Tipperary (43 page)

Overriding the protestations of his mother, Charles O'Brien decided, in the spring of 1915, to emigrate to the United States. Amelia argued that he had no visible future there, whereas if he stayed at home, at least he could live on the farm. It's clear from her journal that she even suggested that he study medicine at the Queen's College, Cork. Given some connections there, and an ability to pay a handsome fee, age would be no barrier.

Joe Harney had completed his studies. He worked in Dublin, a junior civil servant in the government land registry. This gave him less time to visit the O'Briens or be a companion to Charles. Amelia wrote Harney an anguished letter, which stayed in his family's possession:

He says that he feels Ireland a desert now, with Euclid gone, with April lost to him, and you permanently at work. He won't take over the farm— he says he is not a farmer, that he has no feeling for it, much though he loves our fields and our animals.

But his decision has been a sudden one, and I feel that he has another reason, too painful to share. Now that “she's” living in the castle, he sees “her” many times a week, always in the distance. He rides to the village. He has seen her in the town. He has to hear her being addressed as “Mrs. Somerville.” And they have never, so far as I know, conversed.

Although he doesn't speak of her, I know that in his heart he has never let go of her—and we have all heard of such attachments. In Charles's case, I am certain that it will last for his whole life.

Lately, he must have suffered new distress, because the talk locally is that such work as they have begun on the repairs of the castle has gone badly. Most of the workmen have fallen out with Mr. Somerville, who is drinking heavily and arguing with the workers. It has been stop and start and stop again. They say that, instead of progressing, their restoration has gone backward—that fresh damage has occurred owing to carelessness. Or—who knows?—malice. This must appall Charles. I am sure that he knows of it, because everybody else does.

Harney replied to Amelia, saying that over Easter he would come to Ardobreen. But Harney's train was delayed, and Charles, deciding that Harney was not coming, left. His father drove him to Tipperary, where Charles caught a train to Limerick.

Later that night, Harney arrived, just as Amelia and Bernard O'Brien were preparing to go to bed. She describes the moment in her journal: “Somebody hammered too hard on the door. Bernard said, ‘Harney.’ I said I doubted it. Bernard said, ‘He's excited.’ We looked out of the window. It was Harney. I went downstairs and let him in. He seemed very agitated. As he had not eaten, I led him to the kitchen. He ate some cold chicken. Carefully, to take account of his state, I told him that Charles had gone. He jumped up from his chair. ‘Oh, my God in Heaven,’ he cried. I calmed him—or tried to. Then he stood in front of me, almost shaking.

“Mrs. O'Brien,” he said. “I heard it on the train. Stephen Somerville was killed. In France. In the war. He went there as an officer last week and was killed his first day out.”

6

T
hat was Easter weekend 1915—to put a date on it, Easter Sunday fell on 4 April. Euclid had died, leaving behind, by the way, a massive fortune in investments; he had spent most of his life writing to stockbrokers and banks, and almost without exception every investment that he made paid off in multiple percentages. But Charles had reached a point where he'd decided that there was nothing left for him in Ireland.

To add to the pain of Euclid's death, everything connected with Tipperary Castle wounded him. April, very much the lady of the manor, all furs and servants, was the talk of the place. Yet so remote was she from Charles that she might as well have been in Alaska.

And to cap it all, he was now hearing that the work on his beloved castle was going badly wrong. Stephen Somerville was drinking heavily, taking shortcuts, ordering inferior materials, and refusing to hire the best craftsmen. In other words, Somerville had not only stolen the woman who was Charles's heart's desire, he had stolen Charles's principle of trying to preserve beauty.

As a sensitive man with a deep sense of responsibility, Charles must have been cut to the heart's core. He still thought of himself as the natural warden of the place. He had nowhere to turn—so he might as well leave.

One man's crisis is another's chance—even an old cliché can have truth. (It was recognized among the Irish republican agitators who called for armed rebellion when the Great War broke out, saying, “England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity.”) On that Easter Saturday, Joe Harney came down from Dublin at Amelia O'Brien's invitation, heard en route that the “drunk in the castle” had died in the trenches—and realized that the one person who could prosper from this development had gone.

Harney and Amelia O'Brien sat down. Bernard did not appear (a fact that will have later, unpleasant significance) and figured between them where Charles might still be found. He might have had a head start, but Harney, from the depths of his affinity, felt that Charles was still in the country.

Always capable of heroic effort, Harney borrowed one of the farm laborer's bicycles. That Easter Saturday night, Harney rode the thirty miles or so into Limerick. He had no light on the bicycle, he knew the road only moderately well—yet he kept going.

At five o'clock next morning, he knocked on the grand front door of Lady Mollie Carew's house in Pery Square. An irritated man—the butler, but Harney didn't know it—tried to shoo him away. Harney shouted through the letter box that he'd break into the house if he had to. The butler eventually opened the door.

But the bird had flown. Charles had left the house at nine o'clock the previous evening for a sailing to New York on a pre-dawn tide at four o'clock.

He that has found a faithful friend, Mr. Yeats told me once, has found an elixir of life. One morning at dawn in the year 1915, my faithful friend Harney appeared, in unlikely circumstances. In a rowing-boat—and he had never rowed before—he took me from a ship that was leaving the port of Limerick. It became a commotion, with crew assisting my luggage to the rowboat, and passengers looking on, not knowing whether to cheer or commiserate.

Only a man as resourceful as Harney could have brought that off; some mechanical difficulty had held back our departure, and before we could get fully under way, Harney was alongside, hallooing. I do not know what he said to the mate who heard his request—but I do know that I forfeited my ticket (I was bound for the New World).

In the rowing-boat, as he pulled the short distance to the Shannon's banks, he told me why he had come for me.

“I believe that you have an important part to play in the life of our country,” he said.

“For this you intercept me?” I asked.

“And for more than our country's good,” he said, very serious. “For your own good.”

“Might I not have judged what could be good for me?”

And he answered, “Somerville's dead. On the battlefields of Picardy.”

I know that I said quickly, “Is April safe?”—and immediately understood that her husband must have joined the defense of small nations.

“Now you know why I intercepted you,” Harney said.

We spoke little more for some time. He tied up the boat where he had found it, on the Shannon's banks; he roused a hackney man to take me and my bags—he rode a bicycle alongside—back to Lady Mollie's house, where we had breakfast and much excited talk.

In the midst of their speculation, I reminded my two friends that in all respects April had thoroughly rejected me. I said that I did not understand why they now believed my chances had so improved, and I told them bluntly that I felt sincere reluctance in approaching her.

They countered with opinions in which they almost matched each other. Lady Mollie said that, after Somerville, I would prove a wonder to the young widow, if only in the relief of being so different and so decent after “the lout” she had married.

And Harney said, “Why do you think Life has given you this opportunity?”

I disagreed, saying, “All that has happened is that a man has been killed. How many are going to die in this war? Each death can't signify a dramatic possibility for someone else.”

The same hackney took us to Tipperary, and I was received at Ardobreen with elation. Harney was hailed and praised by Mother; and the rest of Easter passed in delighted peace.

On Monday morning, Mother said to me at breakfast, “Please shave, Charles, and dress in your finest. We have a visit to pay.”

I knew that she meant the castle, and I balked; Mother overruled me.

“We are neighbors and we shall behave as such.”

“I may prefer to wait outside.”

“You are representing your father, who cannot come.”

At this moment, it is appropriate to reveal how the war had taken over lives in Ireland. Several of the Great Houses had closed down; practical reasons dictated this course. Many of their laborers had been encouraged by the owners to enlist, and had gone off cheerfully to a thankless death in the savage mud of France. The landlords, whether at home in England or still on their Irish estates, gave space to distinguished families fleeing Europe, or arranged rosters of tasks for their estate workers and friends, such as the making of uniforms. Anglo-Irish gentlemen who were of age felt it a duty to offer themselves for the King against Germany's Kaiser, and that is how Stephen Somerville became an officer in the ill-fated British Expeditionary Force, under General Haig.

I drove the pony-trap to the castle. My father had not yet succumbed to the temptation of a motor-car, but the Somervilles had; a blue-and-gray Dunhill sat by the terraces. I had heard about it but never seen it, and I liked it at sight. The domed brass of the headlamps reflected the blue of the lightly clouded sky. Mother saw my glance.

“We cannot afford it,” she said, and chuckled—which meant that Father had already been discussing it.

She reverted to briskness and said, “We shall not stay long, and we shall not talk about ourselves.”

A woman of enormous girth opened the door; she wore a maid's uniform of black and white and had very short coal-black hair, cropped close as a boy; I recognized her accent as Galway.

As we stood in the hall, I surveyed the early attempts at work and felt my heart clench with disappointment. No debris from rain damage had been cleared; and timbers to be used in restoration and renewal had been piled high on top of the rotted plaster. I could see no workmen, and no evidence of work—and yet I knew that April and her late husband had been living here for some years. Perhaps such work as had been done had been directed to the upper floors.

In the clear acoustic of those open rooms, I heard the Galway maid say, “Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien, ma'am.” Then I heard the crisp footsteps that I had known since the streets of Paris.

At the far end of the ruined hallway, April appeared. She wore unrelieved black, a dress with a high black collar and a hem at fashionable mid-calf, black hose, and black shoes. In her hands she held a pen as though she had been writing.

Mother, ever the ice-breaker, said, “Good morning, April”—in that friendly, irresistible way. “Do you remember me, Amelia O'Brien? And of course you know Charles.”

I had taken off my hat, and I made a slight bow. Now I began to assess myself. Was my heart beating? Did my mouth go dry? Do I still think of her every day? I heard myself give an inward groan; and I know that I blushed. However, April—this cold girl, this organized, hard-minded, and brisk young woman, this assured and beautiful young widow—crumpled. She stood there, ten or twelve yards away, and began to cry. No noise came from her lips, no wail; she held the back of her hand over her mouth and tears flowed down her face.

Mother, her handbag over one arm, went toward her. The women embraced, and April wept on Mother's shoulder. I could scarcely believe it; this ran counter to every impression of April that I had ever carried. Never had it occurred to me that she had any flexibility of emotion; never did I think that I should see the day when I would watch anything but determination in her face.

As she sobbed, Mother looked over at me and with a swift nod of her head indicated that I should leave. I stepped to the door and concentrated my gaze on the distance. As the foliage had not yet come back to the trees, I could see a little of our pink walls, Captain Ferguson's wood, and the Beech Meadow.

Around the castle, however, I saw disorder. Supplies of building materials had also been piled on the stone terraces, and rain had seeped into some of them, rendering them useless. Two cords of timber had been leaned against a window; one had slipped, breaking a pane of glass. On this fine morning I would have expected visible industry all around the place; instead, two workmen sat on the bridge parapet far below. No energy came from that quarter.

I cannot say how long I stood there, waiting for Mother. When she came out she beckoned to me.

“I think she needs listeners.”

We went in and saw April standing at the door where we'd first spotted her, at the far end of the great hall. She gestured and we followed, picking our feet carefully over debris. Soon we found ourselves in the butler's pantry, which seemed to have been restored to some functioning, and we sat down. As yet, I still had not spoken. She must have felt some embarrassment of me; when she spoke, she addressed Mother principally and gave me no more than the occasional glance, too brief to be inclusive.

“I want to tell this,” she said, “and I want to tell it no more. Already I have told one friend in writing, but I need to hear myself speak it.” From that moment, only she spoke.

I did not want Stephen to go. He made the decision, and I think I know why he did it—too much drinking. He thought if he became an officer, with a purpose, and the company of men—it might help. Before he went, it had become unsavory here. I was incapable of dealing with his tempers, and sometimes when he wandered out into the fields at night, I did not know whether he would come back. More than once I went looking for him at dawn and found him lying asleep at the bottom of a sunken fence, or down in the lower garden, disheveled and stained. There is nothing that I dislike more.