Cashelmara (17 page)

“How well you’ve settled down here!” said Edward to me kindly as we prepared for Christmas. “Don’t think I’ve been unaware of all the difficulties you’ve encountered.”

But despite his awareness we were nearing the brink of another crisis, and my difficulties were by no means at an end.

Christmas is an emotional time for an immigrant. On the whole I had managed to overcome my periodic bouts of homesickness with tolerable success, but as the December days slipped past I was consumed with a longing to see my old home resplendent in snow and icicles. I was still recovering from the English ignorance of Thanksgiving, our unofficial but widely celebrated family festival at the end of November, and when my family’s presents and Christmas letters arrived it was almost more than I could bear.

Francis wrote me a long affectionate letter, and I shed so many tears over it that in the end I had smudged every line of his handsome handwriting. Blanche wrote to me, Amelia wrote to me (I never thought I would ever be touched to receive a letter from Amelia), my nephew Charles wrote to me and even my niece Sarah wrote to me. Sarah, ten years old and the apple of Francis’ eye, did not care to write letters, but she wrote two whole pages about all the parties to which she had been invited and all the dresses she intended to wear, and I found myself weeping all over again. Fond as I was of Charles, I was fonder still of Sarah—but that was because she was so like her father.

Blanche told me who had married or separated, Amelia told me which families had gone bankrupt and Francis told me how much money he was making. It was all deliciously un-English, and I caught a cherished glimpse of the brash tapestry of New York so far removed from dull, demure, decorous Woodhammer Hall.

“Does Francis mention the political situation?” asked Edward, realizing that I was yearning to talk about my family, and I said in a great rush to keep the tears at bay, “No, not much, except that he’s afraid Lincoln might win the election, and he’s shuffling his investments around just in case the market slumps. He doesn’t like to think what will happen if there’s a war. Everyone’s buying clothes in case the price of cotton goes sky-high, and everyone’s giving parties in case the worst happens, and some neighbors of ours gave a fancy-dress ball where champagne ran from a solid-gold cupid fountain in the lobby.”

“Dear me,” said Edward, “I hope they contrived to chill the champagne.”

No husband could have been kinder to me than Edward during those difficult days, and I was just thinking for the hundredth time that a happy marriage made even the worst variety of homesickness endurable, when two important items of news from abroad reached Woodhammer. The first was that Lincoln had won the presidential election, and the second (of far more importance to me in my present state) was that Edward’s daughter Katherine, prostrated by the sudden death of her husband, had begged Edward to leave immediately for St. Petersburg to bring her home.

“You can’t go!” I cried. “The baby—I couldn’t travel with you … Christmas … you’d never be back in time …” To my shame I burst into floods of tears. I was beginning to suspect that pregnancy was more than partly responsible for my weepiness those days, for, as I have already mentioned, I am not usually the sort of female who needs only the slightest excuse to burst into tears.

“I’m behaving abominably,” I said. “I know I am, but I can’t help it. I’m sorry for Katherine, but I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t want to go either,” he said. “Do you think I would spend Christmas away from you if I could possibly help it? But Katherine’s my daughter. She’s been bereaved; she’s ill and asking for my help. I have a duty to her.”

“What about your duty to me?” I burst out, and rushed from the room before he should mistake my panic for anger and lose his temper. In the bedroom I again hid behind the curtains of the fourposter and prepared to weep myself into a state of exhaustion, but before I could shed a tear I felt a small tremor in the farthest recesses of my body. I sat up in great excitement. Presently the baby fluttered again, and after that I became much less cowardly and even moderately brave. When Edward appeared a moment later to console me I rushed into his arms and once more tried to apologize.

“I shan’t be so alone after all,” I said, explaining what had happened, and so a quarrel was averted, and the next day he departed reluctantly for St. Petersburg. I think even then he might have changed his mind at the last moment, but I was so determined to make amends for my childish behavior that I almost pushed him out of the front door when the time came for us to say goodbye. But afterward as I stood on the porch steps and watched the carriage roll away down the drive I did feel very low in spirits and might have felt lower still if Patrick had not slipped his hand affectionately into mine.

“I shall look after you until Papa comes back,” he said, giving my fingers a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll have a lovely Christmas together, you’ll see.”

He really was the most delightful boy.

PATRICK’S TUTOR, AN ELDERLY
, desiccated little man called Mr. Bull, had agreed to forego his Christmas holiday that year in order to supervise Patrick during Edward’s absence. But Edward had barely been gone an hour before Patrick produced a drawing which showed Mr. Bull leering at an insouciant cow and hung the picture from the dining-room chandelier for all the servants to view.

“That was a very silly thing to do,” I said sternly when he reappeared some hours later after playing truant from his lessons. “Mr. Bull was furious, and he’s going to complain to your father.”

“Papa’s used to my tutors complaining,” said Patrick irrepressibly. He yawned. “I hate tutors. My friend Derry Stranahan says people become tutors only when they can’t become anything else.”

As a punishment Patrick was set a long translation from Caesar’s
De Bello Civili,
but after a morning’s labor he emerged only with six clever sketches of Julius Caesar fighting Gnaeus Pompey. Caesar was tall and fair-haired like Patrick, while Pompey bore a most unfortunate resemblance to Mr. Bull.

“Do you
want
to get into trouble with your father, Patrick?” I asked, puzzled.

“No, but I think Latin is such an awful waste of time. My friend Derry Stranahan says it’s morbid to keep a dead language alive long after it should have been allowed to die a dignified natural death. Would you like to see some of my other drawings?”

He was certainly clever with a pencil. I did not think his watercolors were exceptional—Blanche painted a better watercolor than he did—but he did draw well. More remarkable than any picture, however, were the woodcarvings he showed me. He carved birds and animals. Sometimes they were single carvings and sometimes they were part of a motif on a panel of wood. He worked in a tiny room in the attics where the sawdust lay thick upon the floor, and although his early work was crude he had clearly improved with practice. There was a delightful study of a cat with kittens and another of a setter with a pheasant between his teeth.

“You’re very clever,” I said truthfully, trying to imagine what Edward thought of his son’s artistic inclinations.

“It’s easy to be clever at something you like to do,” said Patrick. “I’m very stupid at things I don’t like.” He smiled at me shyly. “Do you really like my carvings?”

“Very much.” Instinct made me refrain from asking him directly what his father thought of them. “Have you shown your carvings to anyone else?”

“No, because Papa disapproves. He thinks it’s like carpentry, and carpentry is for artisans.”

“Does he know about your room up here?”

“Oh yes, but he doesn’t take any notice so long as no one else knows about it. As a matter of fact Papa never takes any notice of something that doesn’t interest him. My friend Derry Stranahan says—”

“You talk a considerable lot about Mr. Derry Stranahan, don’t you?” I said with a smile.

“Ain’t a man entitled to talk about his best friend now and then? Here, Cousin Marguerite, have the cat and kittens as a Christmas present from me.”

“I’d love to,” I said, “but I really mustn’t if Edward doesn’t strictly approve of your woodcarving. It wouldn’t be right.”

He was disappointed, so to divert him I suggested we go for a walk to the village. After that we fell into the habit of taking a daily walk together, and presently he asked if I would go riding with him.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that!” I said, surprised. “It wouldn’t be at all advisable in my condition.”

“What condition?” he said, naïve as a boy half his age, and then blushed to the roots of his hair.

“You mean Edward didn’t tell you?” I asked, astonished.

Speechless, he shook his head, and his embarrassment was so infectious that I too found myself without a word to say. We were walking back from the village on one of those mild misty mornings so common in an English winter, and ahead of us across the park we could see the tall chimneys of the hall.

“Well,” I said at last, obscurely aware that I should defend Edward, “I’ve no doubt it’s not proper to talk of such things so far in advance, but since I’ve mentioned it the baby’s coming in April and he’s to be called Thomas. But please keep it a secret, because I shouldn’t like your father to be offended by any impropriety.”

“No,” he said earnestly. “Of course not.”

He was still so acutely embarrassed that I found it impossible to talk of something else.

“I do hope you don’t mind having another brother,” I said. “I realize it must be tiresome for you in some ways, but think how nice it will be for Thomas to have a brother so many years his senior. My brother Francis is eighteen years older than I am, so I can speak from experience.”

“Oh yes,” said Patrick. “Quite. Papa is very pleased, I dare say.”

“Fairly pleased, I think,” I said in the most casual voice I could muster and changed the subject as fast as a juggler throwing a new set of plates in the air. “Patrick, tell me about your friend Mr. Stranahan. He does sound so vastly entertaining. Is there really no hope of him visiting us during these three years he’s spending at the University of Frankfurt?”

“None at all,” said Patrick, instantly diverted. “He got into an awful scrape in Ireland, you know, and Papa sent him to Frankfurt more for a punishment than for an education.”

“But what did he do? I’ve never quite liked to ask before.”

But Patrick was more than willing to amend Edward’s reticence on the subject. Apparently, I learned, Mr. Stranahan had been falsely accused of misconduct by a drunken Irish husband who had tried to kill both him and the poor innocent woman involved.

“How dreadful!” I cried, but I found the gossip fascinating. The more vulgar side of my nature has always savored any scandal resulting from what the novelists call “unbridled passions.” “Poor Mr. Stranahan!”

“Yes, wasn’t it a shame! And it wasn’t his fault a bit, but Papa will never admit that now. Unless …I say, Cousin Marguerite, do you think you could say a word to Papa about it when he comes home? I’ve tried, but he won’t listen to me.”

“I doubt if he’d listen to me either.”

“Oh yes he would! If you could just ask him if Derry could come home for a holiday—”

“Well, I might,” I said, suddenly seeing an unexpected opportunity, “but I’ll do it only if you behave with Mr. Bull, Patrick, and stop driving the poor man mad by drawing pictures of him falling in love with a cow.”

Patrick shouted with laughter and leaped in the air with joy. “Agreed!” he cried. “Agreed, agreed, agreed!” And he danced ahead of me along the path like some gorgeous golden puppy who has just been promised the juiciest and most succulent of bones.

Christmas came. We went to church in the morning, and afterward I rested before we ate dinner at three. In the evening there was no time to grow mournful thinking of Edward far away in St. Petersburg. We played backgammon together and cribbage, and presently when Patrick dressed up for one-man charades we both laughed at his foolish antics until we were too weak to laugh any more. Finally we decided it was time for a musical interlude, so I attacked the piano (I am a terrible pianist) and Patrick launched into song, but since his singing was no better than my strumming we made the most appalling racket together.

“I used to be able to sing,” said Patrick regretfully. “I was a soprano. But now that my voice has changed I’m not sure what I am any more.”

“You’ll have a nice baritone when your voice is completely broken.”

“It
is
completely broken!” he said, affronted, and we started to giggle again like two children in the schoolroom. I had not been so amused for months, and after spending so long dreading Christmas it was an enormous relief to feel so lighthearted. After supper we went to the servants’ hall to watch the festivities, and Patrick introduced me to the young men and women who had been the companions of his childhood. One of them was a maid in the still-room, one was a groom, one was the knife boy and the last, the cook’s daughter, had done so well that she was now a parlor maid. Everyone was very merry and civil, and when we left at last I said to Patrick with a sigh, “It’s really very pleasant here at Woodhammer, I must declare, although I admit I missed city life dreadfully at first.”

“I like Woodhammer far better than London,” he said. “I was born and brought up here, so it’s home.”

“You like it better than Cashelmara?”

“Cashelmara!” He grimaced. “Cashelmara’s the end of the world.” He seized my hand, slipped an arm around my waist and whirled me in a silent waltz around the great hall to the staircase.

“Patrick! Not so fast!” I shrieked, but when he laughed I laughed too, and we spun on through the shadows together. “Stop!” I gasped at last. “I must sit down!” So we sat on the settle before the enormous hearth, and suddenly I had a great longing for Edward’s arms around me, for his long strong body pressing against mine. I sat very still, staring at the embers of the fire while Patrick talked endlessly about why he loved Woodhammer, and when I could listen to him again I heard him telling me in a hushed dreamy voice that the oak staircase had been carved by Grinling Gibbons.