Cashelmara (100 page)

I didn’t know what to do. I debated whether to approach Drummond again, but I knew that would achieve nothing. He would brush me off just as before—except that this time he would probably be even more abrupt and tell me to run away and amuse myself with Kerry. It was no use appealing to my mother. I did think of appealing to my uncles, but I was so afraid that Drummond might somehow intercept the letter that when I did write I merely asked them if they would care to visit Cashelmara that spring. But they both declined. Uncle Thomas was too occupied with advanced medical studies, and Uncle David, who had just announced his engagement, was too busy with preparations for his spring wedding in London.

“I think it’s time we had our honeymoon,” I said to Kerry in April. By this time Cashelmara was so distasteful to me that I was prepared to go to great lengths to escape, and although I was still awkwardly placed financially I swallowed my pride and asked for a loan from Uncle Thomas.

A month later Kerry and I attended Uncle David’s wedding and then crossed the Channel for the start of our six-week visit to France, Switzerland and Italy.

I had intended to confide in my uncles when I saw them, but Uncle David was in such a state of elation that I hated to burden him with my troubles, and Uncle Thomas was so cool to me on account of the loan that his attitude scarcely encouraged any confidences. So I said nothing and later I was glad. What could I have said that wouldn’t have broken my agreement with Drummond and resulted in endless horrifying scenes? My uncles might have taken my cause to court, I might have been unable to stop them and then God only knew what Drummond might have done. And without hopelessly endangering my mother I couldn’t explain to my uncles why I was so frightened of Drummond. I was prepared to conceal the poisoning in order to protect her, but after all she wasn’t their mother, and they might think they had more of a duty to bring their brother’s murderer to justice than they had to protect her.

Better not to confide in my uncles. At least not until I was twenty-one and able to put my own house in order.

Uncle David had a dull sort of Protestant wedding with a stuffy reception afterward where everyone stood around and talked in affected English voices. I thought it was boring. The only bright spot was Uncle David’s bride, who was pretty and gay and invited us to stay with them in Surrey later in the year. They were going to Germany for their honeymoon, which was a relief, because if they had been going to Paris we might have been obliged to travel with them, and by this time I couldn’t wait to be entirely on my own with Kerry at least a hundred miles from any member of my family.

I had never been to the Continent before and was at first too overwhelmed to remember any of my schoolboy French. But the Irish and the French have long been sympathetic to each other on account of their mutual enemy, and my French surname also smoothed our path through France.

“I like it pronounced the French way,” said Kerry, intrigued, and I agreed it did make a pleasant change. The English pronunciation used by my family rhymes with “chalice,” although all my life I’ve heard variations from outsiders.

It would have been possible for me to have obtained introductions to Parisian society, but neither of us wanted to be bothered with tedious dinner parties, so we merely stayed at the best hotel and explored the famous sights. The French thought we were most romantic, although I’m sure no one believed we were married.

Presently we journeyed to Switzerland, which Kerry decided she liked better, but I remained faithful to France even when we traveled south to visit Venice, Florence and Rome. I would have liked Italy more, but too often it reminded me painfully of the Italian garden at Cashelmara and my father talking enthusiastically about light and stone and cypress trees.

When we returned to Cashelmara in early September we found two letters waiting for us. Uncle Thomas had written to say he was going to America for a year, and my father-in-law, by coincidence, wanted us to come to Boston to visit him.

“Why don’t we go?” I said to Kerry.

It hadn’t taken me long to discover that matters at Cashelmara were worse than ever, and I dreaded being caught in the middle of a conflict I was powerless to resolve.

“I think I really have a duty to take Kerry home for a visit before we finally settle down,” I said to my mother.

“
I
didn’t go home for a visit after I was married!” said my mother.

“But, Mama, that was years ago when crossing the Atlantic was more hazardous. Travel is easier nowadays, and people think less of it than they used to.”

“I suppose this entire scheme is Kerry’s idea,” said my mother, and although I denied it she refused to believe me.

“I do think it’s a little selfish of you, my dear,” she said to Kerry that night at dinner. “I don’t think you should drag Ned off to America when he’s obviously so pleased to be home again.”

Kerry went red.

“Mama …” I began.

“We wouldn’t go if you’d only move to Clonagh Court!” Kerry blurted out and then jumped up and rushed out of the room.

“Well, really!” said my mother in a fury.

“Mama, you’ve only yourself to blame,” I said, red in the face myself by this time. “If you made more effort to be civil to Kerry, she wouldn’t pass such remarks. Excuse me, please.” And I too abandoned my dinner.

I found Kerry sobbing noisily in the depths of our fourposter bed. At last she managed to say, “I don’t want to go to America. I’d rather stay here and have a baby, but I’ll never have a baby if I stay here because your mother makes me too upset.”

It took me at least five minutes to understand what she meant, but finally I was able to piece together an explanation. We had been married nine months, there was no sign of a baby and she had been so terrified she was “barren” that she had dredged up enough courage to seek advice from Aunt Madeleine, who had always been kind to her. Aunt Madeleine had told her that young girls often didn’t become pregnant as easily as the world thought they did and that sometimes a girl who married at fifteen might have to wait a year or two before conceiving, even though there was no physical reason why she shouldn’t have a baby. Aunt Madeleine had said it was God’s way of ensuring that a girl was grown up in mind as well as in body before she assumed the responsibilities of motherhood.

“Aunt Madeleine said I should live quietly and not travel or worry about anything,” said Kerry, weeping. “She said if I lived a quiet calm life there would be more chance of the baby coming.”

“Well, that problem’s easily solved,” I said, kissing her. “It only takes about a week to sail to America, and once you’re there you can be as quiet and calm as you like. We’ll leave for Boston as soon as possible.”

But to my astonishment and anger money again proved to be a problem. Drummond explained that the difficulties with the estate were making my income erratic, and he suggested I postpone the visit to America until spring.

“That’s quite out of the question, I’m afraid,” I said abruptly and wrote to Uncle David to borrow money for our fares. Fortunately Uncle David was in a generous mood. His latest detective story had been rejected by the publishers (his stories had never yet appeared in print), but his wife thought the book was wonderfully clever and this compensated for the rejection. There was also the discreet hint in the letter that a baby was expected in the new year.

“Lucky Harriet,” sighed Kerry, but she was in such good spirits about the prospect of returning home that she couldn’t be despondent for long. We sailed from Ireland in late October, and I was so glad to leave that it no longer shamed me that I was running away from difficulties I couldn’t resolve.

I’ll think about them later was all I said to myself and dug my buried head a little deeper in the sand.

It was 1890, the year of the downfall of Charles Stewart Parnell. In November his mistress’s husband was granted a divorce, and on the first of December he was deposed from the leadership of the Irish Party.

“I said all along he was finished,” said Phineas Gallagher over our glasses of port as he offered me one of his fat cigars.

“Mr. Drummond will be upset,” I said, accepting the cigar and lighting it.

“If Max has a grain of sense he’ll learn from Parnell’s mistakes. Max ain’t got no business living openly with your mother and running your estate like he owned it, Ned. It’s humiliating for my daughter and it’s humiliating for you, and if he don’t see that he’s not the man I thought he was. People in that valley of yours might stand a rent raise or two because they’re used to abuse from their landlord, but they’ll not stand for one of their own number lording it over them while he lives in adultery. No decent bunch of Irish folk would stand for it. It’s immoral.”

“Yes.” I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t want him to find out exactly how powerless I was to stop Drummond. “But it’s a shame about Parnell, isn’t it? He was a great man and did so much for Ireland. Why, he was the first Irish leader who literally forced the English to listen to him at Westminster.”

“You could make the Saxons listen to you,” said Phineas Gallagher. “Don’t you have a seat at Westminster?”

“Yes, I suppose I do. In the House of Lords. I hadn’t really thought about it before.”

“Ah, it’s a lovely leader you’d be!” sighed my father-in-law, filling up my glass of port. “A fine upstanding young baron, well spoken and smart. Sure it would cost a little more money to live in London part of the year, but there are Irish people this side of the water who’d see you didn’t starve.”

“I know what a generous man you are, sir,” I said, smiling at him, “but if I ever decide to work for Ireland at Westminster I’d rather do so modestly, using my own money. I’ve discovered I hate to be in debt.”

“This wouldn’t be incurring a debt, Ned! It would be graciously accepting the good will of your fellow countrymen!”

I smiled but said nothing.

It was my father-in-law who laughed. “Jesus, you’ve got an old head on young shoulders!” he exclaimed, and then he added oddly without explaining himself, “It’s too bad about Max Drummond. I liked him.”

I wanted to say that I had once liked him too, but the words refused to be said. I tried to think of something else before I could become too upset, and fortunately I soon had news of another kind to divert me. When I got to bed that night Kerry confided in me that she was sure—positively sure—she was pregnant.

“Already!” I was impressed.

“It must have happened just before we left Cashelmara.”

“I’m glad about that,” I said, although there was no reason why it should matter where the baby had been conceived. But somehow I felt conception at Cashelmara must make him more of an Irishman than an American.

“I must write to Aunt Madeleine at once!” said Kerry happily and began to talk about cribs and little silk baby dresses.

I was dismayed to find myself wondering selfishly how much life would now change, but I clamped the thought down and tried to be as happy as Kerry was. I was surprised when I found this difficult. I could accept the fact that the baby existed, yet somehow its existence remained utterly unreal to me. I kept telling myself I was going to have a son and heir, but after I had told myself that half a dozen times I didn’t know what to tell myself next. I could understand how Kerry had become so deeply involved with the idea because the baby was growing in her body, but it wasn’t growing in mine, and an emotional response to the situation seemed to be entirely lacking in me. I was much troubled by this indifference since I felt sure it must be wrong, but I was too ashamed to tell anyone about it.

“I suppose we can’t go to bed together any more now,” I said, trying not to sound gloomy.

“Can’t we?” said Kerry, horrified. “Oh, that can’t be true! Who told you that?”

I couldn’t remember. Groping through my memories of the distant past, I saw my mother lying palely on a chaise longue before retiring to a bedroom she didn’t share with my father.

“I’ll ask Ma,” said Kerry. “She’ll know.”

Mrs. Gallagher knew a great deal. She told Kerry that husbands were just as important as babies, more important, since a decent girl couldn’t have a baby without one, and that Kerry must never forget that. She said I must be petted and made a fuss of, and that if I “wanted my way” I could have it provided I was careful and considerate. She told Kerry not to listen if any doctor gave her advice to the contrary and said that so long as we both behaved with common sense there would be no danger of a miscarriage.

I was much cheered by this, and when in February I told Uncle Thomas the good news I was even able to sound genuinely pleased. Uncle Thomas was engaged in further studies at the medical school which formed a part of Harvard University, and he had taken an apartment in Cambridge, the town near Boston where Harvard is situated. I had never entirely understood before about Uncle Thomas’s profession. I knew he was a doctor, but he was not like Dr. Cahill or indeed any other doctor whom I had met in the past. He had no exclusive consulting rooms in Harley Street. Indeed he saw no patients at all. His work was conducted in the laboratories attached to Guy’s Hospital in London, and until his decision to go to America he had been concerned with investigating the diseases found in people who were already dead.

“But I became tired of morbid anatomy,” he explained to me in his little sitting room that overlooked the Charles River, “and so I decided to turn to clinical pathology instead, the investigation of disease—and health—in living people. There are different areas of pathology, you know, and our knowledge is increasing substantially every year. The exciting part is that although men have been curious about the study of disease for centuries, the modern science of pathology has really existed only for the past thirty years. I was always fascinated by the war against disease. David could never understand it, but I used to tell him my cases were like his detective stories—finding the clues, isolating the cause of death, solving the puzzle. But I’ve had enough of corpses. I’ve made my mark in London as a specialist in morbid anatomy, and now I want new fields to conquer.”