Cashelmara

by Susan Howatch

  I remember thinking very clearly, as if I were speaking the words aloud: This is where I take my stand. This is where I stop looking the other way.

  V

  It was a question of priorities. I thought about that all the time I was writing to Uncle Thomas. I did love my mother, but I had to put Kerry and the baby first. My mother would suffer greatly, but she was only an accessory after the fact, and Uncle Thomas had been convinced that a good counsel would secure her acquittal. After the trial she could come back to Cashelmara for a while until she had recovered from the ordeal, and then I would establish her as gently as possible at Clonagh Court “Dear Uncle Thomas, I am writing to ask you to disregard every word I said in my last letter and to beg you to return to England without delay …”

  It never occurred to me that I might wait another three months until Uncle Thomas returned in September. I had waited too long already, and there wasn’t a moment to lose. A murderer who has killed twice could kill a third time, and if I did nothing now I would be no better than an accessory before the fact. I had to act, and besides, I could no longer live beneath the same roof as the man who had killed my father and uncle.

  “… I am convinced that Uncle David was poisoned …”

  I tried to explain why I had lied in my previous letter, but my explanations made no sense to me now, and I saw I had been in such a state of shock following Uncle David’s death that I had been incapable of rational action. I had simply wanted to postpone the consequences by pretending to myself that the consequences didn’t exist.

  I finished the letter. The next morning I rode to Leenane to deliver it to the mail car. Afterward I felt weak, as if I had expended an enormous amount of energy on some Herculean task, and when I arrived home I would have gone to my room to rest if Jane hadn’t waylaid me in the hall.

  “Oh, Neddy, the horridness thing has happened—poor Ozymandias is deathly sick and no one will send for Dr. Cahill, no one understands, no one’ll help!”

  I soothed her as best I could before going to her bedroom, where the wretched animal was stretched out in his cat box. It was obvious he was dying. There was a glazed look in his eyes, and he was breathing with difficulty. The stench of cat vomit was so appalling that we had to retreat to the corridor.

  “It’s the rat poison,” said Jane, tears still streaming down her face. “I knew no good would come of it. It’s still lying around in little saucers in the attics, and I knew poor Ozymandias would think it was some sort of milk if he ever escaped up there. I don’t see why rat poison was needed anyway. I think it was a dreadful insult to my cats—as good as saying they were too stupid to catch mice, and they weren’t, I know they weren’t. Uncle David was supposed to have complained about the mice, but he must have been mistaken, because I haven’t seen a mouse in this house since Ozymandias was a kitten.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Are you sure the rat poison was bought while Uncle David was here?”

  “Of course I’m sure! Do you think I’d forget when my cats were so insulted? It was three days after Uncle David’s arrival, but there was no poison in the house when he complained, so some had to be fetched from the dispensary. Aunt Madeleine always keeps poison there because she has trouble with mice, but that’s her own fault because she won’t keep a cat. If she had a cat like Ozymandias—”

  “Jane,” I said, “who fetched the poison from the dispensary—do you remember? Was it Flannigan? Or O’Malley? Or was it … Mr. Drummond?”

  “Oh no, it wasn’t Mr. Drummond,” said Jane earnestly, her small tear-stained face uptilted to mine. “He was always so nice about my cats and said how clever they were at catching mice. No, it was Mama who said we needed the poison, and she went all the way to the dispensary herself to borrow some from Aunt Madeleine.”

  Chapter Nine

  I

  I THOUGHT: I’LL THINK about it later. Later I’ll think about what it all means.

  I knew there would be a simple explanation, but at present I was so tired I couldn’t think what it was. Later, when I thought about it, I would probably marvel at its simplicity and wonder incredulously how I could have been so obtuse. Later, but not now.

  Ozymandias died, and from some safe place a long way away I saw myself organize a little funeral. I dug a grave in a secluded corner of the shrubbery, John nailed together a cross, and Eleanor wrote on it in charcoal: OZYMANDIAS. 1885–1891. R.I.P.

  The children chattered at the graveside. I could hear them, but I was such a long way away and their words seemed foreign to me.

  “It would be wrong to grieve forever. I’m too young to go into seclusion, but when I die you’ll find ‘Ozymandias’ engraved on my heart.”

  “There wouldn’t be room on your heart, Jane! ‘Ozymandias’ is so much longer than ‘Calais.’”

  I had searched the attics earlier and found that all the saucers of rat poison had been removed except one, which had obviously been overlooked. “And it would be wrong to blame Mama for a housemaid’s carelessness,” I heard myself say in the distance.

  “Well, I don’t blame her, but…”

  The children started arguing again. I told Jane on no account to mention the poison to my mother, since it would be so painful to her to realize that she had had a hand, no matter how innocent, in Ozymandias’ death.

  I didn’t want my mother to know I knew about the poison from the dispensary.

  “Yes, we must spare Mama. Think how terrible she would feel if she knew.” That was Eleanor.

  “She’d never forgive herself,” agreed Jane, dwelling moodily on the thought. “Very well, we’ll spare her.”

  The next thing I knew I was in the library. I was alone and my mind was empty.

  I couldn’t think at all.

  A long time passed. When dusk began to fall I thought: Of course she’s quite insane.

  That made it easier somehow, like thinking of appalling vices in terms of acts of God. Insane. Not responsible. Only to be pitied and helped.

  I sat down behind the desk, lighted the lamp and tried to work out what had happened. I thought first of my father. Why had it never occurred to me that my mother had killed him? She was the one with the motive, not Drummond. Of course Drummond must have known about it … afterward. No, I wouldn’t whitewash Drummond. He was a murderer too. Perhaps he hadn’t killed my father or my uncle, but he had killed MacGowan, I was certain of that. Anyway, it was because of Drummond that my mother had been deranged enough to kill to keep him and her children. He was just as much to blame as she was, perhaps more, and I was going to see he took the blame. I didn’t know yet how I was going to manage it, but if I thought hard enough I was sure I could invent a plan.

  I thought for a long time.

  The first problem was to save my mother. It was no good thinking that her insanity would be a defense in a court of law, because legal insanity was not the same as medical insanity. There had been a precedent set, the McNaghten case, which had said that everything depended on whether the accused knew that what he was doing was wrong. Uncle Thomas had told me about it once and had said that it was a harsh rule and a number of doctors disapproved of it. It was possible my mother was legally insane, but I doubted it. Certainly it would be too great a risk to let her stand trial, so there must be no trial and I would have to bend those Saxon laws, as Drummond might have said, to carve out a just solution.

  It would all have to be absolutely legal, of course. An accident? That would be very difficult. Self-defense? That would be even more difficult, for how could I ever provoke Drummond into making a lethal attack on me? But perhaps it didn’t have to be me. Perhaps it could be someone else.

  I toyed with a number of schemes for some time.

  Whatever scheme I chose had to be foolproof, and afterward I must know exactly what to say to clear myself and my mother and put the blame squarely on Drummond. I had to be very careful and think of every eventuality.

  After a while I realized it was quite dark outside, and I still had no
idea how I was going to get hold of a gun.

  MacGowan had had a gun. He had been armed with a shotgun at the time he had been killed, but a revolver of his had turned up later and Drummond had pocketed it. I knew this was true because Drummond had shown the revolver to me. At one time I had been interested in guns, and when we had been living in America he had taught me how to shoot.

  I wondered what he had done with MacGowan’s gun. He could have given it to one of the O’Malleys, but I had never heard from any of my O’Malley friends that a relative of theirs had fallen heir to Hugh MacGowan’s revolver. Perhaps Drummond had kept it as a bizarre souvenir of his enemy. That would be in keeping with Drummond’s character. But where did he hide it? Probably not in his apartments. He would want to keep it clear of my mother and the prying eyes of his new manservant. And I knew it wasn’t in the locked cupboard in the back passage with his own firearms. But it had to be somewhere at Cashelmara. Which room did Drummond particularly enjoy using?

  My great-grandfather Henry de Salis smiled shyly at me from his position over the chimney piece. The elephant clock ticked meaningfully, and the lamplight cast a soft, steady glow around the room where Drummond smoked his cigars and dipped into the estate books.

  The gun was in the bottom drawer of the desk. I took it out and held it in my hands. It was different from Drummond’s gun, but presently I managed to break it open and count the bullets. There were three of them. I closed it again, put it back and shut the drawer.

  My hands were trembling. I felt very ill.

  It was some time before I could recover myself, but at last I was able to think: There’s no choice. There’s no other way. Either she dies or he dies, and if I leave it to the law it’s my mother who’ll be hanged.

  The next day at dawn after a sleepless night I saddled my horse and rode to Clonareen to call on my friends among the Joyces.

  II

  “So this is the position,” I said to them. “My uncle Thomas will be returning soon from America to arrange for an autopsy on my Uncle David. That means they’ll dig up my uncle’s body in England and find out how he died. Doctors can do that. Now, I suspect that my uncle was poisoned, and—but do I have to tell you who’s responsible?”

  “That black villain Maxwell Drummond!” came the prompt chorus.

  I smiled but made no comment. Then I said, “Can you see how awkward it is for me? I can’t act until I have definite proof of the poisoning or in other words, until I hear the result of the autopsy. I’ve asked Uncle Thomas to send me a telegram from London as soon as the results are known, but that won’t be for some time yet. My letter will take at least another week to reach my uncle, perhaps longer, and it’ll take him at least two weeks to leave America and return to England. It could be as long as six weeks before he sends me the telegram, and until then I can do nothing. I must have positive official proof before I can act.”

  “We’ll kill him for you!” offered the foolish hotheads, bursting with eagerness. “We’ll act for you if your hands are tied!” And someone added helpfully, “All we’ll need is our passage afterward to America.”

  “No, no, no!” I said, shocked. “Of course you can’t commit murder! You could escape scot-free, I dare say, but think of the trouble I’d get into if the police heard I was responsible! A man in my position can’t commission murders as if he were ordering a dozen bottles of champagne, you know.”

  They looked disappointed.

  “We must do everything according to the law,” I said firmly.

  “Saxon laws are no use to us!” muttered my friends truculently, running true to form.

  “That’s only because you’ve never learned how to use them,” I said. “You’re always so bloody busy fighting each other that you lay yourselves open to tyranny from men like MacGowan and Drummond who bend the law to suit their own ends. If you’d take one moment to stop worrying whether a man’s name is O’Malley or Joyce, you’d realize that there’s no need for you to be persecuted martyrs. Now listen to me. I’m about to get rid of Drummond in a legal way. He’ll be accused of murder and removed, but meanwhile I simply want your help to see he doesn’t slip through my hands. There’s no need to murder him, can’t you see that? Why use a hammer to smash an eggshell when you can crack it with a squeeze of your fingers?”

  They were sufficiently intrigued to ask me how they could help.

  “I’m afraid Drummond might bolt for America once he finds out what’s in that telegram with the autopsy results,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll find out about it somehow, because a telegram isn’t as private as a letter, and no doubt he has his spies everywhere. So before he runs away I want you to help me arrest him. We’ll do it late at night when he’s in bed and unarmed, and then there’ll be no danger to anyone.”

  They were thrilled. Someone asked if they should ask the Brotherhood for guns.

  “Certainly not,” I said. “Guns have a way of going off by accident, and I don’t want anyone being killed. You can bring your knives, but they’re to be used only for self-defense. You’ll be arresting the man, not cutting him to pieces.”

  After the jubilation had subsided someone remembered the O’Malleys.

  “They’ll kill us when they find out we had a hand in the arrest!” said Paddy Joyce.

  “Nonsense,” I said. “If Drummond’s removed from this valley his sons will come back here, and I know Max and Denis Drummond well enough to tell you that neither of them care enough for their father to want his arrest avenged. And if his own sons won’t fight you, you can be sure his cousins won’t.”

  They were convinced. There was nothing more I had to do except swear them to secrecy and leave them with the promise that I would send for them when the time was right.

  Then I returned to Cashelmara to wait for Uncle Thomas’s telegram.

  III

  I received a letter from him first. It said he was returning at once to England to confer secretly with the Home Secretary and the police, and he would notify me by telegram as soon as there was any news.

  When the telegram finally came it said: SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED. LEAVING IMMEDIATELY FOR CASHELMARA. BE BRAVE. THOMAS.

  I burned the telegram and sent word to my friends.

  It was a Friday.

  I thought of cleaning the gun, but because I was unfamiliar with it I was afraid to do more than make sure it was in working order. Later I took it far over the hillside toward Devilsmother and fired a practice shot, and it was only then that I realized why it was different from Drummond’s Colt. It was a double-action revolver with a hammer that cocked automatically. I hoped I could shoot straight with it. There were now only two bullets left, and that would have to be enough, although I wished there were more.

  I walked back to Cashelmara.

  Later Kerry and I played with the baby in our apartments. The baby was lively and Kerry giggled a great deal. She asked me if I was feeling unwell, but I said no, just tired. I hadn’t slept the night before.

  “It’s terrible how you suffer from sleeplessness,” she said, concerned. “You should see Dr. Cahill and ask if he can cure it.” She had always slept soundly every night, but during the first weeks after the baby’s birth when he had to be fed frequently she had become aware for the first time of my erratic sleeping habits.

  Afternoon came. John was weeding the garden. Miss Cameron was supervising the girls’ sketching, and upstairs in the drawing room my mother was playing a Chopin waltz on the piano. Kerry and the baby were resting, and I was sitting waiting on the edge of the library couch.

  Later I dined with Kerry in our apartments, and after she had gone to bed I went to say good night, just as I always did, to my mother and Maxwell Drummond.

  “You look so very tired, Ned,” said my mother anxiously as I kissed her.

  “It’s hard work being a father,” said Drummond, and when I looked at him he smiled straight into my eyes.

  It was as if a chasm had opened at my feet. I tried to think of how much I had c
ome to hate him, but the hatred was falling away, dissolving before my eyes, and I saw then that it had been only an illusion, created by me to hide from myself all knowledge of my mother’s guilt. Again I struggled to recall my resentment, but all I could remember now was his kindness to me when I was very lost, his concern given when he needn’t have cared, his hand helping me grow up when everyone else had turned away.

  A voice in my head said, I can’t do it.

  But I knew I had to. No choice.

  “Good night, Ned darling,” said my mother, smiling at me.

  “Good night, Mama,” I said. “Good night, Mr. Drummond.”

  I left.

  At eleven o’clock they went to bed, and half an hour later I was padding down the back stairs to unbolt the scullery door.

  All three of them were there—Sean, Paddy and Nial.

  “Remember what I said about using the knives,” I said to them in the darkness.

  One of them said nervously, “Supposing he breaks away from us?”

  “Don’t worry. I have a gun, and I’ll be standing guard in the gallery while you arrest him. If he does manage to break away from you and come rushing out of the bedroom, he’ll find me waiting for him.”

  “But I thought you said—”

  “Well, I don’t intend to shoot him,” I said, “but it’s a poor sort of friend I’d be to you if I offered you no protection whatever if things went wrong.”

  “It’s not that we’re afraid of him, Ned,” said one of them carefully. “Sure we’re more than a match for a dozen Max Drummonds, but …”

  I knew they’d be no match for him at all, but I soothed them and said nothing to betray myself. Lighting one candle so they could see their way without stumbling noisily, I led the way up the back stairs. They were all breathing hard, and the faint odor of pig and sweat floated around me as we reached the gallery that ringed the hall.