Cashelmara (56 page)

“But surely someone else can nurse me, Sarah,” whispered Marguerite. “I know how you feel about illness.”

“It was the thought of illness that frightened me,” I said. “But now that I’m face to face with it I don’t mind.”

“But you mustn’t come too near.”

“Dearest Marguerite,” I said.

“I want you to be safe, Sarah. Please go. I shan’t blame you a bit. Please.”

“No.”

“But …”

“Never.”

She suffered dreadfully. There were headaches so painful that she would scream in agony, dizziness, nausea and vomiting. The eruption occurred on the fifth day, a dark blotchy red that covered her entire body and led to hemorrhaging beneath the skin.

Patrick had ridden to Galway for a doctor, and I knew he would be away for some time.

There were days and there were nights. I sponged away the fever as best I could, changed the linen often and did everything I could to make her comfortable. I no longer noticed the smell. I sat with her hour after hour, and presently I no longer noticed anything except Marguerite. Sometimes I remembered my children and thanked God they were safe, but I no longer wondered if I myself would live or die because I had accepted the fact that the choice was not in my hands. I was living daily with the unthinkable, so I no longer thought but merely held Marguerite’s hand as if I could hold her back from the brink of that darkness which had terrified me all my life.

Marguerite’s maid sickened but she lived. I always felt bitter about that afterward. I could only look at her and think: She lived. And I never forgave her for living, just as no doubt she never forgave me for begging her mistress to spend Christmas with us at Cashelmara.

From Galway Patrick sent the letter to Thomas and David, but of course it never reached them in time.

It began to rain at Cashelmara. The larchwoods were black against the winter sky, and above the house the tower of the chapel was iron-gray among the bleak trees.

The end came, the delirium before the final coma. She talked a great deal of her husband Edward, and when Patrick arrived back from Galway she mistook him for his father and said how wonderful it was to see him again and that she had missed him more than anyone had ever guessed. She talked of Thomas and David too, and sometimes it was as if she were telling Edward about them, for she said that he mustn’t be impatient with Thomas’s passion for medicine because it was so important to let children do what they were best suited to do and not to expect them to be replicas of their parents. Sometimes she talked of London and Woodhammer and even of New York, and once she spoke of her honeymoon on the Continent, but always she spoke of them to Edward as if he were at her bedside and she could see him more clearly than she could see us.

The doctor Patrick had brought from Galway could do nothing.

It was before she slipped into unconsciousness for the last time that the delirium ebbed and she recognized me. I was alone with her. Outside the sun was rising and the room was filling with a pale white light.

“Sarah, I’ve felt so guilty,” she said, and the shock of hearing her speak in a lucid voice was so immense that I was struck dumb. I realized I had let go of her hand as I dozed in the chair, and that so frightened me that I clasped the hand quickly and pressed it in mine.

“So guilty,” she repeated. “All my fault.” Her voice was gone; her whisper was very faint. “I urged him to get married and you’ve both been so unhappy.”

I shook my head. “We’re happy now.” I groped for words. “Everything’s well—the new baby …”

“Such a waste,” she said. “Such a pity.”

“You mustn’t feel like that.” I was so distressed but could think of nothing else to say.

There was a long silence, and then just as I was wondering if she had fallen asleep she said in a strong, clear voice, “Be very careful, won’t you, Sarah?”

She never spoke again.

An hour later I noticed that she was no longer breathing. I held my own breath to listen, but no sound broke the silence and I knew I was alone.

I was still holding her hand.

After a while I looked upon her face and saw that she seemed very young, much younger than I, and her features were strangely unfamiliar, as if they belonged to someone I had never met.

I was still sitting by the bed when Patrick slipped into the room and asked how she was.

“She’s dead,” I said. “Marguerite’s dead.” And I went on looking at her stranger’s face and I went on holding her familiar hand.

It was he who cried. He said very violently, “The people I love best always die,” and then he pressed the palms of his hands against his cheeks as if he were a small boy and began to sob as if his heart would break.

We buried her beside her husband in the family graveyard. It was a clear day, mild for the time of year, and the white surplice of the parson from Letterturk fluttered gently in the soft wind. Thomas and David had arrived the day before, Cousin George had ridden over from Letterturk Grange and Madeleine had somehow managed to leave the dispensary to attend the service. There were no other mourners. People were too frightened of fever, and all Marguerite’s many friends were far away in England.

I didn’t cry. I watched the coffin being lowered into the grave and knew there was no God, and that shocked me because everyone believed in God, didn’t they? It simply wasn’t done not to believe or, at the very least, not to pretend to oneself one believed. But I no longer believed, and that was really very awkward, because if I didn’t believe in God I couldn’t blame Him for Marguerite’s death, and someone had to be blamed, I saw that very clearly; someone had to take the responsibility.

Someone scattered earth on the coffin. It was Sarah Marriott, Sarah de Salis, Lucky Sarah who had always had everything she could possibly want. She had wanted Marguerite to go to Cashelmara for Christmas, and of course Marguerite had gone.

No, it wasn’t my fault. I’m not to blame. I didn’t want to go back to Cashelmara. It was Patrick, talking of his garden. I didn’t want to go.

But you asked. “Oh, Patrick, we really can’t go on living on Marguerite’s charity …” You thought of Maxwell Drummond and you asked to go back.

“Sarah.” Someone was talking to me. The coffin was covered with earth. The clergyman had closed his book. Everyone was walking away. “Sarah …”

“I want to be alone for a while,” I said to whoever it was. “I want to think.”

“But you mustn’t stay here … must come back to the house.” It was Patrick I could smell the whisky on his breath, and I wrenched myself free.

“No.”

“Sarah …”

“Leave me alone!” I shouted at him and ran away across the graveyard to the door of the chapel.

It was dark inside but quiet. I sat down, listening, but now the silence was no longer oppressive but comforting to me. I was thinking clearly at last, my thoughts sensible and logical. No more Drummond. The very sight of him would repulse me since he was responsible, no matter how indirectly, for Marguerite’s death, and once I had accepted that I saw no reason why my marriage shouldn’t be tolerable. I could have at least three more children at three-year intervals. That would take up nine years. I was now twenty-nine, so by the time I had the other children I would be thirty-eight. Perhaps I could have one more. Then I would be past forty, which would be dreadful, but it would be time to enjoy the older children’s maturity. It would be fun when Eleanor was old enough to be presented—all those parties and dances—but who was she going to marry? I would have to see that we were leading some form of acceptable social life by that time. It was no use Patrick thinking we could continually live like recluses while he worked like a navvy in his wretched garden. We must at least present Eleanor at Dublin Castle—no, that was really too provincial; it would have to be London, and we would find the money somehow.

All manner of schemes swept through my mind. I had always taken a defeated attitude toward Cashelmara, but there was no reason why it couldn’t be made into a smart and fashionable house. Marguerite had always thought its style hopelessly out of date, and indeed when I myself had first seen Cashelmara I had thought it a plain white lump of a building, but there was something about those long straight lines, that extraordinary symmetry, that had gradually mesmerized me. Its beauty was not of today, but that didn’t matter. It was the beauty of a thousand yesterdays and perhaps of a thousand tomorrows, timeless Cashelmara, geometrically perfect, splendidly stark. It was a beauty that repelled me, but I thought I could at last see how it could be put to my advantage. With a little attention to the rooms, some inexpensive but imaginative refurnishing, well-ordered grounds …

Perhaps Patrick should be encouraged in his gardening after all. Grounds were very important. When people came to stay they would find a beautiful exotic garden awaiting them, while beyond the boundary walls there would be opportunities for shooting and fishing. If the Prince of Wales could visit the Brownes of Westport, why should he not eventually come to Cashelmara? Of course money would be a problem, but in normal times Cashelmara yielded an adequate income, and if I took the trouble to learn about money … Yes, that was it. No more leaving household matters blithely to the nearest inefficient housekeeper, no more expecting Patrick to spend money with any inkling of wisdom, no more announcing haughtily that I hadn’t been brought up to count the pennies. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. I certainly hadn’t intended to be an impoverished member of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, but since I was I must, for my children’s sake, make the most of it. If I could somehow enable my children to have every possible advantage despite our misfortunes I wouldn’t feel I had endured those misfortunes for nothing. The children were all that mattered now, I could see that, and I wanted them to have nothing but the best. No children were going to be happier than my children, and no children were going to be more fortunate.

And my marriage? Well, Patrick and I would rub along somehow. Why not? Other couples did, so why shouldn’t we do at least as well as all those others?

It never occurred to me to doubt that this was possible, but I can see now that I was closing my eyes to the one truth that should by that time have been painfully obvious—that Marguerite alone had kept Patrick and myself together and that without her our marriage was doomed.

IT WAS LESS THAN
three weeks after Marguerite’s death that Hugh MacGowan, the agent’s son, came to Cashelmara.

My children were still with Nanny and Nurse at Marguerite’s townhouse, and although I was longing desperately to see them again I didn’t dare sanction their return. In the valley the fever was waning, but in other parts of the country it continued to rage, and it was thought that the outbreaks would continue through the winter until the potato crop brought an end to the famine.

After Marguerite’s funeral I wanted to return to England until conditions at Cashelmara improved. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing the children until the spring, but Patrick rightly pointed out that we should wait until the new year to make certain we were all free of fever. Meanwhile Marguerite’s boys were still with us. Thomas was in his first term at Oxford, while David had begun his final year at Harrow, but after their mother died it was clearly impracticable for them to return to England for the few days that remained of their terms, so they stayed with us over the Christmas holidays. It was a comfort for them to be with Patrick, and Patrick in his turn derived comfort from them.

For my part I was still beyond comfort. I found it impossible to cry or grieve in a normal fashion and instead immersed myself so thoroughly in household matters that I retired to bed exhausted each night. I continued Marguerite’s soup kitchen, tried to train the new servants, made efforts to keep the house in some sort of order. Meanwhile Patrick went to Galway to buy horses, grooms were engaged, the carriage was repaired and the stables lost their derelict appearance. The new grooms accompanied MacGowan on his expeditions to Letterturk to buy food, although MacGowan said they would be of little use in an ambush since they would probably side with the attackers.

“Patrick,” said Thomas shortly before Christmas, “have you noticed that MacGowan’s mad?”

We were all in the morning room after breakfast. The musty smell of damp still clung to the room, but the fire was blazing in the grate and I was loath to leave my sewing to investigate activities in the kitchens. I had found a bolt of silk in one of the attics and was making a little dress for Eleanor.

“Aren’t you exaggerating a little?” said Patrick vaguely to Thomas. He was standing by the window and staring at his misty, tangled garden.

“Of course I’m not exaggerating! I should have thought it was quite obvious that MacGowan’s as mad as a March hare. He’s become a religious maniac.”

“I must say,” said David, looking up from his volume of Tennyson, “I do think it’s rather wicked of him to keep telling the Irish the famine is their fault because they’re papists. It’s so awfully tactless, isn’t it?”

“They say he’s going to evict all the O’Malleys,” Thomas said abruptly. “He says he’s God’s instrument and God punishes the idle. Patrick, I thought you were going to be lenient about evictions between now and next summer.”

“Well, I expect MacGowan knows what he’s doing,” said Patrick. From the expression in his eyes I knew he was thinking of his garden and was only half listening to what Thomas was saying.

“Marguerite wanted you to get rid of MacGowan,” I said to jolt him.

Her name hung in the air long after I had spoken it. They all turned to look at me, and then David bent over his poetry again, and Thomas, shoving his hands into his pockets, turned away toward the door.

“She did, didn’t she?” said Patrick, his garden forgotten. “How angry he made her! Perhaps I’d better have a word with him after all about the evictions.”

At this point the subject was dropped, and I thought no more about it until we all met that evening in the drawing room before going down to dinner. Patrick was the last to appear.