Cashelmara
Page 79
I invited Drummond’s sons to my wedding, and to my surprise they both accepted. I was delighted to see Denis again, and we had an affectionate reunion, but I couldn’t decide what I thought of young Maxwell. He didn’t look like his father, yet he reminded me of him more than Denis did. He was well spoken and well mannered, but there was a toughness about him which was all too familiar and his pride made him touchy.
“Your father will be glad to see you,” I said when we met.
“I doubt it,” he said, “for I’ve nothing to say to him. I came back to show my respect to you, Lord de Salis, and to prove I bear you no ill-will. I understand you were very good to my brother when he was here.”
I asked him to call me by my Christian name as Denis did, but he wouldn’t. In spite of his effort to appear friendly he preferred to keep me at arm’s length until he knew me better.
“Do you think you might ever come back to the valley to live?” I asked him.
“Not while my father lives. I’d rather remain a clerk in Dublin.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to be your own master farming your own land?”
“I would. And one day when my father’s dead that’s exactly what I’ll be.”
“You’re very hard on your father.”
“Why not? He was hard on us. He talked so big, pretending he was an Irish hero, yet all he did was end up a criminal and leave his wife and children destitute. I’ve been the sole support of my mother and sisters for years, so I know what I’m talking about. He lost us our home and broke my mother’s heart and drove me into a bloody city job where I’m shut up all day in a stuffy room with nothing but big books and columns of figures. Then he comes home from America, lives off a rich woman—you’ll pardon me—and has the insufferable gall to attempt to send us a little of your money now and then. Believe me, Lord de Salis, I’ll never forgive him, never, and I hope he isn’t fool enough while I’m here to ask me to try.”
Whether Drummond was fool enough I never knew, but I did notice that soon he made overtures of friendship to me again, a gesture that could have meant he was having no success with his sons. Fortunately I was very busy with last-minute preparations and so I had plenty of excuses to brush him off.
The day before the wedding my uncles arrived reluctantly from England and found to their horror that Cashelmara had been turned into an Irish-American colony, while my mother was holding a stack of bills to prove my extravagance.
“But was all this expenditure prudent?” demanded Uncle Thomas, knowing it wasn’t.
“I didn’t want to spoil Ned’s fun,” said my mother, trying to be bold, but my uncles continued to look disapproving.
“I suppose at least some of the other guests will be people of quality,” said Uncle David dubiously to me.
“Certainly not,” I said. “I wasn’t going to invite all those snobs who have cut my mother in the past. But there’ll be plenty of people to wish us well, that’s all that matters to me, and it’s going to be the grandest wedding this valley’s ever seen.”
And so it was. The day of the wedding dawned mild and clear, the guests dressed in their finest clothes and all the hired carriages began to draw up outside the door. My friends came. I had given each one of them a horse for the occasion, and as I mounted my fine new black stallion I looked over my shoulder and saw everyone milling behind me, Sean and Paddy Joyce, Danny O’Flaherty, Liam Costelloe, Seamus, Brian and Jerry O’Malley, Denis Drummond and his brother Max. There was a great deal of shouting and laughter. The sun shone, and Cashelmara, shabby but serene, seemed radiant to me in that translucent winter light.
By this time I was drunk with excitement, and when I passed through the great gates my joy rose even higher. For all my tenants had come to meet me. Every yard of the way to Clonareen I heard their cheers ringing in my ears, and I swear no man on earth was ever half as happy as I was that morning when I rode down to the church from Cashelmara to wed my Irish-American bride.
Chapter Seven
I
MEN AREN’T SUPPOSED TO enjoy weddings, but I enjoyed every minute of mine. I loved the crowds and the excitement, the bright colors of the women’s dresses, the wreaths of evergreen decking the church, the smell of incense, the wavering candlelight and the long, lissome, fluid lines of melody that wound in and out of that nuptial Mass. I felt soaked in pageantry, drenched in the heady deluge of ceremony and celebration. Afterward at the wedding breakfast when I was drinking champagne I thought I could see into my distant future, and the view I saw was sumptuous and magnificent, a place far from the edge of darkness where I had grown up. One day, I thought, I would look back and the darkness would be no more than a memory.
One day. But not now.
I drank some more champagne. Mr. Gallagher advised me not to, but that didn’t matter, because the dancing was beginning and I set my glass aside. I had engaged a band from Galway to play waltzes, polkas and galops, but at last one of the O’Malleys found his fiddle and Cashelmara was Irish at last, from the marble floor of the circular hall to the domed roof above the gallery. All the Americans broke down and cried; the ecstasy was too much for them and they all swore they’d never leave Ireland again.
Some unknown time later I looked around for my uncles, but they were gone, and when I asked where my mother was I was told she had retired to the nursery to help put the children to bed.
I missed her, then forgot her absence. I was too busy talking to my friends and dancing with Kerry, and when at last Mr. Gallagher suggested it was time we left our guests to continue the party without us I made no attempt to look for my mother to say good night. I had eyes only for Kerry in her tight white satin gown, the long Irish lace of her veil streaming behind her as she danced. Kerry was all that mattered now. I tried to lead her away, but all the men had to claim a kiss from the bride so that in the end I had to sweep her off her feet and carry her through the crowd before she could be kissed to death. Everyone cheered. Halfway up the stairs I set her down, and we rushed up to the gallery together before pausing to wave. Everyone roared approval again. The cheers were still ringing in our ears as we raced hand in hand down the corridor to the west wing, and when we reached the door of our bedroom I swept her off her feet a second time to carry her across the threshold.
II
Afterward I knew exactly why no one had wanted us to marry while we were so young. Since they had presumably spent the first part of their youth in celibate frustration they would have found it maddening to watch while Kerry and I not only tried to escape such a tedious fate but actually succeeded in doing so.
“I wonder why more people don’t do it,” mused Kerry the next morning as we lay snugly in our old-fashioned fourposter and watched the red bobbles on the muslin curtains dance in the draft from the window. “Why isn’t it fashionable any more? It used to be fashionable. Think of Shakespeare. And even in this century people used to do it when they were our age. Pa says that before the famine everyone married at sixteen.”
“Oh, so it’s marriage you’re talking about!”
She giggled. “Don’t tease! Oh, Ned, just think, if you hadn’t stood up to Mr. Drummond like that you’d still be studying Latin with Mr. Watson and I’d still be learning French irregular verbs with Miss Cameron!”
She was very proud of the way I had stood up to Drummond. Not wishing to alarm her by describing every detail of my interview with him, I had simply said I’d got what I wanted by threatening the removal of my mother from her position of trustee and Drummond’s own dismissal from Cashelmara.
“… and now we can do exactly as we please,” Kerry was saying with a happy sigh.
We spent a great deal of time doing exactly as we pleased. I had decided to postpone the honeymoon abroad for some months, but for several days after the wedding we stayed in our apartments. I hadn’t wanted to postpone our journey to the Continent, but my uncles had explained to me before the wedding that I was in no financial position to consider an expensive honeymoon.
“Then I’ll wait till I do have the money.” My pride was at stake by this time. It was clear they thought I’d been childish in handling my money, and I wanted to prove to them that I wasn’t an immature spendthrift addicted to living beyond his income.
“Paris will be much nicer in the spring,” said Kerry when I explained shame-faced that I had had to change our plans. “And think what fun it’ll be to spend Christmas at Cashelmara with both our families!”
She was right, but in the new year the Gallaghers returned to America, and for the first time since the wedding we were alone with my mother and Drummond.
It was awkward, but I said nothing. I did wonder if I might suggest that my mother move to Clonagh Court, which had originally been intended as the dower house of the estate, but I knew neither she nor Drummond would want to go, and the thought of another confrontation with either of them was so repugnant to me that I refused to contemplate it. Besides, I reminded myself, part of my bargain with Drummond had been that I would leave him alone provided that I was allowed to marry Kerry. When I was twenty-one I would of course put matters right, but until then … It was easier to make excuses to Kerry and ask her to be patient.
“But why do you have to wait till you’re twenty-one to be your own master?” asked Kerry, puzzled. “Aren’t you your own master now you’re married?”
“Not according to the trust. It’s arranged so that whether I’m married or not it lasts till I’m twenty-one.”
“But I still don’t understand why your mother can’t move to Clonagh Court. After all, she can be trustee just as well there as here, can’t she?”
“She wouldn’t want to move without taking John and the girls, and it would be too complicated to uproot them at present.”
“But—”
“Kerry, please try and make allowances for my mother. She’s had a very unhappy life and she’s devoted to her children—”
“I know, I know,” said Kerry.
“—and she’s been a wonderful mother to me, and I simply can’t push her out of my house the very moment I get married. We must wait until the time is right, and the time just isn’t right at present, that’s all. I’m sorry.”
Kerry sighed. “Well, I guess I don’t truly mind so long as we can escape and be alone together like this.”
The escape was mine as well as hers, and soon we were locked tightly in our private world where nothing existed for me but warm thighs and curving flesh and moist, dark secret places where I could retreat for as long as I chose.
However, I did dislike my subordinate position, and my temporary lack of money served to deepen my frustration. When Drummond told me he was taking my mother to Paris for a holiday I was furious.
“Excuse me, Mr. Drummond,” I said before I could stop myself, “but if I can’t afford to take Kerry to the Continent I hardly think you can be in a position to take my mother to Paris.”
“Why not?” he said. “It’s my money.”
“You mean you’ve saved the money from your salary?” I said, trying to speak boldly but knowing I sounded merely hesitant and doubtful. I loathed speaking to Drummond about anything by this time and could hardly bear to be in the same room with him for more than two minutes.
“I won the money gambling with Phineas Gallagher,” he said easily, and I knew by instinct that this was his private reward for encouraging the wedding. I had benefited myself from Mr. Gallagher’s generosity, but I had already spent the first year’s income from Kerry’s marriage settlement, and I knew I would have to wait several months before I saw any more Gallagher money.
“You don’t grudge your mother a holiday, do you?” said Drummond mildly. “She’s worked so hard giving all your guests hospitality and seeing you had a nice wedding.”
“Of course I don’t grudge it to her,” I said hastily, willing to say anything to avoid a quarrel, but I did grudge it.
“Think how nice it will be without them for a few weeks!” Kerry said encouragingly, trying to cheer me up, but after they left there was trouble on the estate and my dissatisfaction only increased. Drummond had raised the rent of everyone in the valley except the O’Malleys, and there was great bitterness in Clonareen. The deputation sent to Cashelmara to protest was led by my two friends Sean and Paddy Joyce, and, greatly embarrassed, I told them that no one need pay the raised rent until Drummond returned.
“I’ll tell Mr. Drummond that everyone must be treated fairly,” I promised, my heart sinking at the prospect, but although I kept my promise when Drummond returned he didn’t listen to me.
“I had no choice but to raise the rents,” he said. “The estate wasn’t paying its way. As for the Joyces’ complaints about the O’Malleys, you can tell them if they come whining to you again that the O’Malleys are the poorest people in the valley, and it would be no use raising the rents when I know full well they can’t pay. And I don’t believe in evictions.”
This meant that he didn’t believe in evicting his kinsmen. He evicted some of the poorer Joyces when they couldn’t pay the new rents, and to make matters worse he then distributed their land among the O’Malleys.
The result was a faction fight. It took place on St Patrick’s Day, and afterward no one knew who had won, but there were six men maimed and at least a dozen bloody noses. The long-standing feud between the Joyces and the O’Malleys was flaring violently again, and soon someone wrote in whitewash on the walls of Cashelmara’s grounds MAXWELL DRUMMOND IS A SCOTSMAN—a terrible insult to any agent and particularly so to Drummond, who always went to great lengths to explain how Irish he was.
I didn’t know what to do. I debated whether to approach Drummond again, but I knew that would achieve nothing. He would brush me off just as before—except that this time he would probably be even more abrupt and tell me to run away and amuse myself with Kerry. It was no use appealing to my mother. I did think of appealing to my uncles, but I was so afraid that Drummond might somehow intercept the letter that when I did write I merely asked them if they would care to visit Cashelmara that spring. But they both declined. Uncle Thomas was too occupied with advanced medical studies, and Uncle David, who had just announced his engagement, was too busy with preparations for his spring wedding in London.
“I think it’s time we had our honeymoon,” I said to Kerry in April. By this time Cashelmara was so distasteful to me that I was prepared to go to great lengths to escape, and although I was still awkwardly placed financially I swallowed my pride and asked for a loan from Uncle Thomas.
A month later Kerry and I attended Uncle David’s wedding and then crossed the Channel for the start of our six-week visit to France, Switzerland and Italy.
III
I had intended to confide in my uncles when I saw them, but Uncle David was in such a state of elation that I hated to burden him with my troubles, and Uncle Thomas was so cool to me on account of the loan that his attitude scarcely encouraged any confidences. So I said nothing and later I was glad. What could I have said that wouldn’t have broken my agreement with Drummond and resulted in endless horrifying scenes? My uncles might have taken my cause to court, I might have been unable to stop them and then God only knew what Drummond might have done. And without hopelessly endangering my mother I couldn’t explain to my uncles why I was so frightened of Drummond. I was prepared to conceal the poisoning in order to protect her, but after all she wasn’t their mother, and they might think they had more of a duty to bring their brother’s murderer to justice than they had to protect her.
Better not to confide in my uncles. At least not until I was twenty-one and able to put my own house in order.
Uncle David had a dull sort of Protestant wedding with a stuffy reception afterward where everyone stood around and talked in affected English voices. I thought it was boring. The only bright spot was Uncle David
’s bride, who was pretty and gay and invited us to stay with them in Surrey later in the year. They were going to Germany for their honeymoon, which was a relief, because if they had been going to Paris we might have been obliged to travel with them, and by this time I couldn’t wait to be entirely on my own with Kerry at least a hundred miles from any member of my family.
I had never been to the Continent before and was at first too overwhelmed to remember any of my schoolboy French. But the Irish and the French have long been sympathetic to each other on account of their mutual enemy, and my French surname also smoothed our path through France.
“I like it pronounced the French way,” said Kerry, intrigued, and I agreed it did make a pleasant change. The English pronunciation used by my family rhymes with “chalice,” although all my life I’ve heard variations from outsiders.
It would have been possible for me to have obtained introductions to Parisian society, but neither of us wanted to be bothered with tedious dinner parties, so we merely stayed at the best hotel and explored the famous sights. The French thought we were most romantic, although I’m sure no one believed we were married.
Presently we journeyed to Switzerland, which Kerry decided she liked better, but I remained faithful to France even when we traveled south to visit Venice, Florence and Rome. I would have liked Italy more, but too often it reminded me painfully of the Italian garden at Cashelmara and my father talking enthusiastically about light and stone and cypress trees.
When we returned to Cashelmara in early September we found two letters waiting for us. Uncle Thomas had written to say he was going to America for a year, and my father-in-law, by coincidence, wanted us to come to Boston to visit him.