An Embarrassment of Riches (7 page)

Josie was well aware of the number of hitherto respectable young girls whose lives had been ruined by the sexual experimentations of the sons of their employers. Alexander Karolyis was right. She would prefer that he and young Schermerhorn gained sexual experience with girls whose lives would not be ruined in the process.

‘The clients who are received here are strictly limited in number,' she said, wondering how she was to go about ensuring that young Schermerhorn and his father would not one day meet ascending or descending her opulent staircase. ‘My girls receive fifty dollars from each client they privately entertain. Is that acceptable?'

Charlie swallowed hard, not knowing whether his knees were weak with fear or with elation. Alexander merely nodded. He already knew what the financial arrangements were. He wondered if the girls would be brought down for their inspection. The prospect of making a choice, in the manner of a Sheik in an Eastern harem, strongly appealed to him. Josie, reading his mind with practised ease, had no intention of fulfilling his fancy. He was already too self-assured for his own good. She rang the bell and when the maid entered, said in an accent equal to that of any Stuyvesant or Brevoort, ‘Please inform Helena and Christabel that there are clients waiting for them.'

Charlie Schermerhorn lifted his jacketed arm to wipe the perspiration from his brow.

‘It is customary for gentlemen to take bottles of champagne upstairs with them,' Josie said, taking pity on him. ‘Would Veuve Cliquot be suitable?'

Charlie nodded thankfully and Josie turned towards Alexander with an enquiring lift of her beautifully arched brows.

‘Put a bottle of Château Bel Air Marquis d'Aligre on my bill,' he said with negligent ease.

Josie's amusement deepened. The boy knew his wines. And could afford them. With his heart-stopping good looks, beguiling manner and immeasurable family wealth, he was a young man to reckon with. And he knew it. The corners of her mouth quirked in affectionate remembrance. Her old friend, Sandor Karolyis, would have been proud of him.

Summer sunlight streamed into the room that Lord Clanmar had set aside as a schoolroom for Isabel and Maura. Over the years the room had changed in furnishings and aspect. Originally it had contained two small desks and a rather larger one for himself, three serviceable chairs and a modest bookcase. The room was at the rear of the house and had looked out over the vegetable gardens and beyond the vegetable gardens, empty parkland.

Within a very short time the bookcase had proved inadequate for Isabel's and Maura's needs and bookshelves had been built in on all four walls. The view, too, had radically changed. Isabel's maternal grandparent's home in Oxfordshire had been surrounded by rose gardens and she had missed their beauty and fragrance. In consequence, the vegetable gardens had been removed to a site further distant from the house and Lord Clanmar and Isabel and Maura had set about creating a garden of their own. They had done it for pleasure and without any assistance other than that of Kieron who had undertaken all the heavy work. Now, nine years later, the schoolroom looked out over a vista of roses. Creamy-pale Botzari ran riot with smoky-pink Belle Isis. Faint-flushed Isaphans from Persia vied for space with frilled cerise La Reines from Provence. Magenta Tour de Malakoffs with deep-drowned purple hearts, rampaged over a sun-dial. A Rose de l'Isle smothered the house wall scattering ragged silvery-pearl petals to the ground.

The parkland, too, was no longer an empty vista of rolling green sward. Lord Clanmar had taught both girls to ride and they had progressed from sedate Connemara ponies to high-spirited British hunters. Their original much-loved ponies grazed in the parkland beyond the garden, kept company by all the horses Lord Clanmar had since bought, for his own pleasure, and for Isabel's and Maura's.

There had been other changes, too. The two school-desks had soon proved too small and two Georgian knee-hole desks with rising lined tops had replaced them. As the years had passed Lord Clanmar had found it increasingly incongruous to instruct his pupils from behind the formality of his desk. He had had a winged easy chair installed in the room for his own use, and two ladies' upholstered chairs for Isabel and Maura. Quite often, as now, schoolroom lessons took the form of a comfortable, friendly discussion as they sat in a group at the open french windows, looking out over the riot of roses and the grazing horses beyond.

‘I find it all too strange to comprehend,' Isabel was saying, referring to Darwin's
Origin of Species
open on her lap.

The corners of Lord Clanmar's mouth twitched in the suspicion of a smile. He, too, on his first reading of it, had found it almost too strange to comprehend.

He said patiently, ‘What Darwin is saying, Isabel, is that among all animals there is a struggle for existence. The individuals who exhibit variations in height or colour that confer on them an advantage in hunting for food will be in Darwin's phrase, “naturally selected”. That is, they will survive and breed and since offspring tend to resemble their parents, the parents'advantageous, adaptive variations will be transmitted from generation to generation. Those too weak to compete in the struggle for existence will die before being able to breed. As a result, over thousands of generations, a new species will be in the process of evolving.'

‘I think I understand Mr Darwin's reasoning,' Maura said, brushing a windblown Rose de l'Isle petal from her skirt, ‘but I don't agree at all with his conclusions.'

Lord Clanmar settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He hadn't for a moment thought that Maura would be in agreement with Charles Darwin. Although she had changed almost unrecognizably from the bare-foot urchin he had taken into his home nine years ago, one thing about her had never changed and that had been her loyalty to the faith she had been born into. Every Sunday morning, while he and Isabel attended morning service at the Anglican church in Rathdrum, Maura attended Mass at the local Catholic church.

‘It isn't enough to feel
intuitively
that Mr Darwin's theory is incorrect,' he criticized gently. ‘You have to be able to coherently argue
against
his theory.'

Maura smiled affectionately at him. Over the years he had taught her to be an adept arguer for and against theories as varied as Plato's Theory of Universals and Jeremy Bentham's Theory of Utilitarianism.

‘All right,' she said agreeably. ‘First I would like to know where the missing links are between major groups of animals, say between birds and reptiles. How could entirely new features such as wings have evolved? How is it that man has been totally unable to breed a new species if it is possible for nature to breed one?'

Isabel closed her book with a thud. ‘Enough! I know you two. You will be arguing the pros and cons of Mr Darwin's wretched theory until the cows come home. Can't we move on to something more interesting? The war in America, for instance?'

Her grandfather relinquished the subject of Darwin's revolutionary theories with regret. He and Maura enjoyed having argumentative discussions on nearly every subject under the sun, but though she was barely a year younger than Maura, Isabel's interests were far more circumscribed. He wondered again about their respective futures. In another couple of years Isabel would no doubt spend a season in London under the care of her maternal grandmother, meet a suitable young man of her own class and marry. But there would be no such suitable marriage for a girl who was the illegitimate daughter of an Irish peasant.

As he pondered the problem he felt a twinge of discomfort in the region of his heart. He had felt such twinges before and knew them for what they were, intimations of mortality. He frowned. If he should die now, Maura would be totally unprovided for. Even her position as his ward was one that was quite unofficial. It was high time he made suitable provision for her and he resolved to make an appointment with his Dublin solicitor at the earliest opportunity.

‘Are you feeling tired?' Maura was asking him concernedly. ‘Would you like to leave discussion of the war until tomorrow?'

He shook his head, rallying himself with an effort. Maura's eyes darkened in concern. She had noticed his quick intake of breath a few moments ago, and the flash of anxiety that had darkened his eyes. She wondered whether she should suggest to him that he pay a visit to England in order to visit his London doctor. There were doctors in Rathdrum and Dublin, of course, but they were not men he had any confidence in. If anything was seriously wrong with him it would be better for him if he were in London rather than immured in the wilds of Wicklow.

She had long ago ceased to think of him as being merely Lord Clanmar, her benefactor. He was far more than that to her. He was her friend and her family and she loved him as dearly as she loved her mother.

In the soporific heat a butterfly darted amongst the riot of blossom. The air zoomed with bees. Drowsily Maura allowed her mind to wander, remembering her early days at Ballacharmish, remembering the wonder with which each moment had been filled.

First of all there had been the almost paralysing experience of stepping alone into the carriage that had been put at her disposal. The donkey-cart had been sent for her paltry belongings but Kieron, who had driven it, had told her that Lord Clanmar had given instructions that on no account was she to arrive at her new home accompanying her luggage. She was to arrive in the manner from which now on she would be treated. She was to arrive as Isabel had arrived. As a young lady in a Clanmar carriage.

The entire Murphy tribe turned out to see her go, much to her mother's mortification. ‘Stinking Murphys,' she said as old Ned rolled drunkenly down the bohereen to see a sight he otherwise would not believe. ‘If this was Sullivan country the air would be a lot cleaner and sweeter.'

Maura was too stupefied with excitement to give any thought to the Murphys. The open carriage was huge and glossy black. On the door the Clanmar coat of arms gleamed richly.

‘Am I really to get into it alone, Ma?' she whispered, awe-struck. ‘I thought Kieron would be driving it. I thought…'

A bemused footman had stepped down from the box and was holding the door open for her.

Her mother put both her hands on her shoulders, her eyes holding hers. ‘Yes, you are, Maura Sullivan,' she said firmly. ‘You are to leave the filth and stench of Killaree for good. I shall see you again but never back here, is that understood?'

‘But what if I don't suit? What if Lord Clanmar changes his mind?'

At the anguish in her voice her mother's face softened. ‘You'll suit,' she said with so much certainty that Maura couldn't help but believe her. ‘Now off you go, little one, and God bless.'

Maura had kissed her, made her promise that she would see her soon, and had then stepped bare-footed into the carriage. She was wearing a dress that no-one, least of all one of the many watching Murphys, could deride. It was the dark red dress that her mother had worn when Lord Clanmar had visited them. Her mother had carefully altered it, shortening the hem, taking in the seams, so that now it fitted Maura as if it had been made for her. She sat stiffly upright in the centre of the leather-padded seat, spreading her skirts carefully at either side of her.

Killaree's inhabitants had gathered intending to have a bit of fun at the freakish sight of one of their own in his lordship's carriage. Now they began to think better of it for it was almost as if Mary Sullivan's bastard was not, and never had been, one of their own, and they didn't want to run the risk of the footmen reporting ribald comments back to Lord Clanmar.

The horses began to pick their way carefully up the bohereen. Maura clasped her hands tightly in her lap. It was really happening! She was going to Ballacharmish, and she was not going as she had always dreamed of going; walking up the valley towards it, entering at the tradesmen's gate and walking the pathway to the rear of the house as her mother had been used to do. She was going in a manner she had never imagined in her wildest dreams. She was going in a carriage. She was going to enter by the main gates and she was going to be set down at the front entrance.

‘Heavens and all the saints,' she whispered devoutly to herself, her eyes shining, ‘but isn't this the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to a person? Isn't this just like one of Ma's wonderful fairy-tales?'

The carriage was not quite as comfortable as she had imagined it would be. It rocked and swayed and she slid from side to side on the polished leather seat. When it stopped at the giant wrought-iron gates she hardly dared to breathe. If it was a dream she was having, this was the moment when she would wake. This was the moment when reality would reassert itself.

The footman jumped down from the box and swung the gates wide. The horses walked forward and as the carriage rolled into Ballacharmish's vast parkland the footman closed the gates behind them and vaulted back into his seat.

Maura let out a trembling sigh. She hadn't woken. She wasn't in a dark and stifling cabin in Killaree. She was inside the grounds of Ballacharmish. She wasn't dreaming a dream. She was living it.

Incredibly there were figures beneath the distant portico waiting to greet her, just as there had been figures waiting to greet Lord Clanmar and Lady Isabel. She strained her eyes, swallowing disbelievingly. The tall, white-haired figure was unmistakable. Lord Clanmar was waiting to greet her himself, his granddaughter at his side.

Maura dug her nails deeper into her palms. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' she whispered frantically. ‘What am I to
say?
What am I to
do?'

Her terror lasted until the carriage swayed to a halt at the foot of the porch steps. The footman opened the door for her and as he did so Lord Clanmar and his granddaughter walked down the steps towards her.

‘Welcome to Ballacharmish, my dear,' Lord Clanmar said, overlooking her bare feet with equanimity. ‘Welcome to your new home.'