Cashelmara (90 page)

It was a grand summer. Of course I had to do my lessons, but Denis shared my tutor, and that made even the lessons fun. However, at last the lessons stopped, Mr. Watson went to England for his annual holiday and Denis and I were free to do as we pleased.

In the middle of August Denis’s mother wrote that she wanted him to come home.

“You don’t want to go, do you, Denis?” said Drummond, putting it the wrong way.

“If Ma’s begging, how can I refuse?” said Denis.

“Oh, and is it begging she is!” said Drummond, getting angry as usual. “She has Max and Bridget and Mary Kate. Why shouldn’t you be staying here a little longer?”

“Because I don’t want to,” said Denis, though I knew he did.

“That’s a bloody ungrateful thing to say!” said Drummond.

“What’s so ungrateful about wanting to go home?”

“This valley’s your home!”

“Not while my mother can’t come back and live here with you as she wants!”

“She wants no such thing!”

Denis, cowed, said nothing.

“The insolence of it!” said Drummond, still furious, but he gave up arguing and walked defeated from the room.

After Denis had gone Drummond said to my mother, “I don’t understand that boy,” and I thought, No, you don’t. I missed Denis very much, and the perplexing part was that I knew in spite of all his complaints that Drummond missed him too. I had been avoiding him as much as possible all summer, but now he turned to me for consolation, and it was harder to escape. I made excuses as often as I could, but sometimes I had no choice but to go out riding with him—not that I minded greatly, for he always took pains to be pleasant, but as time passed I found myself becoming increasingly ill at ease with him. This wasn’t simply because of his double-dealing with my father. I still resented that, but by that time I had put the incident behind me and resolved not to think of it. My father had been silent all summer, and my aunt Madeleine reported without comment that he had had another lapse into drunkenness.

“But you mustn’t worry about that, Ned,” said my mother. “There’s no need for you to worry.”

She glanced at Drummond as she spoke, and suddenly I knew I was ill at ease with Drummond because I was ill at ease with her. It was their relationship that I found increasingly disturbing. At first I could see no reason why it should suddenly begin to trouble me when I had long since decided to accept it, but dimly I came to realize that the change lay not in them but in me.

I was becoming abnormally sensitive to every nuance of my mother’s manner toward him. I intercepted every meaningful look, studied every smile, even noticed the exact style of each low-cut evening gown. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. I became acutely aware of my mother’s physical attributes and thought lingeringly about them at odd moments during the day. Worst of all was at night when I would lie in bed and remember scenes from the past—Newport and Drummond’s rough sunburned hand resting grossly on my mother’s slim white arm; Drummond’s tiny apartment in New York, the bed creaking in the room next door as I lay awake on the couch in the darkness; the large room in Boston where Drummond and my mother had lain in bed together. Nowadays I was always thinking of them in bed together. I despised myself for thinking about such things, but my mind and self-esteem were ill-matched that summer.

“I must be sensible,” I said aloud to myself as I hurried uphill to the ruined cabin to meet my friends. “I won’t think about it.”

But then, worse still, I started noticing other women besides my mother. I noticed that Miss Cameron, the governess, had a flat chest and that Bridie, the scullery maid, didn’t, and I caught another glimpse of Aunt Madeleine’s legendary ankles when she came to Cashelmara to tea. And each time I found myself dwelling on these feminine attributes the memories would start flickering through my mind again, the creaking bed, the hand on the arm, all the intimate looks I had once been too young to read.

“Hell and damnation,” I would mutter to myself as I lay awake in the dark, and by an effort of will power that amounted almost to hypnosis I would blot the images from my mind. But when I fell asleep the dreams would be waiting for me, dreams sweating with obscenity, and in the morning I would tell myself in misery that there was nothing so wretchedly disgusting in all the world as being fourteen and a half with both one’s mind and one’s body living uncontrollable lives of their own.

But the obscene dreams were better than the dream with the Tiffany lamps. That dream recurred at least once a month, but by this time I was used to it and never let it frighten me. Sometimes I even managed to wake myself before the dream had progressed to the interior of the restaurant, and then I didn’t feel disturbed by the dream at all, only annoyed that it had interrupted my rest.

My uncle Thomas came for a visit after Denis had left, but Uncle David stayed behind to look after my father.

“Is everything well, Ned?” said Uncle Thomas when we were alone together. “You’ve been very quiet.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “Fine.”

“Good. I’m glad to say Drummond still seems to be most conscientious about the estate, although it’s a pity he’s not educated enough to keep better records. However, I’ve had a word with your mother, and she’s offered to make sure that the books are correctly kept. It was unfortunate she changed her mind about letting the children see Patrick, but I suppose she was entitled to be reluctant, and of course it’s no use considering the possibility of a visit now that he’s drinking again.”

I said nothing.

“I thought I would mention it,” said Uncle Thomas, “in case you felt guilty about refusing to see him at Easter. I do understand that it must be peculiarly upsetting for you to be confronted with your father at present. But perhaps later …”

I opened my mouth to tell him the truth but shut it again. If I told the truth my mother might get into trouble.

“Let’s talk of something else,” said Uncle Thomas hastily, mistaking the cause of my embarrassment. “How did you get on with Drummond’s boy?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“Good. Pity there’s no boy of your own class here. If you’ve changed your mind about school—”

“No.”

Uncle Thomas departed at the end of August, and two days later my cousin Edith, Hugh MacGowan’s widow, arrived at Clonagh Court.

I hadn’t seen her since before I left for America, for directly after MacGowan’s murder she had gone to Edinburgh, where she had a townhouse. However, recently my mother had written to her to ask if she would remove her possessions from Clonagh Court since it was obvious she had no intention of living there again. Drummond had had the idea that instead of rebuilding his old home he might use Clonagh Court as his official residence. Having been built as the dower house, it was much grander than old MacGowan’s cottage, where he had been living since our return from America.

Cousin Edith had plump hips and no waist, and when she moved you could hear her corsets creak. She had large breasts of no particular shape, and I felt absolutely sure her thighs would be vast too. When she called at Cashelmara I spent the first five minutes imagining her wearing nothing but a pair of black stockings, and so absorbed was I with this repellent but irresistible mental exercise that it was some time before I heard a single word she was saying.

“Ned!” said my mother reprovingly from a long way away. My mother was in a great gale because she had never thought Edith would call. In the past they had been sworn enemies and barely on speaking terms.

“I’m sorry, Cousin Edith,” I said. “What did you say?”

Cousin Edith asked me what I did with myself when I wasn’t taking lessons with Mr. Watson.

“I go fishing and hunting,” I said. “Sometimes I take the curragh out on the lough.”

“Alone?”

“No, I have several friends.”

“What sort of friends?”

“Edith,” said my mother, “I must show you some of Jane’s paintings. They’re so clever for a little girl not yet seven.”

“What are your friends’ names, Ned?”

“Joyce, O’Malley, Costelloe …” Something in my mother’s expression stopped me. “Just valley names,” I mumbled. I could have kicked myself for not realizing that Cousin Edith would think my friends very low. I hadn’t wanted to embarrass my mother.

“I think I’ll just run up to the nursery and bring the other children down,” said my mother. “Why don’t you come with me, Ned? Excuse us, Edith.”

“Oh, Ned, you can’t leave me alone!” said Cousin Edith with an awful attempt at a winsome smile. “Where’s your chivalry? Very well, Sarah, run along and fetch the children.”

“Well, perhaps—”

“Oh, please! I should so love to see the dear little things!” said Cousin Edith, and my mother, outmaneuvered, retreated with reluctance.

“Well, Ned,” said Cousin Edith, “I declare your dear mother looks very well. So nice, is it not, that she has Mr. Drummond to look after her?”

“She does look well, I agree.”

“Do you see much of Mr. Drummond?”

“Now and then.”

“When is now,” said Cousin Edith, “and when is then?”

“I see him at dinner.”

“Every night? How nice! And breakfast too?”

“No.”

“He breakfasts alone with your mother?”

“No, at his house.”

“Come, Ned, you can be honest with me! We both know how matters are arranged, don’t we?”

I didn’t answer.

“Does your mother take you to church every Sunday?”

“There’s a service in the chapel once a month.”

“Does your mother go?”

“Nanny takes us,” I said and immediately wondered why I hadn’t lied and said yes.

“I’m so glad your dear mother isn’t hypocritical,” said Cousin Edith. “I confess I deplore hypocrisy. Do you like Mr. Drummond?”

“I like him the hell of a lot better than I liked Mr. MacGowan,” I said before I could stop myself, “and if you’ve finished insulting my mother, perhaps you’d be good enough to leave.”

“Ned! How rude!”

I said a word that should never have been said. It was stupid of me, for I played straight into her hands.

“And coarse!” said Cousin Edith. “Worse than a guttersnipe!”

I walked out.

Two weeks later, soon after Cousin Edith had paid a visit to Surrey, my father informed my mother through his solicitors that he was taking steps to remove the children from her custody and to have the deed which had ceded Cashelmara to me declared invalid by the Court of Chancery.

“HE’LL NEVER SUCCEED,” SAID
Drummond. “The deed was legal enough, and how can he take the children when he’s still a drunkard?”

“He’s not asking for the children for himself,” said my mother, the shadows dark beneath her eyes. “He wants them to be made wards of court so that a guardian can be appointed.”

“They can never prove that you’re not a wonderful mother to those children!”

“But the adultery, Maxwell,” my mother whispered, and to my horror I saw she was crying. “Edith will testify … I knew she only came to spy.”

“Yes, and she found out that I don’t live here, that I never spend a night beneath this roof!”

“But the servants … That maid I dismissed because she interrupted us—she went straight to Edith, I’m sure of it, and that was why Edith called.” She was weeping so hard she could no longer speak.

“Mama,” I said, stumbling over to her. I was so distressed I hardly knew what I said. “You mustn’t cry. Papa’s made these threats before and they never came to anything. Please don’t cry. Please.”

“He’ll never let me have any peace,” she said. “So long as he lives I’ll never have a moment’s rest.”

“Sweetheart, you know it’s not as black as that,” said Drummond, stooping over her. “Don’t you trust me to find a way out of our troubles as usual?”

“There can’t be many ways left,” she said. “I’m going to lose the children, and if he turns us out of Cashelmara I’ll lose you too.”

“Sarah—”

“There wouldn’t be any money,” she said, sobbing, “and I’d be too much of a burden to you. I’m no longer young. You’ll leave me.”

He shook her by the shoulders. “I’ll never leave you,” he said. “Understand? Never. How many more times do I have to say that?”

“But if there’s no money—”

“I’ll make money. Meanwhile, we’re staying here.”

“But if Patrick has the deed set aside—”

“It’s all talk! All he ever does is talk, and to be sure he could never have the deed set aside!”

“He could say he was unwell at the time—not in his right mind, that the deed was extorted from him by fraud, duress … Oh, Maxwell, there are any number of excuses he can make, and Mr. Rathbone’s such a clever lawyer!”

“There’s more than one clever lawyer in the world, and we’ll take all the others.”

She was in his arms, and when I saw her expression I turned away and peered blindly out of the window. In the silence that followed I knew he was kissing her. I could see their bodies reflected dimly in the glass of the window pane, and although in my discomfort I willed them to stop they seemed to have forgotten I was in the room.

My embarrassment increased until it was intolerable. Not looking at them, I blurted out, “I could go and see my father and beg him to let things be. Perhaps he’d listen to me and be generous.”

The bodies in the reflection separated. My mother’s voice said bitterly, “Your father would never be generous now. Matters have gone too far. He wouldn’t even believe us if we promised to let you visit him.”

“We must consult the lawyers,” said Drummond, and the next day my mother departed for Dublin to take legal advice. It was thought better that she travel alone. It would only have given rise to more gossip if Drummond had accompanied her, and she wanted to create the best possible impression on her lawyers.

Two days later my aunt Madeleine arrived to say that not only had Cousin Edith returned to Clonagh Court but that she had brought my father with her.

My father had wanted to come at once to Cashelmara to remove his children, but Aunt Madeleine had managed to persuade him to wait until she had spoken to my mother.

“But my mother’s gone to Dublin to see her lawyers,” I said, “and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”