Cashelmara (39 page)

“I think it’s high time Derry followed your example and settled down,” said Marguerite firmly. “Besides, one must be practical, mustn’t one? Derry has plenty of talent and ambition, but we all know that talent and ambition alone aren’t enough to ensure success. He needs a rich well-connected wife in order to make his mark in the world, and Clara, like any other young girl, needs a handsome, charming, clever young husband. What could be more suitable?”

“Good Lord, Marguerite!” I exclaimed in wholehearted admiration. “Why on earth isn’t everyone as sensible as you are? Life would be so much simpler and more comfortable. So you’ve forgiven Derry, have you, for all that bother at Cashelmara before Papa died?”

“It’s not at all Christian to harbor grudges,” said Marguerite blandly. “Now, Patrick, after we’ve all left Woodhammer and you and Sarah are alone together, do remember how much she depends on you at present. She has a new country to adjust to as well as a new way of life, and it’s inevitable for her to feel insecure at first. You will remember that and make allowances for her, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Poor Sarah, of course I will. I didn’t mean to leave her alone so much in Ireland, but what with Annabel’s death and the funeral—”

“It must have been very trying for you,” said Marguerite sympathetically. “Never mind, I’m sure you can make amends to Sarah very nicely now that you’re home in England at last.”

I did indeed feel relieved at the prospect of being on equable terms with Sarah again. After I left the long gallery I was about to go to her apartments to see if she felt better when I remembered Derry and decided to drop in first for a word with him.

“Oh, my God,” he said as soon as I mentioned Marguerite’s name. “I wondered how long it would be before she started influencing you.” But after I had told him that Marguerite was in favor of the match he thawed and said maybe the news wasn’t so bad after all. “I’d rather stay here at Woodhammer,” he said, “but I suppose since I’ve made the effort to come to England I might as well see something of London. Anyway I can’t afford to let Clara slip through my fingers. Supposing she meets some other man who fancies her once she settles in town?” He shuddered at the thought before adding, “When will you and Sarah be coming up to London?”

“Lord, I’ve no idea. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You don’t think Sarah’s going to be content for long with a quiet country life, do you?” he said, laughing.

“I hope she’ll like it for a while at least,” I said unhappily. I had been looking forward to several peaceful months at Woodhammer before I fulfilled my promise to take her abroad in the spring.

“Don’t fool yourself, Patrick. She won’t rest till she sees those city lights! Why don’t you bring her up for a week or two soon?”

“Well …”

“Hell, Patrick, what am I going to do with myself in London if you’re not there to show me around?” he protested, amused, and when he put it like that I at once thought of all the marvelous times we could have together gambling in Mayfair, carousing in Soho and riding hell for leather through the dust of Rotten Row.

“Well, it might be rather jolly,” I said reluctantly.

“Of course it would be, and Sarah will be the first to admit it. I’ll wager you five guineas that within three days after we’ve all gone to London she’ll be clamoring to follow hard on our heels!”

It was actually five days, not three, but once Sarah began to speak of London with that certain longing note in her voice I knew I should have no peace until I had agreed to take her up for a visit. However, I did try to postpone the inevitable. I again pointed out that no one was in town during August and that it would be much more sensible to stay in the country until the end of September.

“But no one is in the country either!” objected Sarah, and I had to admit there was a certain amount of truth in this, as all our neighbors had departed for Scotland to shoot grouse. However, I succeeded in postponing the visit to London until early October, and after that I settled down to savor Woodhammer to the full. Unfortunately Sarah, I soon realized, was quite unable to savor it with me, and I found it hard to enjoy myself when I knew she was pacing up and down the long gallery as she wondered how to pass the time. The trouble was not only that Sarah couldn’t bear to be alone. Remembering Marguerite’s remarks about Sarah’s dependence on me in a country that was foreign to her, I could make allowances for her desire to be with me every single minute of the day. The main trouble was that she had no hobbies. You would think I’d have realized that in New York, but she had always been so busy there with all her social obligations that I had never seen her at a loss for something to do. But it was a very different story at Woodhammer. She did sew, but after half an hour she would put the embroidery aside in boredom; she did read a novel or two, but she could only face a chapter a day, and unlike Marguerite, who read voraciously and dipped into all sorts of books, Sarah was uninterested in literature, current events or politics. I didn’t hold that against her, for I wasn’t interested in them either, but at least I did have other pursuits and Sarah had none.

I took her for walks, rides and drives. I did my best to give her the constant entertainment she needed, but I was longing to spend time alone with my woodcarving, and when I had no chance to work during the day I began to stay up at night so that I could be by myself. However, I needed my sleep as much as she did, and I suppose she was justified in being annoyed when I retired several times during the day for long snoozes.

By the time October came I was almost as anxious as she was to leave Woodhammer, and having come to the conclusion that I would have time to myself only when Sarah was totally absorbed in city life, I wrote with a frantic eagerness to Marguerite to ask if we could stay with her at St. James’s Square.

Derry by this time was doing pretty well for himself. He had lodgings in Westminster, and Marguerite had actually managed to get him a good position as a clerk in the Colonial Office. Being a member of the Irish bar, he was not able to practice law in London, but this didn’t trouble him.

“I never did want to be a barrister,” he said. “That was your father’s idea, not mine. Still, there’s no doubt a law qualification can open doors into other fields, and I shall see if I can’t get a seat in Parliament once I’m married to Clara. They say that even now, despite all the reform, it’s only a question of knowing the right people and having a bit of money to spend on the election.”

His romance with Clara was progressing very smoothly, and he thought he might propose at Christmas. In fact he was so cheered by his prospects that he even found a good word to say about Marguerite and confessed grudgingly that she had been pretty useful to him since he had arrived in town.

“And how do you like London?” I asked, thinking how well he had settled down, but he made a face and said he supposed it was a fairish sort of place, although to be an Irish Catholic in London was surely as bad as being a black man in America in the days before the Civil War.

“But now you’re here I won’t feel such a stranger,” he said, relieved, and added anxiously, “How long are you going to stay?”

I had no idea, but presently Sarah began to say we couldn’t trespass indefinitely on Marguerite’s hospitality and why didn’t we buy a house of our own? I had to admit this was good sense, so we began to spend long days house-hunting. I found this very tedious, but Sarah loved every minute of it, and after we had selected a house in Curzon Street she launched herself with great zest into the task of choosing the furnishings. Since this occupied her from dawn till dusk I was at last able to do some carving and produced an American chipmunk, which was a failure, and a frieze of squirrels, which was more successful. I used pine, which is a soft wood, and worked the knots into the background of trees, leaves and acorns. I felt much happier after that. By the time I had finished the frieze Sarah was still occupied with the house, so I had more time to devote to making Derry feel at home in London. There was a new club, the Albatross, which had recently opened in Park Street, and I arranged for us to be admitted as members. Some fellows I had known up at Oxford were members, and remembering the fun we had all had together in the old days, I was sure Derry would enjoy running with their set. The club was supposed to have some vague political purpose, I believe, but no one ever talked about politics. One could dine there and the brandy was good and there was always a game in progress, so it was a pretty sporting sort of place. Derry thought it was awfully jolly.

By the time Christmas came I was enjoying myself so much that I no longer pined for Woodhammer as I usually did when I was in London. In fact I was only surprised that I had not enjoyed London more in the past, although that was really easy to understand when I remembered that I had never been in London with Derry before.

I did toy with the idea of spending Christmas at Woodhammer, but finally I reconciled myself to remaining in London, where Sarah had arranged to give a huge house-warming ball on New Year’s Eve. I must say, Sarah did do that sort of thing very well, and everyone, from the Prince of Wales down, was tremendously impressed. The house looked fit for a king, and although there was a certain flamboyance in the furnishings which hinted at an American mastermind, there was nothing tasteless about Sarah’s choices. I supposed it had all cost quite a bit of money, but after all a man in my position has to have a decent house in town, as I told Fielding when he mentioned to me that the bills were beginning to come in. I had retained Fielding, my father’s secretary, to deal with the charitable letters that were addressed to me and see that the bills were paid; he worked in conjunction with the family lawyers, who gave him the necessary supervision. As a matter of fact I was rather annoyed when he mentioned the bills for the house, since the purpose of my employing him was to save me the bother of thinking about that sort of tiresome detail. As Derry said to me once, one of the nicest things about having money is not having to worry about counting it.

In the new year Derry proposed to Clara and was accepted, so to celebrate we went to the club and he won damned nearly five hundred pounds at loo. “What a celebration!” I marveled as we drank champagne together, and Derry said his luck was beginning to turn at last; he could feel it in his bones. The next day he gave up his position at the Colonial Office and said he was going to be a gentleman of leisure till he married.

“Well, why not?” I said, so once we were both gentlemen of leisure we had even more time to enjoy London together, and after he had paid his call on Clara the day was ours to do as we pleased. I didn’t have to worry about Sarah, because she was so busy with her calls and her dressmaker, and besides Marguerite had said to her once in front of me that it was natural that I should want to help Derry celebrate the last days of his bachelor life. The only slight upset occurred when I realized we would have to postpone our visit to the Continent to the autumn since the wedding was to be in the spring, but Sarah accepted that with good grace because it enabled her to be in London for the entire Season.

I decided to give Derry a house as a wedding present. After all, he was marrying a rich wife, and I couldn’t let him go to the altar empty-handed; it would have been so bad for his self-respect. I bought a nice little house just around the corner from us in Clarges Street, and Clara was awfully thrilled about it. Derry became embarrassed about how he was going to furnish it, and when I added the cost of the furnishings to my present Fielding became hot and bothered again about the bills. I was becoming rather annoyed with Fielding. I began to think seriously of dismissing him and employing a younger man.

Derry had been right in thinking his luck was on the turn, for all through the early months of that year he had the most prodigious luck with the cards. I got pretty envious, I admit, especially when I went through a patch of losing heavily, but the nice thing about gambling is that even when you’re locked in a losing streak there’s always the possibility that your luck will change with the next hand of cards, so you need never get too down for long.

Spring came. I wondered if either of my sisters would come to the wedding, but they didn’t. Madeleine was busy building her dispensary at Clonareen (I had been obliged to finance that in the end when there was a difficulty with the Archbishop about the money and the government had declined to accept responsibility for the project), and Katherine flatly refused to receive Derry, let alone celebrate his wedding.

“I cannot find it in my heart to congratulate Clara on marrying the son of an Irish peasant,” she announced in that maddeningly priggish manner of hers, and after that there was nothing I could do except marvel to Derry that I should possess such a sister.

“Oh, I’ll not worry about Lady Duneden,” said Derry with the light, scornful smile he reserved for those who had offended him, “for it’s plain to see she’s jealous of Clara marrying a man who’s forty years younger than her own husband and a whole heap more fun.”

I thought that was probably true, although Katherine always seemed perfectly happy with Duneden, and even Marguerite confessed that the marriage had worked out better than she had dared hope. Katherine had no children, although I believe she had suffered a miscarriage or two, and Duneden treated her as if she were the crown jewels, rare, priceless and almost too sacred to handle. Old men can make such fools of themselves sometimes, as Derry said on more than one occasion.

Well, I gave Clara a magnificent wedding. There were five hundred guests, for Clara was well connected on her father’s side as well as her mother’s, and despite Katherine’s standoffishness plenty of people wanted to wish the bride well. Besides, Sarah and I had cut such a dash in town that any wedding we sponsored was certain to be well attended. So Derry and Clara were married with great ceremony at St. James’s, Piccadilly, after a small private service at the Church of the Jesuit Fathers in Farm Street, and after they had left for six weeks in Italy I barely had the chance to miss him since Sarah and I were immediately plunged into the whirl of the London Season.