Cashelmara (71 page)

We couldn’t wait. She went home with her brother and I went with her, but as soon as she dared she told him she wanted to step out with me and take a little walk along Fifth Avenue. He let her go although he was very angry, but neither of us cared about that.

We went to my lodgings. I had two nicely furnished rooms off Fourth Avenue by this time—in a tenement, it was true, but there are two classes of tenements, as anyone knows who’s ever lived in New York, the upper-class which is inhabited by honest respectable working people and the lower-class which is no better than a cesspool and which has given the word tenement a bad name. My tenement building was clean and well kept, and when Sarah stepped into my apartments they seemed as good as royal to me. I couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. I was struck dumb and could only watch her fingers trembling as she tried to undo the buttons of her dress. Then I tried to undo the buttons, but I was in such a state they kept slipping through my fingers. Jesus, we were both so clumsy there was nothing to do but laugh, and after that we were ourselves again, and the torture of that long separation was at last at an end.

I was so out of practice that I swear if I’d been an onlooker I would have booed and hissed, but she was so passionate I was soon having another try, and after that I don’t know what happened to the time except that outside it got dark.

Later, when I was lighting a candle, she asked if I’d been faithful to her, and when I said yes she said she didn’t believe it and I said no, I didn’t believe it either but it was true. We laughed again, but afterward she cried and begged me never to leave her, and I said I should be the one to do the begging, not her. But still she couldn’t believe I loved her. I had to repeat it to her many times and prove it yet again until finally I had persuaded her to believe.

It was midnight when I brought her back to the Marriott home, and her brother was waiting up for her. It was plain to see he was furious, but Sarah embraced him and pleaded his forgiveness so fervently that he had little choice but to smother his ill-temper. Yet after she had gone upstairs he said to me, “I want no scandal about this, Drummond, for Sarah’s sake. I refuse to tolerate my sister becoming the laughingstock of New York society. She can see you whenever she pleases, but don’t expect to dine at this house or to attend any functions to which Sarah may be invited. Also she must spend every night beneath this roof, if you please, and next time I’ll be obliged if you would kindly bring her home no later than ten o’clock. I speak not out of personal animosity, you understand, but out of concern for Sarah, and if you care a straw for her I think you’ll realize that I’m talking sense.”

“Oh, is it sense you call it?” I said. “I thought it was prejudice.” Him and his “personal animosity”! But neither Sarah nor I had any wish to quarrel with him after all he had done to help us, so I did my best to keep a civil tongue in my head, and Sarah did her best not to embarrass him in the eyes of New York society.

Lord de Salis began to write to his wife, saying what had happened to Charles Marriott’s offer to invest in the estate and when was she coming home?

Sarah left the letters unanswered for a while, but when she did write she gave evasive answers.

“My plans are plain,” I said to her. “I have to stay in America until I can win a pardon from the Queen. I can’t go back to Ireland till I’m pardoned or I’ll be flung back into jail.”

“But how can you get your pardon?” she asked in despair.

This was a question I had asked myself so often that I had a smooth answer ready. “The Clan-na-Gael will help me,” I said confidently. “That’s the Fenians, you know, and New York and Boston are packed with them. If I contribute enough money to their funds they’ll take up my case with the hero Parnell and Parnell will take it to the Queen herself, I shouldn’t wonder.” I had no idea how much truth there was in this, but I had convinced myself that there was every likelihood of it coming true. I couldn’t have endured New York if I had allowed myself to believe for one moment that I’d never get back to Ireland. “And when I’m pardoned,” I said, sinking still deeper into my dreams, “I’ll cross the Atlantic Ocean again and make Hugh MacGowan wish he’d never been born.”

“If it’s a question of money,” said Sarah, worried, “perhaps Charles—”

“Your brother wouldn’t lend me a plugged nickel,” I said bitterly, “and even if he did I’d turn him down. I’ll make my money my own way, and at the rate I’m going I’ll have it all in the twinkling of an eye.”

“But how long—”

“A year.”

“Promise?”

This was tricky. It was one thing to talk big to cheer her up and quite another to deceive her deliberately. “No,” I said at last. “I can’t promise. Something might go wrong. But I’ll be trying my hardest, I can promise you that.”

“It’s the children,” she said, twisting her hands together. “I can’t bear to think how long I may have to be away from the children.”

“Well, to be sure it’s terrible for you,” I said. I always became uneasy whenever the conversation turned—as it so often did—to her children. “But don’t lose heart. Maybe we can tempt your husband to part with them after all.”

But I somehow couldn’t see this coming true, especially when Lord de Salis persisted to nag her. When was she coming back? Had Charles changed his mind about the money? The children asked every day when she would be coming home.

“Every day!” said Sarah, weeping. Scarcely a day passed when she didn’t burst into tears at the thought of the children. “Oh, Maxwell, what am I to do? I can’t bear to be apart from them indefinitely. I’m not strong enough, but I can’t go back. I’m not strong enough for that either.”

“You’ll get those children,” I said, but I was so worried that she might be on the brink of a nervous collapse that I swallowed my pride and begged for a secret audience with Charles Marriott.

“If you could go to Ireland,” I said humbly to him, “if you could ask Lord de Salis to let you bring the children on a visit to America …”

“I could do no such thing,” he said at once. “It’s obvious de Salis isn’t going to let those children go. They’re his insurance his wife will return to him.”

“And I suppose you think it would be a good thing if she did return!” I exploded, unable to be humble a second longer. “You think it would be better for her to be at Cashelmara with a pervert than in New York with me!”

“I didn’t say that,” he said coolly. “Obviously she can’t return to Cashelmara. But I think she should return to London—or to Dublin, if the marriage falls within the jurisdiction of the Irish courts—and seek legal advice with a view to obtaining a divorce. Whichever way one looks at the situation the inescapable fact remains that she’ll never see those children again until she obtains custody of them in a court of law.”

“But I can’t go to Ireland or England until I have my pardon.”

“Quite,” said Charles Marriott. “Forgive me for saying so, but I can’t help but feel that’s a good thing. Your presence at Sarah’s side could only jeopardize her chances of obtaining the children’s custody. In fact, it might even jeopardize her chances of obtaining the divorce itself.”

“She won’t leave me.”

“Are you sure of that?” he said coldly, and I wasn’t. I had reached the point where I woke every morning in a cold sweat for fear she’d gone back. I knew all too well how much those children meant to her.

“We’ve got to get the children out here!” I said in despair. “You must go back to letter-writing again—dangle some more money in front of MacGowan’s nose.”

“Don’t try and tell me what to do!” he interrupted furiously. “I’ve had enough of you giving me orders!”

So Sarah had to give him the orders instead.

“I realize now he’ll never part with all four children,” she said. Poor Sarah, it would have melted a heart of stone to see her saying that so calmly and trying so hard to be brave. “But perhaps we could tempt him to part with one … or two …”

Charles Marriott started to say something about going back for a divorce, but she wouldn’t listen to him. “Not without Maxwell,” she said, and my heart nearly burst with pride and relief. “I’m never going to be parted from him again.”

Charles Marriott looked sick when she said this, but what could he say? Sarah was his sister, and no matter how much he disapproved of me he still wanted to do all he could for her. So he said, “I’ll write again to Patrick and say I’m thinking of making Ned my heir. Perhaps that’ll tempt him to send at least Ned across the Atlantic to see me,” and so it came about that on the fourteenth of December 1885 I first met the Honorable Patrick Edward de Salis, son and heir of the eleventh Baron de Salis of Cashelmara.

HE WAS TWELVE YEARS
old, and of all Sarah’s children he was the one she mentioned most. She was too good a mother to have favorites, but if she had had a favorite it would have been Ned.

“I love all my children,” she said to me over and over again. “They all mean something special to me.” And this was amazing, not only because it was true but because a lesser woman might have felt differently in the circumstances. For instance, the second son, John, was simple-minded, and there are plenty of parents who reckon it an insult to themselves to produce a simpleton, but I never heard Sarah say a word against him. She was full of how sweet-natured he was and never once mentioned that he couldn’t read or write. But I knew that because Eileen had heard it from Miss Madeleine de Salis at the dispensary, and to be sure Miss de Salis never told a lie in her life. Then there was the younger daughter, Jane, conceived in a way that would have revolted the devil himself and a plain, uppity little thing, if Miss de Salis was to be believed. “But Jane has such a dear little face and she’ll be attractive when she grows up—even more attractive than Eleanor, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Sarah with such sincerity that I began to wonder if Miss de Salis was a liar after all. “Of course she’s a little naughty, but all children go through naughty stages.”

In fact I heard more about Jane than I heard about John and Eleanor, but I still heard more about Ned than I heard about Jane.

I went with Sarah to the docks to meet his ship, although Charles Marriott didn’t want me to go and told Sarah he refused to be there unless I agreed to stay away. When Sarah wouldn’t hear of that they quarreled, and he stayed behind in a fine huff at his house while Sarah and I took the Marriott carriage to the docks.

Sarah was so nervous that I thought she’d faint. As the passengers began to disembark she kept talking steadily—and all about nothing in particular—and she clung to my arm as if she was afraid of toppling over in her excitement, and all the while she was straining her eyes for a glimpse of her darling boy.

The odd part was that despite her eagerness I saw him before she did. He was leaning over the rail on deck and scanning the crowd below. I’d seen him once or twice out riding with his father, and I recognized the gold gleam of his hair.

Sarah began to cry, but that was only because she was in an ecstasy of happiness. She kept saying she couldn’t believe he was truly there, and when I looked down at her radiant face all I could think was: So be it. I’d had enough time to get used to the idea of Ned joining us, and although I didn’t welcome the idea of sharing Sarah with anyone I knew how much his presence would mean to her. Also I’d spent some painful moments missing my own children in months past, and although I’d now accepted it would be a long while before I saw any of them again I knew what it was to long for a glimpse of one’s son. By the time I met Ned I had even convinced myself I would enjoy having a boy to look after again. To be sure I realized it would be difficult for him at first to think of me as a stepfather, but I was prepared from the beginning to treat him as a son. After all, as I told myself over and over again, the poor little bastard’s got the feeblest father any boy could wish for, so at least I should be able to set him the kind of example he’s always been lacking.

He came down the gangway.

He was a fine-looking lad indeed, tall for his age and quite the young gentleman in the way he held his head up high. He looked a great deal like his father, but I made up my mind not to hold that against him. He moved slowly at first, almost sauntering, as if he wanted the world to know how grown-up he was, but when he saw the expression on Sarah’s face he ran down into her arms.

“You’ve grown!” was all she could say, weeping for joy again. “How you’ve grown!”

He laughed. When I saw him try to disentangle himself I smiled in sympathy, for I knew no boy of twelve likes his mother kissing him too long. But when he found disentanglement difficult he yielded gracefully and gave her a warm bear hug that made her gasp in delight.

“But are you by yourself?” she said at last when she’d got her breath back. “Your father promised he’d send your tutor with you. You’re much too young to travel alone.”

“My tutor gave notice, and Mr. MacGowan said it would save money not to pay an extra fare, and
of course
I’m not too young, Mama!”

“Of course!” I agreed, still smiling. “You’re as good as grown up.”

He spun around. When he saw me his back stiffened so abruptly that Sarah let him go.

“Maxwell, I must introduce you,” she said quickly to me. “May I present Ned. Ned, this is Mr. Maxwell Drummond. I expect you remember his name.”

He stood stock-still.

“Hullo, Ned—how are you?” I said, and held out my hand.

He ignored it “I’m Master de Salis to you if you please,” he said icily, and, swinging around on his mother, he demanded as rudely as any tinker’s brat, “When the devil are you coming home?”

Jesus, it was an awkward moment and no mistake, but fortunately Sarah was in such a state of elation that it was impossible for her to be upset. She said gently, “Darling, please don’t be so discourteous to Mr. Drummond. He’s been such a help to me since I arrived in New York.”

I decided not to wait for Ned to comment on this—or indeed on anything else. “I’ll wait for the baggage, Sarah,” I said. “You go ahead to the carriage.”