“We shall soon have to engage another governess specially for her,” said Patrick, laughing, and at such times when we shared our pride in the children I knew that all my struggles were worthwhile and that no sacrifice was too great to make. “I only hope I manage to find a good tutor for Ned.”
“Get a Scots tutor,” said MacGowan. “Scottish education is second to none.”
“I don’t want Ned to have a Scottish accent!” said Patrick, teasing him, but MacGowan, who had no sense of humor, merely remarked that the accent of an educated Scot was minimal.
“Your father has a marked accent.”
“My father is an uneducated man.”
I never quite understood MacGowan’s relationship with his father. They worked well together, the old man regarding his son with grudging deference, and MacGowan was certainly a dutiful son, calling every week at his father’s house; but I had seen too much of Hugh MacGowan not to wonder whether a deep-rooted contempt might lie beneath his faultless good manners. He seldom spoke of his father; his mother, who was still alive in Scotland, was never mentioned. The only hint he gave of his past life with his parents was when he remarked to Edith after she had said something to annoy him, “I hope you don’t intend to turn into a nagging wife, my dear, because I assure you I despise henpecked husbands.”
However, as Edith herself pointed out to him smartly, he was hardly the sort of person to become a henpecked husband.
I had no idea whether Edith was disappointed in her marriage, but she didn’t complain, so I supposed that for the time being she was satisfied. Yet I noticed that MacGowan paid very little attention to her, even when she talked so intelligently about politics, and if I had disliked Edith a little less I might have felt sorry for her.
At Westminster the Irish Land Bill was being discussed ceaselessly, and when Parliament rose in August, Thomas and David came to Cashelmara to bring us firsthand news of London. Thomas was studying medicine in London by this time, and David, who was to go up to Cambridge in October, was busy writing not librettos but a detective story.
“I like writing stories even better than writing librettos,” he confided to me. “Wouldn’t it be jolly if I could get it published?”
“‘Extraordinary’ is the word you want,” said Thomas, who thought all novels frivolous. “Not ‘jolly.’ Sarah, does Patrick usually drink as much as this or is he simply in a convivial mood to celebrate the start of our visit?”
“He must be celebrating your arrival,” I said, smiling at him, but my smile felt stiff and awkward.
“Well, I wish he wouldn’t celebrate quite so hard. The amount of port he drank after dinner last night horrified me. I cut up a liver recently that had belonged to a down-and-out who had died in the casual ward of the Marylebone workhouse, and if Patrick could have seen the state that liver was in I’m sure he’d never touch port again.”
“Don’t be revolting, Thomas,” said David severely. “You’ve developed such a nasty habit of telling everyone your corpse stories. Personally, I’m not in the least surprised that Patrick’s drinking so heavily. I’d take to drink myself if I had to tolerate MacGowan’s company as much as Patrick does. I’m sorry they’re still such bosom friends.”
“So am I,” agreed Thomas. “My God, if I didn’t know Patrick as well as I do I’d say the friendship bordered on the unnatural.”
“What a beastly thing to say!” exclaimed David, so embarrassed by my presence that he blushed pink. But I suspected the idea wasn’t new to him.
“Oh, for God’s sake, I didn’t say it was unnatural, did I? All I said was that if we didn’t know Patrick as well as we do know him …”
But they did know him so very well. Patrick drank and acted his part, and I found myself drinking too as I acted mine. I had little glasses of Madeira at odd times during the day and always took an extra glass of wine at dinner.
“Sarah,” said Thomas, finding me alone by the decanter in the dining room on the day before they were due to leave, “what is going on in this house?”
“Nothing,” I said. I looked at the decanter. “I’ve been having headaches lately and the wine seems to help.”
“Have you seen a doctor? There’s a marvelous new drug for headaches nowadays, and … Sarah, is something wrong?”
“No—no, I simply worry about things too much. I worry in case we can’t get a tutor to come here and I worry in case the servants decide to give notice and I worry in case Nanny decides she can’t bear to live in Ireland any longer.”
“I do see that the political situation must be very nerve-wracking. If you could come to London—”
“No, I can’t. It’s impossible. MacGowan said …” I stopped, but it was too late.
“MacGowan,” said Thomas. “MacGowan this, MacGowan that. Always MacGowan. He controls every single item in this house, doesn’t he?”
“It’s for the best, Thomas. Patrick needs someone strong to organize his affairs.”
“I can’t believe it’s for the best that MacGowan should walk into this house as if he owns it and tell you and Patrick what to do.”
“I can’t talk about that, Thomas. You must talk to Patrick.”
But Thomas hadn’t quite enough nerve for that. Patrick was sixteen years his senior and the idol of his childhood, and although Thomas had enough courage to ask certain questions he hadn’t at that time enough courage to want to hear the answers. So nothing was said, and soon he and David went away to London with the promise that they would return for Christmas.
But they didn’t come back. They made an excuse. They had had a very special invitation from Marguerite’s best friend … Christmas in Yorkshire … didn’t see how they could refuse … they did hope Patrick and I would understand.
Patrick did understand and got drunk. I had stopped my surreptitious drinking after the boys had left, but Patrick, to MacGowan’s fury, had gone on. After the boys’ letter had arrived Patrick had drunk two bottles of port and MacGowan had found him in a stupor in his room.
“You bloody fool!” MacGowan yelled. Although my own room lay between Patrick’s bedroom and the boudoir I could hear every word he said. “Get up!” I heard blows being struck, but that made me feel ill, so I ran away upstairs to the nurseries. By some great stroke of misfortune George chose that afternoon to pay his annual call, and when I was summoned from the nurseries to receive him I was so distraught that he noticed at once that something was wrong.
“My dear Sarah, is there some trouble … anything I can do?” His voice was so unexpectedly kind that I looked at him with new eyes. I had always dismissed him as a crusty old bachelor who had as little use for Patrick as Patrick had for him, but now I saw that once his bluff manner was discarded he had a gentle face and shy, anxious eyes. “If there’s any difficulty … hope you feel you can confide … always thought you were such a splendid girl, so much better than Patrick deserved … don’t like to see a pretty woman upset.”
I was crying. It was because he said I was pretty. I wouldn’t have cried otherwise.
“Excuse me … quite overwrought … not myself at all …”
“Patrick must take you away from here. There’s too much stress. You must go to London, take the children. I’ll give Patrick the money if he can’t pay.”
“You’re most kind, but … we have to stay.” Mustn’t mention MacGowan. “Patrick says—”
“Patrick don’t have a mind of his own nowadays, if you ask me. Madeleine says it’s disgraceful how he allows himself to be pushed around by his Scots agent, and I think it’s worse than disgraceful. It’s a scandal, by God. It’s even worse than when that insolent puppy Stranahan had a free rein.”
“I can’t … it’s not my place to criticize …”
“Of course it isn’t. You’re a loyal and devoted wife to Patrick, anyone can see that. But all the same, I think something should be said to him. I’ll say it myself, if it comes to that. God knows I’ve never shirked doing my duty, no matter how unpleasant that
duty might be.”
“No … Cousin George … please …”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head any more, my dear. I’ll talk to Patrick.”
“No!” I shrieked at him. I was on the verge of hysteria. “He’ll think I’ve been complaining—there’ll be a frightful scene. Please, Cousin George, please, please say nothing!”
He did finally agree to hold his tongue, but I could see he thought I was misguided, and his compassion was stronger than ever.
“Always feel you can call upon me for help” were his parting words as he squeezed my hand. “All you need do is send word to Letterturk Grange.”
Strangely enough I did find his words reassuring. It made a difference knowing that there was at least someone who might help me if matters became intolerable, but meanwhile, as so often happened after a stormy episode, there was a lull in which life returned to normal. Patrick, bruised and subdued, gave up drinking, Edith developed a chill, giving me a week’s respite from her company, and the children began to talk longingly of Christmas.
For the children’s sake we always took an immense amount of trouble to make Christmas at Cashelmara a festive occasion. We decorated a fir tree in the hall, just as the Germans did, and Patrick spent hours making colored paper chains to hang on the nursery walls. Cook and the kitchen maids began to prepare a staggering array of cakes and puddings, and the largest goose was duly slain in the yard. I wrapped the presents, labeled them and placed them around the tree, where on Christmas Eve we would join the servants in singing carols and on Christmas morning unveil all the surprises in those tantalizing parcels.
After that the parson, Mr. McCardle, would arrive at Cashelmara and hold a service in the chapel before he returned to conduct the Christmas service for his Protestant parishioners at Letterturk. We held services in the chapel only twice a month now, to keep up appearances, but of course it was unthinkable that there should be no service on Christmas Day.
I still managed to enjoy Christmas that year because I spent all my time in the children’s company, and they were so happy and carefree and gay.
After Christmas came New Year’s Eve. I hated New Year’s Eve with its images of vanishing time and life slipping past into oblivion, and now when the future looked so bleak the last day of the old year seemed more unbearable than ever. I thought how different things would have been if MacGowan hadn’t disrupted our lives. Eleanor was two and a half, and I could be thinking of having another baby. There would be something to look forward to and I wouldn’t feel so crushed by a sense of waste and futility.
If I could only have another baby!
I continued to think about it. I thought about it endlessly, and soon it was an obsession. Perhaps I wasn’t in my right mind; perhaps all the strain of those past months had affected me more than I realized, but in the end I thought, Why not? I’ve kept my part of the bargain, so why shouldn’t I have a reward? How can MacGowan object when a new baby would keep up appearances so admirably? Why shouldn’t I have something to look forward to?
“No,” said Patrick. “Absolutely not”
“Why?” I tried not to cry.
“Because I have to pretend to enough people in the world already and I don’t want to have to pretend to any more.”
“But for my sake—”
“It would be quite wrong for us to bring another child into the world,” he said with that stubborn expression I knew so well. “You want a child for all the wrong reasons, Sarah.”
The immensity of my disappointment made me cruel. I said scornfully to him, “You only say you don’t want a child because by this time you probably couldn’t even beget one if you tried!” and he went very white before he turned his back on me and walked away.
It was less than ten minutes before the door of the boudoir opened again. I was flicking through the pages of a magazine, but I was far too upset to notice the pictures that flashed before my eyes.
“Don’t tell me you’ve had second thoughts,” I said bitterly without looking up, and then a shadow fell across the couch, and I knew it was MacGowan who had entered the room.
II
“Don’t look so alarmed, Sarah,” he said, strolling to the hearth and leaning one elbow casually on the chimney piece. “I come bearing good news. Patrick’s told me that for certain reasons you’re anxious to go to bed with him again, and I thought you’d like to know that I at any rate have no objection.”
I stared at him. He stared back, and for one brief moment I sensed his overpowering jealousy and rage.
“So Patrick’s changed his mind,” he said. “He’s going to spend a night with you after all.”
When he saw me struggling to understand, he smiled. “Wasn’t that what you wanted?”
“I wanted a baby,” I said. My lips were stiff.
“Of course you do. And you were worried in case Patrick was incapable of giving you what you wanted.”
There was utter silence.
“Come, Sarah, there’s no need for you to worry about that, you know! Worry about conceiving, if you wish—haven’t you always found conception difficult?—but don’t worry about Patrick. I’ll see that he’s capable.”
I tried to speak. Nothing happened.
“Still worried? Well, of course, it is unlikely that one night chosen at random could result in a pregnancy, but never mind, there are other nights, aren’t there, and if you’re so obsessed by this ludicrous idea for another child …”
“No,” I said.
“You’re not obsessed? Ah no, I understand. You mean my imaginative solution to the problem doesn’t appeal to you. What a pity! I like the idea myself. When one is obliged by society to live what that society is pleased to call a ‘normal Christian life,’ the promise of unconventional amusement tends to give rise to the most disproportionate excitement. Bizarre, isn’t it? One wonders what would happen in a society in which there were no rules to break. Doubtless everyone would quickly die of boredom.”
“Stay away from me.”
“Not while you tear up Patrick’s self-respect and fling it in his face, you bitch!” All trace of blandness was wiped from his face, and I saw the violence shimmer in every line of his frame.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
“Oh yes, you did,” he said. “I know your kind—a little sarcasm here, a cutting remark there. You destroy a man by inches.”
“I—”
“Shut your mouth. You’ve had your say, and one day soon, by God, I’ll make you pay for it.”
There was no time to scream. He was gone almost before he had finished speaking, and the door banged behind him with such a blast that all the ornaments rattled in the alcoves and the curtains shivered in the gust of air that rushed through the room.
After a long time I stood up, found the paper knife in my writing-table drawer and slipped it under my petticoats until it lay hidden in the top of my stocking. I did feel safer after that, although I don’t know why, because I was sure I would never have the courage to use it, even in self-defense. I wanted to write to Charles, but I knew I mustn’t. I might be weak enough to beg for help, and if MacGowan intercepted the letter … No, that wouldn’t do at all. I had made a mistake, and now there was a crisis, but I would simply have to endure the crisis until it went away. MacGowan had threatened me often enough before, but he had never yet made good his threats, and there was no reason he ever should so long as I appeared suitably cowed. So that evening before dinner I apologized to Patrick in front of MacGowan, and then I apologized to MacGowan too, for safety’s sake, and Patrick said, embarrassed, that he didn’t want to talk about it any more.
I locked my bedroom door every night for the next two weeks and even dragged the chest across the doorway as a barricade, but no one disturbed me. Presently my fear ebbed. I stopped carrying the paper knife in my stocking, and the next day when Patrick told me he would be spending that night at Clonagh Court I decided there was no need to lock my bedroom door.
Th
at was a mistake. They came back. It was long after midnight, and I was enjoying my first deep sleep in two weeks. They came to my room, both of them, and once MacGowan had locked the door there was no escape.
At first I thought that MacGowan meant only to hold me down while Patrick raped me. I thought MacGowan’s mere presence would be enough to excite Patrick and humiliate me.
I was very naïve.
They lighted the lamp—or at least Patrick must have lighted it, because MacGowan was pinning me to the bed as I twisted and screamed. Patrick was drunk, not drunk enough to be unsteady on his feet but drunk enough to talk a lot in a loud voice. At first I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but then I must have stopped screaming, for I heard him say something about a demonstration. I didn’t know what he meant, but when I tried to ask him no words came.
That was when MacGowan said that I must stop thinking of Patrick as my husband and start realizing that Patrick belonged solely to him. Since I was apparently so determined not to recognize this they had no choice but to force me to face the truth.
“And the truth is that this is the only way I can go to bed with you now,” said Patrick. “The only way.” And the next moment it was he who was pinning me to the bed while MacGowan, moving behind him, tugged something from his belt.
It was a whip. It had an ornate silver handle that glittered in the lamplight.
Still I didn’t understand.
MacGowan was pulling at Patrick’s clothes, and the glitter of the whip was blinding. Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to scream again, but Patrick’s mouth closed wetly on mine and his breath was fetid against my nostrils. I wanted to vomit because the stench of liquor was so strong, but I couldn’t even retch. All I could do was listen to the whip. I could shut out the sight of it, but I couldn’t stop my ears, and although the blows never touched me I felt every one of them in Patrick’s shivers of ecstasy.
Cashelmara Page 49