Cashelmara (33 page)

Sarah laid aside her riding whip. I saw Derry help her as she began to discard her clothes, but she wore nothing beneath her habit but a shining silk petticoat with a fragile bodice. Derry began to ease the petticoat from her body; he had stepped in front of Sarah so that it was impossible for me to see her, and I could not see his face either, for he had his back to me. But I knew from the quick disdainful way he pulled off his own clothes that he was excited. He shrugged off his shirt. I saw the familiar long line of his neck, and presently as he peeled off his drawers I saw the muscles in his legs gleam as the light reflected on the strong sinews of his thighs.

He began to kiss her. Eventually he pulled her to the ground, and suddenly the earthen floor dissolved into a sparkling clover field and the sun’s hot light was streaming from a blistering sky. His hands moved over her flesh. I saw his body molding itself into hers until her breath was coming in great harsh gasps for air. I saw her mouth gape wider, her back arch, and then without warning the earth moved and I was falling endlessly into a bottomless pit.

I woke up.

I awoke so violently that at first I couldn’t remember where I was or who I was or what the devil I’d been doing. A second later when I realized I’d been dreaming I was able to sink back thankfully on the pillows, but my heart was thudding like a piston and I felt as wet as a drowned dog. Presently I lighted a candle and sponged my limbs with cold water from the ewer. My hands were unsteady. I kept thinking to myself, What a damnable, damnable dream, and I wished I had a small glass of poteen at hand to smooth the memory from my mind.

Well, it was only a dream, and when I awoke next morning I could even smile at its absurdity and wonder why on earth I should have been so upset. Dreams never mean anything, everyone knows that nowadays, and I certainly wasn’t superstitious enough to believe I had been dreaming of the future. In retrospect the most tiresome part of the dream was that I could barely remember Sarah’s part in it, only Derry’s, but dreams are notoriously illogical.

Pushing all thought of the dream resolutely from my mind, I turned with relief to Sarah, who as usual was talking about our distant wedding.

“Papa says,” she was remarking dreamily, “that he’s going to give me the very finest wedding that money can buy.”

I can never understand why Americans are so fearfully interested in money. I’m not in the least interested in it myself and think it’s an awfully boring topic of conversation.

“Tell me more about London,” Sarah was begging for the umpteenth time. “How many dry-goods stores are there? I like to go shopping. Is there a store as fine as Lord and Taylor or as vast as Stewart’s?”

Americans have this curious notion that one should be able to purchase everything under one roof and therefore the bigger the shop the better. They set great importance on size and are continually talking about how big things are.

“Can I have as many gowns as I like? I never wear the same ball gown twice, you know. Papa says my dress bills are positively ruinous.”

The cost of the wedding was going to be positively ruinous too, but no one seemed to care about that. The guest list reached five hundred with no end in sight, and so many wedding presents streamed into the house that I thought I would have to engage a fleet of ships to transport them across the Atlantic.

“I like weddings,” said my little brother David, who had never been to a wedding but was already an incurable romantic. “People wear nice clothes and there’s organ music and singing. Nanny told me all about it.”

Thomas looked at him pityingly before tugging at Marguerite’s sleeve. He tugged at Marguerite’s sleeve very often and usually when she was smiling at David. “Mama …”

“Yes, darling?”

“When are we going back to England?”

“After the wedding.”

After the wedding. It was like some date so remote that I would never live to see it. Meanwhile Marguerite had arranged a series of short visits for me, and I found myself traveling by train first to Boston, then to Philadelphia and finally to Washington. I liked Philadelphia best; the Schuylkill Valley is so pretty, and above the city the river is just like an English river, lazy, winding and not too wide. I did not care for the Hudson, which Sarah admired so much, because it was so un-English in its width and surrounding rocky heights. It reminded me of my visit to the Rhine during my Grand Tour, and I always felt lukewarm toward anything German after Derry had been banished to Frankfurt.

I disliked Washington (there’s something so depressing about a town that is being painstakingly created instead of being allowed to evolve naturally) and thought the atmosphere of the place was as dispiriting as the endless unfinished streets stretching into the marshy wilderness; but Boston had much more warmth of personality, and I took a great fancy to the little villages of New England with their green-shuttered, white-walled wooden houses.

“Isn’t America wonderful?” said Sarah enthusiastically after I had returned from my last journey and was reflecting on my travels.

“Very remarkable,” I said at once, having discovered by this time that Americans have to be constantly reassured what a fine country they have, but to be honest I didn’t think the scenery could hold a candle to the sights I had seen either in England or in Europe.

“Do you think New England is like Old England?” asked Sarah, eager for my impressions.

“Well, not really,” I said “although it’s quite delightful, of course.”

“But in what way is it different?”

“Well, England—Old England—is rather more ‘lived in,’ if you know what I mean.”

She had no idea what I meant, and finally I gave up trying to explain. “After all,” I said, “you’ll see it soon enough for yourself. After the wedding.”

But that was still a long way off.

Then suddenly it wasn’t such a long way off after all. It was next month, next week, tomorrow, until finally, still hardly able to believe my amazing good fortune, I walked down the aisle of St. Thomas’s Church with Sarah and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine of that June afternoon. The crowd cheered and threw rice. The champagne flowed like water at the Marriott mansion on Fifth Avenue, and seven hundred and fifty guests gathered to wish us well.

No marriage could have had a more auspicious beginning.

I admit I was a little apprehensive about the honeymoon. It was not that I was inexperienced, but to be quite honest I’ve always thought that sexual intercourse is a very overrated sport, not nearly so much fun as carving or drawing or even splashing watercolors on an inviting blank page of a sketchbook. However, a man can’t very well say—even to his best friend—that he’d rather chisel a piece of wood than bump a piece of flesh, and God knows I had no wish to be different from anyone else. I was different enough already with all my advantages, and the least I could do was behave like an average man whenever I had the opportunity.

Anyway, it wasn’t so hard to conform. In fact I often think I liked women a great deal better than Derry did, for he was always cursing them for some reason or moaning about his need to go to bed with them so often. One day I even said to him, “Why do you chase women so if you dislike them so much?” But he got very annoyed at this and said no one liked a piece of skirt more than he did, and what the devil did I mean anyway? “I’m a man, aren’t I?” he added truculently, and when I laughed and said there was no denying that he thawed a little and said he liked women well enough but they were deuced irritating creatures when all was said and done and as far as he was concerned they were good for one thing and one thing only.

“Well, you certainly practice what you preach,” I said hastily. “There’s no doubt about that.”

It was Derry’s misfortune that he lived in a country where chastity is rated very highly, but even in the rigidly moral Catholic climate of Connaught there was always the impulsive maiden who could be talked out of waiting for a wedding ring or the lonely widow who was secretly pining for consolation. Derry was so acute he could spot a woman’s willingness at fifty paces, even if her face were veiled, and although I was at first horrified by the risks he ran my admiration for his nerve finally overcame my horror.

In the beginning I was too young to join him in these exploits (I was three years his junior), but Derry was generous and usually let me watch. The first seduction I witnessed appalled me, but after Derry had sworn the woman had enjoyed it I became less squeamish. In fact I would have been quite happy to prolong my role of observer indefinitely, but at last I realized Derry would think it odd if I continued to enjoy women in this secondhand way, and when one day he invited me to join him I hadn’t enough nerve to refuse. To my relief I soon found out that there’s no truth in the maxim “Two’s company but three’s a crowd,” and later I did try an exploit or two on my own. However these proved such nerve-wracking affairs that if I hadn’t dosed myself liberally with poteen beforehand I might have turned tail and fled. I’m really very shy, you see, although no one ever believes that because I’m six feet two and look as if I ought to be as brave as a lion. It was only when I was with Derry that I forgot to feel shy. He gave me such confidence and—well, it’s hard to explain, but I was always quite a different person when I was with Derry Stranahan.

But Derry wasn’t going to be with me on my honeymoon.

I didn’t intend to drink so much at the wedding breakfast, but champagne is such a deuced dangerous drink and those flunkeys kept filling up one’s glass when one wasn’t looking, and before I knew where I was I felt I just wanted to lie down in some quiet corner and go to sleep. However, I managed to keep my eyes open, and finally after numerous delays we left the reception and were driven across the town to the Hudson, where we boarded Cousin Francis’ yacht. We then sailed all the way up the river to his country house, where we were to spend the first two weeks of our honeymoon, and by the time we crossed the threshold it was after dark and I had already made a vow never to touch champagne again. Mumbling an excuse to Sarah, I sank down on the dressing-room couch and drifted thankfully into oblivion.

When I managed to open my eyes it was seven o’clock in the morning, my head felt as if it had been split by a blunderbuss and there was no sign of Sarah.

I crawled off the couch. I was still fully dressed; evidently my man had been too tactful to disturb me. I stared numbly at my surroundings. Beyond the window a meticulously watered lawn stretched like a carpet to the glassy waters of the Hudson and across the river the humps of thickly wooded hills towered gloomily toward the cloudless sky. It already felt too hot, and I had a useless aching moment of longing for Woodhammer Hall.

I wondered if the water in the washstand pitcher was safe to drink. My tongue felt as if it were coming apart at the seams. After peering around for the bell rope I decided that if I waited an instant longer to assuage my thirst my tongue would certainly drop out, so I scooped up some water and drank. I felt better. I drank some more and then, summoning my courage, I tiptoed to the door that led into the main bedroom, listened carefully to the silence on the other side and reached out to turn the handle.

But the door opened before I could touch it. A second later Sarah was facing me across the threshold.

She was wearing a long white night dress buttoned up to the neck, and there were violet shadows under her eyes.

We looked at each other guiltily. It took me a moment to realize she was feeling just as guilty as I was.

“Patrick …” She rushed forward, flung her arms around my neck and burst into tears. “Oh, Patrick, forgive me. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to drink more than one tiny glass of champagne, but …”

Enlightenment dawned. I suddenly saw the funny side of the situation and began to laugh.

“Well, really!” said Sarah, taking offense when her passionate apology failed to produce the equally passionate reassurance that was necessary. “I fail to see why you should be so amused!”

“Don’t be angry, Sarah—please.” I was still laughing and could only speak in gasps.

Fortunately my laughter proved infectious. The situation was saved when she too began to laugh, and she looked so lovely standing there in that chaste white nightgown that I gave her a kiss and drew her toward the bed.

She drew back at once. “Not in daylight!” she said, shocked, as if I had suggested some unspeakable perversion.

“Heavens no!” I agreed fervently, very much aware of my aching head and champagne-sodden body. “But I would so like to lie down for a while with you in my arms and doze and talk and recover together. It’s still too early to think of breakfast, so there’s no hurry to get up.”

Sarah shuddered. “I declare I should swoon if I saw a breakfast tray!”

We started to giggle again like children, and although we both felt so groggy I knew she was as happy as I was. I undressed partially, keeping on my trousers and shirt so as not to embarrass her, and presently we were lying tranquilly in each other’s arms and recalling as much as we could remember of the previous day.

“It was such a lovely wedding!” said Sarah. “I did enjoy myself!”

After we had agreed that it was the nicest wedding either of us had ever been to we both dozed, and by the time we awoke again it was eleven o’clock and we felt more in the mood for breakfast.

“I’m so happy!” exclaimed Sarah as we breakfasted outside on the terrace and watched the peacocks strut across the lawn. “What fun it is to be alone together with no one telling us what to do! I love honeymoons!”

I was in no mood to drink much at dinner, but I did because I knew it was necessary. Afterward, not wishing to dally in the drawing room, I suggested an early night, and Sarah raised no objection. We went upstairs, undressed in our separate rooms and dismissed our servants. So far so good. I joined Sarah in the main bedroom, complimented her on her primrose yellow nightgown, slipped into bed and blew out the light. Again so far so good. Unfortunately once the light was out it became obvious that we had gone to bed too early, for the room was still light.