An Embarrassment of Riches (13 page)

‘Because he would not have known,' Maura said, the pain in her heart so acute that she wondered how she was ever going to live with it. ‘His heir might have decided to make Ballacharmish his home. We might have both continued living here, as before.'

‘Perhaps when I am twenty-one Lord Clanmar might allow me to return here?' Isabel said with sudden, fierce hope. ‘Then we will be together again and your mother could live with us and Kieron could again be land-agent and …'

Kieron. Maura clenched her hands together even tighter. A new land-agent had been appointed to Ballacharmish and Kieron was going south, to Waterford, to be land-agent for Lord Powerscourt. When Isabel left for her new home in London she would be completely friendless. The only person left would be her mother.

It was Kieron who rode to Ballacharmish two days later with the news he had long expected that he would have one day to bring. Mary Sullivan had died in the night.

Maura stared at him unbelievingly. ‘But she can't have done! She was getting stronger! Yesterday she said my name quite clearly!'

‘I'm sorry,' Kieron said inadequately, his sun-bronzed face haggard. ‘Ellen says it was quite painless. She simply fell asleep and didn't wake.'

‘Oh God!' she covered her face with her hands. ‘Hold me, Kieron! Please hold me!'

He did so willingly, cradling her against his muscled chest as for the first time in that long, hideous week, she began to weep. She wept for Lord Clanmar, for her mother, for the loss of Ballacharmish. She wept and wept, her heart breaking, and he held her close, stroking her hair with a strong, large hand.

‘At least now there may be a future for you,' he said at last as her breathing began to steady. ‘You can go to London with Isabel. You won't be completely alone in the world.'

‘No,' she said huskily, agreeing with his last statement. She wiped the tears from her face with her fingers and looked up at him, her face ivory pale, her eyes so dark with grief he could barely tell iris from pupil. ‘Will you go for the priest for me, Kieron? Will you help me arrange the funeral?'

He nodded. She was still in the circle of his arms and he was seized with the urge to lower his head to hers and to bruise her mouth with his lips. Slowly he let her go, stunned by the desire roaring through his veins. When had it happened? When had she grown from being an exuberant little girl into a devastatingly alluring young woman? All his life he had regarded her as though she were his younger sister. As his sex hardened unbearably he knew he would never do so again.

‘I must go and tell Isabel,' she was saying to him, her voice thick from the tears she had shed. She turned, walking away from him and he stared after her, too shocked to move. Dear Christ! What a time to discover that his feelings for her were no longer brotherly but blatantly sexual. Lord Clanmar was barely buried, her mother was not yet cold, and he himself was about to leave for a new position in distant Waterford.

‘Jesus and all the saints!' he said to himself beneath his breath. ‘What now, Kieron, boyo? What now?'

Her mother's funeral took place at the Catholic church in Rathdrum. Maura had expected there to be only a handful of mourners, but besides herself and Isabel and Kieron, there was Dr Pearse and nearly the entire household staff of Ballacharmish.

Rendlesham was there, looking tired and old. Like the rest of the household he had received notice of his dismissal. Maura wondered where he would go, if he would look for another position or if he would retire on the generous legacy that he was due to receive under the terms of Lord Clanmar's will. Mrs Connor was with him, tight-lipped and uncommunicative and carrying a sheaf of delphiniums and columbines which she laid at the side of the grave. Ellen and Kitty followed suit with posies of sweet peas they had picked themselves that morning.

To Maura's utter astonishment old Ned Murphy was there, sober and barely recognizable in a pair of stained, black pin-striped trousers. They looked as if they had once belonged to Rendlesham and Maura wondered if it was Kieron who had purloined them for him. Even the staunchly Anglican Miss Marlow was in attendance, looking slightly startled at finding herself amid the alien incense and Latin chants of Roman Catholicism.

‘
Conquiescat in pace … dei gratia …'

Maura looked around the tiny church she had worshipped in all her life. In a few days'time she would be leaving with Isabel for London. One part of her life was over. Another was about to begin. For her mother's sake she was determined to make the most of it. Her mother would have been in ecstasies at the thought of her living as Isabel's companion in a city as grand as London. And it would only be for a few years. When Isabel came of age and into her inheritance, then surely the new Lord Clanmar would agree to her moving back to Ballacharmish? Five years. As long as they were together, five years would surely be bearable.

‘She's
what
?' In his London club in St James's, the new Lord Clanmar stared at his young male secretary in stunned disbelief.

‘She's the daughter of a tenant, your lordship,' his secretary said, bemused. ‘According to the local doctor it appears that the former Lord Clanmar was of the belief that with the right education, the daughter of a peasant would be indistinguishable from the daughter of a peer. It was in attempting to prove this theory that the child in question became Lady Dalziel's companion.'

‘The daughter of an Irish peasant indistinguishable from the daughter of a peer?' his lordship repeated in incredulity. ‘What utter stuff and nonsense! What absolute balderdash! Well, she's not coming here! If my ward requires a companion then she will have a companion suitable for her rank, not some barefoot, illiterate peasant child! Send word immediately that the Sullivan creature is not to accompany her as has been arranged.'

‘Yes, sir,' his secretary said obediently and a trifle regretfully. If there had been no forewarning and the peasant girl had arrived with Lady Dalziel, there would have been some rare fun and games. Disappointedly aware that these would not now take place, he wrote to Lady Dalziel's chaperone informing her of his lordship's decision.

‘But he can't mean it!' Isabel gasped, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Maura has been with me for nine years! Grandpapa would never have intended that we be separated! You must write back to Lord Clanmar immediately, telling him so!'

Miss Marlow's liver-spotted hands fluttered helplessly. ‘I cannot possibly do such a thing, Isabel. I sympathize with you, my dear, I really do, but your guardian has reached a decision and there is nothing that can now be done about it.'

‘But there
must
be!' Isabel protested, distraught. ‘I
refuse
to go to London without Maura!'

Miss Marlow felt quite faint and wondered if she should send for Dr Pearse. The situation was quite beyond her. Why her old friend had died without leaving a will that would have clarified matters with regard to Maura, she couldn't begin to imagine. Nor could she imagine why he had never informed her as to Maura's parentage. For years she had acted as her chaperone whenever she and Isabel had visited Dublin on shopping expeditions and during all those years she had always assumed that Maura's ancestry was suitably distinguished. That she was the daughter of a Ballacharmish tenant had never occurred to her and the letter she had just received had come as a terrible shock.

‘Can't Lord Clanmar understand how lonely London is going to be for me?' Isabel asked, abandoning temper as a tactic and trying sweet reason. ‘I shan't know anyone, and even Lord Clanmar is going to be a stranger to me.'

‘I am sure his lordship will soon arrange for a new companion and …'

‘But if I am to have a companion, why cannot it be Maura?' Isabel cried frustratedly. ‘I'm quite certain that Grandpapa never intended we should be parted like this. How on earth am I going to manage in a strange house, surrounded by people I have never before met and in a large city that is absolutely foreign to me?'

‘You will have to manage the best you can,' Miss Marlow retorted with such a surprising show of spirit that Isabel was shocked into temporary silence. Miss Marlow felt quite shocked herself. She couldn't remember speaking like that before to anyone, and it had been occasioned by her concern over Maura's future.

What on earth was going to happen to her? There had been no provision for her in Lord Clanmar's will. Her mother was dead and she had no other family. She doubted very much that the new Lord Clanmar would allow her to occupy the house her mother had been living in. Presumably he would have no objections to her moving back to the family cabin in Killaree, but how could she possibly exist there, amidst Killaree's squalor, after her years of refined living at Ballacharmish?

She picked up her embroidery in the hope that it would steady her nerves. Thanks to Lord Clanmar's eccentricity Maura was exceptionally well educated. If she had been a little older it would have been quite easy for her to have obtained employment as a governess. As it was, she was only seventeen. And not many people would wish to employ a governess little older than her charges.

‘I shall write to my guardian myself,' Isabel said resolutely, finally giving up the hope that Miss Marlow was going to intercede with the new Lord Clanmar on her behalf.

Miss Marlow looked at her bleakly. ‘There is no time, my dear. We are to leave on Friday for London.'

Isabel's face was bereft of colour. ‘Then I shall speak to him about Maura the instant I meet with him.'

Miss Marlow nodded. It was the only course left open. But she did not think it would prove successful.

Maura was out riding in the woods above Lough Suir. The instant that Miss Marlow unhappily had read Lord Clanmar's instructions to her she had realized what his decision meant for her future. She was now entirely alone, without anyone to depend on but herself. And she was penniless.

She slipped from the saddle and loosened a buckle from her pony's bit, tying one end of the rein to a sapling. Then, leaving him to graze, she walked to where the ground fell away treeless towards the lough. Why? Why had Lord Clanmar, who had always treated her as if she were his own kith and kin, made no provision for her? Heavy-hearted she sat on a boulder and looked down to where the water lay locked in the arms of the mountains, as quiet as a burnished shield. Had he been so confident of longevity that he had thought it was a task he could undertake at some time in the future? Had he intended settling something on her when she was eighteen? Had he thought that the education and the home he had given her was sufficient and that no more was necessary?

A kestrel swept across the lough below her eye level, the late afternoon sun glinting on its back. There was no other movement. No sound. She continued to sit, trying to understand why he should have remembered Rendlesham and other members of his household and why he had not remembered her. Had he not cared for her as much as she had always believed? She knew that would be the gossip in Killaree and Rathdrum, when the terms of the will became public knowledge.

The silence was disturbed as a pair of finches flew into a nearby juniper bush, wrangling fiercely. As the leaves on the bush shook with the tempest taking place within it, she felt a deep, sure certainty take hold of her. The gossips would be wrong. He had cared for her as deeply as she had cared for him. That no provision had been made for her had been because of an oversight, an accident.

She rose to her feet feeling suddenly at peace with herself. She would never think of the omission or puzzle about it again. Her future was what mattered now. There were plenty of people who would expect her to do nothing more than to return to the cabin that had once been her home, and who would then take great pleasure in crowing over her change of fortune. She allowed herself a small mirthless smile as she thought of how she was going to disappoint them. The other alternative was for her to try to gain employment in Dublin.

She began to walk back towards her tethered pony, deep in thought. If she made her future home in Dublin, she would be only eighteen miles from Ballacharmish. How would she ever be able to stop thinking about it? How would she ever find the strength to stay away from its locked doors and shuttered windows?

The pony neighed in pleasure at her return and she rubbed his muzzle. ‘I'm not going to do it,' she said to him resolutely. But what was she going to do? She stared out over the lough and the answer came so suddenly and with such blinding clarity that she stumbled and nearly fell. She would start a new life far away. She would do what thousands had done before her. She would emigrate to America.

‘America!'
Isabel ejaculated, dropping her silver-backed hairbrush with a clatter and spinning round on her dressing-table stool in order to face her.

‘Why not? There can be no future for me in Ireland. The most I could hope for would be to be employed as a governess.'

‘But I thought … I thought you would still be here until I came of age,' Isabel protested bewilderedly. ‘You could live in the house that your mother lived in and …'

‘My mother paid no rent for that house,' Maura said gently. ‘Lord Clanmar's English land-agent will never allow me to occupy it rent-free and how would I be able to find rent for it?'

Isabel stared at her aghast, realization of Maura's plight dawning for the first time. ‘But there must be some way …'

‘There isn't,' Maura said with infinite regret. She crossed the room and sat beside Isabel, taking her hands in hers, willing her to understand. ‘There is no future for me in Ireland, Isabel. I don't want to live as a governess in Dublin, knowing that Ballacharmish is only a tantalizing few miles away. I don't want to be a governess at all and perhaps in America I won't have to be one.'

Isabel's hands tightened in hers. ‘And is America truly the only option?'