I tried again and again to write the letter. My pen would not make the words. The blank sheets, together with Danny’s last letter, were still in a drawer in the bedside table when my mother came with the news. I was thankful I was spared the vision I had dreaded, the uniformed figure coming to the door. Danny had died just two days after his baby daughter.
My family, and even Danny’s, were very good. They did everything, quietly, discreetly. When I returned from the hospital, everything, the baby clothes, the soft blankets, the wooden cradle Danny and I had made together in the days before he left, everything was gone. Nothing was left to remind me. Indeed so little was left of my life as wife and mother-to-be that at times, lying in my childhood bedroom at home, my mind would play shattering tricks and toy with the possibility that all of it had been a strange, lovely dream. But the pain was too real for any nightmare.
Life goes on. My mother said it. Danny’s mother said it. I kept quiet the voice in me saying why? What were they to say, after all, and who was I to throw my grief in their faces?
Life did go on. I stumbled through the depressions predicted by the doctors. In my room alone I wept for hours. I read, I went to the beach and walked and walked. Sometimes I met old friends from high school who had been away and had not even known I’d been married. I discovered that the things that had happened were not written on my face, as I felt sure they must be. Other people didn’t see them. Outwardly I was just the same as before.
It hurt me that no one could see the scars of my loss. Not for myself, but for Danny. I could not bear to see the world continuing so smoothly without him; his young life over and no visible witness of it remaining. Even I had failed him; I had given him no child.
I talked a lot about Danny, trying to keep him alive that way. Eventually even my family began to suggest gently that I move on to something new. They arranged the secretarial course; in my numbness I allowed myself to be led. It was sensible; my two years of liberal arts were of little practical use and I needed some way to support myself.
I threw myself into the course; it was different, it took up my time. I did quite well at it, surprising myself. I applied for, and got, my first job with little difficulty and found myself a tiny apartment in the city.
I saw Danny’s parents in Queens one or two times afterwards, and then I stopped seeing them at all. I realized that I was becoming a reminder of a time they wanted to forget. Danny’s college years had not been their happiest. He had disagreed with them about many things, even our marriage. They were practical and believed in waiting. We were in love and perhaps we sensed the time passing too quickly.
Then, too, we had clashed with them over the war. Danny was against it, and I bitterly so. I would have gone to Canada with him. In the end Danny went to war for his father’s honour.
After he was dead, I was surprised to find myself without bitterness, hoping his parents would not, like others, find doubts about the war that took their son. Now they reached back to his childhood for comfort. I went away with the conviction that never, never again would I go against what I believed in for anyone.
The job was sufficient financially, but dull. I found myself going through the want ads again. I found the ad in The Village Voice: ‘Girl Friday wanted, willing to live abroad, remote location. Apply Caledonian Importers.’
It could have been anything. Perhaps I should have been suspicious. Oddly I was not. My mind latched onto the word ‘remote’. Somewhere far away, clean away from everything and everybody. Somewhere, maybe, where my ghosts wouldn’t follow.
I answered the ad, found the address, a classy one on Madison Avenue. Inside, I found among the tiers of cool brass plates the one that said ‘Caledonian Importers’, and took the elevator up. I came out among carpeted air-conditioned corridors, hung with good paintings. I was beginning to feel girlish and clumpy in my miniskirt and platform-soled shoes, and wondered what I was doing here.
A slim, superbly groomed secretary appeared and asked me precisely that. I introduced myself and explained about the ad, and received a nod of acknowledgment and an indication to follow. Walking behind her I nervously patted my hair down, straightening the clip that held it in place. It had been so long since I’d bothered to think about how I looked. I’d taken to simply tying my dark hair back off my face and choosing my garments in order of which came first out of the closet. At the moment I regretted my disinterest. This looked like the sort of place where appearances might count for more than a little.
The plate on the door said ‘Dominic O’Brady, Executive Vice President’. The secretary opened the door, ushered me in, and closed it behind me all in one smooth gesture, leaving me alone in the room with the man who still stood, gazing out the wide window, his back to me, as if he hadn’t noticed my entrance. I started to speak, to introduce myself. Then he whirled around suddenly, those incredible blue eyes taking hold of my own, and I didn’t say anything at all, but just stood there, amazed.
I don’t know how it was he could dominate a room so. He didn’t seem big, or physically powerful, standing beside that massive executive desk. I’m five-foot-five, and I hardly had to look up to meet his gaze. But when I did I knew instantly that that room was under his control, that things that happened there were under his control, and that if I wasn’t careful, I would be under his control, too. I think I must have stepped back a step, away from him, coming up against the closed door behind me. He grinned.
‘Come in, I don’t bite,’ he said.
I stepped coolly forward, my pride getting the better of me. Charisma I might be wary of, but I was not going to be laughed at.
‘I’m Caroline Reilly,’ I said sharply. ‘I’ve come in response to your ad.’
His smile broadened, a look of interest lighting his face. ‘You’re Irish?’ he said.
I shook my head. I wasn’t actually, though he was not the first to say so. Somehow the many mixed nationalities that formed my ancestry had united to give me classically Celtic features, down to the blue eyes and fair freckled skin. Coupled now with my husband’s Irish name, the inaccurate picture was complete.
‘Reilly is my married name,’ I explained.
‘You’re married?’ he asked with such surprise that it was clear he had expected only single women to answer his ad, not without logic, considering its wording.
‘I’m a widow,’ I said simply, still finding it difficult to say. His heavy brows went up, questioning, and I realized that like others he found the concept of so young a widow strange. ‘My husband was killed in Vietnam,’ I added.
A genuine sorrow came over his face. He stepped forward and actually took both my hands between his. I was deeply conscious again of the tense, exciting feeling of power about him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said very softly, and I knew he meant it. ‘But at least,’ he added slowly, ‘you can take comfort that your husband died honourably for his country.’ My eyes came up, angrily meeting his. For an instant I thought he was making some sort of terrible cruel joke. But his sincerity was written on his face, sincerity and something deeper, like a sadness he was remembering. I lowered my eyes and said, ‘Thank you,’ softly. One of the things I had learned since Danny’s death was to take the words people offered as they were intended. If Dominic O’Brady saw something of value in the way Danny died, it was for me to accept that as the gift it was meant to be.
Perhaps because our first exchange set the tenor of our conversation, Dominic was utterly courteous, rather solemnly so, throughout the meeting. The light mockery with which he had greeted me did not return. He showed me to a chair, offered a cigarette from a beautiful silver box decorated all around with elaborate, intertwining patterns.
He asked about my qualifications, and I explained, briefly and directly. He seemed satisfied, but wanted to know if I could cook as well. I nodded, somewhat puzzled, and asked to know exactly what the job entailed.
‘I need a secretary,’ he replied. ‘There isn’t much paperwork, but enough so that I don’t wan
t to be bothered with it myself. I also need a housekeeper, someone to cook, clean up a bit, look after things when I’m away. And’ ‒ he paused, smiling slightly ‒ ‘someone who will be willing to put up with my erratic hours and my erratic temper. I somehow feel the home-grown variety of housekeeper would not be willing.’
‘Home-grown?’ I questioned. ‘Where’s home?’
He whirled around and flung his right hand expansively at the wall behind him. ‘There,’ he said.
I had been glancing at the picture surreptitiously since I’d entered the room. I could not have helped but notice it. It was as out of place in that crisp, understated setting as a pop art poster of Mickey Mouse might have been. Which is not to draw a comparison, because it was a beautiful painting, probably a very valuable one also. But it was obvious that the fastidious decorator who had chosen the beige carpets, smooth oatmeal-coloured walls, and unobtrusive muted modern paintings had never hung this here. Rather, the sight of the carved gilt frame alone might have caused him to hang himself here.
It belonged in a castle. Indeed, I learned later it had come from a castle, after Dominic had crossed the impoverished castle owner’s palm with a lot of American dollars. It was a nineteenth-century Romantic oil, the paint laid on thick and dark and generous. It depicted a mountain scene, rising lines of jagged peaks, some reaching into snow. In the foreground, almost black in the artist’s twilight lighting, was a body of water, deep and mysterious. The far shore, almost as dark as the water, seemed to sweep out to a headland; beyond, perhaps, was the sea. On that long stretch of hillside and shore there was one tiny white speck, only just suggesting the square outlines of a rough house.
It looked like the loneliest place in the world.
‘Sron Ban,’ Dominic said softly.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘The house. The hill also, of course. Sron Ban. It’s Gaelic. It means “the white mountain”.’
‘It certainly doesn’t look white,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘No, it doesn’t much, there,’ he agreed. ‘It can, though, in the morning, and from the right direction. The name must have come from the way it looks from Ullapool.’
‘Ullapool?’
‘A small fishing port in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland.’
Home he had said, I remembered abruptly. ‘Is that where you live?’ I asked awkwardly.
‘I have lived there,’ he replied, ‘on and off, in the past five years. Mostly just the occasional week while I was seeing to things at the distillery. But,’ he added quickly, and with some determination, ‘that is where I am going to live. And where you are going to live … if you decide to accept the job, of course.’ He added the last as if it were an afterthought of little consequence, his statement that I would live at Sron Ban having been spoken with such assurance that any objections I might have had were already rendered irrelevant.
Once again I experienced the sensation that control over the situation was sliding to him and I had to suppress the desire to look toward the door as if that visible means of escape could free me. Questions flitted through my mind. Why was he so apparently settled on my taking the job? Had there been no other applicants? Or had he said this to each of them? Had he pressed me for a decision right then, I think my natural caution would have reasserted itself. He did not. Instead he rose and walked to a small cabinet, taking from it a bottle and two glasses.
My eyebrows rose as he returned with them. It was hardly the usual job interview. He noticed and grinned.
‘Not entirely social, Mrs. Reilly,’ he explained, a hint of his first humour returning momentarily. ‘I thought you might as well sample the product if you’re going to work for the company.’ He placed the bottle on a small coffee table in front of me, and beside it the two glasses, cut crystal unusually shaped into the form of a thistle. I admired them.
‘Edinburgh crystal,’ he said, and turned the bottle so that I could read the label. There was a picture, and in spite of its being in watercolour and represented in daylight, I was still able to recognize the scene in the painting on the wall. Around it in curving antique letters were the words ‘Sron Ban Malt Whisky’.
I rarely drink, and when I do, it is likely to be sherry or perhaps gin. Never whisky. In these circumstances I could hardly refuse, however, so I accepted the crystal glass with its pale golden contents. He watched as I sipped it.
‘Good?’ he asked, as my face registered pleasant surprise.
‘It’s out of this world,’ I replied. ‘It doesn’t even taste like whisky.’
He laughed aloud. ‘Well, it’s a back-handed compliment, but I guess it is a compliment.’
I nodded and took another sip.
‘Hey, watch it.’ He grinned. ‘It’s strong stuff.’ I had to agree. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and three sips of the stuff had produced a slightly alarming sensation of warmth and well-being.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Nectar of the Gods,’ he answered, enjoying his own glass. ‘It’s pure malt whisky,’ he elaborated. ‘We don’t get much of it here, in this form. It usually arrives sadly adulterated by less lordly liquids ‒ grain whiskeys, to be precise. Individual distilleries make comparatively little, some of which is blended into the major brands. Much of it never leaves Scotland. At Sron Ban we produce only this pure pot-stilled malt, and since I’ve owned the distillery, it has all been exported to fairly exclusive markets in France. Except for the odd bottle I import personally for my own pleasure.’ He smiled, tapping the bottle.
‘Doesn’t Caledonian Importers get any of it?’ I asked.
Dominic shook his head. ‘There isn’t any connection actually. Sron Ban is my own company. I’ve always kept my work there separate from my position with Caledonian. Which is just as well, now that I’m leaving. Saves any complications. Dealing with Caledonian would mean maintaining connections in New York, which is the last thing I want to do.’
It was an odd thing to say, and I’d have liked to know what he meant by it, but felt I had no right to ask since it was not my concern. The fact that he was leaving the company in whose offices we were now sitting was my concern.
‘If you are leaving the company, who is to be my employer?’ I asked sharply. ‘The ad was placed by Caledonian Importers.’
He smiled wryly. ‘It was. Looks better that way. No, it’s just me. Does it make any difference?’
It did. Somehow even a distant connection with this solid-looking firm in New York served to add legitimacy to the proposition. Now it was just a small whisky distillery, a lonely house on a remote peninsula in a far country, and Dominic O’Brady.
Suddenly I realized I was going through the conventional checklist of dangers threatening unwary maidens, and I smiled wryly. His eyes hadn’t left my face and he read my mind.
‘I know it isn’t terribly proper, the two of us alone in the house, but there is the farmhouse nearby, with the MacLeods. They are very kind, and quite near, really. And’ ‒ he paused awkwardly ‒ ‘I wouldn’t dream of … you wouldn’t have to be frightened of me.’ He finished hurriedly, embarrassed. I felt ashamed. He was so old-fashioned, so courteous. That I had even implied distrust of him seemed almost indecent. Actually, I had felt no distrust. The caution I had exercised was the result of conventional training. In fact, in that way, at least, I never felt afraid of Dominic.
Abruptly he ended the meeting. He stood up, took a card from his pocket. On it were embossed his name and the address and telephone number of the office. ‘Think about it over the weekend. Call me on Monday, if you decide to accept.’ He took my hands again briefly. ‘Goodbye, Caroline,’ he said.
I found my way back down the beige corridors, a little hazy from that gentle malt whisky, and took the elevator down to the street. I was aware that whether I ever saw Dominic O’Brady again was entirely up to me. He had made it evident that the job was mine, if I wanted it. But he had not even taken my address.
I went home to Long Island for the weekend.
The next morning I borrowed my mother’s car and drove out to Shirley, crossing the bridge to the beach on Fire Island. It was May, but you wouldn’t have known it from the weather; cold salt mist hung up and down the strand.
I had been coming here since I was a child. I remembered the way it was before the bridge was built and we stood around waiting for the ferry to cross the narrow strip of water. We had family picnics with aunts and cousins, gathered beach plums, swam in the cold surf. In high school we all came here after our junior prom. The beach party lasted all day; some of the boys drank beer and got sick.
The November after our wedding Danny and I came here, in jeans and heavy duffle coats. I was one month pregnant, only just aware. We walked along the wet sand. Danny kept asking if I was all right and suggesting we stop and rest. I laughed at him.
I walked now down to the very edge of the sea, and stood there, watching the grey water crest up and slide, foaming, around the toes of my boots. I thought about Danny, and then very carefully I thought about Dominic O’Brady.
Widows are supposed to feel guilty when they first think of another man. I didn’t. But then, it wasn’t romance that had drawn me to Dominic, it was simply his vitality. There was an intensity of life about him and it flowed to me like the tide into an empty pool. When I left him, I felt its loss.
I looked away down the beach, where far out to the east, sea and sand and sky faded into one grey haze. Somewhere, out there, past the blurred line of the horizon, the same grey sea rolled into the dark sea loch below Sron Ban.
I turned and walked back up the wide white beach, away from the surf. Danny’s presence slipped from me like the faint salt mist from my coat. On the far side of the island I got into my car and drove back across the bridge.
On Monday morning I called Dominic O’Brady.
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Christabel's Room: A spellbinding Victorian gothic romance Page 18