I was to stay employed for the time being. Mrs. Byrne had sent three messages through stammering Timmy Doherty that she was sore sorry and wished me back. I ignored her completely. I was
enjoying all the space and novelty, and I had just met the gamekeeper, a dark, unsmiling Jemmy Aherne, who was that handsome in a strong, rough way that it made me shake. I let him kiss me once. It was my first kiss. What an awkward thing it was! I had wondered about it for all my girlhood years and then it happened. He gripped me so hard, and his tooth hurt my lip, and it was over. He asked me if I would marry him. I said, I was sure I did not know.
At this time her ladyship and Mrs. Bunthorne had left, saying they might be back in a few days, and if any gentlemen came, they were to be sent on to Boyle. Aye, I curtsied, and they were gone. I was just about the mistress of the place except for the old fool, the gardener, Mr. Scully, who was deaf as a post, and would bring me fine vegetables everyday from the garden. He would leave these and the milk at the kitchen door in the back for he never would enter the house.
The next time I went to church on Sunday, Father Conlon called me aside and said, Jemmy Aherne was from the south near Cork, and a good lad, and he was glad that he had agreed to marry a fatherless lass like me with not a farthing to my name. I bridled at this, but could not retort, for Father Conlon bustled off about some matter with the vestments and the new censer, and I returned to the English house in a fury.
When I was going up from the kitchen to my room, Jemmy Aherne came in from behind and grabbed my waist, and I gave him such a sharp fist that it chipped his tooth and crimpled my knuckle.
“I am of the Finnegans, not a sack of potatoes you reach for whenever you please.” He was right startled.
“I thought,” he mumbled, his good looks fumbling and awkward
before my flashing anger. Then he added, “I am going with my gun out for some weeks now to keep the poachers off, way near the Ben and thereabouts,” trying to impress me.
“What’s that to me?” I retorted and stamped off, and as I turned the corner, I could see he was crestfallen. I knew I would make up, but give it a day or two!
“Are you not my girl?” he called angrily after me.
“What if I am? I don’t know if you are my man,” I fumed. He was handsome, but I wanted to laugh and not be in a temper and frown. Oh, I wanted to be in love, and sweetly wooed. But he gnashed his teeth and was gone before I could smile at him.
• • •
T
HE CLOUDS HAD
been gathering and going away and gathering again, and a strange wind had blown off Ben Bulben that next afternoon as it veered between sun and cloud. I needed to wash all the bedclothes and air them, but was of two minds, in case it rained. I thought, let me get it done, for I cannot abide not doing something and being idle. Oh, I should have—for there were books a-plenty. I had already dusted them and found some I wanted to read. Mrs. Bunthorne was amazed I could read with ease, and write to boot, thanks to Mr. O’Flaherty. But I washed all the bedclothes and hung them out to dry on the terrace at the back, away from the sea. The winds rose and the sheets were like sails in a storm, pulling and billowing at the clothes-hooks, some threatening to fly away.
I think of that wild day of wind and shadows and racing clouds, and my airy girlish mood, and what a great difference that day made in all my life. Where is that carefree girl now? Oh, I
long for my sweet son, who came into my life and stepped so casually away, and all my life over so suddenly and everything passed so soon, and my little Maeve to be alone in this wide world. I feel death in my veins today. But on that day, among the flapping white wings of the blankets, I felt I could fly, I danced on tripping steps, and twirled about alone on that terrace, my eyes half closed and dreamy, and into the arms of a laughing merry stranger, who, holding me, danced and danced into my white flying fantasies, as if he had grown out of them and would vanish when the wayward winds grew still.
All he would ever say was that his name was Henry as he entered into the exact spirit of my carefree dance, and moved among the billowing sheets, just touching my palm, or my cheek, and moving away, letting me dance, strangely unsurprised by the magic, and his presence not intruding but letting me spread my wings. When the wind stilled for a moment, and the sheets stood like curtain after curtain in a white room, he kissed me on my mouth, and I was lost. I felt the winds whirling around me, madly blowing in great oceanic billows, but when we parted after the long moment I was entranced to see the curtains stilled, and his palm cupping my beating heart, I sought his mouth, and he sought what I thought was my soul itself. On the white sheets, surrounded and overhung by them, I was his, above and under him, entwined and astride him, in an embrace that was never like any earthly embrace before.
Why do I recall everything, in such ruinous detail, every kiss and surrender, sigh and shudder, ungirding and moan, when I cannot to this day recall when the sun withdrew, night unfurled, the light of the stars overhead, and late morning when my sweet awakening came, and how all that time had slipped past our closed
door? In a dream I went down to the kitchen and cooked eggs, a great number. He came and held me fast from behind, as I held one last brown egg in my palm, admiring its shape, its fullness and fragility, his palm about mine, and it had a strange meaning. His other palm folded over my heart, and time went fugitive again. I stood, naked as Eve on the cool flagstone of the kitchen, marked with flour, and the honey that he had poured on and licked from me. The cool water bathed us both, and we emerged, hungry and frolicksome, to eat the scattered repast, and were transported before the great fire we had made—when?—and fell together into a deep slumber and woke inside another dream where I had become a being, oozing honey, a part of the riotous pattern of the great silk rug.
When I woke, it was to the strange reality of a morning. I lay alone, and my maid’s clothes lay about the bed. Had Henry carried me back to my room? I had been so transported in that great sleep and awakening and sleep again, that I paid no mind to this waking now. I dressed with care and with sleep-sated and shining face, I thought to dress the maid and serve him. But under my garments, I was and felt naked: Thus sweetly naked I had never felt before. I stood before the mirror and touched myself and could feel just the crinkle of my nether hair under my palm. I looked at myself with quiet joy and came downstairs on cat’s feet. I glided into the kitchen and cut some bread, cheese, fruit, and poured out the last of the milk.
I served him breakfast. I knew a difference lay between our stations. I addressed him “Master Henry,” fully expecting to be caressed and corrected. But he did not. He was lost in a book that he read as he ate, his face keen and intelligent, wrapped in the words that he did not think I could share with him and understand—
but I could have, I could have, I knew
—just as I had shared my sweetest moments in his arms.
At this very moment there was a clatter at the front door and Mrs. Bunthorne walked briskly in, pulling off her bonnet, her shawl trailing in her hurry. She breezed into the kitchen and stopped, amazed.
“Oh, Master Henry, Master Henry,” she stammered. “She has been serving you in the wrong place.”
Little did she know about all that, I chuckled inwardly. This young man was probably from the estate in England, or a high employee from elsewhere in Ireland. In a great flurry, she was for removing the meal and taking out the fine china, when I told her I would take care of it.
“Take care of it?” she fumed.
But he swept past us saying, “Mrs. Bunthorne, I have eaten. Now I must ride off to Boyle.”
With that he was gone, without a word or a backward glance at me.
Mrs. Bunthorne had come back to gather a few essential articles which her ladyship, as usual, had left behind. One of them was her favourite snuffbox and another was a pillow that was just right for her head when she had curlers on overnight. Mr. Arkwright would deliver them while Mrs. Bunthorne was to wait here for a few weeks, in case her ladyship decided to come back to Mullaghmore. If not, she would send word for her to join her ladyship—or if Madam had grown bored by now with Ireland, return altogether to England.
The gentleman gone, Mrs. Bunthorne sat down with a great sigh to a cup of tea I had made for her.
“You look fairly glowing,” she said. I smiled back. I was glad to
have her back—but only because the gentleman was gone. I would not have wanted anyone in this wide world when he was close to me. I was planning to find a way to accompany her to her ladyship, where he had gone. My mind was in turmoil. Mrs. Bunthorne had been talking and became cross when she realized I had not been attending her.
“What, Mrs. Bunthorne?” I said contritely.
“ ‘What, Mrs. Bunthorne?’ Is that all you have to say, girl?” she said with vigour. “Imagine serving Master Henry in the kitchen,” she said, waving her arms, at a loss for words.
“The young man was content enough,” I replied.
“Content, Lordy Lord,” she said, aghast. “
His Lordship
to you, child! What did you think he was—an assistant of Mr. Arkwright here? It’s the young Lord Palmerston, the Viscount. I’ve known him since his nursery days, and so he wants me to call him Master Henry always. Don’t
you
be saucy, girl.” I stood still, letting all this sink in. Mrs. Bunthorne stopped as if some thought had struck her.
“When did he come?”
I knew to avoid this question and said simply, “I did serve his meal in time.”
Mrs. Bunthorne seemed to infer from that, that Master Henry had come in this very morning. One more question, and my prevarication would be tumbled.
No directives came for Mrs. Bunthorne for over a month. We were happy enough by ourselves in the following weeks. Having finished what few chores there were by midmorning, I would sit with her, knitting and talking all the long afternoons. Mrs. Bunthorne grew very fond of me over the days. I wondered if this was what it was like to have a mother. I was always told of the cruel English, and how wary we need be in all our dealings. Yet the first
Englishwoman who came into my life walked right into my Irish heart with her simple affection, and I gave her back the same in equal measure. She told me of her husband who had died, her childhood in Herefordshire, and how she would have loved to have had children of her own.
I, who had been as regular as the full moon in its coming, had missed my time altogether. I waited apprehensively for it. But what came, and that in a matter of ten more days, was not the usual ache and drip of blood but a strange swooning sense in the morning, and a mighty abhorrence for the smell of milk and oatmeal, which Mrs. Bunthorne loved and had given me for all these many breakfasts, and I had eaten in fine humour. One morning as she poured the milk, I watched the bubbling froth, and dashed out, retching blindly by the kitchen door. I wiped my face on my apron and walked away. I stole about the garden aimlessly, killing time till she would have put away the milk.
I do not know what came over me: I knelt abruptly down and scratched the black earth under the mossy cottage tree, and put that handful of the good soil in my mouth. It tasted cool and comforting. Tears were welling in my eyes unaccountably, and I felt very sorry for myself that Master Henry had strode out and left, instead of sending Mrs. Bunthorne on some fool’s errand and holding me close for one last kiss, a whispered word.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Mrs. Bunthorne standing over me. Her nose was flared.
“You’re done for, girl. You let your young gamekeeper in, didn’t you?” she whispered directly. “Now you’d better get him to church.”
“What gamekeeper?” I mumbled, uncomprehending. I had completely forgotten about Jemmy Aherne. Mrs. Bunthorne
stared into my face for a long while. I looked away, back at her, then looked down.
“When exactly did Master Henry come here?” she said. I realized that the game was over.
“I do not remember,” I said simply.
She caught me roughly by the shoulders and stood me up. “He is a fine young man, and has treated me always with respect, servant as I am. I have never forgotten my place, and I in their service for thirty-two years. I saw him grow boy and man, and a finer man I have not seen.” She stopped for breath. “But, he is a lord, and a young man who knows how to get his way and has done so many a time—you hear me—many a time. He even has those great young ladies do the foolish things, and some older ones too who should know better.” Mrs. Bunthorne’s voice was low and burned through me. “He likes to write in the fancy papers in London Town and they say he is very charming and witty. But others write about him too, and about his ways. They gave him the name Lord Cupid, and not, it seems, in jest.” Mrs. Bunthorne sat down on the steps leading up to the kitchen from the back garden. All that had been the natural unfolding, very like the dance of the seasons themselves in those short enchanted days, now seemed to me bare and defiled by his practiced ease and skilled hands, tawdry in this flat light of morning.
“Your Aherne, the gamekeeper,” pursued Mrs. Bunthorne, “has he been back?”
I shook my head silently.
“Good,” she said briskly. “Say aye to him forthwith. It’s a blunder you can paper over, you poor fool,” she said angrily and tenderly. “Do not turn noble, child, and say you are in love. He will never come back. Do you understand?” She took me by the
shoulder, “Do not try something stupid and bleed to death in some crone’s hovel. Too many have done that, by far. You can make it up to your gamekeeper by being a better wife than he ever deserved and staying that way.”
I felt a wave of nausea sweep over me as Mrs. Bunthorne helped me up the stairs and into the kitchen.
In ten more days, I was married to Jeremy Aherne—poor Jemmy—as awkward in love as can be on the first night, as I wept in his arms. For fear, he thought.
I never was a good wife to him, a better one than ever he deserved, as Mrs. Bunthorne had told me to be. For a month and eight days after we were wed, Jemmy Aherne was shot and killed by poachers and his body found facedown under a flowering hawthorn hedge by Lough Gill’s shore.