always encouraged my interest in anatomy and pathology. I know medicine is a middle-class profession, but I don’t care, and as for leaving Oxford without a degree, I don’t care about that either. What’s the point of giving up two more years of my life to obtain a piece of paper which will be worthless to me? I must study either at London or at Edinburgh. Oxford’s no use to me. It’s too old-fashioned.”
“I loathed Oxford,” said Patrick sympathetically.
“Then may I leave?”
“Why not? Do whatever you feel is best. I say, maybe Hugh knows about the medical school in Edinburgh. Why don’t you ask him about it?”
But Thomas never asked. After their personal problems had been so happily resolved he and David became more observant of the situation at Cashelmara and soon began to regard MacGowan with suspicion.
“You don’t really like him, do you, Sarah?” demanded Thomas.
I shrugged. “He’s Patrick’s best friend, so I must do my utmost to try.”
“But surely Patrick can’t remain entranced with him indefinitely!”
“Perhaps not,” I said, and indeed this was the hope that sustained me during my worst moments of depression. Most love affairs didn’t last. Why should this one be any exception to the rule? I would watch them daily for any sign of friction, but the only disagreement I saw occurred when Thomas and David left and Patrick for some reason began to drink heavily.
“You’re a fool to start drinking before noon,” I heard MacGowan say to him.
“You only say that because of that damnable Presbyterian upbringing you had.”
“I say it because I care about your health,” said MacGowan, and this was clever of him, for Patrick was sentimental enough to be touched by this show of concern. Handling Patrick was child’s play to MacGowan, and for a while Patrick did restrict his drinking to the evenings.
February came. Edith was so busy putting the final touches to the interior of Clonagh Court that I seldom saw her, and the wedding date had been set for the middle of March.
“Marriage may be the making of poor Edith,” said Madeleine during one of her calls to Cashelmara. She had been calling more frequently because she had at last succeeded in finding a new doctor to help her in the dispensary. Her success was all the greater since Dr. Cahill was a young man and had been trained in London as well as Dublin. “Of course MacGowan is most unsuitable, but Annabel married beneath her when she married Smith and so both her girls were set a poor example. However, I have every intention of being charitable in the circumstances, and it will certainly be pleasant to see Clonagh Court occupied again. I remember so well when my dear grandmother was alive …”
My thoughts drifted away. Madeleine often spoke of her grandmother, and Marguerite had once said the old woman had been an unfortunate influence. If only Marguerite had lived …
“And did I really smell whisky on Patrick’s breath when he kissed me or was it my imagination?”
“I … don’t know, Madeleine. I didn’t notice it myself.”
“Is anything troubling him?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Is anything troubling you?”
“No, Madeleine. Nothing.”
“You’ve been looking a little strained these past few months. I wondered …”
“It’s just that I find the task of housekeeping so demanding. There’s always so much to do.”
“Now that Patrick’s situation has improved you should engage a housekeeper.”
“No, we must save as much money as we can. The children … the future …” And I talked on and on about the future, because it was so much easier than to talk of the present.
For we lived in troubled times. I had been so wrapped up in my personal worries that I had found it difficult to pay attention to the troubles around me, but now for the first time in years I was surrounded by newspapers and continual discussions of politics. MacGowan watched public events closely, and Edith, whether through natural inclination or because of a desire to impress him, followed them as intently as he did. MacGowan, of course, had an ulterior motive. He and his father, who still helped him on the estate, dealt daily with a hostile, truculent tenantry, and every inflammable word uttered by Parnell, Davitt and Dillon stoked the fires of discontent. MacGowan’s job made it vital for him to know what was happening, and because of this I found myself hearing all about the Land League, Parnell’s organization bent on reform of the Irish land system, and all about Parnell himself with his band of sixty Irish members of Parliament at Westminster clamoring for Home Rule. Parnell, Dillon, Sullivan and the other leaders of the Land League had all been arrested the previous year and charged with conspiring to prevent a payment of rents, but in November after a twenty-one-day hearing the jury had failed to agree.
“A black day for us agents,” said MacGowan grimly later, and began to talk of the Boycott case. Boycott, an agent who lived less than forty miles from Cashelmara on the shores of Lough Mask, refused to accept the rents his tenants were prepared to offer, but when he began his evictions, he found himself shunned by the community to such an extent that he had to bring in volunteers from the north to save his harvest for him. A military guard had to protect the volunteers, and the cost of the entire disaster amounted to ten times the value of the crop saved.
“My God!” exclaimed Patrick, much alarmed by this inability to control a united tenantry. “Supposing that should happen here!”
“Impossible,” said MacGowan shortly. “Can you imagine the O’Malleys ever uniting with the Joyces for more than five minutes at a time? Besides, the Land League in this valley consists of no one but that ridiculous old secret society the Blackbooters, headed by that oaf Maxwell Drummond.”
It gave me such a shock to hear Drummond’s name on his lips that I barely heard Patrick warn him to be careful.
“After all, remember what happened to Derry,” he concluded anxiously.
“Derry Stranahan lived by his wits, not his fists,” said MacGowan. “If he’d believed in the value of less talk and more action he’d be alive today.”
“But Drummond had him killed, Hugh!”
“Damn it, Patrick, I could knock the devil out of Maxwell Drummond with one hand tied behind my back! All I hope is that one day he’ll give me the opportunity to try.”
It was said that altogether, counting the police as well as the military, there were seven thousand men keeping the peace in County Mayo at that time, and Cashelmara was on Mayo’s doorstep, just south of the border which ran along the summit of the mountains behind the house. No wonder the Queen, opening Parliament in January, announced that the social condition of Ireland had assumed an alarming character. That was an understatement, and when in February the House of Commons sat for a record sitting of forty-one hours to discuss a new bill for the protection of life and property in Ireland, we knew even Westminster was echoing with the clamor of rebellion. My few remaining friends in London wrote begging me to return to England before I was murdered in my bed, and I wondered
in alarm if I should take the children to stay at the house in St. James’s Square.
“What do you think, Hugh?” said Patrick.
“No, Sarah must stay here at present,” said MacGowan at once. “If you let your wife run away you’ll be telling the Irish that you’re frightened of them. She’s got to stay.”
“Very well, but maybe the children …”
“Patrick, if anyone’s going to get a bullet in the back it certainly won’t be the children. It’ll be me.”
I immediately began to pray for a timely assassination, but there was no bullet in the back, and on the twelfth of March MacGowan and Edith were married quietly in the chapel at Cashelmara and departed to live at Clonagh Court. As I had guessed, I was still far from free of them. Edith called every day. No watchdog could have been more tiresome, and she and Hugh continued to dine at Cashelmara at least twice a week. However, there was no denying that the situation had improved, and when in the spring Edith asked if she could accompany me on my few social calls I accepted the suggestion without protest. It was still impossible to entertain guests at Cashelmara, for our English friends shunned any idea of a visit to Ireland and our Irish neighbors were reluctant to travel after dark, but I did persist with the formality of calls. They provided a welcome change from the rigors of housekeeping, and once spring had arrived it was pleasant to escape from the house.
We traveled always with two armed footmen, and I never saw any of the peasants except at a distance. I never caught a glimpse of Drummond, but that didn’t matter because I seldom thought about Drummond now. For me he had died with Marguerite, and my friendship with his wife seemed as remote to me as those far-off times when I had journeyed every week to the dispensary in the hope of seeing him.
The summer passed. Ned’s governess gave notice, which pleased Ned very much, and Patrick advertised for a tutor for him. John celebrated his fourth birthday and blew out all the candles on his cake with pride. I still worried about his health, but there was no doubt that he had grown up very much in the past year. He could say real words now, not many, but he understood everything that was said to him. So did Eleanor. Even before her second birthday her chatter filled the nursery until I began to worry that she might be too precocious.
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