The Big Wind

by Beatrice Coogan

  ‘The yard is full of tombstones, your Honour,’ said a maid. ‘They are floatin’ about on the water.’

  Mrs. Stacey reached out a restraining hand. ‘Sir Roderick, sure it wasn’t the water I was afraid of, an’ I’m not afeared of anything on two feet, or four neither, but the prophecies of Saint Columcille have come to pass this night. The graves have opened and the holy tombstones have travelled across near a hundred acres of land. The like was never known. The corpses that own them tombstones will be here next.’

  Sir Roderick had turned from her impatiently and started down the passage towards the back stairs. From over his head a voice called to him quietly. Mrs. Mansfield, the housekeeper, was leaning over the banisters of the main staircase.

  ‘Sir Roderick, will you send for Dr. Mitchell for her Ladyship?’

  ‘Dr. Mitchell?’ In the sudden turmoil of the storm he had forgotten that Margaret had not been feeling too well after dinner. Her back had ached from bending over the big embroidery frame and she had gone up to rest for a while on the chaise-longue. ‘Is there anything amiss with her Ladyship?’ he cried as he rushed past the housekeeper two steps at a time.

  ‘It is her, her—’ the prim spinster, for all her housekeeper’s title of Mrs., stood groping to express herself delicately.

  ‘Speak up, woman!’ he yelled. She shrank back against the banisters. ‘It is her condition. Sir Roderick. The storm has started her confinement.’

  In the bedroom, a tall, beautiful girl was clutching the corner of the mantelpiece. She came towards him, her eyes dilated with fear. ‘Oh, Roderick, what is happening outside? Is the world mad, or is it coming to an end?’

  He put his arms around her and soothed her. ‘It is only a storm.’ There was a deafening roar outside and the room seemed to shake. The girl gave a low moan of pain. He held her from him and looked into her face. She was deathly pale. ‘Margaret, is this true what Mrs. Mansfield says? Surely it could not be for another month?’ The storm crashed again around the house and she fell against him.

  ‘Roderick, send for Dr. Mitchell and have him bring a nurse.’

  ‘But—the trained nurse from Dublin will be here on Monday.’

  ‘Monday will be too late. Hurry, Roderick, hurry.’

  He kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, my darling. Dr. Mitchell and a nurse will be with you in no time.’ And while he reassured her he thought of the fallen trees and the floods and doubted in his heart that the elderly doctor would get through this storm of hell.

  Downstairs in the servants’ regions he found men, women and children thronging the passages and back stairs and every pantry room that had a step above ground level. John Carmody, the gardener, came forward holding a wailing child in his arms. He looked like a man who had come face to face with the supernatural. His teeth chattered as he endeavoured to explain the presence of himself and his entire family in his master’s house.

  ‘The roof was lifted off, your Honour, like the lid of a box. It blew up in the sky like a loose hand-cock of hay and at the same time the back wall of the house crashed down an’ meself an’ the wife an’ two of the children were thrun’ out of the bed to the ground. This gossoon has his little leg crushed.’

  Others were crowding round with their incredible accounts of havoc. Some had their roofs blown off. Others had awakened from exhausted sleep to find that their beds had turned into rafts that bore them hither and thither on a strange sea of water that had appeared like a ghostly visitation from another world.

  All of them sought to draw close to the young man who was the mainstay of their lives, to draw comfort from his presence as well as shelter from his house. But their master could spare them no comfort.

  ‘Is John Dermody here?’ he called above the clamour. But John Dermody, the coachman, was the only employee who was not present. He slept over the coach house beside the stables in a sheltered corner of the yard. The waters had not reached him. Roderick sent a footman to fetch him.

  No other mission but that of bringing aid to the lady of the house who was facing her trouble more than a month before her time would have induced the young footman out of doors to face the tombstones, and maybe their owners! As he waded knee deep in water across the yard, with head down against the murderous blast, a white object with the outline of a human body floated towards him and he was knocked face downward in the water. Shivering with fear and cold he struggled to his knees and recognised the object that had up-ended him. It was a white marble tombstone surmounted by a man’s head.

  Before he could stand upright another white object, soft and clammy, floated towards him and knocked him sideways. He felt the hideous sensation of its dank hair on his cheeks and muffling his mouth. Holy Mother of God, Mrs. Stacey was right. The prophecies had come true! The corpses had come for their tombstones.

  Screaming like a madman, he floundered to the coach house and hammered in a frenzy at its door. Big John Dermody was as calm as when he sat aloft on the driver’s seat of the fine carriage in gorgeous livery and cockaded hat, holding the reins with the dignified mien of a Roman charioteer.

  Since the storm began he had moved continuously from box to box, soothing the frightened horses. Now he soothed the half-crazed footman who clung to him jabbering about a tombstone that had knocked him flat on his face. ‘And the corp’ that owned it came along next and hit me across the face.’

  ‘’Tis no corp’, avic, leastways not a human one. It’s only a poor drowned sheep. Look at it and let the fear go out of you.’ He forced the lad to look over his shoulder where even in the darkness he could discern the outlines of more sheep tossed hither and thither in the swirling waters.

  ‘Think of what their loss means to the master! All these fine ewes that would be lambin’ in two months more!’

  Mention of his master recalled the footman to his errand. ‘Oh, Mr. Dermody, the tombstones and the corpses put it out of my head what I came for. The Sir bid me tell you yoke the best carriage and go at once for Dr. Mitchell. Ye’re to drive like mad. He’s in a terrible state.’

  Big John held the footman at arms’ length. ‘Pull yourself together and give your message. Is the Sir hurt? And if so why should the carriage go for Dr. Mitchell. Isn’t it on horseback he’d come, or drive his own Back-to-back?’

  ‘’Tis for the convaynence of bringing the midwife and the doctor gettin’ a bit ould in himself for the night that’s in it.’

  ‘Midwife? What are ye ravin’ about? Amn’t I meetin’ the Dublin coach for her on Monday?’

  ‘Monday will be too late for her Ladyship. The poor Lady craythur has come to her confinement with the dint of the storm.’ The coachman waited for no more. He bade him fetch Mike O’Driscoll, the head groom. The footman started to expostulate, but for once the coachman abandoned his calm and gave a roar that sent the footman floundering on his way.

  A moment later Mike O’Driscoll was holding the frightened leaders as they reared and plunged, his own fear forgotten in his concern for the horses he loved. Big John, in the act of leading out two more horses, spied two people coming round the side of the house towards the back door. At the same moment the lanterns suspended from the overhanging roof of the stables swung wildly in a great roaring blast of wind and crashed to the floor, leaving them all in complete darkness. The horses screamed and plunged wildly. Other horses trembling in their stalls heard the screams and their hooves could be heard above the storm as they lashed them in terror against walls and doors.

  Big John called towards the two figures to come and help with the horses. They were the gate lodge-keeper and his wife. The man held a whimpering puppy under one arm and a picture under the other. The woman held a basket containing a hen and chicks in one hand and in the other she clutched a big china teapot. They had come to join the homeless at the Big House. Their snug lodge was levelled to the ground and their tale of havoc chilled in Big John’s stout heart the hope of bringing help to his young mistress. The huge trees that stood on either side of the entrance
gates were uprooted and lay, one above the other, across the entrance. It was the same, they said, all along the avenue. It was blocked every few yards with fallen trees. No vehicle could get past.

  He considered the possibility of getting out by the back avenue to the bye-road but abandoned the idea. The artificial pond for driving the carriage through to wash the mud from the wheels was in that part of the stable yard. It was now a lake. The back drive followed the course of the land where the river seemed to have burst its banks near the graveyard. Big John led the horses back to their stalls then waded towards the house to hold counsel with his master.

  Sir Roderick, returning from reassuring his wife that help would soon be on its way, was feeling more competent to cope with the plight of his helpless employees. Mrs. Stacey, after hearing the lodge-keepers’ report, had gone into wilder flights of hysteria. The child with the crushed leg was wailing unceasingly. Other children, hungry, sleepy and rain-sodden, joined in a chorus of wails. Hannah Riorden, the elderly housemaid who had spoken to Sir Roderick about the flooding in the kitchen, was on her knees giving out the Rosary at the top of her voice. The sight of Big John Dermody towering above the throng, when he should be well out on the high road, pulled Sir Roderick up in dismay.

  ‘Did you not receive my orders to take the carriage for the doctor and midwife?’ Disappointment lashed his anger to fury. Never before had he spoken in anger to his coachman. And even as he spoke, he sensed that his orders were beyond obedience. Big John Dermody was not readily deterred.

  ‘If it would be agreeable to you, Sir Roderick,’ he said when he explained their tree-beleaguered plight, ‘I thought to saddle the Rajah and ride to Templetown. I’d reach the road by taking the fields.’

  ‘The Rajah is too heavy. If you must ride, take the new sorrel. It has speed.’

  ‘Beggin’ your pardon. Sir Roderick. It’s not speed that counts tonight. It is strength.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Roderick shouted, ‘don’t stand there arguing with me, get on a horse and fetch the doctor. It is life or death, man!’ Big John strode down the passage to the back door. As he opened it a gust of wind sent him staggering backwards, and his weight brought down the lithe body of his master who had followed him on an impulse. ‘John,’ he said as he rose, and there was no anger now, only appeal, ‘do you think you can make it?’

  For a brief moment the two men looked out into the wild darkness. Sleet drove through the open door and saturated their garments. But the horror of the night was in its sound. Down the long slopes from the graveyard came a screaming wind that ended in a kind of mad laughter as it whirled in and out through the treetops. There were whining creaks as heavy branches were torn from the trunks and sent whirling through the air, while from below came the agonised protests of the great deep roots that were being dragged from the earth that had held them for over a hundred years.

  As the two men stood there helpless and awed, the master for the first time in his life felt his own unimportance. It seemed so absurd for one to assert authority over the other. The servant sensed his master’s abasement. He turned towards him. ‘Have no fear. Sir Roderick, I’ll make it all right.’

  The moment of revelation passed, master and man fitted back into perspective.

  ‘God carry you safely,’ said Sir Roderick. He turned to his demoralised workfolk.

  Fear had dredged the soul of Young Thomas, the knife boy and courier-drudge of Mrs. Stacey and the butler. He accepted unquestioningly their pronouncement that the world would end tonight. How else could it be? Had he not seen the black clouds, blacker than the eyes of man had ever seen before, as he ran back across the short cut through the bog this evening; after he had delivered the mistress’s message to old Lady Cullen at Crannagh Hall? Now here was the great castle that had withstood the might of Cromwell, shaking like the hairy skeough grass that grows on top of the bog. And, God be praised, the graves had opened and the Dead were out there in the yard, waiting to be judged!

  Suddenly he was exalted by a strange, new courage. There was no need to have to die now and have to go through all the grimness of funeral and the dreaded grave. He would be judged in life, right here in Kilsheelin Castle, and then go on straight up to Heaven. Not even a delay for a while in Purgatory, because Purgatory would be done away with after the Last Judgment. Of course there would still be Hell. But sure he hadn’t a sin on his soul. Or hadn’t he? His mind quailed at the recollection of the audacious act he had committed about a fortnight ago, only a day after his foster-mother had brought him here before she left for America. He had come upon the Sir’s ‘necessary’ built out of sight down the garden. He had often heard about the hole in a board that gentlemen used and the temptation had proved too much. He had actually tiptoed inside and—behaved like a gentleman!

  The Sir was returning from the back door. The lad braced himself. Any moment now he would stand in the Presence of the Lord of Creation! For the first time he raised his voice unbidden to the Lord of the castle.

  ‘Sir—yer Honour!’ The haughty face looking down at him brought back servitude to his fear-purged soul. He backed and gulped. Pity stirred his master. ‘What is it, lad?’

  Thomas gulped again. ‘Will the judgment be here, yer Honour? Sure we’d never get to the Valley of Jostlers tonight?’

  ‘Jostlers? What is the boy talking about?’

  Mrs. Stacey rose from her knees. ‘He means the Valley of Jehosaphus where we’ll all be judged this night, your Honour, asthore.’ His Honour gave a roar that sent Mrs. Stacey down on her knees again, and reduced the voices and the wailings to silence; all but the injured child. ‘If I hear another word of that kind of talk from you, I’ll have you locked outside with the tombstones. Their owners will direct you to the Valley of Jehosaphus!’ Mrs. Stacey made the sign of the cross in speechless dread.

  ‘Patrick claimed from the Almighty three favours...’ The voice came to them on a rush of icy wind. Struggling through the open door was the wild figure of an old man, dragging a harp. His white hair was wet on his shoulders, his bardic cloak lashed out behind. ‘The Bard!’ gasped Young Thomas, rushing across to close the door and help with the harp. ‘Aye,’ said the old man grimly, ‘the Bard of the O’Carrolls left to drown alone, forgotten.’ They had all forgotten the family Bard outside in his own special quarters at the extreme end of the east wing. ‘—that in the seventh year before the Day of Judgment,’ continued the old man, regardless of Mrs. Stacey’s fresh outcry, ‘the land of Ireland would be engulfed in a mighty tidal wave so that no man of Ireland might know the terrors of the Last Day—’

  The assurance brought no comfort to the assembly. It was showing signs of hysteria. Sir Roderick broke in impatiently on the prophetic utterances, ‘For Heaven’s sake, Bard, stop talking nonsense and—’ He was at a loss what to suggest the old man should do. He mustn’t leave him here; the Bard was too sensitive about his position in the household. ‘Come upstairs,’ he finished. The Bard shook his wet locks. ‘It was ever the duty of the Bard to inspire and give courage. I will stay with the helpless.’ Sir Roderick felt something like a smile. The dignified minstrel was in dread of going from the company of the serving staff to sit alone in bardic state. ‘Have no fear, woman!’ he said to the cook. ‘This is not the final floodwater—the storm that comes in its fury between the day of the Sun’s death—the twenty-second day of December—and Twelfth Night is but the Wild Huntsman, rushing by on his eight-footed steed.’

  His master turned to leave, then stopped and raised his voice above the intoning of the Bard’s mysticisms. ‘Look at that fire!’ he roared.

  Of the eight fires that burned in separate heaps of turf along the great hearth, a pot or kettle swinging from a crane over each pile, only two were smoking. Not a red spark in the great furnace of fires that had burned night and day, unquenched through the generations. Rain and sleet and stones were pouring down the chimney.

  He bade them light the fires and hold themselves in readiness for th
eir mistress’s requirements. To the butler he gave instructions for food and drink for the homeless. As he passed the man who held the suffering child, he placed a hand upon his shoulder. ‘The doctor will be here soon,’ he said gently. ‘He will see to the little one.’ The man looked at him with grateful eyes. ‘God bless your Honour.’

  2

  Mrs. Mansfield removed Margaret’s gown of blue brocade. Even in this moment of stress she let her hand linger lovingly over the raised embroidery of coral and gold bullion fringing. One by one she removed the silken petticoats flounced with Brussels lace that the young bride had brought from her Belgian home. From in front of the fire, where it was airing, she took a nightgown of finest silk and the wrapper of white cashmere, all ruffles and ribbons.

  As the girl reached out her arms to place them in the sleeves, the housekeeper thought how helpless she looked, standing there ill and lonely, far from her native land. For a moment she was tempted to take her in her arms and give her comfort. But tradition prevailed.

  Service in Kilsheelin Castle was not casual or slapdash. The young Sir, for all his books and paintings and music-playing, was formal and exacted a correct disposition from his servants. And her Ladyship was very foreign even though her father, an officer in the French army, had been Irish, and her mother was half Irish. She had a funny accent and she did not seem to understand Ireland or the Irish.

  As lovingly as a caress Mrs. Mansfield tied the wrapper loosely round the girl and made a pretty bow under her chin with the ribbons of the dainty nightcap. Then she drew the mounting steps to the bedside. ‘Let you go up these now and lie down,’ she coaxed, ‘and your trouble will be over before it has time to start.’