He stopped again. I was gripping the edge of the bed and waiting for the dizziness, but it never came. The knuckles of my hands were white.
“I’m sorry, Ned,” said the man. “I know you were fond of him once. I know this is a shock for you.”
I suddenly realized I was by the window looking out. It was raining very hard outside.
“Please ask Nanny to tell John and the girls,” I said.
When I said nothing else he answered, “I will. Would you like me to stay with you for a while?”
I shook my head.
But he didn’t go. After a long pause he said, “If you’re thinking …” But he stopped. Then: “I’ll be in room fifteen if you need me,” he said and went out, closing the door softly behind him.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and thought about cirrhosis of the liver. After some unknown time I thought: Of course it would have had to be arranged so that there was no mark on the body. Too dangerous otherwise. Clever about suggesting an illness that often kills drunkards. No difficulty about Dr. Cahill signing the certificate of death. No autopsy.
I wondered how it had been done. Common knowledge my father was drinking again. Something in the poteen probably. A servant? Cousin Edith must have had at least a cook and a handyman. Yes, of course she did, for Seamus O’Malley had told me only the other day that his uncle had been caretaker at Clonagh Court. O’Malley. Drummond’s kin. Of course.
I tore a piece of paper from my English composition book, found a pencil stub and began to write.
“Dear Uncle Thomas and Uncle David, I have reason to believe …”
I stopped. Wait. Think. Be careful. What about my mother? In any denunciation of Drummond, how could she possibly escape? And she had been at Clonagh Court on the very day my father had drunk himself into a stupor; she had probably gone there without Drummond’s knowledge. How horrified he would have been when he had found she had unwittingly placed herself in a dangerous position! If poison were ever found in the body, the police would immediately suspect my mother, and maybe Drummond would even go scot-free.
Tearing up the letter, I burned it to ashes in the bedside candle tray.
After a long while I wondered if my father really had died of cirrhosis of the liver. It was possible. I knew what happened to people who stood in Drummond’s way, but there was such a thing as coincidence. I tested the theory, probing it. My mother had been in desperate straits, Drummond would have done anything to help her, and then my father, coincidentally, had died.
So much for coincidence.
I was quite calm. I thought I would feel dizzy and confused but I didn’t, so I was able to consider the situation rationally. Murder was wrong, but it would be even more wrong if my mother were convicted of a crime she didn’t commit. I didn’t want to protect Drummond, but I had to in order to protect my mother. No choice. Besides, if I were to be honest, wasn’t it for the best that my father was dead? He had caused my mother a great deal of suffering in the past and had died while bent on causing her a great deal more. I was sorry he was dead, of course; that was only fitting, but when all was said and done he had really been no use to anyone, least of all me. It was true I had been fond of him once, but that was over. All fondness had been destroyed by his disgusting behavior, and now there was no need either to grieve or to dwell upon the past.
I lay awake all night thinking of him.
I thought of the book he had given me about the Knights of the Round Table. “Oh, Papa, how nice you would look in a suit of armor with a crusader’s cross on your chest!” I had exclaimed, and he had laughed. “I’m no hero, Ned,” he had said. I could so clearly remember him saying that. “I’m no hero.”
I cried a little then but didn’t know why. It didn’t make any sense. If only I could make sense of it—and I was afraid of going to sleep in case I dreamt of the Tiffany lamps.
We went back to Cashelmara. My mother was very distraught, and Dr. Cahill called each day to see her. After my uncles arrived from England the funeral was arranged to take place at the end of the week, and I saw the two men who had helped my father in the garden disappear up the Azalea Walk to dig the grave.
“Very sad,” everyone kept saying. “Inevitable for a man of his habits, perhaps, but very tragic.”
At dawn on the day of the funeral it occurred to me that perhaps there was some proof that Drummond had committed the murder without my mother’s knowledge. He might have written to her, mapping out a plan, and when my mother rushed home from Dublin in horror to stop him she had failed to arrive in time to stop my father drinking the poisoned poteen. This theory would explain why she had been in such a hurry to see my father and why she had left him so abruptly. They hadn’t quarreled at all; he had become ill in her presence and in a panic she had rushed away.
If the letter was still in existence—which seemed unlikely—it would be in the Carlton House writing table in my mother’s boudoir.
After dressing quietly I left my room and padded around the gallery above the hall. I saw no one. It was still too early for the servants to be up, and I knew my mother would be unlikely to rise before eight, but I had to be careful not to disturb her because the boudoir was next door to her bedroom.
The writing table, highly polished and elegant, stood in the corner. Tiptoeing over to it, I fingered my way through all the drawers, but it was only when I found nothing that I remembered the secret drawer and reached for the hidden spring. My mother had shown me the drawer when I was small and had allowed me to hide things in it.
The spring clicked. The drawer eased open. By this time I was convinced I would find nothing that could possibly interest me, so it came as a great surprise when I discovered the letters. They were folded neatly together and tied with red ribbon, but they weren’t from Drummond to my mother. They were from my father to me.
They were letters I had never seen, letters he had written to me when I was in America, letters my mother had kept from me but for some reason had never brought herself to destroy. Perhaps she had planned to give them to me when I was twenty-one, as if they were some bizarre heirloom. However, that hardly mattered now.
I sat down on the chaise longue, and while my mother slept in the room next door I read every one of those letters.
One of them in particular imprinted itself indelibly on my mind. “Maxwell Drummond, who deals out murder and violence as casually as other men deal a hand of cards …”
My father had known all about Drummond.
I flicked through the letters again. “I know you’re very young … hard for you to understand … wanted only to be honest with you … ever your most affectionate and devoted father …”
Putting all the letters together again, I retied the red ribbon around their yellowing edges and put the bundle back in the drawer. Then I went out.
I walked across the lawn into the woods. It was dark in the Azalea Walk, but above me the sky was lightening and a solitary bird was starting to sing.
I reached the chapel but didn’t go in. Instead I walked past my grandfather’s fine marble headstone, my fingers trailing lightly over the deep engraving, and skirted the mounds that belonged to my great-grandparents, who had died long before I was born. I walked to the corner of the churchyard and then I stopped on the brink of the open grave to look back.
It was very quiet. Even the bird had stopped singing.
I listened. There was no sound to hear, but I listened to my memory. After Drummond had talked to me beneath the Tiffany lamps in that New York restaurant I had wiped all thought of my last conversation with my father from my mind, but now the Tiffany lamps which had hidden my father from me month after month, year after year, were dissolving, and as at last I saw beyond them to the truth I had been too afraid to face, I knew I would never dream of those lamps again. The barriers had crumbled, my memory was opening into the past and I could hear my father telling me again about his friendship with Hugh MacGowan.
I had misinterpreted what he had sai
d, but now, with the Tiffany lamps dissolved and Drummond’s brutal explanation no more than a distorted echo, I heard my father’s explanation afresh.
Better to face the truth, no use trying to be something one can never be, impossible for him to make my mother happy …
I wanted to tell him I understood, but there was no time, because he was already talking passionately about all the things that mattered to him—his children, his garden, his home.
The memory of his voice blurred. I found I was no longer listening, for now I was thinking of Drummond—not the Drummond I had trusted but the other Drummond, the man who had cheated my father out of Cashelmara, deprived him of his garden and those he loved, schemed to live off my father’s land with my father’s money while he slept with my father’s wife. I tried to remember my father being dishonest, but I couldn’t. He had admitted he was foolish with money, and he had even admitted to me that he was a bad husband because he couldn’t love my mother as a husband should. He had had weaknesses—yes, of course, but he had never lied about them. It hadn’t been his fault that I had been too young and stupid to understand when he had told me about MacGowan. At least he had tried to tell me; that was enough.
And suddenly I thought: That was a very brave thing to do.
It occurred to me to imagine myself afflicted by that loathsome act of God and trying to explain my affliction to my son. But it was beyond my imagination. I couldn’t conceive of ever having the courage, and it was then I thought: No wonder he needed to drink. No one can be brave all the time.
I looked down into the grave that lay waiting for his coffin, and suddenly my feelings toward my father were so clear that it amazed me to think that they could have been so confused for so long. For my father was indeed a hero, not an unreal hero who existed only in the pages of a child’s storybook but an ordinary man who was honest when most men would have lied and courageous when most men’s courage would have failed them. I no longer gave a damn that he had been a drunkard and a pervert; that didn’t matter. For my father had loved me and he had been honest with me, that was all that mattered, and one day …
One day I would make amends for having turned my back on him for so long.
Chapter Four
I
AT FIRST I HAD no idea how I might make amends to my father, for since my mother was in such a dangerous position it was no use talking melodramatically of avenging his murder, but later after considering the possibilities I decided the best way to make amends would be to oust Drummond from Cashelmara. The only trouble was that I didn’t see how I could take such a step at that time without hopelessly antagonizing my mother. It was true that the estate was now mine beyond any shadow of doubt, but I was still a minor and all the powers remained vested in my trustees. In theory Drummond could be dismissed from his position by my uncles, but in practice … My mother would object and the fighting would start again. The thought of more fighting repulsed me. Anything, even doing nothing, was surely better than that, but I thought that when I was twenty-one and my own master I would be able to suggest tactfully to my mother that she and Drummond might live elsewhere.
Since it was too much to hope that she might have tired of him by that time I would have to buy them a small country house in some place where they could live discreetly without embarrassing the girls. Eleanor would be almost grown up by then, and it would be a shame if my mother ruined her chances of finding a decent husband. I would give my mother a moderate allowance, employ lawyers to manage her financial affairs and refuse to receive Drummond at Cashelmara. That would take courage, of course, but if I were as old as twenty-one it was unlikely that I’d be afraid of anyone, even a murderer. Meanwhile, I would simply have to bide my time. There was nothing I could do except bury my head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich and blot all thought of the murder from my mind.
The funeral took place. John had an asthma attack and was obliged to stay in bed, and the girls weren’t at the chapel either because Nanny said Eleanor was too high-strung and Jane was too young. I was there. My mother wept all the way through the service, my uncles were ash-white and my aunt Madeleine talked afterward about the will of God. Cousin Edith came but said not one word to my mother, and the next day she returned to Scotland. Her sister Clara, who wrote to my mother once a year, informed us later that Edith had settled down in Edinburgh and was interesting herself in the propagation of higher education for females.
After the service we found Drummond waiting patiently outside to take my mother back to the house, and when she saw him she did manage at last to stop crying.
“Poor Sarah,” said Uncle David to Uncle Thomas. “It’s hard to remember all those years when she and Patrick lived happily together … still a little fond of him perhaps despite everything … after all, if a woman has borne a man four children there must be some feelings nothing can erase.”
But Uncle Thomas was too busy thinking about Cousin Edith to reply. “Thank God Edith didn’t stay,” he said to me in private after the small cold luncheon was finished. “Do you know she actually told me that she thought Patrick had been murdered and that Sarah was to blame? My God, that woman would say anything against your mother! It’s disgusting.”
My fear must have shown itself in my expression, for he added hastily, “Of course I told her to be very careful. Statements like that are actionable as well as being damnable lies. There’s no need for you to worry, Ned. I doubt if we’ll hear from her again.”
I managed to say, “She couldn’t demand an autopsy, could she? I know they wouldn’t find anything, but the scandal would be so bad for my mother.”
“Quite unnecessary to have an autopsy,” said Uncle Thomas, who, being a doctor, was familiar with such matters. “No suspicious circumstances. Dr. Cahill thought one should be conducted just as a matter of form, but Madeleine said it was pointless and I agreed with her. As you say, the only purpose it would serve would be to create more scandal for your mother, and this family has suffered quite enough from scandal during the past few years.”
“Dr. Cahill … he didn’t have any doubts about the diagnosis, I suppose?”
“Good God, no! Of course he was away at Cong at the time and didn’t actually see your father, but Madeleine said there was no doubt at all, and she’s had a lot of experience with cirrhosis of the liver at her hospital. I’d trust Madeleine’s judgment absolutely, and if she had no doubts I have none.”
After a pause I said, “I see.”
Uncle Thomas said suddenly in a low voice, “Ned, if I thought for one moment that Drummond was responsible for this I would arrange with the appropriate authorities here for an autopsy and say to the devil with the scandal. But I don’t see how he can be. It’s not just that he was at Cashelmara all day in full view of the servants. It’s not even that it would have been difficult for him to get his hands on a toxic substance. It’s simply that he would never have arranged such a thing and then allowed your mother to visit Clonagh Court at what would have been a most crucial time. I’ve talked it over with David, who fancies himself a great expert in this field on account of all those detective stories he reads, and he agrees with me. He also made an interesting point which I hadn’t thought of. He said in his opinion Drummond wasn’t the Borgia type. Guns, yes—but poison, no. So you see, bearing all that in mind, we have no alternative but to confirm what we originally suspected—that Patrick died a natural death.”
“No alternative,” I said. “Yes, of course.” I was so relieved I could hardly speak; my eyes even filled with tears. For Uncle Thomas had succeeded in restoring my faith in the possibility of coincidence, and when I saw that my father might indeed have died a natural death I stopped asking myself how I could endure the years until I reached my majority. I would no longer have to wake each morning with the knowledge that I was sharing a house with my father’s murderer. I would no longer have to be so fearful of an autopsy and I would no longer have to worry about my mother’s danger. Life could be almost normal again
. Of course I would still have to get rid of Drummond one day out of respect for my father’s memory, but that could wait till later.
I felt as if I had emerged from some appalling nightmare, and in my first surge of happiness I hardly paid any attention when Mr. McCardle, the Protestant chaplain from Letterturk, approached me with the offer of spiritual help.
“It occurred to me that on this occasion you might welcome a little religious guidance,” he said in his ugly Belfast accent. “The death of a father is always hard for a young man, and since your mother—alas!—is not a regular churchgoer and your only aunt is a papist …”
Since I was in such a happy mood I listened politely. I even consented when after his long sepulchral homily about the life everlasting he offered to give me the lessons necessary to prepare me for my confirmation.
“I shall call once a week and give you two hours of instruction,” he said, beaming at me, and I said, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” and beamed back.
It was only after he had departed that it occurred to me that I had no desire whatsoever to be a fully fledged member of the Church of Ireland. I hated the dreary hour of matins once a month, and although I had always disliked the dark desolation of the little chapel, my father’s funeral service had turned mere dislike into loathing.
But I didn’t want to dwell on the funeral. I was still too relieved and happy.
“Ned, you never play with us any more,” complained John that afternoon. He had made a startlingly quick recovery from his asthma.
“Who cares?” said Jane, cuddling her nasty orange cat. “I don’t want to play with him anyway.”
“Oh, Jane, don’t say things like that!” pleaded Eleanor, looking up from her book.
“I’ll say just what I like,” said Jane, glowering at me. “Come along, Ozymandias my dear. We’ll go and find Mama. Present company don’t suit at all.”
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