by Ian McDonald
September 12, 1913
Craigdarragh
Drumcliffe
County Sligo
Dear Mother Superior,
Just a brief note to inform you that Emily will not be returning to Cross and Passion School in future. Alas, the poor child has recently suffered a major breakdown of health, and after a spell in Dr. Hubert Orr’s renowned Fitzwilliam Street clinic, will shortly be returning home to Craigdarragh to convalesce at length. It will be many months, I fear, before Emily fully regains her health. However, her education will not suffer—a governess is being hired to school her in a style better suited to her particular disposition. May I take this opportunity to thank you, Reverend Mother, for what you have done in the past for my daughter: education truly is a gem beyond price in this modern world, and I know that the private tutor we will be hiring for Emily will build soundly upon the solid foundation laid at Cross and Passion. In parting, then, I would ask for your prayers for Emily’s safe and full recovery. As ever, my own thoughts and prayers are all for my misfortunate daughter.
Sincerely,
Caroline Desmond
September 24, 1913
Minutes of the A.G.M. of
The Royal Irish Astronomical Society
The minutes of the previous A.G.M. having been read, accepted by the House, and signed by Mr. President, the meeting then moved to the first topic on the agenda: a motion proposed by the Member for Temple Coole that the Member for Drumcliffe be expelled from the Society.
Proposing the motion, the Member for Temple Coole stated that the activities of the Member for Drumcliffe had brought the Society into disrepute both nationally and in the international astronomical forum. The Member for Temple Coole further deplored the member under censure’s blatant self-publicity and courting of the press, as well as his indiscriminate abuse of his privilege as a Member to use the name of the Royal Irish Astronomical Society. In order to recoup some credibility from the Sligo fiasco, the Member concluded, the Society had no other option than to dissociate itself forthwith from the Member for Drumcliffe and his activities.
Seconding the motion, the Member for Aghavannon said that the Member for Drumcliffe’s work had not been true to the high standards of mathematical and scientific rigour demanded of members of the Society; that in the persuance of his Project Pharos and his hypotheses on the nature of Bell’s Comet, he had done irreparable damage not only to the Society which had opened wide the arms of astronomical fraternity, but to Scientific Method as an entity, and that, for the preservation of what the seconding Member deemed “The Temple of Science,” the Member for Drumcliffe be expelled from the Society.
Mr. President then threw the motion open to debate from the floor.
The Member for Queen’s University agreed with the Member for Aghavannon that the science of astronomy itself had been brought into disgrace, and added that a motion of censure also be passed upon the Member for Dunsink, the then Secretary of the Society, for encouraging the Member for Drumcliffe to publicise his theories in the lecture hall of the Society in the first place.
The Member for Derrynane declared that any Member who openly associated himself with “mediums, ghost hunters, table tappers, ectoplasm swallowers, and other such charlatans” had no place in the Royal Irish Astronomical Society.
The Member for Elaghmore, while reminding the assembled Members that he had tried to keep an open mind on the veracity or otherwise of the Bell’s Comet controversy, deplored what he termed as the Member for Drumcliffe’s “dog-in-the-manger” attitude, in that, while freely associating himself with the name and intellectual stature of the Society, his intent had never been to share any possible glory with his fellow Members.
Member for Slane commented that the member for Drumcliffe had received an offer from the Irish Rugby Football Union for the lights from his floating pontoons. He trusted that the Member for Drumcliffe would take great gratification in knowing that future generations would thank him for providing floodlit rugby at Lansdowne Road.
There being no further speeches from the floor, the President then moved for a division. The votes have been cast. The motion for expulsion was passed by 125 votes to seven.
Dr. Edward Garret Desmond’s Personal Diary: October 3, 1913
YESTERDAY EVENING I TOOK myself down to the shoreline at Lissadell for a beachside walk—the first time in the weeks since the catastrophe that I have felt able to bear the sight of my stellagraph. Are the gloomy miasmas and vapours at last lifting; or, as I rather fear, am I growing accustomed, even comfortable, to darkness exterior and interior? There it floats still. Looking out upon it from the shore I was overcome by a colossal sense of disbelief that this fabulous engine should exist at all—that I should have any connection with it whatsoever, let alone that of creator and inspiring light. The sensation is that of long months of hallucination from which I have at last awakened into a grey and thankless world. Had I indeed misinterpreted a perfectly natural phenomenon? Was there, had there always been, a fundamental flaw in my calculations?
Reckonings cloud my horizon. Certainly, I can expect a letter from Blessington & Weir imminently. I still entertain increasingly vain hopes that the salvage from the stellagraph will prove sufficient for Craigdarragh not to have to be sold. Even more than the reckoning with Blessington & Weir, I dread my personal reckoning with Caroline. She will have no mercy. Alas, we have grown too far apart in these past years. Once I could have trusted her to stand by me. Now I can no longer be certain that she will not be howling with the rest of the dogs to lick up the blood of Ahab. She alone possesses the power to save me; the Barry fortune could buy a dozen Craigdarraghs. But I fear that even in these extremest of circumstances her uncle will not relent, should she even have the will to approach him.
And Emily? None of us will ever know the true circumstances of the vile ravagement that took place, but in part, I know myself to be responsible. In a sense, I am punished for my sins, for my inadequacies, for my willful dereliction of the duties and responsibilities of a father toward a daughter. I was not a father to her, and the consequences were dreadful. And now Craigdarragh itself is threatened because of that same arrogance and conceit. Ashes; ashes and cinders; that is all these past five years are to me now.
“Hello? Mary? Is that you? This is me. Hello, Mary. I can hear you clear as a chapel bell, can you hear me? Yes, a wonderful day it is altogether. No, no hurry, they’ll be out for hours yet, both of them. I’m keeping rightly myself. And yourself? Oh now, I am sorry to hear that. Water from the washing well at Gortahurk. Five drops, and as much house dust as will cover a florin. Rub the paste well into the afflicted area. Every time, Mary. Miraculous powers, have the waters of Gortahurk. Five drops, that’s right. As much as will cover a florin.
“Things? Well, Mary, not so good. Not so good at all. Well, far be it from me to gossip on the doings of me betters, but, well, things is in a terrible state of chassis. A terrible state of chassis indeed, and, in a sort of sense, I suppose I might be to blame for it all. Yes, of course I’ll tell you all about it, Mary. It all began this morning when I collected the post from Mr. Conner the postman—such a nice gentleman, he is. Of late the Master’s been most insistent that I separate all his letters from Mistress Caroline’s and deliver them straight to his study. Well, I don’t know how it happened, it must have been behind another thicker letter addressed to Mistress Caroline is all I can offer, but anyway, there I was, tidying away the breakfast crocks, and there she was, opening her mail with that Indian ivory letter opener of hers—never seen a woman receives as much post as the Mistress—when all of a sudden I hear the clatter of that letter opener of hers falling to the table and she’s holding up this letter with a look on her face like she’s learned she’s going to be hung; whiter than the Lilliput Laundry advertisement, she was. Sat like that for two full minutes, like she was the one made of Indian ivory, then all of a sudden she lets out this terrible screech: ‘Edward!’—the Master, you know—and sh
e’s up and out of the room with a look on her face I certainly don’t want to see again this side of Judgement. Well, Mary, as you know, if something is troubling the Master and Mistress, Maire O’Carolan wants to know what it is. It was only the tiniest of peeks, but it was enough, Mary! I thought I’d been struck and turned to stone. Mary, the letter was from a firm of bankers in Dublin, saying that unless Dr. Edward Garret Desmond paid them—listen carefully now, Mary—the sum of twenty-two thousand pounds by the end of December, they would repossess the house and estate. What had the foolish man gone and done, Mary, but mortgaged ten generations of Desmonds to pay for that monstrosity down in the bay!
“A fight? I’ll say there was a fight. Mary, the time they’d finished I reckoned I’d be sweeping up broken delft and wiping blood and hair off the wallpaper from now to Michaelmas. Well, I’ve been keeping my head down, Mary, out of the firing line, but the atmosphere is, well, shall we say, smouldering? The Barry millions? You mean you don’t know the story? I’ll tell you how much Caroline Desmond has to her name. Nothing. Not one brass farthing. After her father died, he willed control of the linen company to his brother and put all his children’s money in trust, into stocks and shares and bonds and things like that that are money but aren’t any real use. To release any of their inheritance, the Mistress would need the signature of her Uncle, and the old blackguard of a Presbyterian refuses to do that. Why? Because she married a Catholic. That old black-mouthed Orangeman won’t speak to her, won’t even sit in the same room as her, so the Master can kiss farewell and adieu to the Barry millions bailing him out.
“What’s to happen? Well, one thing’s for certain, it’s no time for Miss Emily to be coming home. Oh yes, on the five o’clock train, Wednesday. Yes, dreadful. Poor child; I always feared for her, you know. I always feared that with those parents of hers she would come to some harm. I prayed for her every night. I even went on a solemn novena to Our Lady for her protection. Now, Mary, don’t be saying things like that. Are you as wise as God? Well, then, keep your heathen opinions to yourself. I know that God always answers prayer. Still, it’s no time for her to be coming home, expecting a baby and all. Hadn’t you heard? That… that… animal, poor child, he left her with a baby. And all of the age of her, too. Evil times, indeed. You only have to look at the state of the country—those atheist Socialists running amok in Dublin, those heretic Protestant Unionists rampaging in Ulster. The likes of you and me should be pitying those poor souls who have no faith to give them moral guidance and strength.
“The house? Well, unless there’s a miracle, and I’m hopeful, still praying, Mary, it’ll all have to be sold. House, lands, everything. Well, Mary, I’m sure that whoever comes after, there’ll still be need for a housekeeper, but all the same, it wouldn’t do any harm to be keeping an ear to the ground, if you know what I mean.
“You know what I think? It’s a curse. I do most certainly believe that. Someone, or something, is willing sorrow and misfortune on this household. There has not been one minute’s good luck within these walls since the year turned. Bad luck—you can feel it, Mary, sometimes. Why, it’s almost like a physical presence. You can feel it pressing down on you like an oppressive vapour. No, I’m quite serious; there is a heavy, dark atmosphere in this house. Everyone who comes notices it. Not that there’ve been too many of those—visitors, I mean.
“Oh: here, Mary, I’ll have to go … I can hear the master’s car on the gravel. I hadn’t thought he’d be so quick. In his current humour, I wouldn’t want to be caught using the telephone. Yes, I will, surely, next free day I get. And good-bye to you, too, Mary.”
Emily’s Diary: October 12, 1913
I WAS GLAD, VERY glad, to be leaving the Fitzwilliam Square Clinic, the atmosphere in Dublin has grown sour and suspicious. On every side groups of men are taking names and arms and banners to march beneath: Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizens’ Army, Fianna, Cumann na Mban, Sinn Fein, as well as the locked out workers. The streets are angry, the climate discontented. How far this autumn of disease is from impatient swallows flocking about Craigdarragh, woods full of the voice of the rooks. It makes me all the more eager to return. In the mornings the gardeners in the square sweep the paths and set fire to their little piles of leaves and the smell is enough to transport me, instantly: I am there. Blackthorn walking sticks in the hall stand; from the kitchen wafts of vinegar and pickling spice, baking pies and apples stewing with cloves; a particular golden light that shines into parts of the house it somehow never reaches in any other season; the hot stone jar down the bed and the equinoxial gales rattling the roof slates.
The sadness of the romantic imagination is to be ever disappointed that the reality never matches the imagining of it. Always in reality there are the shadows where the light will never reach, the wallpaper peeling by the skirting board, the hall stand missing a cherub and with a cracked tulip tile.
I have said I was glad to be leaving Dublin; I did not say I was glad to be home.
They did not even come to welcome me. Their only daughter, and they sent Mrs. O’Carolan in a trap with Paddy-Joe. Oh, yes, it was good to see Mrs. O’C and Paddy-Joe again, and their delight in seeing me was honestly transparent—Mrs. O’C could hardly speak a word; she must have wrung out an entire week’s supply of handkerchiefs.
From my first glimpse of the familiar pillared facade, I could feel it. Craigdarragh had changed. It was more than the inevitable disappointment of romantic idealism; I felt that the entire spirit of the house had been changed. The autumn light no longer shone into those inaccessible places; it had been defeated by shadows. Oh, Mummy and Daddy greeted me lovingly enough, there on the steps. Mummy cried and Daddy harrumphed and harrahed into his beard though it was clear to all that he was on the verge of tears himself, but there was a tautness, a reserve between them, and especially toward me, as if I were a guest in a house full of secrets. I can best describe it as a darkness behind the eyes, a preoccupation with something that consumed all their energy in its concealment.
And in Craigdarragh the blackthorns leaned against the hall stand, the apple-cinnamon-bramble perfume of Mrs. O’Carolan’s tarts seeped out of the kitchen into every corner and cranny, and the October sun through the cupola cast a rose of light on the stairs, but it felt infected. It felt tired and decaying, as if the autumn had entered and filled the rooms with its placid dying.
At supper tonight Mrs. O’C excelled herself; all my favourites, and I think it gave her more delight in the serving of them than I took in the devouring, but in spite of her best efforts, what should have been a joyous occasion was tense, taut, tiring. Whenever Mummy and Daddy asked me about the clinic and Dr. Orr and the general state of Dublin, it was evident that they had no real interest in my answers—they asked merely because it was polite to ask. Whenever I asked about what had been happening at home, they gave me very straight, very considered answers. When I said that they seemed a little distant, Mummy replied that so much had happened to me, so many hurtful and terrible things in so short a space of time, that it was almost as if I were a new Emily; that they knew only how to treat the old Emily, and that was no longer suitable for a woman in my ahem position.
I said that the new Emily was the old Emily, that I was more like shoots and leaves on an old tree than a whole new person. Daddy cleared his throat then, in that way of his when he is going to say something he does not want to have to say, and said that they had a lot of readjusting to do. My own mother and father treating me like a stranger at my own table.
Readjusting to what? I asked, and then I realised. They were ashamed of me. Ashamed. I was the final disgrace. By now it was all over the county—see her, Emily Desmond, pregnant, and not even an idea of the father, much less married. Shameless, shameless. What kind of people would let that happen to a child of theirs? what kind of parents?
Never mind that this child was forced upon me, never mind that I was violated, raped. Why were they afraid to say the word? All they could see was Dr. Edward Ga
rret Desmond, the once-respected astronomer, on one side and Mrs. Caroline Desmond, the renowned poetess and Celtic scholar, on the other, and a big wobbling bulge in the middle.
I looked at them, at the expressions of mock concern on their faces. Suddenly I hated them so much, I wished them dead and damned on the very spot. I screamed something, I cannot remember what, sent dishes knives forks cruets and all Mrs. O’Carolan’s good work flying, and rushed off to my room.
I can still remember the pale, staring faces. In my room I paced up and down, up and down. I wanted to be angry, I enjoyed being angry, I kept being angry because there was so much more of the anger I had wanted them to see. I found things to be angry at: stupid, inanimate things which took on stubborn wills and minds of their own—my left shoe, which stuck when I tried to kick it off, so I pulled and pulled and pulled until the laces snapped, then threw it against the wall, bringing down the lamp. I picked the lamp up and threw it down again. If it had to fall, it would fall when and where I chose it to fall, and it broke into two pieces.
I couldn’t sleep. My head was bursting with that top-of-the-neck pain you get when you are too angry to be capable of expressing it. Hours passed. Realising that I would in all likelihood be awake to see the dawn, I decided to read something. I do not know what it was that made me choose that book: The Countryside Companion to the Wild Flowers of Britain and Ireland. Summer and its wildflowers were long dead, and botany was never my strongest suit, yet I felt compelled to read the book. Propped up in bed, I opened it where the paper naturally fell and something slipped out onto the counterpane—something gossamer and moonlit and light as a breath.
The pair of faery’s wings.
I picked them up delicately in my fingers, laid them on the palm of my hand, looked at them for a long time. Then I closed my hand and crushed them into dust.