Women of Courage (111 page)

‘I saw you as someone more independent than that.’

‘Did you?’

‘Certainly. You’re a medical student, aren’t you?’

The man was a pest, there was no doubt about it. But he was an irritation she could use, perhaps, to distract herself from her own grief. Left on her own, she felt at times it would drown her.

‘Look, Major Butler …’

‘Can’t you drop that? Call me Andrew, please - it sounds so stupid with just the two of us.’

‘All right, Andrew.’ It sounded such a civilized name for such a hard, damaged face. ‘My life is for me to lead, wouldn’t you agree? If I choose to study medicine, that’s my business.’

‘Of course. But I’d have thought you’d be proud of it, not prickly as hell.’

‘I’ve always been prickly. If I’m not, I don’t get what I want.’ And even when I do, I still lose it, she thought. I wasn’t prickly with Sean, surely - or was I?

He perched himself on the arm of a chair, and considered her. ‘You know what? I don’t think you know what you do want.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, look round you at this house, and your other home in Merrion Square. You’ll inherit both, now that your brothers are dead. If I were in your position I’d spend all my time learning to manage them, not running off to Dublin to train as a doctor.’

‘Well, you aren’t in my position, are you?’ She crossed the room to pour herself a third glass of sherry.

‘No, I’m not, but I could be.’

‘Oh yes?’ She turned, leaning against the drinks table, and raised her glass to him mockingly. ‘Is my father going to adopt you as a new son? Congratulations.’

‘Of course not. But he might consider me as a possible son-in-law. Given that I’ve already won you in a shooting match.’

The shock of it stunned Catherine so that she could not speak for a moment. But it made perfect sense, she realized. This was why her father had sent her down here: not just to get her away from Sean and the police, but because he knew this - this stud - was here. Perhaps they had already discussed it, even arranged the terms of the marriage contract behind her back. This was how it felt, then; this was how daughters were bought and sold to keep family estates together.

She took a long, slow sip of her sherry, then put it down and walked across the room towards him. She stood about as close to him as it was possible to stand without touching. He was nearly four inches taller than her, much bigger and stronger than Sean, she realized. Close to, his eyes were steel grey, the scar livid, his face very decisive and hard. Nothing gentle or foolish about it at all. He made no attempt to move or smile.

She said: ‘I told you you had no place here. This is my house and I want you to go.’

‘That’s not a very ladylike reply.’

‘I meant it.’

‘Catherine.’ He caught hold of her wrist. She tried to pull it away but his grip was surprisingly strong. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it with a mock flourish. ‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t a very polite way to ask but I meant what I said. We’re two of a kind, you and I. Think about it, please.’

‘Let go!’

‘I have.’

She stepped back, shaken, rubbing her wrist. She wondered if she should hit him but she had the feeling, quite clearly, that he would hit her back. She was furious.

‘I said you knew nothing about women. You can’t even be trusted to behave in decent society, it seems.’

In an isolated cottage in the Black Forest he might have pushed matters further, but here there were servants outside the door, ready at any moment to knock and announce with a polite cough that dinner was served. Also, the purpose of the game was to make her like him as well as fight. Andrew decided to change his tactics. He sat down, to seem less of a threat.

‘I’m sorry. You’re probably right. I haven’t seen many young women recently and you’re a remarkably beautiful one, though you may not realize it.’

‘It’s a bit late for flattery.’

‘Is it? Maybe, if you say so. Look - sit down, can’t you?’ She perched on the window seat, well out of his reach.

‘What’s so wrong with the idea, anyway? You’ve got this big estate, and you need a husband to run it. You’re a very attractive girl, and despite my face you can see I’m not a hunchback …’

‘You have been talking to my father, haven’t you?’

‘Not about this. I’m just trying to talk sense.’

‘Well listen, Major Butler …’

‘Andrew.’

‘… it may sound sense to you, but I can assure you, it just isn’t going to happen. So just put it out of your mind, will you, and then we can have a reasonably civilized existence here for the rest of your stay.’

‘I don’t think you want a civilized existence.’

‘What?’

‘I think you, like me, are the sort of person who needs a certain amount of excitement all the time to keep them sane.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘No? Then why did you lead me along that cliff edge today? No one in their right mind would do that on horseback, if they didn’t enjoy danger. Why did you challenge me to a shooting match? Not one girl in a hundred would think of a thing like that.’

‘I don’t care what other girls do.’

‘I know. That’s why I like you. That’s why …’

There was a discreet knock at the door. The butler stood there. ‘Supper is served, Miss Catherine. Major Butler.’

‘Thank you, Brophy. We’ll come through.’ As she walked to the dining room, Catherine’s fury subsided slightly to the level where she was conscious of a challenge. She felt a revival of the interest which he had sparked in her the first time they met. There was something dangerous in him which had to be faced and defeated, but she need not deny him altogether.

Andrew saw the heightened colour in her face and congratulated himself. He sat down opposite her quietly, willing her to take up the conversation, rather than him. That would be another small victory.

She picked up her soup spoon and said: ‘That’s why what?’

‘That’s why I said what I did. Not because of anything your father may have said. But because I need a wife, you need a husband, and I’ve never met a girl I could admire more.’

She said carefully: ‘Look, Andrew, I can’t think why you admire me but there are a few things that ought to be said. First, as I’ve said twice before, you obviously don’t know a lot about women or you’d realize that it’s not very normal for any man to try to choose a wife on the basis of two or three days’ acquaintance. And second, you’re making a very big presumption. If you say you need a wife, I suppose it may be true, but I have no need whatsoever of a husband.’

And so we’re into the negotiation, he thought. At least the bait’s not being ignored now. He said: ‘I disagree. No, hear me out. In the first place I would never expect either you or me to do the normal thing in a matter of this sort - in fact I’d expect you to be highly impulsive and do exactly the opposite. And second, of course you need a husband.’

The man’s a madman, she thought. But something inside her had begun to respond to the insanity of it all - an imp of laughter that might burst out into hysterics at any moment if she thought of Sean. But that’s over now. Over forever …

‘Why do I need a husband? Tell me.’

Now there’s a question you don’t ask if you’re not just a little interested, Andrew thought. He looked at her carefully across the shining table, taking in the slightly heightened colour of the face, the wide dark eyes, the pride and tension in the set of her chin. He had the impression she might do anything at any moment, and that she would not know what it was until it happened.

He said: ‘You need a husband for the same reason that every hot-blooded young woman needs a husband. And because …’

‘That’s enough. No - a few more minutes, Brophy.’ She waited until the butler went out again. ‘That’s a pretty common, cheap reason. One minute you tell me we’re unique special people, and then you say I need to be mated like a mare. Well, if I want a stallion I can find my own, Andrew Butler, thank you.’

And look where that led me, she thought.
Oh, Sean, Sean
.

‘And also because you need someone to share the running of this estate with you. Maybe you could do it on your own if you worked at it, but what’s the point?’

‘That’s what we pay Ferguson for. There. Poor Andrew, your argument fails on both points. So now what?’

He sat back in his chair and smiled, and was enchanted to get a smile back. Oh, we’ve moved a long way already, he thought. Just keep playing the game gently now, gently.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘We call Brophy, and have the fish.’

By the end of the meal they had consumed a bottle of wine between them, and Catherine was quite drunk. They had even laughed together twice: once when he had told her of his early attempts to ride his father’s hunter, and once when she had told him of the ghost she and her brothers had tracked in the west wing, which had turned out to be an equally frightened parlour-maid. There was the sense of a drawn battle, a shared conspiracy, between them.

They moved back into the drawing room where the fire had been made up to blaze brighter than before. She knelt down and held out her hands to the fire, a slim dark-haired girl in a loose green dress. On the wall above the mantelpiece was a portrait of an arrogant young woman in eighteenth-century clothes, sitting side-saddle on a bay hunter. He said: ‘There should be a picture of you here, too.’

‘Why?’

‘Because time passes and one day you may be a respected matron, but you will never again be quite what you are now.’

She smiled briefly, and said: ‘If you had started like that, we might have got on a little better before.’

‘No we wouldn’t.’ He poured out two glasses of brandy, and was surprised and encouraged when she took one.

She said: ‘Apart from making absurd proposals to me, why are you here?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You’re a soldier, aren’t you? Why aren’t you busy fighting the mad Irish, like my father?’

‘I had some leave due.’ This was not a line of conversation Andrew wanted to follow. He was ready to return to Dublin next weekend, and take up where he had left off before. Within a day or two of that, he hoped to be either totally successful, or dead. Until then, he did not want to think about it.

Since he was far from sure of coming back, he wanted to seduce Catherine before then. The talk of marriage might become a reality for him later, if he survived. If not, it wouldn’t matter.

He watched her sip her brandy, and wondered why she had started to drink. She had been very abstemious the night he had first met her in Merrion Square. Was tonight’s binge because of him or that unknown Hans? Certainly she had started with the sherry well before this marriage business had come up.

‘So why didn’t you go to Ardmore, if you love it so much?’

He sighed. ‘Because … because it’s lonely looking at ruins. I will build it up but I need money and someone to do it with me.’

A silence fell between them. It seemed to Andrew a companionable sort of silence, something he remembered with Elsie. They sat either side of the fire, and stared into the flames. Then she sipped the brandy, and said: ‘Well, I may have the money, but I’m no good at building, you know. As you say, I like excitement, and it’s pretty dull piling bricks on top of each other.’

‘You don’t understand. That place is what I fought the war for. It would be a victory to build it up again.’

‘And what would you do with it then?’

‘Bring my wife home to it. Breed racehorses and sons to ride them.’

‘Very dull.’

‘It wouldn’t be. I meant what I said, you know.’

‘So did I.’ She drained her glass and stood up suddenly. She swayed slightly and held on to the chair back for support. ‘Listen, Andrew Butler, I’m going to bed. Where I will give your proposal the five seconds’ serious thought it deserves, before I fall asleep.’

He stood up too, like a gentleman. This is the moment, he thought, if there is one. To his surprise, she seemed to read his mind. She wagged a finger tipsily.

‘And I am going to bed
alone
. I can’t think otherwise. But don’t get your hopes up. There is in fact no hope for your stupid plan at all.’

Oh yes, there is, he thought, as he bowed and watched her make her way across the room towards the door. When she reached the door she even turned back and glanced at him, as though surprised that he had not tried to follow. Oh yes, there is hope all right, young lady. Quite a lot of it, in fact.

Not tonight, but soon. Maybe tomorrow or the next day. Go to sleep now. And please, dream about me.

As I shall dream of you.

28. Military Intelligence

K
EE SLUMPED back in the chair behind his desk in Brunswick Street, and thought. His hands were clasped tightly together under his chin, his legs stretched out in front of him. On the desk were a half-finished, cold cup of coffee, a brown manila folder and the photograph of Sean Brennan.

The photograph was mounted in a frame with a little folding leg to prop it up. Kee stood it there each morning as an aid to thought. It disturbed him. That wide, confident mouth, smart suit, clean-shaven chin, neatly brushed hair, clear, apparently honest eyes gazing straight at the camera. What could make such a man a murderer, an assassin? Perhaps there was an arrogance in the face too, a mockery, a conviction that he could not be wrong. Sometimes the face infuriated Kee, so that he wanted to slam it face downwards on the table; but he resisted the temptation, as he had resisted, after the first day, the temptation to drive his fist into the real face in the prison cell.

That was not Kee’s way. He knew it went on, he knew that other men did it, he knew now, since Radford’s death, the powerful urge that made the desire for revenge almost irresistible. It was the smugness of the face, above all, that outraged him. The look that said: ‘I am right to kill you, and you are a fool and a tyrant not to see it. I am one of the best young men of my generation, and the future lies with me.’ And what had that led to? A hole the size of a golf ball in Bill Radford’s face, his brains spattered over a shop window.

Kee thought of the phrase the lad repeated endlessly during interrogation: ‘I am a soldier of the Irish Republican Army. I refuse to answer any more questions.’ It brought out the worst in him. He wanted to scream at the boy, beat his choirboy face until it was a mass of blood, stick a revolver barrel up his nose until it bled and then see what he answered.