Cashelmara (66 page)

“Of course,” said George, “Patrick is quite unbalanced on the subject of MacGowan.”

“We won’t talk about that in front of Sarah,” said Madeleine.

“Why not?” I said. “I know better than anyone how unbalanced he is.”

Neither of them would meet my eye. “We must speak to Patrick, George,” said Madeleine to him after a pause.

“I wonder if you’ll have the opportunity,” I said bluntly. “It would be suicide for MacGowan to come back to the valley at present, and Patrick will want to stay with him.”

They looked at me doubtfully. I could see they were thinking that the shock had affected my reason.

“But, my dearest Sarah, of course he’ll come back!” exclaimed Madeleine, shocked. “I know Patrick has behaved very badly, and you can hardly be blamed for feeling bitter, but he does at least have a conscience. Besides, quite apart from you and the baby, he has no choice except to return to Cashelmara. He has no money and nowhere else to live.”

I still thought Patrick would go with MacGowan, but I was wrong. He came back. He rode home that evening from Leenane with MacGowan’s horse in tow and refused to see anyone until the next day. He might have stayed longer in seclusion if Drummond hadn’t arrived with Michael Joyce, the new patriarch of the most influential family in the valley, but they wanted to present certain demands, and George, who was still at Cashelmara, refused to receive them on Patrick’s behalf.

I didn’t see Drummond. I was resting in the boudoir and discovered that he was at Cashelmara only when George came upstairs to consult Madeleine, who was keeping me company.

“Patrick will have to talk to them,” he said, worried. “If we send them away today, they’ll be back tomorrow. To think that the Joyces and the O’Malleys should be united for once! Ever since I can remember they’ve always been at each other’s throats! Well, at least MacGowan’s brought unity to the valley, even if he hasn’t brought peace.”

“I’ll fetch Patrick,” said Madeleine, putting aside her sewing. “Sarah mustn’t be troubled by all this.” So she left the boudoir and walked through my bedroom to the door that linked my room with Patrick’s. I didn’t hear him answer her knock on the door, but when she entered the room I did hear her say, “How disgusting! How could you bring yourself to touch whisky at this hour of the morning?” and Patrick yelled at her to leave him alone.

“Dear me,” said George, hurrying to Madeleine’s rescue.

There was a violent quarrel.

“I’m not seeing that bastard Drummond!” shouted Patrick.

“Damn silly thing to say!” exclaimed George. “Excuse my language, Madeleine, but really—”

“Please, George,” said Madeleine, “now is hardly the time to worry about my sensibilities. Patrick, you must talk to Drummond and Joyce. You’re not in a position to do otherwise, and if you can’t see that you’re more of a fool than I thought you were.”

“Shut your bloody mouth,” said Patrick. That was when I knew how drunk he was, for he would never normally have talked to a woman in that way.

“No, I won’t!” said Madeleine strongly. “I’ve shut it for long enough, thank you very much, and now I think it’s time I said something. You must pull yourself together, Patrick. You’ve become an absolute disgrace, drinking so heavily, abandoning your pregnant wife, hero-worshiping that man MacGowan in such a humiliating fashion—”

“Don’t preach to me! Get out!”

“Yes, I will preach to you! It’s my moral duty both as your sister and as a Christian. What would Papa have said if he could have seen you like this?”

“Never mind Uncle Edward,” said George practically. “Thank God he’s dead and didn’t live to see this debacle. It’s what other people say that matters now, and I might tell you, Patrick, that your private life is becoming subject to the most unfortunate rumors from here to Dublin—and to London too, for all I know.”

“For God’s sake, what does that matter now? Hugh’s gone, isn’t he? I’m here with my pregnant wife, aren’t I? Well,
aren’t
I?”

“You must give us your word MacGowan will never return. That’s what Drummond and Joyce want, and if you don’t give them what they want I’ll not answer for the consequences.”

“Patrick, you have a duty to Sarah and your children and your unborn child—”

“I simply want to be left in peace. I want to work in my garden. I want the children to come back.”

“Then …”

“Oh, tell Drummond and Joyce what you like! What do I care so long as you all leave me alone!”

“Of course he was disgracefully drunk,” said Madeleine to me after George had gone downstairs to see Drummond and Joyce. “I would have said more to him, but I didn’t think that in his condition it would have been of any use.”

“No use at all,” I agreed wearily.

I didn’t see Patrick alone until two days later. Madeleine had by that time returned to the dispensary, and George, after promising Drummond and Joyce that a new moderate agent would be engaged to replace MacGowan, had retreated in exhaustion to Letterturk. Since the valley was quiet again I decided to consult Patrick about recalling the children.

“I’ve already recalled them,” he said. “I wrote to Nanny yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I exclaimed angrily, for I had stayed awake the previous night worrying about whether it was too soon to send word to their hotel in Salthill.

“I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Yes, but …” Some bleakness in his manner attracted my attention. It was unlike him. “Patrick, you must make more effort, you really must, or the children will suspect all’s not well between us.”

As soon as I spoke I thought: After the baby’s born I’ll leave him. I’ll take the children and go to Dublin—or London—to seek legal advice. Now that MacGowan’s gone I don’t have to be terrified of escape any more.

But then I thought: With MacGowan gone life at Cashelmara would at least be tolerable. I’ll never forgive Patrick, just as I’ll never forgive MacGowan, but although I despise and detest him I’m not afraid of him, and no doubt I could arrange matters so that we seldom had to talk to each other. And for the children’s sake I’ve got to avoid scandal, got to avoid divorce. If it’s at all possible I must try to stay, and besides … wasn’t Drummond going to come looking for me when I was well again?

“Patrick,” I began reasonably, but he interrupted me.

“I’m tired of lying,” he said. He was drinking again. It was only eleven o’clock, but he was drinking soda water and some of the brandy Flannigan had brought back from Galway. “I’m tired of caring what people think.”

“But you must care what your own children think! Think of Ned—nearly nine years old now! If he should ever guess the truth—”

“He’ll find out. One day.”

“But he mustn’t! How can you say that so calmly?”

“Because my values are different from yours. Because I don’t want my son to say of me one day, ‘My father was a wonderful liar and a superb actor whom I never really knew at all.’ I want him to say, ‘My father loved me and he was honest with me—and that’s all that matters.’”

“You’re drunk again!” I said furiously, but because MacGowan’s expulsion had given me new heart and because I now wanted Patrick’s cooperation I smothered my anger and contempt and made another attempt to approach him. “We’ve got to try to keep up appearances, Patrick,” I said reasonably, choosing a phrase he had often used to me. “If we give up now it’ll mean our past efforts have all been for nothing. Promise me you’ll make a fresh effort—for the children’s sake.”

“I’ll promise you anything you like,” he said, “if you would only leave me alone.”

Fortunately his spirits improved after the children returned, but the prolonged bouts of heavy drinking had taken their toll on his appearance. He looked older, his face more lined, his complexion more blotched, his eyes more bloodshot. With MacGowan’s departure he had lost interest in his garden, and the lack of exercise had made him put on weight so that his splendid physique was now showing the first signs of ruin. He still had the self-assurance MacGowan had given him, but without a sense of purpose he seemed to sink deeper into apathy, and whenever the children were absent he was morose and hostile. However, in their presence he did make an effort to be his old self, and when I saw this I thought with relief that the children might still be spared the shame and disgrace of a divorce.

The baby came.

I was very ill. Unlike my previous experiences, the birth was long and difficult, and afterward I lost so much blood that I was unconscious for hours. No one could tell me until much later about the tumors, and even then Dr. Cahill was so busy assuring me that they weren’t cancerous that I found it hard to understand what had happened. No one had expected me to live. Dr. Cahill had been obliged to use a surgeon’s knife, and had it not been for the fact that he was a young man and had been trained in London as well as in Dublin I’m sure I couldn’t have survived. Even despite his modern knowledge I developed an infection, and for days afterward I was aware of nothing but the heat and pain of fever. But at last one morning I was better and could remember that long ago I had had a baby.

“A little girl, Sarah,” said Madeleine, who had been nursing me faithfully. “Very pretty. Dark, like you, and not a bit like Patrick.”

I asked if she was expected to live and could hardly believe Madeleine when she said yes.

“You’re saying that to protect me,” I said, but when the infant was shown to me I saw she was a healthy pink. “How lucky,” was all I could say as I sank back on the pillows. “Always so lucky.” But I could say no more, for I was too weak.

It was not until weeks later that Madeleine told me I would never have another child. She explained it in medical terms, but I had never understood much about the feminine parts of the body, so I simply nodded and tried to look interested. At first I didn’t feel in the least disappointed, for I had no intention of ever bearing Patrick another child, but after a while the fact of my sterility weighed upon me and brought me to tears on more than one occasion when I was alone in my room. I did tell myself I had no right to complain since I had four beautiful children, but still the thought would flit through my mind that I wasn’t fully a woman any more and a great sadness would descend like a lead weight across my heart.

To raise my spirits I would think of Drummond. But a long convalescence stretched ahead of me, and I had no means of knowing when I would see him again.

The baby was christened at Christmas when I was well enough to walk. Naturally Patrick balked at the name Camille, and naturally I balked at his choice of Louisa, so we were at a complete deadlock within an hour of the clergyman’s arrival.

“Try something simple,” suggested Madeleine, stepping into Marguerite’s role of mediator. “Jane, perhaps, or Joan.”

“Not Joan,” said Patrick and I in a rare moment of unison, so the baby was christened Jane, much to the disappointment of the other children, who thought the name far too ordinary.

“Guinevere would have been nice,” said Ned, who had been reading about King Arthur.

“Buttercup,” said John, who liked flowers.

“Victoria after the dear Queen,” said Eleanor, precocious as ever, and cast a sidelong glance at her father, who said with a laugh that she was quite the cleverest little girl he had ever met.

I wondered if she would be cleverer than her sister. Poor little baby, I would think each time I kissed her, and then I would kiss her again to make sure she knew she was loved.

Poor little Jane.

Thomas and David came for the christening and spent Christmas at Cashelmara. They made no secret about how glad they were to see MacGowan gone and a new agent living in old MacGowan’s stone house, and Thomas said too how glad he was that Patrick had given up drinking.

But he hadn’t given it up. He was simply better at concealing it, for the bills from the wine merchants only lengthened and the expense became a larger and larger item in the household accounts.

I heard once from Edith, at Christmas. She had rented a house in Edinburgh, and MacGowan was living there with her. He had had trouble with his injured arm and it still wasn’t healed. However, the doctors in Edinburgh were excellent, so at least he was receiving the best treatment. Old MacGowan was also in Edinburgh but not living with them; Hugh wouldn’t have that, although he had rented some chambers for his father within half a mile of their house.

I supposed MacGowan would look for another position when his arm was better. Or perhaps he would merely continue to live on his rich wife’s income. I wanted to ask Patrick if he intended to go to Edinburgh for a visit, but I had to be very careful what I said to Patrick, and in the end I found it wiser never to mention MacGowan’s name.

January passed. I was feeling much stronger now after my ordeal and was wondering over and over again how I could see Drurnmond. I thought I might take the carriage to Clonareen and call at the dispensary; that would let him know I had fully recovered. I felt no embarrassment at the thought of seeing his wife. I had always found it difficult to connect Eileen with him, and now I found it so difficult that I simply blotted from my mind the fact that he too was married with children. Besides, it was not as if I were planning some gross impropriety. I knew I would always stop short of that to prevent him from despising me, and so I saw no harm in seeing him for a few minutes now and then.

“And when you’re well again,” Drummond had said, “I’ll come looking for you.”

But MacGowan came looking for him first. He came riding over the hills from Letterturk with a huge detachment of troops and all the police in County Galway, and before the sun had set on the valley that night the Drummond farm had been burned to the ground and Drummond himself had been flung into the county jail.

Eileen Drummond took her children to Dublin, where her parents still lived. Madeleine lent her the money. I wanted to help her too, but I didn’t dare.

“How good it is to be back!” exclaimed MacGowan, sitting down in the chair at the head of the dining-room table. “Flannigan, bring a bottle of champagne!”

Flannigan gave notice the next day.