“You could simply say Papa was a drunkard and that he’d been unkind to you.”
“Ned dearest,” said my mother coolly, “when I want your advice about how I should treat the younger children, rest assured that I shall ask you for it.”
My mother was in a great state of nerves during that difficult time, and Drummond asked me in private to make allowances for her.
Drummond was very good to my mother. His behavior was immaculate. He was living in the elder MacGowan’s stone house, which stood on the other side of the valley, and although he called at the Big House every day to see the estate books, which were kept in the library, he never spent the night and dined with my mother only twice a week. Before the servants he always addressed her as Lady de Salis. I was busy with my lessons during the week, but on Saturday morning he would take me for a ride around the estate and tell me what he had been doing and what he planned to do in the future. Once he even showed me some business letters he had written, but I think my mother helped him write those because they were always correctly phrased and spelled. He worked very hard and yet still found time for the children. My sisters had taken a great fancy to him, Eleanor soon overcoming her shyness and Jane even allowing him to hold Ozymandias, a great honor that I myself always took care to avoid like the plague. I don’t dislike cats, but Ozymandias was surly and always molted orange hair over my best suit.
John was the only one who remained indifferent to Drummond, but I attributed that solely to the fact that Drummond knew nothing of gardening.
“Drummond seems to be turning out better than I’d dared hope,” said Uncle Thomas during his autumn visit. “Perhaps we should encourage him to keep it up by giving him the money to rebuild his home. If some of his family came back to the valley he might have an additional motive for good behavior.”
Drummond was delighted by the prospect, but when he wrote asking his sons to visit him and discuss the rebuilding neither young Maxwell nor Denis replied. So Drummond instead discussed it with me, and the next Saturday we rode along the road to Clonareen to visit the ruins of his old home.
I was well at ease with Drummond by this time. He was the Drummond who had rescued me in America, the Drummond who had brought me home. It no longer troubled me that he had had MacGowan killed. MacGowan was bad, a villain who had deserved to die, and Drummond was good, a hero who deserved to live happily ever after with my mother. I felt much better now that I could see the situation so clearly in black and white. Everything was sane again. No more vertigo, no more confusion. Even my father had been put in his proper place—on the sidelines, far from my mother and me in the English garden of my uncle David’s home. He had left the nursing home in London in December and had spent Christmas with both my uncles at the country house that had once belonged to my aunt Marguerite.
“I’m glad he’s better,” I said to my aunt Madeleine when she called to give us the news, and it was then that my aunt had made her appalling suggestion of a visit.
I told her politely that I preferred not to see him, but Aunt Madeleine waved this aside.
“That doesn’t signify,” she said briskly. “We all have to do things we don’t like occasionally.”
My aunt Madeleine was a formidable woman. She was older than my father and much smaller; I doubt if she was even five feet tall. She had a round curving bosom, a soft seductive voice and a mind like a Colt .44. She also had marvelous ankles. I had seen them only once, when she had climbed into a carriage during a high wind, but I had never forgotten them.
“My father has no right to see me after the way he’s behaved,” I said, becoming nervous.
“My dear child,” said Aunt Madeleine, “it’s not for you to pass judgment on your father. God will do that ably enough when the time comes.”
We stared at each other. We were waiting in the drawing room while my mother brought the children down from the nurseries, and no one else was present.
“You have a duty to see him,” persisted my aunt.
“Well, I won’t,” I said rudely, in a panic by this time. Although in theory I was prepared to be charitable toward my father, in practice the thought of seeing him again made me feel ill—though whether from shame, embarrassment or anger I neither understood nor cared.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Edward,” said Aunt Madeleine.
No one ever called me by my full name. I hung my head mutely and stared at the carpet.
“Your father’s done some dreadful things, but he’s also known dreadful suffering. Having seen him so recently, I can vouch for the fact that he does repent very much for causing his children unhappiness. Need I remind you how devoted he is to you all? I can hardly think you’ve forgotten.”
“I don’t want him to be devoted to me,” I mumbled. A tightness in my chest made breathing difficult. “I want him to leave me alone.”
“That’s most un-Christian as well as unfilial! If you could bring yourself to forgive him you would find it easy to love him again.”
“I don’t want to love him!” I shouted at her. “I can’t love both him and my mother, I can’t do it, it’s too difficult, I must choose one or the other, I can’t bear to be torn in two any more—”
“Dear child, nobody’s tearing you in two!”
“You are!” I yelled savagely and rushed out of the room with my face awash with humiliating tears. This time I didn’t wait to bump into Drummond. I saddled a horse and went looking for him. Eventually I met him riding up the road from the Fooey River.
“I won’t see my father,” I said after I had told him what had happened. “I won’t.”
“Indeed you won’t,” said Drummond. “Your mother won’t allow it, and as she has absolute custody of her children there’s nothing your meddlesome aunt Madeleine can do. God save us all from muddleheaded, well-intentioned, interfering virgins!”
But to my horror Aunt Madeleine refused to take no for an answer. Soon she was requesting a private interview with my mother, and after they had quarreled sharply Aunt Madeleine left the dispensary in the sole care of Dr. Cahill and went to England to talk to my father.
I heard nothing more on the subject for a month, but just when I was feeling safe again the blow fell. Late one morning as I was drifting downstairs for lunch Drummond called to me from the library doorway.
“Come in here a moment, would you, Ned?” he said abruptly.
When I entered the room I saw that my mother was sitting in one of the high-backed chairs that flanked the marble fireplace. She looked very pale. Beyond her on the chimney piece the elephant clock slumbered below the portrait of my great-grandfather, Henry de Salis.
“There’s something we want to discuss with you,” said Drummond. He handed me a letter. “Read this.”
I recognized my father’s handwriting and shrank back.
“Go on.”
I tried to read. I read five lines before I realized I hadn’t understood a word. I went back to the beginning and tried again.
“Madam,” my father had written, and this glimpse of his implacable antagonism toward my mother made me resent him enough to read on without a qualm. “Since it has become obvious that you have turned the children against me and driven even Ned to regard me with enmity, I must tell you that I have no intention whatever of accepting my present estrangement from them. My health is greatly recovered now. I have touched neither wine nor spirits for nearly six months and have every intention of abstaining from them in future. Since this is so I am advised that the judge in Chancery in Dublin will rule on application that I am no longer unfit to have control of the estate. As you are aware, the trust set up for the administration was temporary and dependent on the state of my health, and once the judge has terminated the trust on my behalf there would be nothing to prevent me from returning to reside at Cashelmara to be with my children. You and your lover could, of course, live where you pleased, but if you attempted to take the children with you I would apply for the order of custody to be reversed. Sin
ce you would be living in proven adultery and I would be living in an exemplary manner, I think you would find that any judge considering the children’s welfare would this time be more inclined to lean in my favor.
“However, there are one or two matters which make this course undesirable for me as well as disastrous for you. First, I’m content here with David, and much as I miss my garden Cashelmara will always have too many sad memories of Hugh to make my return there comfortable. Second, I—unlike you—do have a genuine anxiety about the children’s welfare, and I’ve no wish to embark on a course which might upset them unnecessarily. So let me make this suggestion: Permit the children to visit me at regular intervals, and I shall do nothing to have either the trust or the custody order set aside. I shall even make this concession: I won’t ask to see the younger children before late summer if you send Ned to me for two weeks at Easter.
“Think carefully before you refuse my suggestion. As you know I can be very stubborn and this time I’m determined to get what I want.
“I would send my love to the children except that I’ve no doubt it would never reach them. I remain, etc. DE SALIS.”
I looked up. I saw the mute appeal in my mother’s eyes and realized with fright that she was terrified. I glanced at Drummond. He too was watching me intently. He was leaning against the huge desk, his arms folded across his chest. There was a small tear in his dirty riding breeches, and his neckcloth was tied so carelessly that I could see the dark hairs below his throat.
“This is your aunt Madeleine’s doing,” he said. It wasn’t until he spoke that I realized how angry he was. “She’s a meddlesome old witch and no mistake. What she needs is a good—”
He said what my aunt Madeleine needed. I had never before heard him use such language in front of my mother, and I was deeply embarrassed. My cheeks burned. I stared down at the letter again and tried to think what I could say.
“This hand he’s trying to deal us is no goddamned good,” said Drummond. “I can deal us a better one than that, but I’ll need all the help I can get to push it through. Your help, to be exact.”
My mother was looking at me in mute appeal again. I tried to speak but could not.
“You see why it’s no good, don’t you?” he was saying. “Even if your mother gives in to him and lets him see the children whenever he likes, there’s nothing to stop him turning around later and tossing your mother out of Cashelmara. To be sure he gives us his word he won’t do it, but how much is his word worth? Precious little, as your mother found out to her cost in the past. No, he’s posed us a problem and there’s only one solution: He’s got to hand the estate over to you, Ned, and it’s got to be done legally so he can’t have it back whenever the fancy takes him.”
“Your father would sign a deed ceding you the estate, Ned,” said my mother carefully. “Since Patrick has no real interest in Cashelmara he surely won’t object—particularly if we promise in exchange to allow him to see the children whenever he likes.”
“Understand?” said Drummond. “We deal him a hand that suits us all—he cedes the estate, we send the children. We get security, he gets what he wants. We’ll play it fair and square—except that he’s bound to be suspicious of any suggestion that comes from your mother, so we thought it would be best if the suggestion came from you. Don’t worry—I’ll tell you what to say. In fact, why don’t you sit down at the desk here and we’ll do it now? I’ve got the pen and ink ready.”
I sat down at the desk. My great-grandfather’s eyes watched me from the portrait on the wall. I picked up my father’s pen and dipped it in the silver inkstand that was engraved with my grandfather’s name. Around us the house was quiet and still.
“Start how you like,” said Drummond. “‘Dear Papa,’ or however you want to address him.”
I sat there looking at the blank paper. The ink began to dry on the nib.
“Ned?” said my mother.
I thought: I know I can trust him. He brought me home. He wants to help me. He loves my mother. I must have someone I can trust, and where would I be if I could no longer trust him?
I dipped the pen in the ink a second time and wrote, “Dear Papa.” That was when I knew I could write nothing else. I looked at the two words for a long time and then I laid down my pen.
“What’s troubling you?” said Drummond.
I couldn’t speak.
“Don’t you want to help your mother?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll go and see my father, just as he wants, and I’ll make him promise to let her stay here.”
“Sonny, his promise isn’t any good. Your mother’s going to worry herself crazy. Now pick up that pen and let’s get this finished. I know you want the best for your mother.”
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Tears blurred my eyes.
“Don’t press him if he doesn’t want to, Maxwell,” said my mother’s voice from a long way away. “I’ll write to Patrick myself.”
“It would look better if—”
“I know. But he doesn’t want to.”
I ran out of the room. I ran into the garden, my father’s garden, and he was there waiting for me, just as he always used to be, very kind and gentle, and his hand was warm and firm in mine. We walked across the lawn and I was so happy to be with him, but when we turned the corner of the fuchsia hedge I suddenly realized I was alone. I brushed my hand dizzily across my eyes, and that was when I knew I couldn’t have seen him because my eyes were blind with tears.
I shut my eyes, sat down and waited for the vertigo to pass. After a long time I was able to think: Drummond only wanted to do the best for my mother. That was when I knew I had recovered and that when I opened my eyes I would be able to see everything clearly in black and white again.
But that night I dreamed, and although the dream was in black and white everything was reversed so that black became white and white became black. I was back in New York, back among the worst memories of my life, and the trees of Gramercy Park were stirring gently in the evening breeze. I said to the man at my side, “I don’t want to go to the restaurant. I don’t want to have dinner with you,” but he only smiled and gripped my arm and dragged me on. We walked down the street and I saw the sign that said RYAN’S and there was a doorway. “I won’t go in,” I said, but he only smiled again and dragged me in, and there were the imitation Tiffany lamps, a dozen of them, huge bloated lamps in heavy sullen colors, and the white tablecloths, bleak as snow and stark as death. The man sat opposite me. He was ugly and cruel, but I couldn’t escape. I had to sit there listening to him, and as I listened his soft Irish voice recited an unending stream of hard, brutal, sickening truths. Finally I managed to run away. I ran and ran, but I had to stop to vomit, so he caught up with me, and when he spun me around to face him I saw—in my dream—that it was not the Drummond I knew at all. At first I thought it was a stranger, but then I saw the little Christmas tree in his hands and I knew who it was.
It was MacGowan. Drummond had become MacGowan. My mother had become my father. Everyone was interchangeable. Black and white no longer existed. Everything was red—scarlet—crimson—bloodshot—
I woke up screaming.
Fortunately no one heard. I would have died of shame if they had. Lighting my lamp, I turned it up as high as it would go as I waited for the dawn.
Yet even when dawn came the nightmare didn’t recede as nightmares usually do but remained with me in my memory to be dragged around, like some macabre ball and chain, wherever I chose to go.
II
“Dear Pudding-Face,” I wrote to Kerry Gallagher, my friend in Boston. “Thanks for your last letter. I certainly hope your father becomes Mayor. Please wish him luck for me in the elections. My father is better now, and I am supposed to go to England to see him at Easter. He says he will come home to Cashelmara if he doesn’t see us children, but that wouldn’t suit, so I am going to see him and my mother is going to ask him to give the estate to me so that he can’t turn my mother out. My mother
has gone to England to talk to my uncles about this. It’s a pity everyone is in such a muddle, but I expect it will sort itself out. I’m learning about Africa in Geography. It’s a peculiar place, even odder than America (ha!). I hope you have a nice Easter. Remember last year when we were both so poorly after eating all of Ellie-Mae’s pecan pie? They don’t make pecan pie here. Sometimes I wish I was in Boston. Please give my kindest regards to your father, your mother, Clare, Connie and Donagh. I remain your affec. friend, BLUEBEARD.”
The reference to Bluebeard was an old joke between us dating from the time I had expressed an antipathy to marriage and said I hoped no woman would ever lose her head over me. Kerry had drawn pictures of me walking up the aisle with half a dozen headless brides.
When my mother returned from England she told me she had promised to send the children regularly to visit my father, and my father in his turn had agreed to cede the estate to me. My mother hadn’t seen him, but my uncles had acted as intermediaries.
“My uncles didn’t mind the estate being ceded to me?” I asked. “After all, Papa didn’t have to do it, did he? He could have gone to court to get the custody order changed while still keeping the estate. He said so in his letter.”
“He also said in his letter he had no real desire to return to Cashelmara, and besides there was no guarantee that the judge would amend the custody order in his favor. And the scandal of another court case! Thomas and David both thought it would have been intolerable. They were glad to accept any proposal that excluded going to court, and in the end they persuaded your father to agree with their point of view.” She explained that the estate had been ceded to me by creating another trust to last until I was twenty-one, and she and my uncles were trustees, just as before.
“So Mr. Drummond got the deal he wanted after all,” I said. “I knew he would.”
“He only wants us to feel secure at Cashelmara, darling.”
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