Tyringham Park (40 page)

Dublin
1941

Aunt Verity took it upon herself to meet the mail boat and the first thing she told the returned emigrants was that Harcourt had been wounded, how seriously they didn’t
know. The telegram with the news had been delivered to the townhouse three weeks previously.

Lochlann reached out to take Mary Anne in case Charlotte became weak, but she held the child closer and said she was fine.

“That means he’ll be coming home, won’t it?”

When her brother saw what a good mother she had turned out to be and how happy Lochlann was now that he was home, he would forgive her for her past machinations and admit that it had all turned
out for the best.

“We’re waiting for word. Did the nanny travel on a different deck?”

“No, we’ve been able to manage without one.”

“Oh.”

Aunt Verity was relieved when Lochlann shepherded the pair to the car and settled them into the back seat, as she was afraid someone she knew might see them. To her, the sight of a woman of her
class carrying an infant was as distasteful as one balancing a heavy weight on her head or kneeling to scrub floors.

“You don’t look too well, Dr Carmody,” she observed while they were waiting for the chauffeur to finish collecting and stowing the luggage.

“I’ll be all right in a moment.” He averted his face. “It was a long trip.”

“Of course. How silly of me to forget that you are a good friend of Harcourt’s and must share the anxiety with the family. We can only wait and hope and pray.”

“How are Mother and Father?” asked Charlotte.

“Stoic, as you would expect. You’ll find they haven’t changed one bit, still taking the opposite view to each other on principle. It’s wearing on me in my role of
peacemaker. Now, let’s have a good look at the little one.”

Charlotte took off Mary Anne’s bonnet, loosened the shawl and faced the baby towards her aunt.

“Goodness me, what a little beauty! I have to say, Charlotte, she’s the image of Dr Carmody.”

Charlotte looked over at Lochlann to see if he enjoyed the compliment, but he continued to stare out the window. She had to remind herself that her aunt had never seen Victoria, so
couldn’t be expected to make the comparison she so longed to hear.

“Just as well you gave birth to her yourself or one would doubt you were her real mother!” She laughed at her own wit. “When her time comes she’ll be the debutante of the
decade and break a lot of hearts and marry an earl.”

‘Unlike her mother’ was the unspoken end to that observation, Charlotte thought.

“So you returned,” Edwina said through tight lips, “without doing the one thing I asked you to do. The one thing. It’s not as if I ever asked you to do
anything else. Did you make any effort at all?”

“I made a frightfully large effort,” Charlotte answered. “But I didn’t get one answer to my queries.”

“You’ve dropped a fine filly there,” boomed Waldron, squinting through his spectacles, “and no need for a steward’s enquiry either by the look of it.”

On first sight, Charlotte had hardly recognised her mother, looking older at fifty-three than the mottled-faced Waldron who, despite being eighty-two, appeared fit and energetic.

After lunch was announced, mindful of the house rule that no child under twelve was allowed in the dining room during mealtimes, Charlotte passed the baby over to Queenie with the stipulation
that she must come and fetch her immediately at the first sign of fretting.

Edwina rolled her eyes up towards the ceiling.

Charlotte thought Mary Anne’s dark hair and pretty face would have her mother exclaiming over a likeness to Victoria. In fact, she had expected her mother to register a degree of
stupefaction when she saw what could have been a reincarnation of her favoured daughter, but Edwina merely glanced at the baby for a few seconds and said nothing.

Lochlann came in, his hair damp from the bath he’d just taken and Charlotte thought she would burst with pride at his handsomeness, his easy manner and his polite lack of deference. He
shook hands with his parents-in-law and commiserated with them on the news about Harcourt.

Edwina placed him beside Verity, on the opposite side of the table from Charlotte who felt there was much to celebrate despite the bad news about Harcourt. It was Lochlann’s first time to
share a meal with the Blackshaws as part of the family, her first in the townhouse in her role of a new mother, and the first time her parents had been introduced to their first grandchild. Not to
mention a homecoming after two years abroad.

“I was thinking of going to the Club this afternoon,” Waldron said after the first course had passed in silence and the roast beef was being served.

“There was an article in the
Times
about the Japanese threat to Darwin,” Verity said to Lochlann on her right.

“Would you pass the horseradish, please, Verity?” asked Edwina before Lochlann had time to comment. “I hope it’s better than the last lot we had. Cook has a habit of
overdoing the vinegar.”

“The Club’s not what it used to be. They’re letting all sorts of riffraff join these days.”

“I was trying to remember how many hospitals there are in the Dublin area,” said Charlotte, making an attempt to bring Lochlann into the conversation. “Lochlann was the only
doctor within a forty-mile radius of the hospital he was in charge of.”

“So you said in your letters,” said Edwina. “Will you be able to make up a fourth for bridge this afternoon, Vee? Tilly claims her cold has gone to her chest.”

“I’ll check my diary after lunch to see if I’m free. Did you see any snakes while you were away, Dr Carmody? I’ve always been fascinated by poisonous snakes, even though
I’ve never seen one.”

“I saw a couple,” said Lochlann. “One was –”

“I’ll take Thatcher with me in case my palpitations return,” said Waldron. “He can wait outside while I check who’s there.”

“One of Lochlann’s patients, a young motherless boy, was brought in already dead from snake bite,” Charlotte said, hoping to hand over the telling of the story to Lochlann.

Waldron wasn’t listening. “Last time I recognised fewer than a quarter of the members.”

“Tilly probably has nothing more than a sniffle,” said Edwina. “She’s a frightful hypochondriac.”

Verity said in a tone that sounded deliberately mischievous, “Just think, we now have an Australian Catholic in the family for the first time in four hundred years. Two novelties in the
one child.”

Charlotte and Lochlann looked up at the same moment but their eyes didn’t meet.

“It’s of no consequence what she is, seeing she can’t inherit,” Waldron pronounced.

“What do you mean, can’t inherit?” Edwina shot back. “If Harcourt doesn’t return, she will automatically become the heir – heiress – after Charlotte.
There’s no reason why she couldn’t change her name to Blackshaw.”

Charlotte didn’t dare look at Lochlann.

“That shows you how little you know about the law, which a bit of name-changing won’t alter. Charlotte’s daughter can never inherit, and you know that as well as I
do.”

“That was British law. Why should that apply now that we’re a Free State?”

“It still applies. If Harcourt doesn’t survive, the land and title will go to my brother Charles after I die, and if he predeceases me, to his eldest son. That’s Giles’s
father,” he explained to Lochlann. “My brother was only in his twenties when he married.” He turned back to Edwina and his voice took on an irritable tone. “If
Charlotte’s daughter wants to live at the Park, she’ll have to marry her cousin like you did and change her name, which you didn’t have to do. That’s the only way she can
become a real Blackshaw.”

Charlotte addressed the tablecloth. “Can we talk about this another time? It’s hardly a matter of urgency.”

Waldron turned to address her. “You’re right, it’s not, but your mother won’t let it rest. You know why she champions the female line, don’t you? To spite Charles
and Harriet who are too popular and successful, that’s why. Their children and grandchildren keep winning prizes at the Horse Show and point-to-points around the country whereas Harcourt
never won one. How anyone could expect him to when he was city reared is beyond me.”

“That’s not the reason,” said Verity. “It’s the unfairness that galls her.”

“I can speak for myself, Vee. Charles gave Harcourt inferior mounts to ride. That’s why he never won prizes. It rankles to this day. He had more natural ability than Giles, and
Charles couldn’t stomach it.”

“As if Charles would be so petty or devious!” scoffed Waldron. “It was the city rearing that handicapped Harcourt, not my brother, and besides, no amount of allegations against
Charles, false or otherwise, has anything to do with the case in hand. Private grievances aside, male primogeniture must prevail. It’s the only system that makes sense. Where would the
Blackshaw name and the House of Lords and the British Empire be without it? Answer me that.”

“Certainly not as powerful as they are today,” Verity chimed in.

“Exactly. It’s the only way to keep power and wealth in the hands of those bred to wield it, preventing catastrophes like some female marrying a nobody without a fortune . .
.”

Charlotte looked studiously at her plate, but could see that Lochlann had stopped eating.

“. . . and him squandering the lot in the space of one generation!”

They’ve had this argument before, Charlotte realised. Verity is prompting Waldron so that he will repeat it in front of us.

“Anyway, I’m not dead yet and Harcourt isn’t dead yet, and the Park isn’t what it used to be with all the acreage sold off. Still, there’s plenty for Charlotte
besides the Park thanks to the foresight of my forefathers.” He refilled his glass.

Lochlann quietly replaced his knife and fork.

“That’s a good one – ‘the foresight of my forefathers’!” said Waldron. “It’s almost poetry. Here’s to the townhouse, the West Indies,
Kensington and the City!” He raised his glass. “Thanks to my forefathers – note, not my foremothers – jolly smart chaps that they were!”

Lochlann pushed back his chair and stood up. All heads turned towards him and they waited for him to raise his glass.

“Excuse me,” said Lochlann, leaving his glass on the table. “Seeing this is a private family matter I won’t intrude any longer. I’ll take the opportunity to call
over to my parents’ house to see my own family.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Charlotte, already half out of her seat. They’d agreed earlier they would make their first visit to the Carmodys together. “I won’t
wait for trifle.”

“No, stay where you are. There’ll be plenty of time after you’ve contributed to this important issue.” He gave her no sign of solidarity or any hint of a smile to soften
the sarcastic tone – the first time she had heard him use it – before he left the room.

Smarting from Lochlann’s rebuff, she had to be addressed three times before she noticed Queenie standing beside her.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the servant said. “The baby needs to be fed.”

Edwina waved her hand as if to shoo her off. “You know I don’t tolerate interruptions at mealtimes. You and Cook deal with it.”

“They can’t very well,” said Charlotte, leaving the table.

When Lochlann hadn’t returned after two hours, Charlotte saw no reason why she shouldn’t make her own way around to see the Carmodys and be the one to revel in
their admiration of Mary Anne and, by association, herself. She could imagine them now, talking, drinking and laughing in celebration, while Lochlann and his sister Iseult teased each other about
the comparative excellence of his daughter and her son, Matthew, born two months before Mary Anne.

She asked Queenie to fetch Harcourt’s old pram. “You and I are taking Mary Anne for a walk,” she told the delighted servant.

“It’s already scrubbed and waiting,” said Queenie, rushing off.

When she returned with it, Charlotte nearly let the baby slip out of her arms.

The first thing she saw was the tartan quilt, and then the scratched acorn emblem half worn away. Queenie wasn’t to know – she’d never been to the Park – that it was the
one in which Victoria had been sleeping before she disappeared.

“This isn’t Harcourt’s,” said Charlotte with difficulty, keeping her voice calm. “Why is it here?”

“Someone left Harcourt’s out in the weather behind the potting shed for years and it rotted and rusted away. Her Ladyship asked for this one to be sent up from the Park last week to
be ready for you.”

Charlotte, weak with anger, slumped onto a chair. How unfortunate that her parents’ distaste for ‘new’ money and their reluctance to spend old money coincided with their
convenient preference for shabbiness.

“Take it away,” she ordered the concerned Queenie. “Dr Carmody will buy a new one tomorrow. We’ll put off the walk until then. I’ll have a rest with Mary Anne
instead.”

She held herself in check until Queenie wheeled the offending article out of her sight.

Charlotte’s mother-in-law Dr Grace Carmody rang at eight that evening to welcome her home and to say how sorry they were she hadn’t come over with Lochlann. They
were impatient to see her and little Mary Anne, but she understood from Lochlann that urgent family business had prevented her from accompanying him. There was no trace of irony in her voice.
Please God they would see her and Mary Anne tomorrow.

Why is Lochlann allowing his mother to make this call? Charlotte asked herself, a familiar feeling of rejection swamping her.

“Unfortunately, dear, Lochlann overdid it and has fallen asleep in his old room. He was so excited at being home he lost the run of himself. Doesn’t seem to be any point in
disturbing him. He was so jaded from the trip that we probably wouldn’t be able to wake him, anyway, and you know what he’s like after a few drinks.”

No irony there, either. “It would be a lot less trouble to leave him where he is and let him sleep through until the morning. I didn’t want you to be worrying.”

Charlotte thanked her and said she would bring Mary Anne over to No 7 as soon as Lochlann returned to accompany them. She hung up the phone with a dejected heart. What she had feared was already
happening on their first day back – Lochlann’s old life coming to claim him, leaving her out in the cold. Tomorrow it would be his best friend Pearse, then other school friends, then
college friends, and then more relations. She thought of their little wooden house in Redmundo where she’d had him all to herself for most of the time, and wished they hadn’t left
it.