When she had gone Nurse Hogan took a liberty for the first time. She had noticed that strained look come on her patient’s face when the old lady spoke of beatings and cruelties.
‘Herself and her Penal talk!’ she exploded. ‘Couldn’t she talk of something pleasant and natural like—like the weather?’
Margaret smiled. ‘She did talk about the weather. She said it was rather bad last Friday night, and it was. No matter what divertissement you create!’ She caught the nurse’s hand. ‘Mrs. Hogan, you won’t leave me? I get so frightened and you seem to understand. Were you frightened that night?’
‘I was, my lady, very frightened.’
‘Did you have an unpleasant experience?’
The nurse did not answer for a second, then she said quietly, ‘Yes, my lady, I had an unpleasant experience.’
‘What is it? Tell me please.’ The nurse turned towards the window. With the trees gone it was possible to see right down to the entrance and she saw, to her surprise that it was crammed with people and beyond the broken boundary wall the road was dense with people. She turned back... startled.
‘Your Ladyship, it is not going to be a very private visit. The demesne is thronged with people. Perhaps Sir Roderick does not know. The window under this is shuttered because of broken glass. It will be terrible for you if they start cheering and shouting.’
‘Oh, I hope they do cheer. That kind of noise does not disturb me. I hate wailing winds and I fear being trapped in something that sways back or throws me into some dark, smoky place.’
A knock admitted Hannah preceding the footman who nearly staggered under the weight of a massive silver tray laden with food.
The nurse was glad of the interruption. It was a relief to tuck a big napkin under her Ladyship’s pretty chin and coax her to try a tiny taste of all the lovely food that Mrs. Stacey sent in such quantities.
Lady Cullen arrived back in the drawing-room just in time to check her husband’s footwork. He had been hopping around the room exclaiming and simpering over every battered shred of priceless bric-à-brac. Sir Roderick, wincing as each fresh objet de vertu was held before the quizzing glass, felt that all that was needed was a hammer to complete the picture of a little, wizened dealer crying, ‘Fifteenth-century Portuguese—er, somewhat damaged,’ and dropping a priceless heirloom for some contemptible bid.
Sir Roderick was relieved by the old lady’s return. Behind her the butler was announcing, ‘The Messieurs de Guider’. Two middle-aged gentlemen, dressed exactly alike in bright-blue frock coats with brass buttons and wearing dark brown wigs, came forward with solemn faces. They greeted Sir Roderick as though they were offering condolences to the bereaved.
‘A terrible sight!’ The elder twin waved his hand towards the window to indicate the havoc he had seen outside. When the younger one said to Sir Roderick, ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ his host half-expected him to add, ‘I’m a friend of the corpse’s,’ like one of the tenants at a wakehouse.
A cheer from the waiting crowd at the gateway announced Mr. O’Connell’s approach. The old Bard moved out of the shadow of the hallway to play a welcoming air. The avenue had been sufficiently cleared to make it possible for a carriage to get through. But it was not timber but a solid phalanx of human beings that impeded the carriage bearing the Liberator.
Sir Roderick, standing at the porch with his guests, was perturbed at the spectacle. ‘A gentleman should have some privacy in his own grounds,’ said Lord Cullen.
His host, with a sweep towards the half-upright gates and the big gaps in the high wall that exposed the house to the highway said ruefully, ‘There is not much privacy there and anyway, Mr. O’Connell is a public institution. He belongs to them.’ He nodded his head towards the crowd.
The yard at the back emptied itself of workers. From across the fields tenants, men, women and children came streaming. They finally took the horses from the shafts and drew the carriage themselves. Every few yards men jostled to share the honour of drawing the Liberator. Through the park rang the incessant cries of ‘Long live O’Connell! Long live the Liberator of Ireland!’
Sir Roderick came forward and bowed with a dignity that was almost reverence. Lady Cullen curtsied as though to royalty and her husband made a leg. The two gentlemen in blue bowed with courtly grace.
‘This is a proud day for my house, sir,’ said Roderick, ‘I only wish that it were in more fitting shape for your reception, but you have come in the wake of the storm.’ As he stepped back at the drawing-room door to admit Mr. O’Connell and his host, Mr. Richard Lalor Sheil, he waved his hand with a sweep of display, ‘We are compelled to receive you in its track.’
The great pile of glass in the corner caught the visitor’s eyes. ‘Ah,’ cried Mr. O’Connell, ‘that superb chandelier! There is nothing grander in Dublin Castle. I remember it in your father’s time. He was very proud of it.’
‘Both his grandfather and father were great collectors,’ said Mr. Lalor Sheil. ‘This is a treasure house of lovely things. Roderick has the collecting urge too. Have you made any additions lately, Roderick?’
Lord Cullen pointed his cane handle towards the ceiling and cackled heartily, ‘A most valuable specimen.’ He kept on cackling at his own joke about the baby until his wife jogged his elbow and sent snuff down his ruffles.
‘May I be privileged to view the specimen and its fair producer?’ said Mr. O’Connell. ‘It is not customary I know to intrude so soon but I must leave for London in a few days. It may be a long time again before I have the pleasure of meeting your wife and her baby.’
‘If you will come this way, sir, my wife will be honoured.’
As they ascended the stairs Mr. O’Connell continued, ‘Her father and my brother, Maurice, and myself only narrowly escaped being guillotined when we were trying to get from Douai College to Calais. It was the day Louis the Sixteenth was executed in Paris.’
Margaret’s pale face flushed to receive such a personage in such a place and in such an illness. Mr. O’Connell kissed the hand she shyly extended. He spoke to her in French. ‘I crave a thousand pardons for such an indelicate intrusion. But I had to see the charming chatelaine and now that I have seen her I know that my impeachment of etiquette was worthy of the risk.’ He turned to Sir Roderick. ‘You have made a worthy contribution to your forefathers’ collection of the beautiful. Allow me to congratulate you.’
He turned back to Margaret. ‘You have the same glossy, brown hair as your grandmother, Madame The O’Regan. Her son, your gallant father, God rest him, and my brother and myself hid in the same haystack from the revolutionaries when we were making our escape from the college.’
‘I have often heard him speak of that day. Monsieur O’Connell,’ said Margaret.
O’Connell was delighted. ‘Now you don’t say! It makes me glad and proud to know that he held me in his memory.’
‘He held you in his memory with great affection,’ she answered.
‘Sir Roderick, it was worth my risking your sweet lady’s displeasure to come to her bower and learn that I had not been forgotten by that brave soldier and Irishman, Colonel Michael O’Regan. And now, where is his grandchild?’ He took the tiny baby in his arms.
‘Little flower of the storm,’ he murmured. ‘What name have you chosen for the little treasure?’ he asked.
‘We have not decided, sir. She came impetuously and her coming had to take second place to the storm,’ answered the father.
‘Poor little mite, she had a trying passage. I know what I would call her if she were mine.’
Sir Roderick turned eagerly to his wife. ‘Darling, shall we ask Mr. O’Connell to choose a name?’
Margaret’s laugh rang out in all its former exuberance. ‘Oh, Roderick!’ she cried, ‘veritably Mr. O’Connell has more weighty things to settle than the matter of a baby’s name.’
‘Forgive me for daring to contradict a lady, and one so lovely and charming, but a baby’s name is a very important matter. I be
lieve that a name influences the life of its owner for all time, be it long or short. I think if I owned this little one I should be tempted to call it “Blaw-na-Sthurrim”.’
‘Sther-een!’ Margaret wrinkled her brows, ‘It sounds very long and difficult. I could never pronounce such a name.’
‘Stherrin is the Western pronunciation,’ said the Liberator. ‘Have you not acquired the Gaelic? How do you conduct your household?’
Mr. O’Connell had taken it for granted that Margaret, despite her continental birth would have been familiar with Gaelic. ‘The butler speaks French,’ she explained, ‘and Mrs. Mansfield speaks English. What does the name mean?’
‘It means,’ said her husband, ‘Flower of the Storm.’
‘And,’ said Mr. O’Connell, ‘you may take the flower part for granted and call her just Sthurrim.’
‘Mr. O’Connell, do you know I like the meaning of the name. I should like to think of her growing up strong and vigorous like her name. She is so tiny now.’
‘She will outgrow that fault, dear lady, and she will have the strength of the storm and the courage of her forebears and she already shows signs of the beauty of her mother.’
‘Sther-een,’ Margaret kept repeating the name, struggling with the pronunciation.
‘I like the way you say it best, darling,’ Roderick said. ‘Sterrin it shall be.’
The Liberator took a gallant leave of Margaret and returned to the company below. The new name and its owner were toasted in the dining-room by Richard Lalor Sheil. ‘Wait!’ cried Sir Roderick, as Richard was about to raise his glass. ‘We’ll drink from the Mether Cup. It is one of the baubles that the storm has left intact.’
He took from the sideboard a big quadrangular-shaped cup made of yew wood. A silver-mounted handle was fitted on each of the four sides. Mr. O’Connell leaned across to examine it.
‘Did Cromwell have a sup out of that?’ he asked. ‘There is some story, is there not, that your illustrious ancestor Taidgh Ruadh O’Carroll was inhospitable enough to refuse the poor man a drink when he paid a courtesy call to the castle?’
‘He did not exactly refuse, but when old Boney-face demanded that he send his servants with refreshments to his men, my little red-headed ancestor planted his feet across the width of the porch and said: “There is a great mortality upon my house. I am the last of my household that the plague has left standing and I fear I shall not stand upright much longer.”’
‘Did he fall for the ruse?’ asked Stephen de Guider.
‘Like a shot. Cromwell jumped up on his horse and said that neither he nor his men would taste anything from a pesty house. But he promised to call again.’
He filled the Mether Cup with wine. ‘He never returned.’ He placed the big square cup in front of his cousin. ‘I must confess, Richard,’ he said, and there was a faintly bitter twist to his smile, ‘that of all the uninvited guests who have come with covetousness in their hearts, the first to succeed in wresting a portion of my land from me was the one who came last night week—The Big Wind.
Richard Lalor Sheil rose to his feet. He knew that his cousin regarded the loss of the few acres as something sinister and supernatural so he refrained from those picturesque phrases that enchanted his hearers in the House of Commons. ‘May all your misfortune blow away with the field. When nature robbed the cradle of your land, a sweet hostage was placed in the cradle that held your own body. We drink to Sterrin!’
He moved the cup towards Lady Cullen. She placed her hand on one of the handles and took a sip. ‘To Sterrin,’ she cried.
The cup went round the table. ‘To Sterrin, God bless her,’ cried the Liberator in ringing tones.
7
It was the Feast of Epiphany again. Were it not for the obligation to hear mass, Sir Roderick would have wished the day to drop unnoticed into the passing week; no reminiscences; no associations.
For long after last Epiphany Margaret had drooped like a flower crushed by the storm, and when her body had recovered from the birth of Sterrin, her mind’s vigour had lagged behind. There had been times when Roderick had feared that she might carry a permanent scar to shadow the brightness of her mind. She had become subject to violent pain and whirrings in her head. They gave her the sensation, amounting almost to hallucination, that she was a small boat, rudderless and oarless, tossing on a wild sea at the mercy of the winds.
But gradually that quality of winsome serenity that had so intrigued Roderick began to return. Margaret had entered gaily into all the Christmas festivities, but on Christmas night while the Bard was playing to them in the drawing-room a gust of wind rattled the windows and the old man stopped his music. He wandered off into a lot of old ‘rawmaish’ about the Wild Huntsman on his Eight-footed Steed who rides forth between the date of the sun’s death in the middle of December and the twelfth day. Margaret grew strained again and started to watch for a recurrence of the terrible storm that she assumed must be a fixture of the Irish calendar and clime.
Roderick had outraged the Bard by ordering the hanger-on musician Paddy-the-rat from the kitchen to play his lively jigs and reels. He banned all further references to the Big Wind, even references to the baby’s birth. He kept Margaret on the go so much during those twelve visiting days of Christmas when every house stood open and everyone visited everyone else that the twelfth and last day came upon her unawares. All she realised was that two of the most glittering and sought-after hostesses of the garrison society were coming for this new-fashioned afternoon tea that she found so delightful.
Roderick had told her he would be late today. He did not say why, but Margaret was sure it had something to do with the Whiteboys. She was not precisely sure what the Whiteboys were, but Roderick had explained to her that they were an organisation whose stated purpose was to protest against unfair landlords, but who now seemed interested in little else but violence. They roamed the countryside, their faces blackened, wearing white shirts over their outer garments. They seemed more interested in crime than causes, and left terror and sometimes death in their wake. Margaret didn’t like to think about them. She wondered if she would ever get used to this strange country. Whether her love for her handsome, sensitive husband would overcome her fear of the land and the people he loved so much. She wished he were with her now to help her entertain her guests.
In the drawing-room Thomas the knife boy was helping the footman to light the one hundred and forty-seven candles that was all the chandelier could now hold.
‘It is a poor light compared to what used to be in it before this night twelvemonths,’ said the footman, looking up regretfully at the depleted chandelier. ‘Three hundred and fifty candles I used to light on it.’ He sighed gustily.
Young Thomas dutifully echoed his superior’s sigh with more force than sadness. It blew out his taper whose holder was taller than himself. ‘It must have been a great blaze,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Stacey says that it is unlucky to keep a thing after it is broken. She says it should be broken into three more pieces and then thrown out.’
The footman said that Mrs. Stacey said more than her prayers. ‘People couldn’t be expected to throw out a thing like that as if it were a broken mug.’
Young Thomas looked up dreamingly at the shapely tree of gleaming glass and colour that had so many of its branches and blossoms blighted. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that people who are born into owning grandeur like that have to bide with it when it meets misfortune. They probably have to accept whatever bad luck it brings.’
The footman leaned on the long lighter and looked sternly at the lad. ‘I’m thinkin’ it is too much time that you have on your hands since you went out with the Sir on the front of his horse. It’s not right for the likes of you to be lyin’ lazin’ in bed until half-past six in the mornins’ and wastin’ time when you are up, learnin’ to write off them tombstones. What would Nurse Hogan say if she knew?’
But Nurse Hogan did know. She had come upon him one day when no one was about, labouring over a she
et of brown paper in the coach-house. On rows of uneven lines scrawled with white chalk were written in great sprawling words ‘Richardus O’Carroll nobilis de Kilsheelin 1672 and William O’Carroll, Kilsheelin, Gentleman, who was happily emigrated to the Kingdom of Heaven Anno Domini 1701.’ Along the wall in front of the copy-paper were ranged the tombstones uprooted by the Big Wind.
The sight of the nameless waif teaching himself to write had stirred the aching roots of her heart. It recalled the studious young son who had been hurled from her life the night the tombstones had been uprooted. Had she protested there would have been an end to Young Thomas’s writing accomplishment; because the nurse had become almost indispensable to Lady O’Carroll. So deftly had she fitted into the household that she had taken over Mrs. Mansfield’s post with almost companion status.
A tinkle of bells and a frou-frou of silk warned the footman and his helper that Lady O’Carroll had entered the room. Thomas wondered how her Ladyship’s feet operated. She seemed to float along in a limbless sort of way. Only the bells and keys in her chatelaine belt suggested movement.
The boy had never before been so close to her Ladyship. He had only peeped through banisters or around corners at a remote and rustling graciousness, a wafting of fragrance, a tinkling of sound like the music heard at fairy raths. He gazed raptly at her foreign-seeming complexion and her great brown eyes, and the tall lighter in his hand became a lance uplifted.
She gazed about her to make sure that there was no nook or corner left unlighted to shadow fearsomeness. Lighted candelabra stood on every table and cabinet. She pointed to a branch of lights and bade the footman place them in a distant corner. That was better! Now there wasn’t a dark shadow in all the room.
A carriage jingled to a halt outside the window. A charming young officer whom she had met during the week at a military hunt breakfast was handing out someone dressed in a ravishing black velvet hat with a sable cloak. Margaret gave a discreet peep from behind the hangings. She made little smoothing movements with her fingers down the fifteen bows that reached from her collar to the first frill of her skirt, then the butler announced, ‘Mrs. Appleyard, Mrs. Kennedy-Sherwin and Lieutenant Fitzharding-Smith.’
The Big Wind Page 7