Cashelmara (80 page)

“No man’s poor who lives in Ireland,” I said, and Sarah squeezed my hand with a smile and said how exciting the return must be for me.

I thought of icy winds blasting down the long straight streets of New York and dirty, stinking sidewalks reeking in the sweating summer heat. I thought of lighting a candle and seeing the cockroaches run, of lying awake in the dark and listening to the rats. I saw the drunken derelicts lying in the streets and the painted wrecks of women in the cabarets and the mutilated beggars smelling of the sewer.

“It’s over,” I said. “I’m home.”

The reek of fish and worse was in the air, but it didn’t matter, and when we reached the dockside I hardly saw the beggars or the narrow cobbled streets littered with dung. My feet were on Irish soil again and Irish voices were in my ears and, Lord, I swear there wasn’t a man alive who was as happy as I was at that moment.

“I’m back!” I shouted, throwing my hat in the air. “I won! I beat them all! I’m home!” And I grabbed a flower seller who was hovering plaintively at Sarah’s elbow, kissed her and gave her a gold sovereign. “Be sure and drink my health tonight, sweetheart!” I cried, seizing six bunches of violets as she almost fainted with shock. “For I’m an Irishman who’s come home from beyond the grave!”

“Car, your honor?” said a carman who had seen the flash of gold and was already darting ahead of his rivals.

“An inside car!” I said grandly, clinking the gold coins in my pocket, and there I stood, every Irishman’s dream, a man who had gone to America with nothing but the shirt on his back and come home with his pockets lined with gold.

“The Great Southern Railway Hotel!” I ordered the carman, and the name of the grandest hotel in Galway City rang out as true and clear as the singing coins in my pocket. Sarah clutched my arm. She was laughing, looking so pretty and smart and gay, and I felt as if I already had a jug of poteen inside me with another dancing on the table before my eyes.

“Dear Jesus!” I gasped. “I’m in heaven!”

“We’re all in heaven!” cried Sarah, kissing me as the car lurched uphill to the square.

So we went to the grandest part of Galway, and there before us lay the mighty hulk of the hotel with all the mashers of western Ireland going in and out of its front door.

“I want the finest suite of rooms you have,” I said to the flunkey who greeted us. “I don’t care what it costs, but I must have the best. And I want champagne wine, very cool, in a bucket with ice in it, and caviar in a silver dish, and six potatoes baked in their jackets with a bowl of butter.”

“Yes, sir,” said the flunkey, pop-eyed.

From somewhere a long way away a man’s voice said disbelievingly, “Sarah?”

I swung around. Facing us was a spindly young man with carroty hair and owllike spectacles.

“Thomas!” cried Sarah in delight and ran into her brother-in-law’s arms.

He was more than a mere brother-in-law to her; he was also her cousin, the child of her favorite aunt, and so she had every excuse for being pleased to see him, but I thought he looked a feeble little Saxon, and I didn’t like the look he gave me one bit. But I knew I had to be meek and agreeable to him, so I smiled politely as I waited to be introduced.

“… and is David here too?” Sarah was asking.

“He’s upstairs. We arrived only an hour ago. Good heavens, how Ned’s grown! How are you, Ned?”

More family reunions followed.

“I see Mr. Drummond has been kind enough to accompany you,” said Thomas afterward.

Sarah nearly fell over herself making the formal introductions and apologized to me for being so slow.

“As if it mattered,” I said, smiling at her, and wondered if young de Salis would offer me his hand to shake.

He did. My opinion of him went up a notch or two.

“Good afternoon, Drummond,” he said with courtesy, and then he suggested we should all meet later after we had had time to recover from the journey.

“Dearest Thomas!” said Sarah happily as we were shown upstairs to our suite. “He’s grown to look so like Marguerite.”

“Never mind who he looks like,” I said with relief. “He’s here to meet us, that’s all that matters, and that must mean he and his brother are taking your side against MacGowan.”

When we reached our suite we found that it faced the square. There were gold-tasseled curtains on the windows and thick carpets on the floor, and in the sitting room the furniture was upholstered in red velvet.

“This’ll do, I suppose,” I said. “Is there a bathroom?”

There was. It was hardly up to the standard of the Marriott bathrooms, but I said I supposed that would do too.

“It’s lovely!” said Sarah. “We can have the main bedroom, and Ned can have the smaller one on the other side of the sitting room.”

The porters were beginning to bring up the bags, and the next half hour was spent straightening ourselves out. The champagne arrived with the caviar and potatoes, and afterward Ned asked if he could go out for a walk in the square.

“Sure, if you like,” I answered, and when we were alone together I said to Sarah, “Look, I’m not anxious for long conversations with your brothers-in-law tonight, and besides it’s certain they’d prefer to dine alone with you and Ned. Could you make some sort of excuse for me, do you think, and at the same time hint that I’m anxious not to intrude too much? I want to make a good impression on them.”

“Yes, of course. What shall I say when they ask me about my plans for the future?”

“Repeat what you told them in the letter. Tell them your main concern is to obtain legal custody of the children as soon as possible. Obviously they approve of that idea or they wouldn’t be here to greet you. Lead up to the idea of a divorce and see if they approve of that too. Find out what’s been going on at Cashelmara. Say you’re prepared to live there with the children if MacGowan and your husband could be removed. What we want is for your brothers-in-law to offer to have your husband stay with them in England.”

“What shall I say when they start asking about MacGowan?”

“Talk about the legal possibilities of removing him. Talk about the legal possibilities of everything, separation, divorce, custody, control of the estate—the whole goddamned lot. There’s nothing the Saxons like better than to talk long and loud about the law.”

“I’m especially anxious to find out what they think about Patrick’s attempt to secure a decree of restitution of conjugal rights. If Patrick really had no likelihood of winning the decree—if it really was all just another scheme of MacGowan’s to drive me insane—”

“Of course it was! Didn’t I tell you that over and over again?”

“Yes, but I knew Patrick must sincerely have wanted to get Ned back and hold on to the other children.”

“And MacGowan made use of that sincerity so that he could have a new chance to persecute you! Well, don’t you be worrying any more about Hugh MacGowan, sweetheart. Tomorrow morning I’ll be taking the first car into the Joyce country.”

“Maxwell, promise me you’ll be careful!”

“As careful as a tinker with a crock of gold,” I said, smiling at her, and while she was gone I wondered again how far the young de Salis brothers would be prepared to help us.

But the news proved good. When Sarah returned to our bedroom after dinner she told me Lord de Salis’s drunkenness was much worse, and although neither of his brothers had been able to face visiting Cashelmara for some months they had heard from their sister that Lord de Salis’s health had deteriorated. Both of them thought he hadn’t a hope of either winning a divorce petition or being awarded custody of the children, and both said they were prepared to go to court if necessary to have their brother judged incompetent and MacGowan removed from office.

“What a surprise it’ll be for them when they find out that going to court won’t be necessary!” I said, kissing her, and after we had celebrated the good news I no longer wasted time worrying but fell instead into a deep dreamless sleep.

The outside car left Galway City at eight o’clock the next morning and bumped and swayed over the hills through the rolling meadows to Oughterard. It was raining at first, but beyond Oughterard the rain stopped, and ahead on the horizon I could see the Twelve Bens, the mountains of Connemara, rising to the skies in a single prayer. The clouds shifted and parted, the sun shone, and suddenly the little loughs we passed were blue as jewels, and the bog, brown-green and restful as a lullaby, rolled endlessly toward the hills.

The meadows were long gone now, the soft frilly fields of buttercups no more than a memory. There was nothing to distract the eye but the mountains walking toward us from the horizon, nothing but pure lines and the stillness of some magical dream and the godlike peace of another world. I had traveled that road several times before, but never in all my life did I see it as I saw it then after three years of exile in foreign cities. If any man wants a true taste of heaven he should toil in the gutter of New York City and then journey through Oughterard from Galway into the fairest land on earth.

The mountains encircled us like a fairy ring, and I felt so safe and warm and comfortable—as if I were back in my father’s house again with the peat fire smoldering on the hearth. The mountains were tall, straight and strong, and not a tree marred their shining lines. Beautiful as sharpened blades they were, and they shimmered in the sun with the radiance of naked steel.

“Your honor wanted the next crossroad?” called the carman, and ahead of me the sun was blazing on the road that led to Letterturk.

“Indeed I do,” I said, “for I’m bound for Cashelmara and the town of Clonareen.”

I began to walk. It was wonderfully quiet, with only the running water of the stream nearby and the occasional bleating of a sheep above me on the mountainside. I walked on and on uphill through the gulley to the top of the pass, and as I watched, the clouds shifted endlessly sending shadows chasing across the misty stretches of furze.

I came to the pass between Bunnacunneen and Knocknafaughey, and there below me like a dazzling dream lay the long, slender lough and Cashelmara.

I stopped for a long moment, and around me the wind hummed through the pass and the water cascaded over a precipice into the valley far below.

I set off downhill. I crossed the Fooey River. I walked past the gates of Cashelmara and along the lough to Clonareen, and all my kin came out to meet me and all the other families came too, even the Joyces, and when I arrived at last in the main street of Clonareen I found myself carried shoulder-high through a cheering crowd, as if everyone already knew I’d come to rescue them from their nemesis, Hugh MacGowan.

Several hours later in Jeremiah O’Malley’s cabin I laid my gun upon the table.

“This was given to me by a cousin of ours in New York City,” I said. “His name’s Jim O’Malley and a finer man you could never meet though you could travel the length and breadth of America all your life long looking. His family was evicted during the Great Hunger by Lord Lucan, God curse his Black Protestant name forevermore, and ever since that terrible day Jim O’Malley has vowed revenge.”

Someone obligingly filled up my mug of poteen, so I paused to drink.

“So when Jim O’Malley gave me this gun,” I continued, “he said to me, ‘Maxwell Drummond,’ says he, ‘I never want to see this gun again until it’s stained with Saxon blood—keep it,’ says he, ‘and when it’s served its purpose send it back to me along with the brave man who’s rid Ireland of one more of the tyrants which the Saxons have sent to persecute us.’” I paused for another taste of poteen and looked around. You could have heard a pin drop.

“So I said, ‘To be sure, Jim, there’s nothing I’d like better than to return the gun to you myself, but my reputation’s so exalted with the Saxons that they’d never let me escape to America a second time. And besides,’ says I, ‘I’ve the chance to teach young Master de Salis how to be a good landlord, and I’ll be needed in the valley to help my kin.’ So he says with tears in his eyes, ‘’Tis a shame, Max, so it is, but send me the bravest man among your kin and I’ll be well content.’”

I picked up the gun again, and the tallow flame flickered along the barrel. Eight heads craned forward yearningly to take a better look.

“Let me take it back to Jim O’Malley, Max,” says young Tim.

“No, I’ll take it,” says Jerry, his father.

“No, it’s for me to have the glorious chance!” begged Shaneen. “And me the youngest of nine with not even a yard of potatoes to call my own—and all that money waiting in Ameriky.”

“Dear God, let me see Ameriky before I die!” sighs his brother Joe.

“Let me—”

“No, me—”

“We’ll draw lots,” I said. “We’ll do the choosing sweet and fair, just as it should be done, and may the best man win.”

So we took straws from the floor and I evened them out and Shaneen won, which pleased me, for there was so little to keep him in the valley, and for years he had talked of emigrating.

“What do I do, Max?” he asked, all eagerness, when the choice was settled.

“Be at the gates of Cashelmara before noon tomorrow, take cover among the rocks and wait for me there. But first let me show you how to use this gun.”

“Jesus, what if I miss?” Shaneen said nervously afterward.

“That’s impossible—you’ll be too close,” I said, for I knew he had a good eye and all he needed was confidence. The Brotherhood had once had guns circulating in the area, and Shaneen and I and a few others had been selected for firearm instruction. We’d gone up into the mountains three times a week for target practice and would have gone every day except that ammunition had been too scarce.

Presently when the poteen was passed around again I told them I had hopes of becoming the agent at Cashelmara. “And if I’m agent,” I said with a smile, “you can be sure this valley will be the land of milk and honey God promised Moses, with never a man evicted and everyone paying Lord de Salis only what’s fair and reasonable.”

“But how’ll Lord de Salis come to be choosing you as his agent, Max?” said Joe.

“Why, Lord de Salis is going to England with his brothers to take a cure for the drink,” I said, “and Lady de Salis will speak up for me, you can be sure of that.”