But Margaret, in the numbness of grief that had followed the initial shock, was no man’s accuser. Her eyes followed what they were doing at the opened ground at her feet and through her mind there moved unbidden the lines of some poem.
Dig the grave both wide and deep
For I am sick and fain would sleep...
Across the space something fluttered. Miss Hester dabbing her eyes with a black-bordered handkerchief! Or was it Miss Sarah? The poor old ladies they were so old. And poor old Lady Cullen with Lord Cullen, they were both so old. So were the de Guider gentlemen; and she hadn’t realised that Lord Templetown was so old. They were all old—except Roderick.
Dig the grave both deep and wide
and let us slumber side by side.
Someone took the burden from the tortured shoulder of Big John... ‘Dig the grave and make it ready. Lay me on my true love’s body.’ My true love—Roder-eeck! But no one heard the cry. It had gone echoing down the lonely corridors of her mind.
A hand slipped under her arm and held it firmly. How is it she had never noticed that the features of this white small face beside her were exactly the same as his? The red hair? That was what had clouded the resemblance. But today it was drawn back beneath the black bonnet.
Young Thomas laid down the harp at last. Her Ladyship had never liked the harp’s sad music. He had hoped that Mr. Maurice O’Carroll, who had arranged everything, would not have sanctioned the bardic lament. But Mr. Maurice insisted. There were few families left who possessed the household bard. Let the Bard of Kilsheelin uphold its tradition.
The old man’s fingers forgot their stiffness. The melody they drew from the harp was fraught with such an agony of wild despair that the lament might have been plucked from the strings of his own heart.
Sterrin looked about her in panic. There was no escaping that terrible keen. And now Mamma’s arm was trembling. She must stand by her with the support that he had given. Oh, for the protection of his strong arms! For the sight of that haughty face when it softened into tenderness and playfulness.
Someone was looking at her. Across the grave she saw Young Thomas. He gave her a little smile. Her heart steadied. There was always Young Thomas!
Part 2
34
The clanging of a bell brought the silent garden to sudden life. Girls of all shapes and sizes in navy gowns and white crochet cuffs and collars came hurrying in response to its sound. In the shadow of a tree by the wall a girl chucked at the pair of legs she was supporting. Their owner ignored the chuck and continued to strain over the wall. Her head pivoted to right and left, watching each end of the road. She was holding on to the top of the wall with her hands while the girl below gripped her legs.
‘Sterrin! We’ll be murdered. The Confession bell has gone.’ But Sterrin had spotted the waggon.
‘At last!’ she breathed.
A cautious ‘Whoa’ brought it clattering to a standstill beneath her. ‘I was beginning to give up hope,’ she said. ‘What kept you Young Thomas?’
‘I’ve been haggling like a dealer to squeeze a few extra shillings so that I could prove to them at home that the price is better in this town than in Templetown.’ He stood up to hand over the packets of butterscotch. The girl below gave another tug. Sterrin swept the butterscotch down to her. ‘Are you sure you can trust her. Miss Sterrin?’ She nodded, ‘Winifred would die for me. Besides, she loves butterscotch.’
‘And you love chocolate.’ He pushed a small box towards her.
‘Young Thomas!’ she cried as surprised as if he had never brought them before. In her excitement she forgot to whisper. ‘You know that you mustn’t spend your money on me. It’s not right.’ He knew that it wasn’t right to be here at all. If it were discovered in the castle why he was making excuses about higher prices for produce here in this town than in Templetown! It didn’t bear thinking of. ‘You must have been paid your wages?’
He nodded, ‘We were all paid after the harvest.’
‘Has Thuckeen foaled yet?’
‘Thuckeen foaled yesterday,’ he told her. ‘But be sure you don’t let it slip that you know when you are writing. A grand little mahogany bay filly, Miss Sterrin, but not in Thuckeen’s class.’
‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘It was only to be expected. The sire wasn’t anything near Thuckeen’s class. It wasn’t even a thoroughbred.’ She sighed. ‘She would never have been allowed to breed outside her class if—’ she stopped. Whenever she tried to speak her papa’s name the word stuck somewhere in her throat and all the words that should follow got piled up like road traffic behind a balking horse. The bell cut through her confusion and the girl below pulled Sterrin by the legs out of her introspection. ‘Jump for it. I’m going,’ she hissed. ‘Here’s Sister Mary Aliquo-five-yards-of-calico.’
Winifred might die for Sterrin but she wasn’t going to be caught for her. Sterrin’s head and shoulders had gone down for the second time when Thomas realised that her ground support was gone. He flung both arms around her shoulders and held her. She dropped the chocolate box and gripped the back of his collar with her free hand, and that was the moment that Sister Mary Aliquo came through a clearing in the trees with the bell and saw them. She let the bell fall from her hand with one clanging yelp of its metal tongue.
Sister Mary Aliquo closed her eyes and murmured a prayer. When she opened them the vision was still there; the shocking vision of a girl hanging from the wall in the arms of a man! For one terrible moment the nun thought that the immodestly swinging girl was a postulant. She was dressed in black. Then she noticed the auburn hair tied with a black ribbon and she remembered that Sterrin O’Carroll was exempt from wearing school uniform until her two years’ mourning was up.
The sound of the fallen bell made Sterrin glance over her shoulder; she saw the nun! The next moment the horse started to move. Sterrin was borne along the inside of the wall for a few yards. Young Thomas called out something about having to let her go. He was being dragged away.
Sterrin landed on all fours and groped about for the chocolate box. The nun regarded this as the crowning insubordination. Any other girl would have jumped straight to her feet, confused and guilty.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ Shock had melted into red-faced anger. Sister Mary Aliquo had frequently to remind herself that Sterrin’s seemingly cool, unintimidated manner was due to the subduing effects of her tragic experience; that it wasn’t just—superiority that seemed to make such an impression upon her companions—and her teachers.
Sterrin, with one ear tuned to the clatter of wheels and runaway hooves sounding out in the world—every place outside the convent wall was referred to as ‘the world’—said simply: ‘I lost my footing.’
She rose and waited for the onslaught. But Sister Mary Aliquo was beyond speech. Her soft underlip was wobbling like a motherless foal’s. All she wanted was to get away from this unhallowed spot. Her mind groped for the words she would use to make her report to Reverend Mother. That sinful embrace! The spectacle of those—dangling—extremities! Sister Aliquo realised that as Mistress of Deportment she must voice some reproof. Conduct came under her particular sphere. But not this conduct! Discipline came to her aid. ‘Report to Reverend Mother,’ she said in a low, hoarse voice, ‘but first go to Confession and see that you examine your conscience on the Sixth Commandment!’ She turned and hurried inside.
Sterrin’s black brows shot up, ‘Is it broken. Sister?’ She asked it as though it were something that she had knocked off the wall. ‘But Sister, you told us—’ But Sister Aliquo had disappeared.
‘So that’s what that is!’ Sterrin paused in the shoe-room to remove her outdoor shoes and reflected that Sister Mary Aliquo-five-yards-of-calico was not very consistent. She had told the girls to skip the Sixth, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ when they were examining their consciences. It did not concern nice girls.
The Head Prefect came hurrying into the shoe-room. ‘What on earth is keeping you?’ And then
with a sniff, ‘Do you think that you are above the rules? I happen to be aware of your conduct this afternoon.’
Sterrin put on a black velvet houseshoe and tied the ribbon with a painstaking bow.
‘I suppose,’ the Head Prefect went on, ‘that you are going to tell me he was your brother.’
Sterrin reached for her other slipper. The H.P. was the only girl whom she really disliked. She thought her smug and purse-proud. Her father had cleaned up a fortune on the Great Hunger. He had bought up all the potatoes that had flourished unblighted in the Maharees in Kerry during the famine.
Without looking up Sterrin said evenly, ‘I had no intention of telling you anything.’
The Head prefect flushed. Sterrin’s white stillness always struck her as disdain. ‘I must say,’ she said, ‘that your behaviour and your manners do not reflect much credit upon—upon wherever they were acquired,’ she ended lamely.
Sterrin thought of the place where she had acquired her manners; and of other places like it, that had drained out their substance while people like this girl fattened. For the first time in two years she felt a vigorous anger sweep through her. ‘I will not listen to criticism of my home from any black potato profiteer.’
The remark, crude and earthy as a pelted potato, struck home. The Head girl took a step nearer to Sterrin. Her eyes narrowed, the dark centres filled with rage. ‘At least,’ she said, ‘we didn’t gorge ourselves in public on cake while the people starved.’ She stepped back. Sterrin dropped the shoe. Her hand shot out and on the cheek where it landed there flamed an angry weal.
Sterrin wheeled and ran through the door, heedless of direction, on down the front avenue; only to get away! Not from fear or guilt of what she had done but from the contagion of those awful words that she associated with the terrible darraghadheal, who had murdered her father!
She saw the front gates ahead of her without quite realising what they were. Then through the bars she saw a face peeping and behind it the wheels of a waggon. Thank God! There was always Young Thomas!
He had driven round to the front and lingered in the hopes of gleaning something about her fate. And here she was racing down the front avenue hoppity-hop in one shoe.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said to the scandalised gatekeeper who tried to bar her way. She pushed through the wicket. ‘Help me up on the waggon, Young Thomas,’ she gasped.
‘But Miss Sterrin—’
‘Do what you are told!’
He did what he was told; then he wrapped the tarpaulin rug about her shoulders and listened to the gasped-out story. And he marvelled. Her father’s name came out freely; again and again. She even spoke the name that men did not speak to each other; much less to the family; the name of the darraghadheal. The ringing cadence was back in her voice again and her eyes were purple with anger. Suddenly she began to giggle. ‘Oh, Young Thomas,’ she spluttered, ‘you should have seen the face of Sister Mary Aliquo-five-yards-of-calico when I plopped down at her feet. Oh, I forgot. Did you know that what I—what we—did was adultery?’
‘What?’
‘Yes, I hadn’t realised either. I thought it was something that gentlemen called out other gentlemen for; of course, you couldn’t be called out. You are not entitled to the “point of honour”.’
‘No. I’d probably get a horsewhipping.’
‘You would not. I wouldn’t allow anyone to horsewhip you.’ A few big drops spattered down suddenly. She lifted the tarpaulin from across one shoulder and drew it around him, bringing them both together under its fold. She sighed. ‘It would be more convenient if you were a gentleman.’
‘Aye,’ Young Thomas agreed, ‘a sword is more convenient than a horsewhip. Meantime there’s going to be melia* murder. What will her Ladyship say when you tell her that you’ve run away?’
‘What will she say but that I did the right thing. Do you think she would have me stay under the same roof as the creature who dared to insult my father’s memory?’
Which was exactly her mamma’s attitude. ‘Except,’ said Margaret after the initial consternation and explanations, ‘it would have been more appropriate if you had waited for the carriage to come and collect you instead of travelling home in a farm waggon, and if you had worn both your shoes.’
In the general indignation at the dreadful taunt that had been cast at Sterrin her original misbehaviour went unnoticed. But Maurice O’Carroll was not so easily fobbed off. It was he who had insisted upon Sterrin’s being sent to school. After her father’s assassination, her increasingly distrait eyes, long spells of silence, sheering off from any mention of her father’s name, had alarmed him. He insisted that she be removed from the scene where she had witnessed so much horror. She needed the company of youngsters of her own age.
Now as he watched her animated expression, heard the vibrancy in her tone as she explained why she had returned, he felt that his decision had been wise; though it had seemed harsh at the time. But he wasn’t going to be put off about Sterrin’s part in the affair.
Events flowed from causes, he pointed out. ‘What, in the first instance,’ he demanded of her, ‘were you doing up on that wall? And how come that that knife boy fellow happened to be there? Eh, young lady?’
‘Well! I knew it was a market day and I heard O’Driscoll say that there were better prices to be had there than in Temple-town—something to do with the iron road. I was looking out in the half hope of seeing him; just to hear word of Mamma, you know—and Dominic.’ She paused and added in a small voice wistfully, ‘It was lonely there, Cousin Maurice.’
That settled it. He patted her shoulders. ‘I suppose it was, grá gal.’
But at the end of his visit something happened that renewed his suspicions. Margaret had come to the carriage to see him off, but he lingered to bid Sterrin goodbye. She had gone riding on Thuckeen. ‘I’d as lief she were back before I go,’ he said to Margaret, ‘I doubt if she’s fit yet to handle that mare.’
Sterrin’s red setter, Anna, that had been her father’s, came round the terrace end of the castle, barking. It jumped up on Margaret, barking violently. ‘Sterrin must be coming,’ said Margaret. ‘Down, Anna!’
But the setter would not stay down. She continued to jump up barking, then she ran back a few yards and stood waiting then returned again to Margaret. Suddenly she dashed at Young Thomas who was holding the horse’s head. She seized his coat in her teeth and started to pull. He dropped the bridle. ‘It’s Miss Sterrin,’ he cried, ‘there’s a trouble on the dog, Sir—it must be Miss Sterrin.’ The dog led him across the fields, looking over his shoulder every now and again to make sure Thomas was following.
He found Sterrin lying on the ground; the great black horse standing over her was quivering with the strain of not moving lest it trample her, for her body rested partly against its forelegs.
Young Thomas swooped up the unconscious girl in his arms as though she were no one’s concern but his. Maurice, in his preoccupation with the almost swooning Margaret, was vaguely conscious of the action. But when the procession moved towards the house his awareness became acute; the white look on the knife boy’s face, he reflected, was something beyond the normal concern of the most loyal servant. When Sterrin was lowered on to her bed she opened her eyes and smiled up at Thomas. Maurice O’Carroll caught the expression on the servant’s face as he returned the smile, and made a decision.
‘You must not ride Thuckeen again,’ Lady O’Carroll said when the doctor had gone and Sterrin was found to be not too much the worse for her fall. ‘Cousin Maurice was surprised this afternoon at my permitting you to ride her.’ She turned to Maurice. ‘You may be sure that she shall not expose herself to that danger again.’
But Maurice had come to the conclusion that Sterrin was exposed to a greater danger than that from the great black mare with the gentle eyes.
He beckoned Thomas into the library. ‘A word with you, young fellow.’
*
At four o’clock on a May morning one m
onth later, Young Thomas went away from Kilsheelin Castle and from Miss Sterrin.
He was not due to catch the Bianconi for nearly two hours but it was ten to four when he tapped at her bedroom door. She was dressing, waiting. Silently they walked together across the park. Each strove to say something momentous; something that would refer back to all their life together. But every step was shortening their last moments together and still no words would come.
At the wall gap they both turned and looked back. She scraped her throat and said something that sounded ‘eejity’ to herself. ‘Look at the path we have made.’ Across the park where they had walked there was a faintly gleaming track surfaced by the dewdrops that their cloaks had brushed from the brown ‘traneens’. His eyes followed the track to the shadowy castle that had enfolded his life in its grace; they ranged over the lawns and the fields that held so much memory; they lingered on the haunted field that he had witnessed rising up to the sky on the night that his memory was born; then on the graveyard that held the godchild that he had cherished and the great gentleman whom he had revered. At last they forced themselves back to take the parting look of the one who was the embodiment of all that he was leaving behind.
‘Well, it is goodbye, Miss Sterrin.’ It was a miserable sort of remark he thought. The tenderness of his smile smashed down the sore, hard pressure behind his eyes. Tears and words burst out together.
‘No, no! Not to you—not goodbye to you! Don’t go. Young Thomas,’ she pleaded, then turned away from the futility of her words. She looked towards the castle, her face suddenly fierce, her teeth clenched. ‘I shall never forgive Cousin Maurice! Never!’
‘Don’t blame him, Miss Sterrin. It is true what he said about cutting down staff. He cannot meet the wages. He is cutting down staff. He had to make a start somewhere—after all I’m the only outsider on the staff.’
The Big Wind Page 37