Cashelmara (19 page)

“I do indeed have innumerable acquaintances of that sort,” said Katherine, still very grand, “but I am, of course, too low in spirits to pay calls at present.”

“And my condition is too far advanced. But perhaps later, in the spring …”

“I dare say I might consider leaving a card or two in June,” said Katherine. “You might accompany me if you wished.”

“Oh, I should so like that!” I said at once. “Thank you very much, Katherine.”

So the first cordial overtures were made between us, and by the time Edward returned from Cashelmara, Katherine and I had become civil to each other. We were still far from being bosom friends, but we did take strolls around the garden together after breakfast, and in the evening when we had exchanged comments on our favorite fashion magazine she would even offer to play the piano for me. She played beautifully. In fact she was one of those girls who seem to excel in everything they try. The world calls such behavior accomplished, but I merely call it maddening.

“Katherine sews so exquisitely,” I said to Edward. “You should see her embroidery! And she plays the piano even better than Blanche does, and as for her sketches …” I was going to say that her sketches were as gifted as Patrick’s but thought better of it.

“It’s very good of you to take so much trouble with Katherine,” said Edward gratefully. “I was afraid you might find her very dull.”

There was a slight pause before I said, “Katherine’s not dull. Just a little shy.”

“Shy! She always seems perfectly poised to me—but what a pity it is she’s so mechanical and stiff! Eleanor always used to say Katherine was exactly like a little wax doll.”

There was another longer pause. “Oh?” I said at last. “A wax doll? Yes, that does tell me something about Katherine, but it tells me a great deal more about Eleanor.” I stood up slowly and wandered over to the drawing-room window to look out upon the square. I always moved slowly now because I was such an awkward shape. Outside the trees were bare and snow was falling from a leaden sky.

“Parents often make rash remarks when their children exasperate them,” said Edward lightly, giving me a kiss that at once made me forget Katherine. “It’s hard work being a parent. But you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”

“I guess I will,” I said, leaning against him with a huge sigh, “if Thomas ever decides to arrive. Do you realize that I’m beginning to believe not only that I’ve always been this shape but that I always will be?”

Three weeks later Thomas entered the world.

Thomas was small, only six pounds, but very active. He had no hair, bright blue eyes and a pouting mouth. Chaucer would have described his complexion as choleric. I thought the infant was quite the finest specimen I had ever seen, and within a second after I had set eyes on him I was captivated.

“Look how lovely he is!” I said proudly to Edward, and as the baby squalled I added, marveling, “See how strongly he cries!”

“Admirably energetic,” said Edward gravely, but he was smiling, and when he kissed me I was sure no woman could have been happier than I was then.

The birth had been easy, so my recovery was rapid. Indeed I wanted to get well rapidly for reasons which, when considered in the light of my distaste for celibacy, were logical enough, but when at the end of May Dr. Ives said I might once again live a normal life I found it took longer than I thought to return to normality. The early part of summer was not a comfortable time either for Edward or for me, but eventually matters began to improve, and when Parliament rose at last Edward decided it was time for me to make my long-delayed first visit to Cashelmara.

“How exciting!” I said, genuinely intrigued to see the place he regarded as home. “I can’t wait to visit Ireland at last!”

“I’ve been looking forward to taking you there for so long,” he said, delighted by my enthusiasm. “We can go there alone, just you and I, and stay for a couple of months. I’ll send Fielding off immediately to make the travel arrangements.”

“What about Thomas?”

“Oh, Ireland wouldn’t be healthy for an infant his age. Nanny and Nurse can take him to Woodhammer, and we can join him there in October.”

“How difficult!” I said. “I’m so sorry, dearest, but that really wouldn’t suit me at all. Do you think we could possibly come to some other arrangement?”

He looked blank. “Eleanor always thought it was better to leave the younger children in England.”

“But I’m not Eleanor,” I said, “am I?”

“I’m well aware of that,” he said quickly, realizing too late that he had made a mistake. “But having seen my favorite child die in Ireland—”

“Yes, that must have been a dreadful experience but as far as illness goes I’m something of a fatalist. It’s quite true that Thomas could become ill in Ireland, but he could equally well become ill at Woodhammer Hall—and then how would I feel if I were three days’ journey away from him at Cashelmara?”

“You’re implying that Eleanor—”

“No, dearest, I’m not implying anything. Please don’t think I’m criticizing Eleanor. I’m simply pointing out that I’m different from her, that’s all. And please don’t think either that I couldn’t bear to be parted from Thomas for a single day. I’d love to go alone with you to Ireland and have a second honeymoon, but let’s agree to part from Thomas for two weeks, not two months. Nanny and Nurse can bring him to Cashelmara to join us.”

“Then the other children must join us too,” he said, instinctively trying to be fair.

“Of course!” I said. “Why not? But we’ll have our two weeks alone together first.”

“You’ll have your cake and eat it, you mean!” he said, laughing, and when I saw he was finally in agreement with me I could only heave a vast sigh of relief that a marital quarrel had been averted before it had begun.

Patrick had said that Cashelmara was the end of the world—but what a stupendous ending it was, with those great mountains ripped from the black earth and flung in a jagged circle around the ragged edges of the lake! When the carriage reached the top of the pass high above the valley and I could look down at last upon Cashelmara I was dazzled by such flawless beauty but at the same time intimidated by it. I had never seen such scenery before. Lakes and valleys—yes, New York State is full of them, but it is also full of trees, and here in Connaught the landscape was so bare that the soft edges and gentle lines I had always associated with rural landscapes did not exist. To me, a city dweller, there was something frightening about those great bare mountains towering above us like slumbering animals, the vast lonely stretches of bog and moorland, the shifting clouds forming and reforming as if manipulated by a hidden hand in that unending sky.

“That mountain over there is called Devilsmother,” Edward was saying. “It’s the source of many local legends. And then going from west to east you can see Knocklaur, Benwee, Leynabricka, Skeltia …” He talked of the mountains as if they were people. “And behind them, although one can’t see it from this angle, is Maumtrasna, the tallest of them all. The county line runs along the mountain tops, and over there is Mayo. The local name for this area is the Joyce country after the tribe of that name. Connemara, the area we’ve seen since leaving Oughterard, overlaps with the Joyce country, yet is considered separate from it”

Connemara, Oughterard, Mayo—my head was ringing with Irish names. It was my third day in Ireland. On the first we had arrived in Dublin and spent the night as guests of the Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle. The next day a train had taken us across the country to the luxurious Railway Hotel at Galway, and this morning we had left Galway in a hired carriage for the forty-mile journey to the door of Edward’s home. So by this time I had spent several hours staring at Ireland, from the grandeur of Dublin Castle to the simplicity of a peasant’s cabin, and the more I saw the more I realized that certain previous ideas of mine had been ill-founded.

One hears a great deal about Ireland in New York. The city swarms with Irish-Americans who are only too pleased to talk about Ireland whenever they have the opportunity, and like many other families of standing we had had our Bridget in the kitchens and our Kitty in the scullery, both loud in singing the praises of their native land. I had heard of the innumerable shades of green and the darling little thatched cabins and the dear little leprechauns dancing over the bog. But nothing I had heard had prepared me for the poverty, the filth, the beggars, the mud huts and that ruined, blasted countryside which looked as if it had been ravaged by some catastrophic war. The farther west we traveled the worse it became, until suddenly the great famine of the Forties was not just a legend of another decade but an evil that still lingered amidst the splendor of that alien, mystical land.

“Edward,” I said, remembering the darker Irish-American memories of Ireland, yet anxious to be tactful to him, “I know you’re a good landlord and have done everything in your power for Ireland, but why can’t other English landlords follow your example?”

“There are a great many good landlords,” said Edward. “One simply hears more about the bad ones, that’s all.”

“But if there are numerous good landlords, why is Ireland in such a sad and impoverished condition? I mean … well, why do the English find it necessary to—to keep Ireland? Might not the Irish be better off if they governed themselves?”

“My dear,” said Edward, “if you were living in luxury in a fine house and you found a beggar in residence on your front doorstep, what would you do? Would you ignore him with the excuse that it is his right as an individual to fend for himself without assistance, or would you take him into your house and try to feed him and alleviate his suffering?”

“Well …”

“We have a moral duty to Ireland,” said Edward strongly. “We have a duty to make amends for past wrongs and a duty to improve present conditions. It’s useless for the Irish secret societies to talk of independence. The plain fact of the matter is that without England’s assistance the Irish would all starve and Ireland would be a wilderness.”

“But, Edward,” I said, “I realize, of course, that I’m just an ignorant foreigner, but haven’t the Irish already starved and isn’t Ireland—this part of Ireland—already little better than a wilderness?”

“Contrary to popular Irish opinion, England did a great deal to help Ireland during the famine, though I agree it wasn’t enough. We have to find the solution for these periodic famines, and the solution will never be found while the peasant population exists entirely on a vulnerable source of food such as the potato. If they can be given an incentive to do more with their land than plant a row of potatoes …” And he began to talk about land reform. “… Give the peasants more of a stake in their land.… at present they have no incentive to improve it.… after the famine I experimented—gave my best tenant a leasehold for fifty years.… amazing the difference in his outlook once he had security of tenure, but leaseholds of that nature are almost unknown in Ireland—not so profitable immediately to the landlord, but in the long run …”

It was as he talked that I glimpsed the most hidden reason for his dedication to Cashelmara. It was because it was a challenge. I could picture him so well in his younger days, seeking fresh worlds to conquer, bored by problems that never taxed his abilities to the limit, and then being presented with his estate after the famine, ruined, ravaged and seemingly beyond redemption.

Meanwhile we had left the road, and the carriage had passed through a gateway up a long, winding wooded drive.

“And this,” Edward said at last, shining-eyed, “is my home.”

It was an old-fashioned place, plain to the point of starkness, but if one likes yesterday’s architecture I suppose it was all very fine. Personally I like a touch of Gothic, but my tastes in such things have always been very modern.

“White houses are always so elegant,” I said, wanting to be truthful as well as complimentary, but I could not help but notice how the elegance was blurred by the weeds in the drive and the chipped stone steps. I thought of Woodhammer, immaculately preserved and well kept, and it seemed to me that the two houses personified the difference between England and Ireland, the one rich and comfortable, the other scarred by past tragedy and neglect. “Is there a nice garden behind the house?” I said for lack of anything else to say.

“Oh, the Irish don’t believe in gardens,” said Edward happily. “There’s a lawn, and in my father’s day there were several shrubberies, but I plowed them up to grow vegetables. One must use every available square inch of arable land in Ireland, you know.”

I wondered how I could have thought of him as an Englishman. No Englishman would ever have plowed up a shrubbery.

“I’m sure you’ll soon feel quite at home here,” he said, but I had never in my life felt such a foreigner, and England in retrospect began to seem as cozily familiar as America.

However, when one is nineteen one is very adaptable, and I was determined to find Cashelmara a pleasant place to visit even while I privately thanked God I did not have to live there twelve months a year. My good intentions were helped by the servants, who were all very friendly. The majority of them spoke little English so that true communication was impossible (I quickly abandoned any attempt to explain the words “dusty” and “dirt” to the housemaids), but they smiled so readily and appeared so full of good will that I forgave them everything except the warming pan which leaked in my bed. But even then Hayes the butler explained the leak with such imaginative zeal that I was charmed into keeping my temper. I had long conversations with Hayes and with his wife, who acted as housekeeper, not only because they were the only people in the house who spoke comprehensible English but because they continually said how much they admired my American accent. After my months among the English, who had always been kind enough not to refer to my deficiencies of speech, such compliments were nectar to me.

Presently Edward’s nephew George, a pompous little man, rode over from his house at Letterturk, and after that one or two other squires called, Mr. Plunket of Aasleagh, Mr. Knox of Clonbur and Mr. Courtney of Leenane. Their wives, elderly ladies clad in the fashions of ten years before, were so interested to meet me that I began to believe my arrival was the most exciting event to have overtaken them in a decade, and when we repaid the calls I saw still more of Ireland, from George’s house at Letterturk on the reed-fringed shores of Lough Mask to the famous coaching inn at Leenane that faced the fjordlike waters of Killary Harbour.