Valiant Gentlemen

by Sabina Murray

  “For pity’s sake, Herbie,” says Cricket, “let Uncle Roddie finish the story.”

  “So the woman,” continues Casement, “disappeared down the road. The potatoes came back, and so did some of the villagers who had left in those years, but that woman, she never returned. The landowner, who been a young man at the time of the Famine, found himself a bride.”

  “A Protestant, I’m sure,” Sarita says, unable to keep that to herself.

  “A Protestant to be sure, like myself, only without the beard.”

  “Don’t make it funny,” Herbie protests.

  “All right. The wedding is on a sunny day with such gentle weather that one forgets it’s Ireland, and the party is held outside, as is the banquet. The dancing goes into the evening, but as the sun the sets, a fierce wind starts up. The guests leave, and the bridegroom and his new wife retreat into their house.”

  “Is this for children?” says Cricket.

  “I will make it so,” says Casement. “The bride is still in her gown and, as tradition dictates, the groom lifts her and carries her across the threshold and, feeling young and strong, begins to carry her up the stairs all the way to the bed chamber, but as he does this, he begins to hear a whisper, a hush of a woman’s voice, in his ear. He asks his bride—”

  “Elizabeth,” says Cricket. “The bride’s name is Elizabeth.”

  “He whispers to Elizabeth, ‘Did you hear that?’”

  Sarita sees that Herbie is distracted. Why does he keep looking at the curtain?

  “And Elizabeth says nothing,” says Casement. “So he asks her again, ‘Did you not hear that?’ and he wonders if the veil is muffling the sound because she is not answering. So they reach the bedroom and he rests the lovely bride on the bed and, as tradition dictates, he lifts the veil to give her a kiss, and there, THERE is not the lovely Elizabeth but the maggot-eaten face of the woman—”

  “Not yet!” Herbie shouts. And Sarita screams because a little ghost girl all in white has burst from behind the curtain. And when Sarita screams, the little girl, her face glowing pale, bursts into tears and runs to her. Everyone screams, including Casement, and Sarita is there with the little girl crying and crying, getting flour all over her skirt. It’s Roddie, in one of Dimples’s old dresses and someone—Herbie—has covered the poor boy in flour.

  Herbert and Casement are completely convulsed with laughter. Even Charlie has lost his usual reserve.

  “He was supposed to wait until Uncle Roddie was done with his story,” Herbie complains.

  “I got too scared,” says Roddie, his arms still around his mother’s waist, his voice broken with crying. “It’s dark behind the curtain.”

  “Herbie,” says Cricket, who screamed loudest and is now angry. “You’re an idiot.” She looks to Sarita. “Punish him.”

  Herbie is unfazed. “I’ll take whatever you dish out, Mother. It was completely worth it.”

  “Roddie,” says Sarita, “look at you, you sweet thing. And completely terrifying.”

  “Was I really scary?” says Roddie, calming.

  “I thought for sure this house was haunted,” says Casement.

  “You should be an actor,” says Sarita. “What a great performance!”

  “I was good, wasn’t I?” says Roddie.

  This is a moment to preserve, Sarita thinks. This is how she would like them to stay, even if she’s covered in flour and Roddie’s in the dress. And there is Casement, lighthearted, laughing too, reaching for the whiskey. But she doesn’t quite trust him—something in her gut flutters ever so slightly to see him there, but she can’t articulate it, so she can’t communicate it, certainly not to Herbert, but somehow not even to herself.

  XV

  Rolleboise

  April 1909

  Time is passing too quickly. Could her daughters really be of marriageable age? Dimples has caught the eye of Eric Clare Phipps, a career diplomat, and he has started sending her notes. Dimples is besotted. And the man? Quite unsuitable—not only twice her age, but too recently widowed from his previous wife. Which is why Sarita and Herbert had been disposed towards kindness in the first place. Phipps seemed sad and the girls, lively Cricket and pleasant Dimples, were a distraction for him, apparently more distracting than Sarita had intended. Phipps is thirty-three years old, which is twice the age of Dimples plus an added year.

  The whole thing is odd. Phipps isn’t Dimples’s only suitor. Why would she settle on him? Maybe she doesn’t attract quite the numbers that Cricket does, but the young men courting Dimples are nearly always sincere. She’s not as much fun as Cricket, although quite beautiful in a dreamy, deranged sort of way. Men get serious about girls like that, girls who aren’t always trying to arm wrestle, drive cars when they don’t know how, calling stupid boys stupid—that’s all Cricket. And Cricket is sincerely looking out for her sister, worried about Dimples marrying an old man, getting saddled with the weepy widower looking to bury his sorrows and whatever else into this very young girl.

  At any rate, Sarita is not prepared for this latest development, which has her out on the terrace with Ticker, flopped on his side in the sun, and her children. The Seine flows prettily as a gentle wind carries up the cantankerous chat of ducks and geese. Pear blossoms scent the air and the legendary dappled light dapples her as it inspires a slew of painters. But who can care? She is shut out of the drawing room where Herbert and Phipps are deciding her daughter’s future. She should be in there. Herbert is likely to agree to anything, as Phipps is a good sort of chap. That’s what landed this man in her midst in the first place.

  “Mother, for God’s sake, say something,” says Cricket. “Watching you is a torture.”

  “What is there to say?” Sarita drops her voice as she sets her gaze on Roddie and Herbie, who are pitching nutshells over the terrace railing. “He’s already been married. Dimples should have someone with the same sort of knowledge as she does.”

  “I know what you’re talking about, Mother, and I know you’re not that naïve. Men know everything, always have.”

  Sarita shares a patient look with her risqué daughter.

  “Well, it’s true. If we weren’t so cosseted, chaperoned all the time, hung on to like prize heifers until the opportune moment, we might have more of a chance of standing up to our husbands, which is why I’m never getting married.”

  “Cricket, for once this is not actually about you. It’s about your sister.”

  “What?” says Herbie, suddenly interested. “Is Dimples getting married? She’s not marrying Phipps, is she? He’s old enough to be her father.”

  “He’s not that old,” says Sarita. Is she already steeling herself?

  “He’s old enough to be her uncle.” Cricket flicks her eyebrows a couple of times. “And too old to be her lover.”

  Herbie bursts out laughing. Now Roddie is interested too. He doesn’t know what a “lover” is and has the openmouthed look that he gets when he’s trying to figure things out, although he’s spoken over so much, as the youngest often are, that he doesn’t bother to ask. Herbie wraps his arms around himself and presents his back, his own hands groping at his shoulders in a parody of an embracing couple.

  “Herbie, stop that immediately.” Where has Dimples gone? She must be listening at the drawing-room door. Sarita pulls herself out of the chair, ready to find her, but there she is at the threshold of the house, smiling in a slightly unhinged way. Behind Dimples she sees Herbert, who is making that what now face. And there is Phipps looking less dour. Of course, Sarita had formerly attributed the cast of his features to grief, but now she knows that’s wrong.

  Herbie wraps his hands around his mother’s elbow and tugs gently. Sarita, not thinking, bends her head. He whispers, “Do you think he killed his first wife?”

  “Yes?” says Sarita, and her affirmation is meant to read as a question for Herbert and Phipps, but
Herbie knows she’s playing—what else can one do?—and delivers a few conspiratorial giggles. And there’s Dimples, looking like the cat that ate the canary, since she doesn’t realize she’s the canary.

  Sarita and Herbert don’t get to talk until evening, although she realizes that she’s avoided him throughout the day, the same way that one avoids opening letters that are suspected to bear bad news. She has been sitting in an armchair with a novel opened to the same page for the last half hour or thereabouts when she notices Herbert at the door.

  “Am I bothering you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” she responds. “You haven’t said anything yet.” Not caring to mark her place, she closes the book.

  She moves her feet and Herbert takes a seat on the hassock. He leans forward, elbows on knees. He has an earnest look. She doesn’t usually see him at this angle and it really is surprising how bald he’s becoming.

  “Did you know that your father put Phipps up to it?”

  “Father?”

  “He met Phipps in London last August, not that long after the first Mrs. Phipps passed away. Sanford told Phipps that it was best to get back in the saddle, that he wasn’t a young man and didn’t have time to play with.”

  “And Phipps told all this to you?”

  “I’m paraphrasing.”

  “Probably why it sounds so close to what Father might actually say.”

  “So what do we do?” Herbert shrugs. “Dimples is too young, but Phipps isn’t a bad sort and he has all the right baubles.”

  Herbert’s right. Phipps is solidly in the peerage, as were both his parents. He’s also secretary to Sir Francis Bertie, ambassador to France, and has been in the diplomatic service for ten years. He is an obvious catch and if Dimples were a set of statistics in search of another, Sarita would see the value of the union. “What does he gain?” she asks.

  “Dimples speaks French and English, is nicely turned out, and Phipps would like to keep your father close for undisclosed financial reasons. Phipps finds Dimples’s disposition soothing, which, I gather, was not the case with his first wife.”

  “Maybe he did kill her.”

  “I see Herbie’s gotten to you.”

  “What do they have to say to each other?”

  “Dimples has never had much to say,” says Herbert. “Phipps is probably worn out with talking by the time he gets home from work, since he’s a diplomat.”

  “So in the evening, the two of them can sit in silence, staring into the space in front of them?”

  “I don’t understand the attraction either,” says Herbert. “It’s love. You’re not supposed to.”

  “What draws people to people?” Sarita looks at Herbert and some revenant passion is recalled with a momentary thrill, but settles quickly, like the aging Ticker when he adjusts himself on his cushion. Herbert too seems struggling to recall.

  “It was your conversation that drew me to you, your sense of humor,” he says. “You didn’t seem to need me and I found that challenging.”

  “Challenging?” Sarita laughs. “Other men would think ‘pretty’ more appropriate.”

  “And what was it you liked about me?”

  Sarita arches her eyebrows. “Me? I liked your hair.”

  The clock in Ward’s study has stopped and he should set it, but if your clock has stopped, how is one supposed to know the time? And, of course, his pocket watch is where it always is when he’s in Rolleboise—hanging off the bottom of his easel. So it could be time for dinner now, but who can know? Outside, down the lawn, he sees Ticker wander over to the flower beds and sniff around, then, joyfully, flip onto his back for some enthusiastic rolling. Père Fabrice must have just done some composting. And now Père Fabrice will be giving a dog a bath.

  Casement is in Rolleboise for the next couple of weeks. Sarita has voiced concern over his health, as would anyone. His weight is down and he’s developed a tremor. He says he’s just worn out, that it’s nothing that some cool air and fresh food won’t fix, and so Sarita has seen to it that there’s a lot of fish on the menu. Also salads. This is what she’s convinced is healthy. But there’s also a cheese course that makes an appearance after lunch as well as dinner. Sarita says, “Roddie needs some meat on his bones.” Unfortunately, the benefits of all this cheese are also showing up on Ward. But Casement said it was nothing that serious—despite recent deprivations and the reoccurring malaria, he hadn’t picked up a bug. Just nerves, Casement says. But nerves are everything, aren’t they? So, fresh food, fresh air, and calm. Being in Rolleboise on a lovely spring day, it’s hard to think of anything that the light and soft breeze can’t cure.

  Casement’s latest appointment is Brazil and he says it’s abominable, that there aren’t any true natives, just some sort of odd mishmash of negroes and Indians and Italians, some Spaniards too, who all fall under the term “Brazilian.” Brazil, where officials are stabbed beneath the window for demanding compliance with the law, where overburdened mules are beaten mercilessly, where the reek of coffee struggles against that of sewage in the hot, wet air. Everyone is sick, about to be sick, or in an uphill struggle to recover. Africa, according to Casement, is the better place. Just better. Better workers, more interesting, something that feels pure. Brazil is corrupted to the extent that the original composition has been so adulterated as to no longer exist. Casement, obviously, dislikes the place as it’s not his beloved Ireland and doesn’t benefit, like the Congo, from having been the setting for his coming into manhood.

  Ward is worried that Casement is falling out of favor with the Foreign Office. He is a great humanitarian, but that’s not exactly what the FO is all about. Casement is supposed to manage local populations and help British nationals, and who can be sure which team Casement is rooting for? He’s certainly down on England but is undeniably in the employ of the English government. Casement can’t expect the FO to throw plum appointments at him and underwrite endless home leaves if he’s actually in league against them. It’s all very tricky, especially with Casement short on funds as this latest appointment pays next to nothing. Ward has offered more money, even though he knows it’s not going to Casement’s living expenses nor to defray the cost of purchasing books nor to ensure a longer visit to his old friend Ward, but rather being laundered through Casement’s penury and sent on to Irish radicals.

  And what a strange lot they are: socialists who support Larkin, neurasthenic poets, bookish women with sensible shoes—suffragettes. Ward, of course, knows that women are intelligent—he lives with Sarita and admires both his daughters—but what business do women have determining national leaders, or the fate of the world?

  Ward moves to the window, sees Casement striding up the front path, back from his evening stroll along the Seine. If it’s not yet time for dinner, it’s definitely time for a drink.

  Dinner is served late. Apparently, the oysters were off, something determined by Marie, who was supposed to be serving, but is instead indisposed in her room. As Sarita noted, the girl should not have been sneaking oysters, but in truth they are all grateful she did, and she’ll probably never do it again.

  Instead of the lithe Marie, they have Villiers serving the soup, her great bosom banging into the back of Ward’s head as she ladles it out. Up the table, Casement is trying his hand at radicalizing Cricket. She must seem an easy mark, but she isn’t. She may like the occasional bohemian for his long hair but is quite intolerant of any opinion that might threaten the status quo—her status quo of fancy holidays, dressmakers, and the ballet.

  “Wouldn’t you rather be allowed to vote?” Casement asks.

  “If you put it like that, it seems obvious. But I don’t know anything about politics.”

  “She doesn’t know very much at all,” says Herbie.

  Little Roddie has already eaten with the nanny but Herbie, thrilled to have his “Uncle Roddie” visiting, has begged his way to
the table.

  “My voting is one thing, but would you really want Dimples voting?” Cricket says.

  “You’d have to vote for a person, Dimples,” says Herbie. “You can’t vote for Ticker and you can’t vote for fruit fool and I think that’s all you’re interested in.”

  Herbie seems to have forgotten about Phipps, who is, after all, easily forgotten.

  “I should like to vote,” Dimples responds. “I could at least cancel out whatever Herbie has in mind.”

  “Sarita, what do you think?” asks Casement.

  “Me?” There’s Sarita composing her thoughts. Her spoon hovers above the soup. “I don’t think women voting is such a bad idea, but we’re all so busy that we don’t have time to read the papers. We’d have to consult our husbands, and if that’s the case, what’s the point? Why even bother?”

  “Men are the ones who have to fight the wars anyway,” says Herbie.

  “Bravo, Herbie,” Herbert says.

  “Herbie in battle?” says Cricket. “God save us.”

  “Because he’ll need to,” adds Dimples.

  Discussion then circles around less contentious topics. Is Herbie excited to join his brother at Eton (very), does Cricket have any interesting romantic prospects (four romantic prospects, none very interesting), what is Dimples reading (Collins, Moonstone), and some question that sends Herbie off on an enactment of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” that involves standing on his chair and enlisting a vegetable fork as paddle. Apparently, Sanford has agreed to send Herbie a genuine Indian canoe if he can memorize it, which he might do, but who will know if he’s making it up?

  Cricket, seated to Casement’s right, has corralled him into a private conversation, leaving Ward to Sarita.

  “Herbert,” she says, “we need to talk about the apple orchard.” Ward hates the thought of digging up anything. Sarita’s being opportunistic because Casement is there and Ward won’t want to come across as the grouch. “Père Fabrice says there’s a new variety that we can get from Predon’s gardener.”