Cashelmara (51 page)

It was impossible for him to disguise entirely the enormity of his relief.

Meanwhile I visited the dispensary once a week, but I never saw Drummond again, although I found myself becoming well acquainted with his wife. In early December I even called on her with a little present for Denis, but word quickly traveled to Cashelmara that Lady de Salis had visited the Drummond farm, and Patrick was so angry that I realized the visit had been a mistake. Fortunately Marguerite and the boys spent Christmas with us, so we were obliged to patch up the quarrel, but the awkwardness lingered and we continued to sleep in separate rooms.

Spring came, summer passed and never once during all my weekly visits to Clonareen did I set eyes on Maxwell Drummond. The memory of him had become blurred in my mind, but always when I went to Clonareen I was filled with an anticipation I acknowledged but made no attempt to dwell upon, and the anticipation made tolerable the emptiness of life at Cashelmara, the stifling boredom of embroidering sheets for the dispensary, paying calls, writing a page a day in my journal and struggling unsuccessfully to take an interest in household affairs.

I had another blow in the fall when I heard from Charles that Mama had died. I had not realized until then how much I had been counting on her to visit me as soon as her health had recovered, and the news of her death plunged me into the lowest of spirits. I wrote to Charles, begging him to visit Ireland, and was bitterly disappointed when he again said that it was quite impossible for him to leave his business interests at that time. Crisis after crisis continued to rock Wall Street, and years later I learned from Charles that when Mama died he had been on the verge of bankruptcy. He did suggest that Patrick and I should visit New York instead, but of course we were even closer to penury than he was, and I was too proud to tell my brother that we couldn’t afford to cross the Atlantic to see him.

Winter came again and with it Ned’s second birthday. We had a little party for him. Cook’s children came and Hayes’s granddaughters, and there was a luscious sponge cake crowned with butter frosting and two blue candles. Patrick had made Ned a rocking horse, and the nursery reverberated with Ned’s squeals of delight as he rocked himself to and fro.

It was on Christmas Eve that I took two hampers of food to Clonareen, and after leaving the first for the sick at the dispensary I called on the parish priest to leave the second for the poor. Madeleine did not think highly of the priest and said he was uneducated, superstitious and no better than the peasants of his flock, but I thought he was delightful, far superior to the sullen villagers who watched my carriage pass through Clonareen every week to the dispensary. He was passionately interested in America, and on the few occasions when we had met he had asked me all manner of questions about New York.

“I’ve brought some food, Father Donal,” I called to him as he came out of his cottage to meet me. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to distribute it among the poor tomorrow.”

“God save you, my lady!” he said with great chivalry, helping the coachman lift the hamper down from the box. “May all the saints in heaven smile down upon you in your charity.” Having dispensed with the gratitude, he then asked me if I would do him the honor of stepping across his threshold for a sip of tea.

I had never been into his home before. Our previous meetings had all taken place at the dispensary, but I saw no reason why Patrick should object to my being polite to the local priest, and Madeleine would surely have approved, despite her low opinion of Father Donal’s capabilities. So I descended from the carriage and allowed myself to be ushered across the threshold of a poky little cabin that smelled of soot and turf and various other odors I thought it wiser not to try to identify. I wanted to produce my lavender-scented handkerchief but had no wish to give offense. Father Donal led me to the best chair in front of the hearth, and I sat down gingerly on the hard wooden seat. Thoughts of lice and fleas flitted through my mind as Father Donal’s housekeeper, after curtsying to me at least four times, pushed two smelly dogs away from my feet and placed a pot of water to boil above the fire.

Father Donal was already talking about New York. A hen, which had been nesting in a niche on the wall, laid an egg.

“Praise God!” exclaimed the housekeeper, crossing herself. “And she broody these past two days!”

“And is it really the truth, my lady,” said Father Donal, “that the Lady Chapel of St. Patrick’s is decked in cloth of gold and jewels the size of hen’s eggs?”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’m not in, Kitty,” said Father Donal, “unless someone’s dying, and if it’s already dead he is, tell him I’ll come later.”

“Faith, Father,” said Drummond, opening the door before Kitty could reach it. “That’s a fine welcome to give an old friend.”

His glance swept the room. When he saw me I managed to incline my head to acknowledge him.

“As you can see, Max,” said Father Donal reprovingly, “it’s distinguished company I’m keeping at present.”

“Yes. So I see. Good day, Lady de Salis,” he said, still standing on the threshold.

I tried to say “good day” in return but could not. I felt very sick. I even wondered if I was going to faint.

“Didn’t you see my lady’s carriage at the door?” Father Donal was saying crossly.

“I saw it,” he said. He turned aside. “I’ll come back later.”

“If there’s something urgent …” called Father Donal, his conscience pricking him.

“It was nothing,” said Drummond. “Nothing at all.”

He was gone. The door closed. It was over.

“I’ve never seen Max so strange!” said Kitty, making the tea.

“Ah, Max never had any manners nor ever will,” said Father Donal tartly. “I must be begging your pardon, my lady. I hope you’ll not complain to your husband that you met Maxwell Drummond beneath my roof.”

“Of course not,” I said. The sickness had passed, but it was still difficult to breathe evenly. Fortunately Father Donal began to talk about St. Patrick’s again, and by concentrating hard I managed to say yes and no in the right places. The tea helped. By the time my cup was empty I knew I would be able to stand without feeling dizzy.

“God go with you, my lady,” said Father Donal, escorting me outside to the carriage. “A merry Christmas to you and Lord de Salis and the honorable Master Patrick Edward.”

“Thank you,” I said, knowing my Christmas was already ruined, and all the way to Cashelmara I wondered how close I was to madness by being so affected by the sight of a man I hardly knew.

I drank a large amount of wine at dinner that night, and afterward, feeling drowsy, I retired for an early night.

I had a dream. Drummond was in it, but he was a long way away. He was weeding a potato patch in a field by the lough. Then Patrick came and showed me some flowers from the garden. They were beautiful. “It’s Friday,” he said. “Had you forgotten?” So we went upstairs to bed. The candle went out just as I slipped between the sheets, and I was smitten with such terror that I cried out. A match flared, the candle was lit again —but I dared not open my eyes for fear whose face I would see above me. “Only Patrick,” I said, “no one else but Patrick, because no one else must ever know.” But I knew Patrick wasn’t in bed with me any longer, because he had gone to his separate room. “No!” I screamed, my eyes still shut. “No!” But I was too late. Someone was laughing, mocking me for my failure, blaring my defects to the world.

“No, no, no!” I screamed again and woke on the verge of hysteria. I scrabbled for a match to light the candle, and all the time I was shouting for Patrick. At last he emerged from the adjoining room, and as the match flared in the darkness I could see he was tousle-haired, yawning and bewildered.

“My dear Sarah, what on earth’s the matter?” he demanded, but when I sobbed that I had had a fearful nightmare he said “There, there!” very kindly and took me in his arms. “What was it about?”

“Nothing. I don’t remember.” My body was still trembling. “Patrick …”

“Hm?” he said, stifling another yawn.

“I must have another baby. Please.”

“Why not? It’d be awfully jolly. I don’t know why you have to sound as if I’d strictly forbidden it. After all, it wasn’t me, you know, who begged for a separate bedroom a few weeks ago.”

“Yes, I know. I was at fault, but—”

“Yes, you were. Well, never mind. We’ll try again if you like. We’ll go back to our Fridays.”

“But, Patrick …”

“Now what’s the matter?”

“I thought … well, must we wait till Friday? Can’t we … isn’t it possible to—to begin tonight?”

“For God’s sake, at this hour? With you on the verge of hysterics and me half asleep?”

I saw at once I was being unreasonable, but tears still pricked humiliatingly behind my eyelids. “I’m sorry,” I said. I tried to speak levelly and made a great effort to compose myself. “I simply didn’t think. Forgive me.”

“Of course.” He kissed me with great tenderness. “I’ll stay with you for the rest of the night,” he said, slipping into bed beside me. “Then you won’t be too frightened to blow out the light. Nightmares are beastly things, ain’t they?”

He was asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, but I lay awake for the rest of the night, and when dawn came I was still remembering how Maxwell Drummond had looked around the room for me when he had opened the door of Father Donal’s cabin in Clonareen.

I thought of Drummond for months afterward, all those long dreary months when I never became pregnant, the first nine months of 1876. I saw him twice during that time, once in May when I glimpsed him in the distance heading for Letterturk and once later that summer when I glanced out of the window of the dispensary and saw him pass by in his donkey cart. I allowed myself to invent elaborate fantasies. At first I merely pictured meeting him and having a long polite conversation. The meeting place would be at the dispensary or in the main street of Clonareen or even by his farm, which stood above the road to Cashelmara. Then gradually the fantasies changed. The meeting place would be in some wild remote mountain fastness—a ruined cabin, perhaps. We would still talk politely, but now our conversation would be on a less formal level. I imagined him taking my hand in his and holding it while he looked searchingly into my eyes. Wasn’t that what always happened in the romantic novels that Marguerite lent me whenever she came to stay? The pastoral retreat, the clasped hands, the promise of undying devotion … It would be a Hopeless Love, of course, and Nothing Could Come of It. We would part for the last time and he would kiss me, perhaps briefly on the lips but more likely lingeringly on the brow. Heroines were always having their brows kissed. There was something very comforting about that. No sweaty embraces, no naked indignities, no stabbing pain. I waded deeper and deeper into my fantasies.

I thought I would change in the autumn when I discovered I was pregnant, but the daydreams lingered on. All winter I was confined to Cashelmara; all winter I dreamed of Drummond, until at last in the spring my second son was born to save me from the torment of Drummond’s constant presence in my mind.

We didn’t think the baby would live. He was so small and frail that he had no strength to suck milk, and after he was born he lost so much weight that he was no more than a tiny pile of skin and bones. I heard the midwife say to Madeleine, “It’s often better if they die,” and this upset me so much that I flew into a rage and banished the woman from the house. I was determined that he would live. I devoted all my time and energy to him, and in the months that followed there was certainly no time to moon after Drummond.

The servants reminded one another that Patrick and I were cousins—distant cousins, but no one bothered to remember the distance—and said that between cousins the blood often runs thin. All those old wives’ tales, all that ghoulish enjoyment of impending tragedy, all those whispers whenever my back was turned—I hated them all.

We called him John. I had wanted to call him Francis, but in the beginning when it seemed inevitable that he would die I decided to save my father’s name for a son who was as healthy as Ned, and John was one of the few names that both Patrick and I found unobjectionable.

But John didn’t die. He drank more and more milk from the tiny silver spoon that could slip into his mouth and soon he was strong enough to suck from a bottle. One day he smiled at me, and then nothing mattered, neither Cashelmara nor all our misfortunes, because my baby was thriving at last and everyone, from Nanny to the scullery maid, said that it was all due to me that he had lived.

“When will the baby be big enough to play with me?” demanded Ned on his fourth birthday in December.

“In a while,” I said, hugging him. I felt guilty because during those anxious months I had been too preoccupied with John to give Ned my usual attention. “Next spring he’ll start to walk and then he’ll be much easier to play with.”

But John was late in walking, and by the time spring came he could barely sit up. His health was still delicate, and I was plunged into anxiety every time he sneezed. But he was a lovely baby. He was dark-haired and fine-boned and his eyes were an unusual shape.

“He may not grow up quite as other children do, you know, Sarah,” said Madeleine to me when John still showed no signs of walking.

“Of course he will!” I said angrily. I felt hurt that she should make such a comment just because John wasn’t as quick as Ned had been at that age. “All he needs is enough love and care and attention.”

Madeleine never mentioned the subject to me again, but Marguerite, when she came for her summer visit with the boys, was most reassuring.

“Oh heavens!” she said. “David was so fat when he was John’s age that I thought he’d never do anything except sit on the floor, but look at him now!” So I looked at David, who was sixteen by this time, still a little stout but undeniably mobile, and felt much happier.

It was in September, when Marguerite was still at Cashelmara, that we received word from Duneden Castle that Katherine was ill with a lung inflammation and had asked to see us.