Cashelmara (37 page)

Reaching the house, I tethered my horse to a convenient tree and fended off the half-dozen dogs that were barking furiously around my shins. The front door was open—it always stood open at Clonagh Court—and I saw my brother-in-law Alfred Smith was already hurrying to meet me. He wore a patched jacket, filthy riding breeches and no necktie of any description. His short dark hair stood on end, reminding me of a hairbrush.

“Christ,” he said. “I’m bloody glad to see you. Come in.”

“Is she …”

“No, she’s not dead, but she’s concussed something shocking. Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, Danny and Millie and me have made her comfy as possible, but she needs someone else to look at her, and how the hell do I get hold of a doctor when there’s no dispensary for God knows how many miles? Mrs. O’Shaughnessy and Millie can’t go, and Danny’s rheumatics is so bad he couldn’t even get on a horse unless he was lifted by a rope and pulley, and I don’t want to go because I want to stay here with Annabel. Christ, you should see her. She just lies there, pale as a lily,” said Alfred with a startling venture into poetic language. “I can’t stand to see her so quiet-like and dead to the world.”

“I’ll ride to the dispensary at once,” I said, glad that there was something I could do.

“Well, I know you’re on your honeymoon, but maybe if you could send someone … Then there’s the girls. Clara and Edith. They’re in such a state, poor little things. If you could say a word to them—they’d be ever so happy to see you, I’m sure.”

It’s an ill wind, as they say, that blows no one no good. I had a word with my nieces, and after I had given my handkerchief to Clara I suggested they both spend a day or two at Cashelmara, where my wife would keep them company.

“But we couldn’t leave poor dearest Mama!” cried Clara, who was a nice girl and very tenderhearted.

“Why not?” said Edith, who was the exact opposite of her sister in every respect and always seemed as cross as a bear with a sore head. “She left us for years. Why shouldn’t we leave her for a day or two? Besides, she’s not dying, and at present she doesn’t know whether we’re here or not.”

“Oh, you’re so hard, Edith!” exclaimed Clara reproachfully, but when I said my friend Mr. Stranahan was at the gates to escort them to Cashelmara she followed Edith upstairs very quickly to pack her bags.

I hardly needed to ask Derry if he was willing to fulfill the role of escort. The girls, accompanied by their old nurse, who still looked after their clothes, jogged off in the pony trap and Derry rode beside them with an expression that would have suited any self-respecting cat confronted with a bowl of cream.

Their departure left me free to find a doctor. No one seemed to know where the nearest dispensary was, although the housekeeper thought there might be a doctor at Cong. That was nearer than Westport or Galway, but it was still thirteen miles away, and finally I halted at Clonbur to make inquiries from Willie Knox, the local squireen.

I must say Knox was very obliging. As soon as he heard what had happened he offered to ride himself to fetch a retired doctor at Letterturk, and since I could trust him not to stop at a wayside shebeen, get drunk and forget his mission (as many an Irish servant would have done), I accepted his offer and rode back to reassure Alfred that help was on the way. I took a look at Annabel, but she was still unconscious and had a nasty gray-white complexion that I found most upsetting.

“I’ll come back later,” I told Alfred, “but I think meanwhile I’d better go back to Cashelmara and help the girls settle down.”

“I wish your sister was here,” said Alfred. “The nurse, I mean, not the lady at Duneden Castle.”

That struck me as being a good idea. “I’ll write to Madeleine,” I said, “although by the time the letter reaches London Annabel will probably be on her feet again.”

“Either on her feet or in her coffin,” said Alfred bitterly and kicked at a table leg to relieve his feelings. I remember liking him for the first time when he did that because I had always thought, in common with everyone else, that he had married Annabel for her money and now I saw that perhaps he really might have been in love with her after all.

I was starving by the time I reached Cashelmara and felt I could have drunk at least a gallon of beer to quench my thirst, but to my horror I found a most unpleasant reception awaiting me. Sarah was on the verge of hysterics because I had inflicted the girls on her without warning, MacGowan was glowering in the hall as he waited to give in his notice, and last but not least my cousin George de Salis of Letterturk was dancing up and down the saloon like a turkey cock as he demanded to see me without delay.

I dealt with George first. I had no choice. I was scooped into the saloon before I had the chance to escape.

“You’ll ask Stranahan to leave, of course,” he said as soon as he could. “You’re not going to harbor him under the same roof as your innocent young nieces.”

“For God’s sake, George!” I protested. “The girls are chaperoned by their old nurse as well as Sarah. You surely can’t think that anything improper could happen.”

Unfortunately Cousin George could. “I happen to know for a fact that Stranahan has designs on Clara.”

“But you surely don’t think he’d seduce her!”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” said George darkly. “Look here, Patrick, you’ve no choice. That rogue’s got to go.”

“Don’t dictate to me like that!” I shouted at him. I’m normally a placid, even-tempered fellow, but it was half past two and I’d had no lunch and my favorite sister was at death’s door and I simply wasn’t in the mood for Cousin George. “You’re not my father, so stop talking to me as if you were, you interfering old mule!”

He goggled at me as if he were a goldfish hauled from his bowl. Then he exploded. He said I was “ungrateful,” an “insolent young puppy,” and he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if I came to a “deuced rotten end.” He was glad my father wasn’t alive to see the “shambles” resulting from my “prolonged neglect of my duties.” God only knew what a “disappointment” my father had found me.

“That’s a bloody lie!” I yelled at him. “My father was proud of me! The trouble with you is that you’re jealous—jealous because your father was the younger son and mine was the elder, because I have Cashelmara and Woodhammer and all you have is that rat-infested hovel at Letterturk!”

“How dare you say such a thing!” He was purple as a hyacinth. “My concern for Cashelmara springs from the purest of motives!”

I laughed in his face.

“Very well!” he shouted at me. “If you won’t take advice I’ll hold my tongue and you and young Stranahan can go to the devil as fast as you please!”

Derry at this point would have made some devastating witticism, but I was too exhausted to care that I hadn’t had the last word. As soon as George had stormed out of the house I collared Hayes, told him to bring beer and sandwiches to the library and collapsed into the chair behind my father’s desk.

Hayes turned up ten minutes later with a tankard of ale, a carefully sliced loaf of bread and a plate covered with dollops of butter and cheese.

“For God’s sake, Hayes, isn’t there any cold meat?”

“There was a wondrous fine chicken leg, my lord, but no one’s seen it in a whileen. My lord, Ian MacGowan would see you now, if you please.”

“Find that chicken leg,” I growled, attacking the bread with a single-minded concentration that excluded consideration of all other subjects, and Hayes fled.

When he dutifully returned some time later he reported that the chicken leg had vanished from the face of the earth. He even had the gall to mention fairies. After that, having a craving to talk to someone hard-headed and practical, I demanded to see MacGowan. “And bring me more beer!” I yelled wrathfully after Hayes as I wondered, not for the first time, how any Englishman could live in Ireland and retain his sanity.

MacGowan marched into the room, bid me a sour good day and told me he wished to leave. With a great effort I repressed the urge to reply, “Go and good riddance” and instead sank my teeth into a mushy hunk of cheese. Why the Irish can’t make decent hard cheese is a mystery known only to themselves.

“My lord,” MacGowan was saying, “Cashelmara is not big enough to contain two agents, the one undoing all the other’s hard and loyal work. It’s not my place to criticize you for appointing Mr. Stranahan to a position of authority here. I may only say that he has made my position untenable. Therefore with your permission, my lord, I respectfully submit my notice and will leave at your earliest convenience.”

The meal had revived me. I at once realized that MacGowan’s resignation was the last thing I wanted if I intended to leave soon with Derry for Woodhammer Hall. MacGowan might have his faults, but he could in his own fashion keep the estate running evenly. If he left I might have difficulty finding a replacement, and worse than that I would be obliged to stay at Cashelmara for God knows how long before the man could be engaged and instructed. Better the devil you do know, I told myself firmly, than the devil you don’t.

“MacGowan,” I said, “Mr. Stranahan and I intend to leave shortly for England. I’m sorry your position here has been difficult. That wasn’t what I intended, and I promise you that from today you can manage matters exactly as you see fit. I appreciate very much the efforts you’ve been making on my behalf during my long absence and would be pleased if you would accept an increase in salary of …” I hesitated. I suddenly realized I had no idea what his salary was. My lawyers in London sent him the remittance each month.

“My brother in Scotland who is agent for the Marquess of Lochlyall has twenty-five pounds a year more than I do,” said MacGowan with typical Scots cunning. He sounded so gloomy that not even his worst enemy could have accused him of being insolent in suggesting the figure before I did.

“Well, we’re not in Scotland, are we, MacGowan?” I said. “But nonetheless I think you’ve certainly earned an extra twenty-five a year.” As soon as I said that I realized he had expected me to beat him down to fifteen. To cover my confusion I said hastily, “Talking of your family in Scotland, how’s Hugh?”

Hugh was his son. He was a year younger than I was, and I had not seen him since he had left Cashelmara ten years before to attend a school in Glasgow. Shortly afterward Mrs. MacGowan, a fierce woman who looked as if she might have won a prize tossing the cabre, had left her husband and settled with relatives in Glasgow to be near her son. No one had ever known what MacGowan had thought of this arrangement, but remembering Mrs. MacGowan, one could only assume he had been relieved to see the last of her. He lived alone in a neat stone house on the other side of the Fooey River and was reported to keep a sack of gold hidden in the privy.

“Hugh is doing very well, thank you, my lord,” said MacGowan, almost sociable now that he had the extra twenty-five pounds adding a golden glow to his future. “My brother in Scotland has arranged for him to be an apprentice on the Lochlyall lands and is instructing him in the details of estate management.”

“How nice,” I said. “Do remember me to Hugh when you next write, won’t you?” But in fact I had never cared for Hugh MacGowan, whom I remembered as a tough, sullen little boy always spoiling for a fight or else sulking because I preferred Derry’s company to his, and I didn’t care a jot that I was most unlikely ever to see him again.

Meanwhile MacGowan was suitably appeased, Hayes reappeared with more beer and I was beginning to feel I might possibly survive the day. I still had to cope with Sarah, but to my relief I found she had calmed down and was doing her best to be hospitable to my nieces. Derry in turn was making a great effort to charm her, and although she still insisted on being cold toward him I did feel that the situation was not so far beyond redemption as I had earlier feared. Presently I found I even had a moment to write to Madeleine to ask for her help, and to save time I sent a stable boy to take the letter immediately to the mail car at Leenane.

Having dealt with all the crises at Cashelmara, I was able to return to Clonagh Court, but barely had I crossed the threshold when the housekeeper came sobbing down the stairs to tell me my sister had died.

I cried and Alfred cursed, but she was gone. At last I mopped up the tears which I had shed as furtively as possible, and Alfred stopped swearing. It was very quiet in the house after that.

“Have a drink,” said Alfred finally and produced a huge bottle of pale poteen.

“Thanks,” I said, so we sat down together and started drinking. He told me all about himself. He had had six brothers and seven sisters, and he thought he had been born in a stable on Epsom Race Course, but he wasn’t sure. His father had been a groom for old Lord Rustington (the father of Annabel’s first husband), and as Alfred was the oldest son he had followed in his father’s footsteps. Fortunately he had turned out to be the right size for a jockey, and after that he had been as happy as a king and had even been able to keep his parents from destitution in their old age. His brothers were either dead or in Canada, and his surviving sisters had all kinds of husbands and offspring—he couldn’t remember how many. He had never thought he would be a husband himself because he only liked tall girls and tall girls had always thought he was too small. Annabel had been the only woman who had ever been halfway decent to him. He had liked her so much he had even been prepared to overlook her being a baron’s daughter. He had never been cowed by the aristocracy anyway. He had rubbed shoulders often enough with them at the race course, and they weren’t anything special, just different.

“Have some more poteen,” he added as an afterthought and snatched my glass from under my nose.

“This is awfully powerful stuff,” I said hazily as he poured me another tumblerful.

“It’s bloody old,” said Alfred. “That’s why it’s so bloody pale. They make it in a shebeen not far from here, but I swore blind I’d never tell a soul where it is in case the magistrates get wind of it. Well, as I was saying …”

He said a great deal more, describing his early years in loving detail, and then I too embarked on my life history. We talked far beyond sunset, and finally after we had sworn eternal friendship with each other we fell asleep at the dining-room table. When I next opened my eyes Alfred was still snoring opposite me, the morning sun was high in the sky and if a priest had walked through the door I would immediately have asked for the last rites. In fact we were both of us so ill that I was quite unable to leave Clonagh Court that day and could only just manage to write a note to Sarah to say I had been obliged to stay with Alfred to make arrangements for the funeral.