Cashelmara (81 page)

I heard the awkwardness in the silence and saw how all of a sudden no one would meet my eye. “Dear God,” I said, appalled, “you’ll not be believing the wicked rumors that I’ve seduced Lady de Salis! And me with a wife and six children in Dublin! Lady de Salis may be the finest lady in the world and the most beautiful, but I’ve done no more than any other man anxious to help a lady in distress.”

I saw the relief in their faces and knew I’d been right to bend the truth a little. Fighting the Saxon enemy was one thing; adultery was quite another.

“Will you be rebuilding your home and bringing Eileen back, Max?” asked Jerry.

“Sure I’ll be rebuilding my home,” I said. “Don’t I have my children to provide for? But if Eileen decides to stay in Dublin there’ll be nothing I can do to bring her back.”

“Eileen always did hold herself above us,” someone said.

“And maybe Max will too,” said someone else jokingly, “when he’s agent for Lord de Salis.”

“The day will never dawn, please God,” I said good-humoredly, “when I shall be ashamed to cross your threshold and accept your hospitality.”

And indeed it felt so good to be back among those men who were like brothers to me that I stayed up late talking to them and fell asleep only when the dawn was breaking in the east and the last drop was gone from the last jar of poteen.

I borrowed a horse from Mr. O’Shaughnessy, the gombeen man (he always had the best horse in the valley), and rode down the road to Cashelmara. It was eleven o’clock, the sun was high and the cool wind blew away my headache before I was a mile from Clonareen.

I reached the great iron gates. They were not only unlocked but standing wide open, and when I saw that I smiled, for I knew it was my enemy’s way of flinging down the gauntlet. I rode through the gates. I wasn’t afraid of ambush, for I knew he’d never dare shoot me in cold blood unless he could claim I’d provoked him to it, and surely not even a Saxon court of law could see any provocation in a man paying a morning call.

Dismounting, I hitched the horse’s reins to a tree just inside the grounds and walked up the dark winding drive to the gravel sweep in front of the house. I would have ridden right to the porch steps except that I wasn’t planning to leave by the way I’d come.

The gravel crunched beneath my feet. The slim windows watched me as I walked toward them.

I rang the bell, waited, and when there was no reply I pounded on the wood with my fists until Mr. Timothy O’Shaughnessy, the gombeen man’s brother, opened the door a crack and peeped out.

“Why, it’s Timothy O’Shaughnessy!” I said. “And the top of the morning to you, Timmy! I never expected to see you in a butler’s coat!”

He tried to retreat, but I shoved my foot in the door.

“If it’s Lord de Salis you’re wanting, Maxwell Drummond—”

“Lord de Salis!” I exclaimed. “Whatever gave you that idea? No, Timmy, it’s not Lord de Salis I’m wanting. I’ve come to see Mr. MacGowan.”

HE CAME TO THE
library, where I was waiting for him. I never heard his soft footsteps. All I heard was the door opening, and as I spun around I found us face to face at last, MacGowan my enemy, my nemesis, the man who had ruined me and taken everything I had.

He waited by the door. I had forgotten how ordinary he looked. We were much the same height, but he was slimmer than I was and he had thinning brown hair and colorless eyes.

From the way he stood I knew he was armed.

“Welcome back,” he said.

He was smiling a thin smile with his thin mouth so I smiled too. But I said nothing.

“A pardon from the Queen, I understand,” he said. “I’ve already had word from Dublin that your land’s to be restored to you in full. You made powerful friends in America, didn’t you?”

“How news travels!” I said.

“Powerful friends and a well-bred bitch of a mistress. You’ve come up in the world, Drummond! I suppose I should congratulate you.”

I saw he wanted me to get angry, so I laughed, sat down on the edge of the desk and picked up a heavy glass paperweight with a casual movement of my hand. “So you still remember Sarah,” I said. “I thought you might have forgotten her by this time.”

“I have a long memory.”

“So have I,” I said, tossing the paperweight gently up and down as I watched him, “and so has she.”

He had closed the door, but now he opened it again and made a gesture toward the hall. “I’m touched that you called to pay your respects,” he said, “but now if you have nothing else to say I’ll ask you to leave. Mr. Rathbone, the London attorney, has a copy of your leasehold, and when a further copy has been made it will be sent to you. As for your land, you can do as you like with it, but take my advice and settle down quietly, for if you make trouble I’ll have you rammed back into jail so fast your head’ll spin off your shoulders. Good day.”

I went on tossing the paperweight “A brave speech,” I said courteously, “but what a waste of breath!”

He left the door and moved a shade closer. “Leave this house at once, if you please.”

“Well mannered too,” I said. “I like that”

“I’ll give you five seconds to get out.”

“T-t-t!” I said reprovingly.

“One … two … three …” He had maneuvered himself cleverly behind a high-backed chair. Leaving the desk, I strolled along the nearest book-lined wall. “… four … five …”

He drew his gun, but I threw the paperweight first. He was slow on the draw by American standards, and I had plenty of time.

He dodged, but before he had recovered I was on top of him and twisting the gun out of his hands.

Jesus, but he was strong! I knocked him off balance and grabbed at his forearm, but his wrist was stiff as a ramrod. He chopped at me with his free hand, but he was already reeling against the wall, and by clinging to his wrist I locked that dangerous free arm behind his back. He kicked and shoved—and still his wrist was like steel. I tightened the lock on his other arm. By this time we were both gasping and my heart was thudding in my chest.

The steel bent at last. He gave a shout of pain and the gun clattered to the floor.

Shoving him away, I tripped him and drew my own gun.

“Not a word,” I said, “or you’ll get a bullet between the eyes.”

He was silent. He was still breathing hard and his eyes shone with rage.

I retrieved his gun and tucked it into my belt.

“Get up.”

“You bloody fool,” he said. “I’ll see you back in jail before the day’s out.”

“I’ll see you on the road to hell first!” I said, speaking violently to make sure he thought I might kill him on the spot. “Get over to that desk.”

“What for?” he said, trying to gain time while he figured out a way to rush me.

“Do you have a manservant?”

“Do I have a … What the devil’s that got to do with anything?”

“Do you have a manservant?”

“I do now, as a matter of fact, yes. But why—”

“Then sit down at that desk or I swear to God I’ll hurt you in places where not even that manservant of yours would think to look.”

He recognized the threat he had once made to Sarah. His face became very still.

“Well, are you going to sit down or …”

He sat down.

“That’s better,” I said, lounging against the marble mantel. “Now, you’re going to write a little letter. Take a sheet of that notepaper on the side there and pick up the pen.”

After a pause he did as he was told.

“To the Honorable Thomas de Salis and the Honorable David de Salis,” I said, “St James’s Square, London. Gentlemen …” I stopped to give him time to write. His pen squeaked across the thick paper. “I am writing to you to offer my resignation from the post of agent for Lord de Salis on the estate of Cashelmara.”

He laughed, but I cut him short. “Go on.”

He scratched away again, but he was smiling.

“Lord de Salis is too ill for me to approach him on this subject,” I said, “so I have no choice but to offer my resignation to you, his brothers. I have been considering leaving Cashelmara for some time, as my lord no longer appreciates my services as he used to and now his drunkenness has reached such a pass that I can do no more but leave as soon as possible. In God’s name I urge you to come and save him from himself. I shall be leaving Cashelmara at two o’clock this afternoon and will be traveling with my father to Scotland, where my wife will join me as soon as she has settled matters at Clonagh Court. I remain, gentlemen, your humble and respectful servant …”

He hooted with laughter again. “You don’t really imagine I’ll leave, do you?” he said, still scratching away carelessly with the pen.

“Sign the letter. That’s right. Now give it to me and address an envelope.”

“There are no envelopes.”

I moved to stand behind him. “Find one.”

He didn’t like me breathing down his neck. He dragged an envelope hastily from the nearest drawer and picked up his pen again as I glanced at the letter to see that it was correct.

“Good,” I said when the envelope was addressed. “Put the letter in and seal it.”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he inquired, amused, as he warmed the wax. “I can’t quite see the purpose of this charade. You can’t make me leave Cashelmara!”

“How much do you bet?”

Hot wax dripped onto his fingers, but he didn’t notice. He was looking steadily at me, and there was a pinched expression about his mouth.

At last he said in a rush, “You wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me.”

“I’d dare anything,” I said. “I could kill you now if I chose and bury your body somewhere on the grounds. No one would be any the wiser, and your letter of resignation would explain your disappearance.”

He was scared. He sealed the letter clumsily and his fingers shook. “So you’re going to kill me.”

“Not if you do as I say. Leave this house at two o’clock this afternoon and ride to your father’s house. You can ride a horse and take your bags on a donkey—or have them sent later, whichever you like. But you must ride alone. No servant, no de Salis, no—is your wife here?”

“No, she’s at Clonagh Court. Why must I ride alone?”

“You won’t be alone once you get to your father’s house. You and your father are going to leave this valley together, just as you wrote in that letter, and you’re never going to show your faces here again. If you do—”

“You’re going to kill me,” he said, stumbling over his words. “I want a promise of safe passage to my father’s house. I want—”

“I don’t give a tinker’s curse what you want,” I said. “You can go where you like and do what you like when you get there, and if Lord de Salis wants to join you later I’ll be the first to wave him goodbye. But you’re leaving this house at two o’clock this afternoon, and if you don’t come out I’ll send my kin in to get you and I’ll not be answering for the consequences. Understand? Fine. Give me the letter and get up.”

“Where are we going?”

“Why, we’re going to take a little walk together,” I said, softening my voice as I gave him a smile, “and we’re going to have a talk about old times. Where’s Lord de Salis?”

“In bed. He wasn’t well this morning.”

“And the children?”

“In the nurseries with the governess, I suppose.”

“Very well, let’s go. But remember—if we see anyone you’re to say nothing. Nothing at all. I’m the one who’ll do the explaining.”

We walked into the empty hall.

“Open the front door.”

Outside in the drive a stiff breeze made MacGowan shiver. “Where are we going?” he said again.

“The chapel.”

“The chapel! For God’s sake, why?”

“Oh, it’s such a nice, quiet, private little place, I’m thinking,” I said, “for a nice, quiet, private little talk.”

When he spun to face me I saw the sweat on his forehead. “Look, Drummond. I’ll do what you want. I’ll leave at two. I won’t come back. I’ll go to Scotland and Patrick can come and live there with me. I don’t care about staying in this place. All I care about is being with him. I—”

“Be quiet,” I said. He revolted me. I thought of him and de Salis fawning on each other and felt the vomit heave in my stomach. “Start walking.”

At the back of the house we came to the garden. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. God alone knows what it must have cost. Huge bloated flowers festered on rich soil that would have supported a hundred starving families, and amidst the sickly riot of color were stretches of lush succulent grass where no cattle were ever allowed to feed. I thought of my country’s history, the rich conquerors having so much they could afford to throw away their riches, the poor oppressed Irish locked out in the cold beyond high stone walls, and that garden was obscene to me, as obscene as the man who scuttled ahead uphill through the woods to the chapel.

The chapel was small, bare and dark, like I’d always heard it was, and it smelled of decay. I didn’t feel I was in church, but that wasn’t surprising since it was a Protestant place and not a true church at all.

“Take off your clothes,” I said to MacGowan.

He was so paralyzed with fright he couldn’t move.

“Come on,” I said, motioning impatiently with the gun. “Hurry up.”

“What are you going to—”

“You ask far too many questions,” I said. “Do as you’re told.”

“You’re going to torture me,” he gasped, gibbering with panic.

“Shut your goddamned mouth and get out of your goddamned clothes.”

He struggled out of them. I watched curiously. He was well proportioned, but his skin was dead white, like a corpse, and mostly hairless.

“Jesus,” I said, “that’s an unattractive sight if ever I saw one. Back up against that pillar.”

When he obeyed, still gibbering, I took a length of cord from my pocket, bound his wrists behind the pillar and wove the cord around his legs.

He started to shout at me, but I took no notice. I merely sat down on a pew, put up my feet and lighted a cigarette.

His language was very colorful, but presently he ran out of curses and started whining again about what I was going to do.

I smoked my cigarette and didn’t answer.

At last he lost his nerve and became hysterical. He ranted, raved, wept and writhed, and all the while I smoked my cigarette down to the butt and watched him in silence.