Cashelmara (45 page)

That sounded reasonable to me, so I wrote to the Royal Agricultural College in Dublin and presently they recommended to me a Mr. MacDonald, who had pioneered experiments in forestry in the Scottish Highlands.

It was plain to see that he was appalled by the treeless wastes of the Cashelmara estate, but he did think an area was suitable for a small plantation. Halfway down the lough the road to Clonareen curves inland to follow the spur of Leynabricka, and the land which slopes upward at this point does possess a layer of topsoil above the usual bare rock. Since the soil was too poor and the slope too steep for all but the most primitive farming, I hardly thought it would be much loss to clear the land of the few potato patches that had been optimistically planted there and tell the peasants to go somewhere else. Derry said there was still plenty of abandoned land where they could resettle themselves if they made the effort, and the rest of their tribe in the valley would see they didn’t starve.

“In fact you’d be doing them a favor by evicting them,” said Derry, “for that land wouldn’t support a tinker’s goat if it could help it, and there’s some far better land on the south side of the lough which they could farm in conacre.”

So I decided to proceed with the scheme. I was rather taken with it by this time, for Mr. MacDonald had spoken lyrically of his Scottish successes, and it did seem a jolly idea to make money by planting trees.

My only worry was that I had no idea where I was going to find the money to make the initial investment. The seedlings had to be bought, planted and nurtured, and after all the bills were paid I didn’t have a penny to my name.

“Perhaps I could sell some heirlooms,” I said to Derry, although I hated the thought of parting with the beautiful Georgian silver and even doubted that I was legally entitled to do so. I wished I could have pawned all Sarah’s useless jewelry, but that was out of the question. I had to tread so carefully with Sarah.

“Don’t sell anything,” said Derry, producing the perfect solution with his usual ease. “Why bother? You’ve got a rich father-in-law ailing on the other side of the Atlantic. Write and remind him that he can’t take his money with him when he departs for the next world.”

This seemed reasonable, particularly since I had never asked Cousin Francis for a penny before, but somehow the idea of writing to him was not attractive and I found myself putting off the task for a day or two.

“Let’s clear the land first,” I suggested to Derry, so I summoned MacGowan, explained the forestry scheme and asked him to issue the necessary eviction notices.

“There’ll be trouble, my lord,” said MacGowan at once in his gloomiest voice.

I repeated Derry’s suggestion that the tenants should resettle themselves on the south side of the lough.

“That land’s no better than a bog now, my lord,” said MacGowan. “It was different in the old days, but the river changed its course and there was no alternative but to abandon the fields there. That’s why the land has never been resettled.”

“Well … send the tenants to America or something,” I said on inspiration. “They live in such squalor that they’d probably jump at the chance to go.”

“If you want them to go they’ll want to stay,” said MacGowan, and having produced this depressing insight into the perverse nature of the Irish peasant, he added in what can only be described as a voice of doom, “They’re all O’Malleys, you know.”

“I don’t care who they are,” I said, much irritated by this time, and then remembered with a sinking feeling that the O’Malleys’ champion was none other than my old enemy Maxwell Drummond. “Oh Lord!” I muttered. “What a bother! Well, perhaps we’d better pay them compensation.”

“That would prove very expensive, my lord, and set a dangerous precedent. Every evicted tenant afterward would demand compensation from you and you’d soon find yourself in all kinds of trouble.”

“Oh. Well …” I was utterly nonplussed by this time. “I’ll talk to Mr. Stranahan about it,” I said at last, knowing Derry would find a way out of the difficulty somehow. “He’ll deal with the matter for me, I dare say.”

But Derry saw no way out except to stand firm when the O’Malleys protested. “They can fend for themselves!” he exclaimed. “And as for MacGowan saying the land on the south shore is useless, I don’t believe a word of it. All they need to grow are potatoes! They don’t need the best acreage in the valley for that.”

“But what if Drummond makes a fuss?”

“I can deal with Maxwell Drummond,” said Derry, and I knew that like a true Irishman he was already thirsting for a fight. “Leave him to me.”

Well, I did, but I didn’t like it, and as the weeks passed I liked it less and less. I did manage to extract the money from Cousin Francis, although he wrote me the devil of an uppish note about it, but I had no chance to put my forestry scheme into operation because it proved impossible to clear the land. Derry handed out the eviction notices, MacGowan retreated into glum neutrality and all the O’Malleys banded together, marched to the very front door of Cashelmara and demanded to see me. When I refused, thinking it would be a loss of face on my part to negotiate with such a rabble, two windows were smashed and Sarah was in such a state that I felt I had no choice but to send for Maxwell Drummond. But Drummond, damn his insolence, now refused to see me. In a carefully written letter he told me there could be no negotiations while Derry remained at Cashelmara.

“Don’t listen to him!” said Derry, incensed. “What right has he to talk of negotiations and lay down the law to you! You’ve signed the eviction orders, Patrick. Stand by them! If you retreat now you’ll never hear the end of it.”

That was all very well, but trying to suppress Irish discontent is like trying to stop an old bucket from leaking water—if you block one hole the water bursts out somewhere else. We did finally manage to evict the tenants but not before the sub-inspector at Letterturk had ordered all the police at his command into the valley and not before the eviction machines had wrecked the mud cabins almost over the inhabitants’ heads. I thought after that the worst trouble would be over, but never was I more mistaken. The troubles had barely begun. My cattle, which grazed docilely in the meadows by the Fooey River, were mutilated. One of my favorite setters, Polonius, disappeared and was discovered a week later sitting bolt upright on the altar of the chapel; he had been decapitated and his head was resting neatly beside him. Worse still, the chapel had been desecrated. The altar reeked of urine and all the pews had been slashed with knives.

By this time I was thoroughly enraged and very deeply upset. I would never have embarked on the forestry scheme if I had known it was going to result in such unpleasantness. I hadn’t wanted to offend anyone, and how was I to know the O’Malleys would take a few evictions so hard? I only wished I could abandon the idea without delay, but of course that would have been the crowning ignominy, and Derry rightly refused to hear it.

So I tried to stand firm, but life became so deuced uneasy that I was soon seriously worried that I was exposing Sarah to real danger instead of mere unpleasant discomfort. The last straw occurred in early March when Sarah’s carriage was pelted with rotten eggs as she drove home from Clonareen after calling on Madeleine.

I was so distressed that I promised to take her at once to London.

“But the money!” wept Sarah, mindful at last of our need to be thrifty.

“We’ll use some of the money your father sent us,” I said promptly, “and we’ll stay at St. James’s Square with Marguerite.”

I felt relieved once the decision had been made. “You and Clara had better come too,” I said to Derry. “It’s no good staying here.”

“I’ve got to stay,” he said. I’d never seen him so determined. “You leave, by all means, and take both the women to London—it would be a relief for me not to have to worry about Clara—but I must see this thing through to the end. It’s really a personal matter between Drummond and myself, you see, and I’ll not give in until I have him in jail for conspiracy, trespass, breach of the peace and a dozen other outrages. Let me once nail Drummond for you, Patrick, and I swear the valley will be as safe again as the Garden of Eden before the Fall.”

I didn’t like leaving him alone at Cashelmara. I wanted to recall the police so that a constant watch would be kept on the house, but Derry refused to consider it.

“That would make it look as though I’m scared,” he said, “and why should I be scared of a bunch of smelly peasants? I’ve got a gun, and if they drive me to prove my marksmanship I’ll show them I’m man enough to look after myself. Don’t you worry about me, Patrick. I’ll write and tell you as soon as Drummond’s behind bars.”

I said I would return as soon as the women were safely in London, but he shook his head. “This is my chance to do something for you, Patrick,” he said. “I put you into this damnable corner. Now it’s up to me to get you out of it.”

No man could have been fairer or more honest than that; no man in adversity could have had a better friend. I left him reluctantly, but I no longer felt guilty about leaving him because I was convinced that this was what he wanted. Accordingly I wrote to the sub-inspector at Letterturk to request an armed escort, and when he responded a day later I left the valley with Sarah and Clara.

I had never in my life felt more glad to leave.

It was amazing how much Sarah changed once we had turned our backs on Ireland, and the closer we drew to London the more I noticed the difference in her. Sulkiness and boredom had made her plain at Cashelmara, but now she was beautiful again, brimming with that brilliant sparkle I remembered so well, and it was impossible for me to remain unaffected by her recovery. I no longer felt it needed an act of courage to go to bed with her again. All it needed was a successful visit to the theater and a late supper alone together at the house in St. James’s Square; all it needed was for me to see her in a new gown with amethysts at her throat, her thick hair coiled elegantly upon her head and her eyes tawny above her high cheekbones. And later when we were alone and she kissed me to show her willingness, all our unhappiness dissolved, my failures might never have existed and I had a tantalizing glimpse of what our marriage might have been—and could still be if we could only give it half a chance.

“I do love you, Sarah,” I said. “I really do. I’m going to turn over a new leaf in the future and everything will be quite different, I swear it.”

We talked of the future, and when Sarah said in despair, “If only we didn’t have to live at Cashelmara!” I promised I would take her to New York for a visit. I thought perhaps Cousin Francis would invest some money for me on the New York Stock Exchange, and once he had made enough money to enable me to repay his loan and wipe out the second mortgage I could afford to live at Woodhammer again and visit London during the Season. After all, Cousin Francis had made his own fortune a dozen times over; why shouldn’t he make a little fortune for me, especially as his daughter’s happiness was at stake? It all seemed very logical to me, and when Sarah proved thrilled at the prospect of a visit home, Marguerite said approvingly that the long voyage across the Atlantic would be like going on a second honeymoon. So we set a date in May, and while Sarah wrote dozens of excited letters to her family to warn them of our plans I booked our passages and paid for them with more of the money Cousin Francis had loaned me for the forestry plantation.

Three days before we were due to leave I received a letter from Derry.

I had been receiving letters from him every week, and when this final letter arrived I thought it would be no different from the others, a catalogue of new “agrarian outrages,” examples of Drummond’s slipperiness in avoiding prosecution and a determination to quell the O’Malleys at all costs. But this letter was a plea for help. He had changed his mind about having the police keep watch on Cashelmara (I knew then that the situation must have become very serious), but the sub-inspector, who was hand in glove with Cousin George, had spitefully refused his request for aid.

“I’d go to Letterturk myself,” Derry wrote, “and shake that nincompoop till his teeth rattled, but matters have come to such a pass here that I daren’t leave the house alone and there’s no one I trust enough to take with me as a bodyguard. I’m giving this letter to MacGowan and have promised him a reward if it reaches you, so no doubt his avarice will encourage him to take it to Leenane for recollection by the mail car. Can you come as soon as possible to wake up the sub-inspector? You know I would never have asked you unless I really felt it was necessary, but that devil Drummond will see me in hell yet unless I do something desperate, although God knows if I go I’ll be damned if I don’t take him with me.”

I had no choice. He was looking after my affairs for me; he was doing everything a loyal friend could do. What sort of a friend would I have been if I had ignored his appeal for help and steamed off on a jolly voyage to New York? A man does have certain responsibilities, and although I wanted to fulfill my promise to Sarah I saw no way it could be done without betraying Derry’s trust. I had a moral obligation to help him.

“Let Derry fight his own battles!” blazed Sarah.

“Well, he’s tried but he’s obviously in a deuced dangerous situation.”

“He chose it!”

“Yes—to help me! To enable us to be in London together! How can I refuse now to help him in return?”

“I don’t believe he needs help!” cried Sarah, in such a towering rage that she became irrational. “He just wants to get you back! He’s jealous thinking of us alone together and he’s determined to get your attention!”

I tried to be patient. “Darling, just because you’d feel jealous if you were at Cashelmara and Derry and I were in London there’s no need to assume Derry would feel the same way. You can’t assign your own feminine jealousies to a man like Derry.”

“Oh, can’t I! Why not? He’s always been jealous of me, always, from the very beginning!”

“Absolute nonsense. Look, Sarah—”

“Patrick, if you cancel our voyage to New York now and go to Ireland, I’ll never forgive you. Never. It’ll be the end of our marriage.”